The Legend of the Hell Knight
Why are all the Holy Knights so overly good looking? My younger self once peevishly asked my teacher, the 81st generation's Hell Knight.
My teacher looked at me with an expression that was half amusement and half exasperation. He was used to my constant string of questions. He believed it was important for a spy to have a natural sense of curiosity, but after six years of training he had hoped that I would have learned to figure many things out for myself.
Instead of giving me a direct answer my teacher replied with a question of his own;
Child, he said. The temple is so beautiful. If the people of the other continents saw it, do you not think that they would instantly fall to their knees and swear piety before the God of Light?
No, of course not, I replied with certainty. In the six years that I had trained with my teacher I had already been to one other continent and had visited several countries on this one. Nobody would swear piety to the God of Light merely because the main temple was pretty to look at.
Indeed. Having twelve beautiful spokespersons is much more convincing than any building. My teacher explained. Although there have been shaky times in the past, and the temple even fell once-
Yes, 462 years ago during the time of- I perked up instantly recalling the historical passages I had read.
My teacher gave me a rough tap on the head. If left to ramble I would freely recite pages upon pages of history that only a select few scholars would find interesting and nobody else would bother to remember.
Don't interrupt, He ordered.
ow... yes sir.
Anyway, teacher continued by saying, A living person is obviously a much more powerful symbol than any building. Since the beginning, as long as they all worked together, the holy knights have been blessed by protection the God of Light. In the end, they will succeed.
I nodded. I didn't quite believe this truth to be the work of divine influence, but I wasn't willing to dismiss that it was purely coincidence either. On the other hand, there were so many religions in the world. Many of the other religions I had encountered made sense, in their own way. I only believed in things I could see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears and touch with my own hands. I had yet to see, hear, or touch a god.
So as you can see, my teacher concluded confidently. It's only natural that all of the Twelve Holy Knights would be very handsome.
I pondered this a moment before suddenly declaring, Then I don't believe the God of Light to be a god at all! Only a GODDESS would want to be represented by twelve beautiful men!
My outburst had caught my teacher so much by surprise that he even began roaring with laughter. I was only sixteen, but I was the tallest out of the young holy knights and only a head shorter than my teacher. I stared up with him with burning conviction about my sudden revelation, so I must have looked very comical indeed. Luckily we were in a private spot so no one would stop and gape at the usually mysterious and stoic Hell Knight clutching his stomach giggling.
After wiping his eyes my teacher said, If the God of Light is really a goddess, then I think the knights would have no regrets in their final meeting with her.
...Still...I wish that I could be the Sun Knight, I said mournfully for the nth time.
Since every young boy in the Capital wanted to grow up to be the Sun Knight at one point or another, my obsession may have been childish but it was not an unusual one. Even after I started living at the Temple I read and reread every passage relating to Sun Knights that I could get my hands on. I was even more knowledgeable than the freakishly studious Kal (my nickname for Aalekzander, the young Frost Knight) on the subject.
Being a little "disenchanted" by the world, maybe more than anything I just wanted proof that there really was a god? I wondered- could the Sun Knight, the God of Light's number one spokesperson give me that?
Teacher shook his head for the nth time as well.
You can't be the Sun Knight, he said, You're a-
"...Awake."
I groaned. Just as the first light of dawn could be seen my dream of the past ended. I sat up in my bunk then hastily gathered some nuts and stale bread I had wrapped up and hidden in my clothes. I knew I would need all of my strength to get me through another day in this country.
As I changed out of my night clothes and into my servant's disguise my taste buds yearned for a cup of real tea. This country preferred a dark, almost black, drink they called "coffee". I found it to be very bitter-tasting and unpleasant. Seriously, who actually likes the taste of burnt things? It was nothing compared to the silky-smooth-cups-of-heaven I was used to. Another thing that made me wish I was back home.
After glancing out the window I could see the summer sun was rising faster than me. The household breakfast would be served in a mere few hours. If I wanted to have some table scraps for my lunch I needed to be at my post before the first bell rang.
As far as disguises went kitchen servant was rather delightful. Granted I was working from dawn until well after supper and my breaks were few and far between, but I was a knight. If I wasn't busy gathering information in a far off land, I would be drilling with my platoon or patrolling the city or helping Knight-Captain Sun with whatever (annoying!) matters he needed handled discreetly. He's only ever asked me to carry out one assassination, though. Fortunately, Knight-Captain Judgment managed to calm him down insisting that killing off a member of parliament just because he was "fat and stupid" was not a good idea.
"What parliament", you say? Oh, brother, where have you been in the past few hundred years? Well I'm sort of in a hurry, but I'll try to explain anyway:
About 200 years ago there was a dramatic shift in power. Originally countries were basically made up of two kinds of people, the rich and snobby nobles and the dirt poor peasants. There were still adventure teams running around and taking on dangerous missions of course, but adventure teams don't usually tie themselves down to one country. But after hundreds and hundreds of years, very slowly there became fewer and fewer missions for adventure teams to carry out. Thus the so-called adventure teams had no jobs became part of the (dirt poor) peasant class.
Since there were fewer dragons and monsters running around merchants could travel around as they please and become fifthly rich. In fact, many of the more business-minded merchants actually became richer than the snobby nobles. A new class of merchants plus a growing number of dirt-poor-dragon-slaying peasants plus a traditionally snobby and stupid class of nobles was the perfect breeding ground for a revolution!
Long story short, we still have a king and a royal family, but it's the snobby nobles and the rich merchants that do all the governing. The moral of the story is that in the end the poor peasants got screwed over after doing most of the revolting. Politics.
"So why didn't the Church do anything?"
That's an excellent question, so let me ask you this: "What good is a religion if you don't have a ton of people that have something to pray for?"
If the world was just fine and dandy then there wouldn't be a need for people to pray to the gods! If the world were all about peaches and rainbows then there'd be no need for people like me who specialize learning top secret stuff and assassinating annoying people! There would be no need for the Church of the God of Light! There would be no need for spies! I'd be out of a job, twice!
So, in order to stay gainfully employed instead of putting a swift end to all the "fat and stupid" politicians I have traveled for half a year across the roughest seas to this distant country to see if the so-called "rumors" were correct. I infiltrated this very lavish household as an assistant cook and a dishwasher(sob!) to see for my own eyes if there really was, as "rumors" suggested, a diabolical weapon of war in the works that could threaten not only the Church of the God of Light, but the world.
Now if I understand my god even a teeny bit -and I'm pretty sure I do- I know that the benevolent God of Light would never allow his followers to be harmed by such evil devices.
But since the benevolent God of Light isn't here we, the Twelve Holy Knights, must act in his stead as protectors of the people!
...or at least that's what Captain-Knight Sun told me before shoving my ass onto a rickety, leaky, smelly, rat-infested boat.
Rumors my foot! 'World destruction'? Oh, please. Such exaggerations are almost always baseless. I haven't managed to find anything beyond the "normal" levels of shady. Political power plays, romantic scandals, and secret torture chambers are not worth my valuable time. The amount of dishes this mansion goes through in a day is more diabolical than any "secret weapon" that I've seen. Don't they know there desert villages that live on a bucket of water a day?
I haven't been home to my nice soft bed in nearly ten months. I'm pretty sure that the only reason Sun sent me on this wild goose chase was because I "accidentally" switched out some of his best wine barrels with vinegar.
...Okay, maybe I secretly crept in and moved ALL the contents of his wine cellar to an undisclosed location and he might have been a just a "little" bit mad when I refused to tell him where that undisclosed location was even after he "asked me nicely". But the only reason I did it was because he used some of my best and most expensive tea leaves to impress his date- Urk! Um, I mean, "enlighten a young woman to the benevolence of the God of Light". His words, not mine- but yes, my tea stash is that good. However those cups of heaven cost me a whole month's worth of salary to import so I might have over reacted a just teeny bit.
So, here I am.
Every day for the past month I've been repenting for my sin by waking up at the ass-crack of dawn just so I could throw on a terribly uncomfortable lace trimmed uniform, earn some table scraps for lunch, steal a few select menu items for my dinner and breakfast, and last but not least try to save the world from some yet unknown threat. This is the life of the Hell Knight.
Fortunately for me, I'm very good at my job. The master of this extravagant household partially owns the majority of the port's main shipping companies, two factories, a couple very profitable (but morally questionable) side businesses, and has a list of honorary associates as long as my arm. There is nothing in this town that this man doesn't know about and because of my daily visits to his personal papers, there's nothing going on in this town that I don't know about either.
And there was nothing. On the one hand I was relieved since this meant my duty was completed and I could finally return home soon and get my revenge- er, I mean "report back to Knight-Captain Sun". On the other hand when I did return home I would have to fill out ten months' worth of reports that basically said, "I found nothing". Then I would have to carefully catalogue all the evidence I had gathered to support this claim. In addition to all that I would have to play catch up on ten months' worth of paperwork that had collected in my absence.
After taking all this into consideration I decided that another few weeks of washing dishes really wasn't so bad, but when I walked into the kitchen ready for an easy day- I met with a flurry of unexpected activity instead! Usually there was only one head cook on duty. This time all three were present giving orders and dozens of servants were running around like terrified chickens. I stood there stunned for a moment pondering if I had really should have just hopped aboard a ship last night.
One of the cooks caught sight of me and pointed.
"YOU!" He said clearly not caring what my name (or alias in this case) was. "You're late! Hurry up and help me get these eggs ready!" And right after him the second head cook ordered, "And when you're done there help me with these sandwiches!" And from then on I was running back and forth from task to task terribly confused on what holiday or special event that I could have forgotten about.
I studied the menu items carefully. The main dish for breakfast was boiled eggs and some sweet pastry that I had no intention of ever trying so I never learned the name of it. I hated sweet foods, but these two items alone told me that it was going to be a light breakfast for the family followed by a quick cup of coffee. Lunch was also being prepared at the same time suggesting that the family would be going on a picnic. Afternoon snack would be something just to tie them over until evening which I could now safely assume would be hosted away from the house.
A party perhaps? But since I didn't know what for, I decided to ask.
As soon as I let the words of inquiry quietly slide past my lips a fellow servant gave me a look harsher than the Moon Knight and the Metal Knight put together. I quickly forgave her for this. I may be a Holy Knight (in disguise), but I wasn't exactly "handsome" (in disguise) when compared to my Knight-Captain brothers (who are not in disguise). Since I was not of the "Warm-hearted fraction" my good-natured smile was only a half as convincing as Earth's and a quarter as sincere as Leaf's. I was nowhere near as good looking as Sun or Storm and even my vice-captain had a bigger fan-club than me. I mean, how useful could a spy be if every man, woman, and child could remember them because of how pretty they looked? Naturally I was still good-looking, but just not in a very memorable way.
Finally, after realizing I was serious, the servant answered my question.
"There a dinner in honor of General Eligius's return." The servant explained. "He's brought from his travels some rare devices he hopes the noblemen will be willing to purchase."
"Oh," I said with a disappointed tone. "Is that all?"
But by then the servant had already moved on to another task. I stood there a moment, thinking deeply before someone yelled at me to start peeling potatoes and once that was done I was shoved to the back to...wash dishes. Ugh.
I wasn't particularly bothered this time though. My natural curiosity had awakened from its short nap and I spent the rest of the day lost in deep thought. This country didn't seem particularly war-like, especially considering that they didn't worship the God of War. I would actually say the people here secretly worshiped a God of Greed. I only hoped it wasn't a God of Death as well.
I shook my head to get rid of such paranoid thoughts. My teacher would always scold me for over-thinking things. It wasn't up to the spy to piece things together. I just had to gather the pieces and see that the people who needed them got them. I wanted to hurry up and return to the Temple... but this new matter was something I couldn't let drop. I decided I would infiltrate the party and see for my own eyes what these "devices" could be.
I glanced at the wall at the contraption they called a "pendulum clock". It was supposed to tell you time, but I didn't really understand the need for it. They divided the day and night into a certain number hours, but they didn't bother to account for things like the lengthening of days in summer or the shortening of days in winter. I saw it as rather inaccurate and not a useful device at all.
Sun dials were much more accurate... I thought, but then added as an afterthought, except when it rained, but it's not like it rained all the time.
Rather than fiddle with silly devices that don't actually work, they should invest more time into practicing magic.
Although I had seen a lot of promising magical talent I hadn't seen any master level mages, clerics, or priests. There were several carpenters and metal workers in the city, but the sick and injured had to rely on herbal remedies. I didn't know what I would do without my minor healing spells.
"Even a war priest is better than nothing," I sighed as I scrapped food off a dish. With the large number of "occupational hazards" (such as poisoning, stabbings, falling from great heights) that came with my work I was greatly appreciative towards the cleric types. This country, however, had practically none. If I were to get sick or injured, at best I could expect to be ripped off by some downtown alchemist. Praise to the God of Light.
…or not. I had momentarily forgotten that it was the fault of the God of Light's number one spokesperson that I was even in this country. I scowled suddenly as I thought about what inventions that the General might have brought with him. Maybe I could bring a few back to test out on Sun- No! I mean, "show Sun".
I didn't mean it God of Light! I pleaded suddenly feeling very uneasy. As the time of the party grew closer and closer my unease only grew until it became total dread.
Please don't let anything happen to me in a country with no healing clerics!
Please don't let me die in a country that doesn't drink tea!