Vol 1 Chapter 1.1 (2/2)

Naturally, everyone looked toward Adair, as he was the only one to have spoken with Grisia up until now.

Since everyone was staring at him, Adair could only ask again, “May I ask—”

However, Grisia waved his hand and repeated himself, “My fellow holy knight brothers, please jump off the cliff immediately.”

This time, none of them could convince themselves that they had hallucinated as a group, but now they were even more confused. They never thought that their first command from their future Sun Knight would be to jump off a cliff!

Preposterous! In response to this kind of command, Adair only had this thought, and it was also accompanied by fury. He squashed his anger, saluted, and then said, “As a holy knight, please forgive me, but I cannot accept a suicide mission.”

Grisia revealed a slightly puzzled expression. “Are our holy knight brothers so weak in const.i.tution? I believed that this height would not hinder any brother. Under the protection of the G.o.d of Light, at most, there will only be slight injuries.”

So he knew that no one would die from this? But even if they would only be injured, Adair still could not accept jumping off a cliff and getting injured for no reason. “Jumping off is no problem, but please tell us why!”

At this time, Grisia had already stopped smiling. He said indifferently, “There’s no reason.”

This answer astonished everyone even more. His words following that were even more frustrating. “Jump off. This is an order.”

At that moment, Grisia only looked at Adair. Clearly, he was singling him out.

Adair had always been exalted among his peers, so he of course would have some pride and arrogance. Under the current circ.u.mstances, where no one dared to speak out, only he dared to go against Grisia. “This order is too unreasonable. Please forgive me that I cannot—”

Abruptly, Grisia waved his hand, and a humongous icicle appeared in the air, knocking Adair and sending him flying. He had been standing very close to the edge in order to check the height, so once he was sent flying, he fell directly off the cliff. While he was falling, he thought he saw his captain reveal an impatient expression, and vaguely, he heard this:

“I told you to jump, so jump! Shut up already, you failure of a vice-captain!”

Adair leaned against the mountainside, gasping in deep breaths. Even though he had prepared himself to land, and had even rolled to lessen his injuries, he had still fallen for a long distance. He hadn’t been able to prevent himself from getting hurt. His right leg was pretty much broken, and his back was killing him, not to mention all the countless small injuries he had, like the scratches that he had received.

Just as he wanted to rest for a bit, and then walk back slowly, he heard another loud noise. Unexpectedly, another holy knight had just fallen. His strength was obviously not as good as Adair’s, so he had received far worse injuries than him.

Another loud noise sounded as another holy knight fell. He landed very close to the previous knight, and had almost fallen right on top of him, scaring him so much that he immediately tried to scramble to the side. However, because of his serious injuries, he couldn’t crawl very fast at all. Then, more people fell down.

Seeing this, Adair paid no attention to his leg injury. He rushed forward to drag his comrades to the side of the mountain one-by-one. This worsened his injuries even more.

He was more or less done. Adair watched as the last person fell down. This time, he didn’t rush forward to drag him, since no one else would be falling. Also, all those large movements had injured his leg so much that he was shaking from the pain. He dropped to the ground, unable to stand up any longer.

“AH!”

When he heard the loud scream, Adair raised his head. A large shadow had just fallen on top of that last person. Good thing that only the person’s legs had been squashed. If the shadow had fallen completely on that person, Adair was afraid that he would have spat blood right then and there.

Once he got a clear look, he realized that the “large shadow” was actually Grisia. He also fell off the cliff?

Just as everyone was still stunned and couldn’t make sense of the situation, a large amount of holy light flashed before their eyes. Grisia stood up as if he had never been hurt, and the person who had been squashed so severely by him also stood up. His movements were very smooth, not at all like someone who had fallen off a cliff and had also been so severely flattened.

What powerful healing magic! Adair was quite awed.

Grisia walked over, looked around, and tossed a few Moderate Heals at them. Then, he said, “Brothers, please rise and follow me.”

No one’s injuries were mild. This kind of healing magic was like throwing a cup of water at a fire, but they were holy knights, who were the most durable. Those who could make it into the Sun Knight Platoon were even the best of the best. They would be able to stand up, if they really put their hearts into it.

Everyone slowly stood up one after the other, including Adair. Because he hadn’t been prepared when he was knocked flying, while everyone else jumped out of their own volition, plus he also had to drag everyone afterward, Adair’s injuries were the severest out of everyone’s.

But when he received the command, he didn’t say a word. He got up and followed Grisia. However, he didn’t think that they would return to the top of the cliff.

“Please jump.” The same command was given, but this time, the only recipient was Adair.

Adair was momentarily stunned. He didn’t know why he was being targeted. At this time, the people by his side whispered, “All of us jumped by ourselves just now. You should hurry up and jump too. Jump, and everything’s solved!”

Hearing this, Adair turned his head to look at everyone and discovered that they all wore the same accepting expression. It was evident that they had all jumped off the cliff by themselves.

This discovery swayed Adair a bit, making him feel like he was the odd one out… He clenched his teeth and replied, “No!”

After receiving this refusal, Grisia’s expression didn’t change. He calmly said, “My holy knight brothers, as you are members of the Sun Knight Platoon, you have already sworn to the G.o.d of Light that you would be loyal to me.”

Adair angrily said, “I will be loyal to you, but I cannot accept as absurd a command as jumping off a cliff!”

Grisia knitted his eyebrows together. After he waved his hand, another icicle appeared. This time however, Adair wasn’t completely unprepared. His ability wasn’t low, so of course he could dodge one icicle… but dodging an entire sky of icicles was another story altogether.

Adair looked at the numerous icicles, his heart pounding. He knew he had no more room to dodge, but he still didn’t want to jump off. He dodged a few more icicles; in the end, he was still knocked off the cliff.

He experienced falling off the cliff once again and lay sprawled across the ground, his injuries worse than last time’s. On top of the impact from landing, he had also been bruised by the icicles. Exerting himself just a bit more when breathing would cause his chest to contract in pain. This time, he had probably broken his ribs, and his leg injury from before hadn’t healed yet either, so now he was hurting all over.

Suddenly, there was a “thump” and warm holy light enveloped Adair, causing him to feel much better all at once. However, in the next moment, a head of golden hair entered his sight. Although resplendent without comparison, it was like a black cloud had taken over Adair’s mood.

“My holy knight brother, please stand up and return to the top of the cliff.” The same demand came. The matter wasn’t over yet.

Adair stood up again. Although his injuries weren’t light, he had landed with a proper stance, and his body was well trained from years of practice. Even though he had fallen twice, he hadn’t received any critical injuries. Moreover, there were also the healing spells, and he was also a stubborn person, so when he heard Grisia’s words, he didn’t speak a single word before standing up. He followed behind Grisia and returned to the top of the cliff.

Then, he fell again, climbed up once more, fell again…

Although healing spells were cast each time, they were not enough to completely heal the injuries. After continuous acc.u.mulation, they were getting worse and worse.

He could no longer tell how many times he had fallen. Every time he was knocked down, his inner resentment toward Grisia grew even more.

As he lay on the floor, he heard a “thump,” letting him know that the other person had also followed him down. He would once again receive the command of standing up and climbing back up. He prepared himself, clamping his teeth together in preparation of climbing back up. However, this time the command was slow to come. Adair could not help but turn his head to sneak a glance.

Grisia knelt on the ground, his entire face beading with sweat, his expression downright ugly.

Adair suddenly realized that the other person had always been jumping down with him, and then he had kept casting healing spells to heal two people. Just how many times has he cast Heal?

Grisia reached his hand out to wipe away the sweat. When he stood up, he was already wearing a smile on his face, and Adair quickly retracted his gaze. Following that, he heard the expected, “My holy knight brother, please stand up.”

Adair silently stood up, once again returning with Grisia to the top of the cliff. The other people had not left. They had stood there the entire time. Although they were just standing there, their expressions were actually not much better than Grisia’s or Adair’s.

Watching two people jump off the cliff from morning until night, and the people at war their own captain and vice-captain at that, really made all of them feel that they were about to have a nervous breakdown.

“Please jump.”

This time, before Grisia made a move, Adair finally had a different reaction. He asked in bewilderment, “Why must I obey as absurd an order as jumping off a cliff?”

He had thought it through. Each time he fell, Grisia also jumped with him, and he had even had to cast healing spells. Therefore, Grisia was actually receiving even more damage than Adair was! At first, he had thought that since Grisia was the future Sun Knight, he did not mind the toil, but from what he had just seen, that was evidently not the case.

Grisia looked at him, trying his hardest to conceal his exhaustion, but his appearance still betrayed him. “How do you know this is an absurd order?”

When he heard this, Adair’s fury rose again. “How could telling us to jump off a cliff be a normal order?”

Grisia fell silent for a moment. He turned to face the front and quietly said, “If you’re not even willing to jump off a cliff that you won’t die from, then in the future, for the sake of the greater good, if I commanded you to take the other platoon members, or even the entire holy knight army, to carry out a suicide mission, would you be willing to do it?”

Adair froze.

“I am soon to become the Sun Knight, and you all are soon to become my Sun Knight Platoon. I do not want to curse myself or you, but for the sake of the Church of the G.o.d of Light, it is not impossible that sacrifices might have to be made.

“When it comes time to give such a command, I might not be able to privately tell you the detailed contents of the mission. I might have to tell you in front of all the other platoon members, or even the entire Church of the G.o.d of Light. But there could be times, like now, where I can only give ‘a completely absurd order.’”

Grisia paused for a moment and directly stared at Adair, saying, “What I need is a vice-captain who is willing to carry out all orders, no matter how absurd they are.”

After he finished speaking, he stood straight, returning to his original stance and his original volume. He sighed regretfully, “Perhaps Adair is indeed not suitable for being my vice-captain. I will choose someone else.”

Grisia turned, originally intending to leave. He had truly spent too much energy and almost couldn’t stand anymore. However, at this time, he suddenly heard the others shout Adair’s name in surprise. When he turned his head, he was just in time to see Adair’s figure vanish off the cliff’s side.

Heh!

“You pa.s.s.”

“I suppose that was what happened.” Adair smilingly finished telling his story, and he also understood why his captain wanted him to help Elaro. He most likely wanted him to tell this story.

The three of them, Elaro, Dili, and Rhonelin, finished listening to the story in a stupor. Elaro understood his teacher’s true personality very well, but the other two did not have such an understanding of him. They practically couldn’t connect this story with the Sun Knight they knew. Would the most perfect Sun Knight in history actually command someone he had just met to jump off a cliff?

Even though the result was quite profound, the course of events was simply unimaginable to a normal person.

Seeing their expressions, Adair couldn’t help but feel that telling this story had probably been a waste of time. No matter what, a second Sun Knight who would use ‘jumping off a cliff’ as a test would probably not appear again for a long time. These past events would not help Elaro much.

“Elaro, you should just follow your own way of doing things.”

Elaro currently had his head lowered as he pondered. Only when he heard Adair’s words did he look up, smiling as he said, “I understand what Teacher means now.”

“Oh?” Adair was quite interested as he asked, “So what does Captain mean?”

He did not expect Elaro to stare right at him and say, “I think Teacher means that if the most defiant one in the past could become the most obedient one now, then there’s no reason for me to hesitate. I should just make my own choice.”

Adair began smiling wryly.

Elaro turned to face his two vice-captain candidates. He no longer had any hesitation on his face, only gentleness and resolve. And while his expression may have been gentle, his manner was incomparably determined.

“I have made my decision. My vice-captain will be Dili.”

Rhonelin’s heart plummeted, but he tried his hardest to control his expression. He didn’t want his captain to feel guilty from seeing disappointment on his face. Elaro was that kind of person. He didn’t want to treat anyone around him unfairly, and thus had not been able to make a decision for the longest time.

“And Rhonelin.”

Rhonelin raised his head to look at his captain.

Astonished, Adair said, “Two? That’s against the rules.”

Elaro’s expression was rather relaxed, as if he had let go of several burdens. He smiled as he said, “Does the entire continent know that the Sun Knight can only have one vice-captain?”

Adair blinked, but then smiled as well. “They don’t seem to know. It’s just one of the usual practices of the Holy Temple.”

“Teacher always says, ‘Other than matters that the whole continent knows, you can do as you please with everything else. I’m about to retire anyway.”’

Dili and Rhonelin were both stunned. The current Sun Knight would actually say something like that?

According to what they knew, the Sun Knight was mature, graceful, and earnest. Even though his manner was very gentle, and you could always receive his forgiveness as long as you repented, he was still the Sun Knight, so the populace would not dare to be too casual with him.

Adair saw their expressions and smiled faintly. He turned his head and said, “Elaro, since you’ve already chosen your vice-captains, there are some matters that you should let them know. On one hand, it will help lessen your workload, and on the other, this way they won’t be caught unprepared when they become the official vice-captains of the Sun Knight in the future.”

“Okay!” Elaro looked at his two vice-captains, growing more and more satisfied as he looked at them. He smiled as brilliantly as the sun. “Finally, I don’t have to be secretive and can let you know everything!”

Seeing their captain’s bright smile, Dili and Rhonelin suddenly had the feeling that they might not really want to know that so-called “everything.”

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