Evade The Hero and Flee!

Chapter 299

Side Story – Memories of a Certain Princess (50)

<Ast, who was taken by the Peace Religion, admitted his charges and was dragged straight to the underground torture chamber. 

After that, it was revealed that he was a follower of the evil god, and that he had infiltrated the Empire to summon the evil god’s vanguard.

After everything was revealed, Ast was made to stand on the execution stand in front of everyone as one who worshiped the evil god…>

“What do you think of this story?” 

“I don’t know who came up with it, but it’s a really garbage story. I don’t think anyone except his family and close acquaintances would buy it if they tried to sell it.”

“What if he has a lot of acquaintances? For example, what if it’s the Princess?”

“Uh… Um….”

Seeing him like that, I laughed softly. Frowning, Ast said,

“My life is hanging by a thread here. Isn’t this too much, Your Highness?”

Shaking his head around to confirm where he was, Ast let out a deep sigh.

“You wouldn’t let me get dragged away like this, would you, Your Highness?”

“There’s no way I’d allow that.”

He’s my exclusive retainer and the one with the greatest accomplishments in the war. When there are still operations underway, how could I hand him over to some Religion?

“Is that why you acted that way? Because of suspicions due to Your Highness and Lady Renia?”

Of course. 

“There’s no way they could take away an imperial noble, especially someone under me, without any evidence.”

No matter how powerful the religion is, this is the Empire. One of only two empires on the continent. No matter how many religions there are within imperial territory, they can’t act rashly.

“I see. So that was why.”

It seems Ast understood what I meant as he sighed.

“Yeah. That’s why.”

No matter how few opportunities I have to fluster Ast, I wouldn’t do anything that could harm my allies.  

“Right, Renia?”

“…….”

“Renia?”

“…….”  

“Lady Renia?”

I called out to Renia, expecting a word of agreement, but she started avoiding my gaze.  

Ast looked at her strange behavior curiously, but Renia avoided his gaze as well.

Seeing Renia completely turn her face away to avoid both my and Ast’s stares, one thought crossed my mind.

“Could it be… You actually meant what you said earlier?”

No matter how short-sighted Renia is, there’s no way that could be the case.  

My belief in that was starting to shake a little.

“Th-that can’t be, Your Highness!”

“But Lady Renia’s actions right now seem to suggest it’s possible, no?”

“I-I was just thinking of Sir Ast’s usual self! You should have acted the way you normally do!”

Now, seeing Renia getting angry at Ast, I closed my mouth.

Could it really… No way.

“Your Highness, I don’t think you should joke around like this anymore in front of Lady Renia.”

“Yeah. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

The unexpected can happen anywhere.   

“But you know this situation is also your own doing, right?”

“Uh… That’s….”

Ast’s pupils start shaking.  

Soon he turns his face away like Renia to avoid my gaze.

“Haah… Honestly….”

My only personal knight and personal servant are trying not to meet each other’s eyes by turning their heads away.  

To think these are the only people by my side. I’m starting to doubt if I chose the wrong people.

“Why did you even bring that thing to the battlefield?”

The people who know about that item call it this.

A branch of the World Tree.  

The great tree left behind by the goddess of benevolence and devotion who once saved the world. 

This tree, planted to protect the Elven Forest, is a symbolically meaningful item on the continent as well.

But Ast calls that branch by a slightly different name.

Also known as the wooden bat.

An item claiming to contain benevolence and devotion, as well as love and affection.

Of course, others see it as a cursed plague that inflicts pain on humans.

And the saint was hit by that item. Or more accurately, the saint self-harmed with it.

“You understand the implication of my earlier words, right? That no matter how powerful the religion is, they can’t take away an imperial noble without evidence.”

“Yes, Your Highness. It means that if there is evidence, the religion can take them away no matter if they are imperials.”

That’s right.

Commoners or lower nobles are one thing, or even a weaker kingdom, but for one of the top five empires on the continent, let alone someone actively making achievements on the battlefield, there’s no way they could be taken by a religion without any evidence.

But evidence had emerged. 

Evidence that I know is not true since I roughly know the production process, but evidence that is hard to simply deny.

“If it wasn’t for me, you would have already been dragged away.”

“I know, Your Highness.”

“Don’t you have anything else to say other than that?”

“Thank you, Your Highness! So please spare me!”

“Really…”

It was behavior completely different from usual. 

Seeing him throw away his usual dignity and display cowardice like turning over his palm irritated me a bit.

“When you’re not like this in front of me…”

“Your Highness?”

“Is the saint scarier?”

“No. You are the scary one, Your Highness. Do you not know how much I fear and respect you?”

Hmm, I don’t know. Based on your usual actions, I don’t feel like you respect me at all.

“After the war… Should I try putting you in a few times too? It’d be better than the religious order, and it’s not a bad place.”  

“Put me where?”

“Of course I mean the underground prison of the Empire that preserves history and tradition. I’ll show you that place myself.”

“I’ll have to decline!”

Seeing Ast about to jump up, my irritation that had built up eased a bit.

“I’ll try my best but… It might be a bit difficult….”

“Your Highness, please don’t joke around and….”

“I’m not joking. Not only was there evidence but….”

“Uh… um….”

Realizing his mistake, Ast also shut his mouth.

“You ran away, didn’t you?”

The moment the saint shed tears and told them to capture Ast, he escaped with speed that even the holy knights couldn’t react to.

By the time the holy knights grasped the situation and reached out their hands, Ast had already opened the door and was trying to run away.

“I didn’t expect there would be members of the religious order waiting outside the door.”

I was dumbfounded by Ast’s attitude, seeming to genuinely reflect.

“Running away itself was the problem, wasn’t it?”

If the members of the religious order had not been waiting outside, he would have succeeded in escaping. 

What would have happened if Ast had successfully escaped?

No matter how he tried to argue otherwise, the saint would have claimed Ast as the perpetrator, and we who had been holding him could have suffered great losses.

“Really… Wouldn’t it kill you to consider your allies a bit?”

“…I don’t think that’s something Your Highness should say.”

“You don’t want to come out?”

“How could I, Ast, not know of Her Esteemed Highness the Princess’s mercy, which is as vast as the ocean? As someone who has always watched from your side, I know best of all your care for each and every soldier!”

Seeing him switch attitudes so quickly, Renia made a disgusted expression and said,

“Your Highness, shouldn’t we take this chance to get rid of him?”

“Should I?”  

“Your Highness!”

I also agreed a bit with Renia’s opinion – Ast’s attitude was thoroughly villainous.

“I can’t dispose of him but….”

Ast had already become an important figure even within the Empire.

He held quite an important position as a general, and the fragment of evil within his body was an important object that even dragons paid attention to and watched over.

“Really… Do you know what situation the saint is in right now?”

“I was dragged here as soon as I was captured, so I don’t know.”

“She is insisting that a human who made such an evil object must be an apostle of the evil god and should be executed immediately.”

“Oh, her discipline is strict.”

“Ast, the saint of the religious order of peace is a special case who suddenly became a saint. She wasn’t educated as a priest like the saints of other religious orders, but was a candidate for a holy knight trainee who received education to become a holy knight.”

An existence created to protect the religious order, and the power of the religious order itself.

For ordinary people, the Religion with the strongest heroes may seem the strongest, but from the country’s perspective, the Religion with the strongest holy knights is considered the strongest to some extent. 

To that extent, holy knights are strong and have excellent abilities, and the intensity of their training far surpasses that of ordinary knights.

In the case of ordinary knights, there is a risk of injury, but holy knights can be blessed by priests at any time, so they are trained to the brink of death.

“Those who rigorously train their bodies to the extreme with strong faith, those are the holy knights. The saint has been raised as a holy knight since a young age.”

“In other words… They have a high tolerance for pain, is that what you mean?”

“Yes. The story of the one-armed holy knight. It’s a famous story, you must know it well?”

“Wasn’t that a fairy tale?”

“Most people know it that way, but that story was based on a holy knight from the Religion of Struggle.”

The story of a holy knight who tore off his own arm to protect children while fighting evil monsters. 

While the story passed down as a fairy tale represents the noble spirit of sacrifice and pride of holy knights, 

“It is also a story that shows how tenacious the life of a holy knight is.”

In the fairy tale, the holy knight lost an arm.

While watching the monsters eat his own arm right before his eyes, the holy knight calmly treated his arm and evacuated the children.

And the holy knight guarded that path.

Although he was treated, there was tremendous bleeding when his arm was first torn off.

His body was covered in wounds, filled with gashes, and there was no part not drenched in blood.

“Isn’t the lesson that holy knights are harder to kill than trolls?”

“That’s right.”

“No, Your Majesty. Isn’t the lesson of the story of the one-armed holy knight that God does not abandon those who try to protect something?!”

Although Renia objected to my and Ast’s opinions, I wonder if that holy knight could have survived like that if he were an ordinary knight?

I don’t think so. 

If he hadn’t been a holy knight but an ordinary knight, he would have died from excessive bleeding or shock when his hand was torn off.

It’s highly likely to happen even to a trained knight in that situation.

In that situation, the holy knight is said to have survived for 3 whole days.

He endured, endured, and endured again thanks to the training he received from the Religion and the Religion’s recovery magic.

“That’s what a holy knight is.”

And the saint of the Religion of Peace is already at the level of skill to become a holy knight right now if she wanted. 

Even though she was caught off guard, the fact that she snatched Ast’s weapon, who was evaluated by Keuchen as ‘aside from his garbage personality and fighting style like a mad dog, purely in terms of skill he really knows remarkable swordsmanship’, was not luck but skill.

“Such a being collapsed with tears flowing at one blow and sat down on the floor.”

There’s no way that could have been acting. 

Because I had never been hit by it myself before, it seems I underestimated Ast’s wooden bat.

“That story means… Your item was treated as a cursed weapon because it was so powerful?”

“No. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

“Are they not the Religion of Peace? Why is the saint so bloodthirsty?!”

“She must have judged that the item you made was that dangerous.”

After hesitating for a while, Ast sighed with concern.

“Anyway, this happened because of me. So I will resolve it.”

“How?”

“Could you… Bring the saint to me? I will prove my innocence to her.”

Upon Ast’s words, I replied okay and somehow brought the still enraged saint before Ast.

“Alright, prove your innocence.”

And in front of more than 10 holy knights and less than 100 priests.

As Ast was about to open his mouth, looking straight at the saint.

“He’s an evil man! Kill him!” 

“Ah, the saint is having another episode!”

“She’s drawing her sword! Stop her!”

Seeing the saint being dragged away after taking the initiative to pull out her sword,

“Oh… Is she really trying to kill me?”

Even the Greatest cunning man in the World, Ast was slightly discouraged.

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