Vol 3. Chapter 110: Do Not Submit Yourself to Rot and Decay

“Red Saintlen?”

Just like that luxurious knight from earlier, it was a surname Vinny had never heard before. It felt like these people were human, yet at the same time, they didn’t seem like people of this world.

At the very least, Vinny had never heard of any noble bearing that surname.

“Mm.” The knight named Red Saintlen gave a flat nod.

“Mr. Saintlen, you said there are monsters behind us—why didn’t I see them?” Vinny frowned and asked.

“They’ll be here soon,” Red answered in a muffled voice.

“Soon? And how am I supposed to know you’re not lying to me?” Vinny frowned, glancing at the wooden bridge behind Red.

Compared to the bridge behind the knight named Joseph, the bridge behind Red was scarred all over—just like the man himself. It looked so unreliable it practically screamed “do not cross.”

“Mr. Saintlen, don’t tell me you want me to take the bridge behind you??” Vinny said.

“That’s right.”

“You sure I’ll make it across alive??” Vinny couldn’t help it. “It’s not gonna snap under me halfway, is it??”

“It won’t.”

“Seriously??”

Watching the knight in front of him toss out a light, breezy “It won’t,” and then offer no further explanation, Vinny felt speechless.

So... is this guy a native of this place?

If he’s a real person, Vinny felt like this guy’s personality was way too bizarre, and his emotional intelligence was abysmal. He completely failed to hit any of the answers or points people actually wanted to hear.

Was it on purpose??

Vinny wasn’t the type to judge purely by appearances, but even so, Red in front of him just didn’t look like a normal person, while Joseph over there was clearly the more reliable option.

“You’re really making it hard for me to trust you, Sir Knight,” Vinny said.

“Why?”

“......”

Vinny looked at Red in front of him with an extremely strange expression.

If earlier he’d only suspected this guy’s head might not be screwed on right, now he was sure. This guy’s brain definitely had a huge crater in it; there was no way to understand his thought process with normal human logic.

“Like, seriously—tell me, what about you is supposed to look trustworthy right now??” Vinny stared at Red’s gear and at the half-rotten bridge swaying behind him.

“This is the safest bridge. The others can’t be crossed.” Red explained.

“Mr. Saintlen, no matter how you spin it, that doesn’t sound convincing at all,” Vinny pressed his lips together and said.

The knight suddenly fell silent. After a long moment, he propped his sword against his shoulder and gave Vinny a formal knight’s salute.

“Youth, in the name of a knight, in the name of Saintlen, I swear I will not let you suffer so much as a single scratch.” Red’s voice was very flat, and yet it seemed to carry some inexplicable force.

Vinny stared at Red for a long time, and in the end, still chose to back away.

He just couldn’t bring himself to trust someone this strange.

So he went back to the knight in full, splendid armor—Joseph.

“Honored citizen, there’s no time to waste. I guarantee, on the honor of the kingdom, that I’ll see you delivered safely.” Joseph’s tone appealed to both reason and emotion. “You’re an important witness and survivor.”

In comparison, any normal person would pick Joseph.

Vinny was no exception. He glanced once more in Red’s direction, then pulled his gaze back and chose to trust Joseph.

“Please, this way, honored citizen.” Joseph gestured for Vinny to step onto the bridge.

However, just as Vinny was about to lift his foot onto the wooden bridge, he suddenly noticed something. He quietly halted his movement and drew his foot back.

“What’s wrong, citizen?” Joseph asked, puzzled.

“Citizen?” Vinny gave Joseph a meaningful look, savoring that fleeting, split-second expression in the man’s eyes from earlier, and confirmed his own judgment.

“No need. I’m not taking this bridge.”

“Why?” After a brief pause, Joseph asked.

“No reason. As a knight, you’re not planning to force me, are you?” Vinny said coldly.

“......Of course not.”

After a short silence, Joseph shook his head. “It’s your freedom, citizen.”

“Obviously.”

Vinny successfully retreated to a safe distance and then moved to leave Joseph entirely.

“Citizen, where you’re going is very dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Yes. If you keep going back the way you came, I won’t be able to guarantee your safety,” Joseph said solemnly.

“That’s not something you need to worry about,” Vinny replied, and then he left Joseph behind completely.

If you had to ask why he suddenly changed his mind—

Intuition.

The moment he’d finally made up his mind to step onto the bridge, that instant when Joseph looked at him—Vinny shouldn’t have caught that look.

But what could he do? Vinny had grown up under exactly that sort of gaze.

He knew that look far too well.

It was the expression worn by those who thought themselves noble, who looked down their noses at others from on high, when they looked at him—this “inferior”—as if he were less than them.

Vinny couldn’t be more familiar with it.

And precisely because of that, Vinny keenly caught Joseph’s gaze, that one that lasted less than half a second, and yanked his choice back as fast as he could, while there was still time.

Vinny walked back to Red again. The knight was still standing there.

Earlier, when Vinny left, he had only watched Vinny’s back in silence, saying nothing at all.

Vinny kept feeling like, whether it was Joseph or Red, for some reason, they were both unable to move too far from where they stood.

“Mr. Saintlen, will you be coming onto the bridge with me?” Vinny asked.

“No,” Red answered, without any extra explanation.

“Why not?”

“I’ll cover your rear,” Red replied. “In case monsters attack while you’re crossing. Once you’re safely on the other side, I’ll go onto the bridge.”

Vinny studied Red’s gaze, locking eyes with him for a long time.

Red didn’t avoid his stare in the slightest.

Through the slit in the helmet, Vinny could feel it—there wasn’t a trace of contempt there, none of that “self-styled noble looking down at a lesser being” in his eyes.

His gaze was very clean—so pure it was spotless.

For some reason, Vinny thought of those Radiant Cross Knights who had once been unwaveringly loyal to the Saintess.

So, should he trust his intuition, or trust his instincts?

With that feeling in his chest, Vinny chose to trust his instincts.

“Sir Knight, please escort me across the bridge.”

“No problem.”

With that calm yet solid voice, the knight stepped aside.

Vinny looked at the battered wooden bridge ahead, then glanced down at the bottomless chasm beneath. No one knew where you’d end up if you fell down there, or if there was any chance of survival at all.

Obviously, no sane person would want to “try it and see.”

On top of that, Vinny felt that even Vanessa wouldn’t be able to fly across this chasm. It was as if something down there was exerting a pull. If the bridge snapped while he was crossing, he’d definitely be dragged into that bottomless abyss.

Vinny looked ahead, then turned to look at the knight behind him, who was leaving Vinny his back as the wind from the other side lifted his dirty knight’s tabard.

Vinny hesitated no longer and stepped onto the wooden bridge. On the very first step, the plank creaked like it was about to give way.

“Creak, creak.”

The sound was like a death sentence being recited, making Vinny’s heart go cold and his teeth ache.

“Don’t look back, boy. Keep going forward.”

“You can do it.”

That solid voice came from behind. Vinny glanced back once at the knight standing firm behind him, and for some reason, his heart filled with a sense of security.

To any weak or ordinary person, this was exactly what safety would look like.

“Creak, creak.” The wooden bridge groaned as if it were straining past its limits, but it did not collapse.

Vinny did as the knight said—he looked forward, not down, and didn’t turn back either.

The wind rising from below carried a corrosive stench, as if this place were an absolute deadland where no one could ever return alive from this abyssal pit.

The oppressive feeling went straight to Vinny’s scalp, but at this point, all he could do was choose to believe and grit his teeth, walking forward until both feet stepped onto solid ground.

“Whew...”

By the time he reached the other side, Vinny was drenched in sweat. The chasm below hadn’t looked like much at first glance, but only when he actually walked above it did he realize just how dangerous, how terrifying it really was—like if the bridge snapped, even his consciousness and soul would be ripped out and shredded inside it.

So... did he pick right?

Before Vinny could think too much, reality gave him the answer. A deafening explosion suddenly rang out from the other side. Vinny’s head snapped around—he saw the other bridge, the one that had looked intact, blown clean in two, and the knight in splendid armor was already standing on the far side, smoke rising from his hand. It was clearly his magic.

“Heh heh heh...”

The previously graceful Joseph now let out a laugh colder than the wind blowing through the abyss. “Just teasing you. As if I’d ever let this village have any survivors.”

“Your existence is proof of my stain. Only when you’re all dead will there be no one left who knows.”

“You lowlifes can just stay here and feed those ugly freaks, fill those monsters’ bellies—that’s the only meaning you have.” Joseph’s booming laughter made one’s blood run cold.

As expected, Vinny’s instincts had been right.

“Roar, roooar!!...”

A chorus of hair-raising screams went up. Vinny looked to the far side and saw countless monsters crawling out of the restless darkness. Some had bodies like gigantic eels or leeches. Some had trunks like trees, with human heads hanging from their branches. Some had completely mismatched proportions, heads as wide as their shoulders, and human faces on their bellies.

In short, every kind of thing imaginable—and each one of them was nightmare fuel. No one in their right mind would even think of fighting this lot, especially when there were just so many of them that you couldn’t even begin to count.

Just looking at them made your sanity drop.

Vinny quickly looked at Red, who was still on the far side of the broken bridge.

“Mr. Saintlen! You hurry over here too!” Vinny had no idea what the knight’s deal really was—where he’d come from, or if he even truly existed—but whatever the case, he didn’t want someone like this to come to harm.

“......”

The knight stood with both hands resting on his sword and did not answer Vinny immediately.

“Sir Knight??” Vinny said hesitantly.

“Boy, there’s no time.” Red’s tone was calm, yet carried immense resolve. “If I cross, they’ll have the leeway to cross as well.”

With that, the knight swung his sword and cleaved the bridge behind him.

“Clack!”

The hemp ropes holding the wooden bridge were sliced through and it crashed down.

With that single stroke, the knight severed his own last way out.

“Sir Knight? You—” Vinny froze.

“I told you—I’d see you safe and unharmed, boy.”

Staring at the raging, howling monsters, Red spoke each word with that same stiff cadence.

“But if you do this, then you’ll—??...”

“This is the meaning of a knight’s existence.”

Red turned back to look at Vinny. The gaze shooting out from the slit in his helmet was so resolute that it felt like he’d never been confused about his choice, or about his own code, not even once.

“From the moment I swore myself to knighthood, I swore I would never ignore anyone in need of help, anyone who cries out to me.”

“To protect all the weak and innocent, to forever stand against injustice, to never, ever sink into complicity with evil—for peace, and for all living beings, this is the original intent of my knighthood. It is the creed passed down through our family, generation after generation.”

“Boy, if you can understand my will and resolve and carry them forward, then my sacrifice will not have been in vain.”

With that, the knight strode toward the tide of monsters with firm, steady steps.

His figure was thin yet unshakable, as if he carried within him the strongest conviction and will in the world.

“Boy, I can tell that your heart is full of confusion and doubt about some things. You don’t know how to choose.”

“But it’s all right. As long as you always remember the warmth of the kindness and passion in your heart—even if you go against the current—never submit yourself to downfall and rot.”

The knight’s powerful voice even drowned out the hideous groa~ning of those vile monsters.

When his words fell, the outnumbered knight dra~w his sword and charged, launching an assault against monsters that outnumbered him by hundreds of times, his soaring oath echoing in the wind.

“In the name of justice, in the name of knighthood, in the name of Saintlen!”

“Chaos-spawned abyssal monsters—be buried with me!”

Darkness surged in, swallowing the monsters, and with them, the silhouette of the brave knight fighting them to the death.

Seeing this scene, Vinny clenched his fists.

That tin-can man—he really was a weirdo.

A complete, bona fide weirdo.

But—

If the Church of the Dawn’s knights had all been weirdos like him, maybe Vinny wouldn’t be who he was today.

And the Church wouldn’t have become what it is now.

A guy with a personality this strange, yet a nobility that didn’t even seem human.

But perhaps only people this strange, this stubborn, this dead set on one principle could actually stick to their ideals and beliefs right up to the final moment of their lives??

Vinny pressed his lips together. After a long while, he finally chose to turn and leave.

He couldn’t help thinking: if the Vinny from his previous life had grown up surrounded by Radiant Cross Knights like this, maybe it would’ve been hard for that previous Vinny to grow crooked at all??

It was just a pity that idiots like this were extremely rare. As long as you were human, you couldn’t possibly be that pure.

Vinny kept walking forward. Those two knights who had appeared earlier—regardless of their natures—had each had such vivid personalities.

They were fundamentally different from the things that, at first glance, hadn’t even seemed human.

Those two knights felt like people who truly existed somewhere—in some universe, some space, some plane of existence.