Chapter 289: Cyril (New Year, Begging for Tickets)

In Herbert's previous life, there was a very famous joke.

The gist of it was that a famous figure came face to face with someone else on a road that only allowed one person to pass.

The other party expressed their contempt and declared that they never gave way to fools.

But that famous person merely smiled slightly and said that they were exactly the opposite.

If this were in school, the teacher might say this story reflects that famous person's grace and humor, cleverly defusing the awkwardness.

But if Herbert were the one telling it… it absolutely wasn't like that at all.

Herbert had said it that way just now purely to make this young fellow, who was filled with inexplicable hostility toward him, angry.

I was being purely passive-aggressive.

I confess, I said it just to make you angry.

And judging from Cyril's reaction that followed, Herbert had clearly succeeded.

"What nonsense are you spouting?"

Cyril quickly caught the mockery and teasing in Herbert's words, and felt his cheeks instantly turn scorching hot.

He glared furiously at Herbert's back, and slapped his hand onto the sword hilt.

However, although the muscles in his forearm bulged, the blade was not drawn.

Was it the guilty conscience of knowing he was in the wrong?

Or the caution of knowing he couldn't win?

Or perhaps… fear?

Herbert felt the fury behind him that dared to be angry and speak out but not dare to act, and the smile at the corner of his mouth grew even brighter.

He tilted his head slightly, looked up, and flashed a "friendly" brilliant smile at the other party.

"Heh heh."

After entering the training ground, Herbert had already recognized this youth.

He was also a famous person.

Herbert actually had some impression of this youth's background and origins; even he had heard the stories about him.

Cyril Anvil.

Having just turned nineteen, he had a head of messy black short hair and pitch-black eyes.

Although his height wasn't outstanding, he had an extremely burly build, especially those bronze arms with their knotted muscles, as if infused with the strength of nine dragons.

It's just a pity that his head wasn't pointy.

As the young son of a blacksmith oppressed by nobles, he could almost be seen as the standard protagonist template of a commoner-born holy knight.

Cyril was born in a remote rural duchy; his mother died early, and his father single-handedly and with great difficulty raised two sons.

Life at that time was extremely harsh; that greedy noble's exploitation of his vassals had already reached the extreme.

The harvests grew worse year by year, and the taxes grew higher year by year.

In the end, even craftsmen like blacksmiths, who ought to have had stable lives, found it very hard to live normally, let alone with Cyril's father also raising two half-grown sons.

Fortunately, Cyril's elder brother picked up the hammer, helping their father shoulder part of the work and raising efficiency once again.

Otherwise, Cyril would have starved to death back when he was four.

But the good times did not last; under the endlessly spreading greedy desires of the lord, even that kind of life could not be maintained.

After only a short five years, Cyril's father's body completely collapsed from the high-intensity work and weakness.

He died, and after dedicating his whole life to the lord, he met his tragic end.

But that wasn't the end of it.

On the seventh day after his father's death, Cyril's elder brother likewise collapsed beside the furnace.

Over-exhausted, he fell headfirst into the furnace and was burned to death by the raging flames.

Thus, at the age of nine, after his father and elder brother died one after another from overwork, Cyril became an orphan.

And after burying his brother's remains alone, Cyril finally exploded.

Under the intense stimulus of parting with his loved ones, he actually awakened a special power.

Perhaps it was an atavism of bloodline, or perhaps the pity of the gods, Cyril gained the power he had long dreamed of.

He became a professional, and obtained several times the strength of an ordinary person.

No other fancy abilities — it was pure strength.

The hammer he could once barely lift now felt as light as a wooden stick in his hands.

Relying on that strength, he could actually easily smash through plate armor with a warhammer!

So then, here comes the question.

When a bullied and persecuted person suddenly possesses extraordinary power, what will happen?

Revenge.

Thus, on the night the blood moon descended ten years ago, Cyril single-handedly slaughtered his way through the entire lord's manor.

That lord, who was so stingy he wouldn't let go of a single copper coin, forgot one most important thing — he had not treated the people around him well.

When Cyril arrived, those guards who ought to have been loyal to their duty decisively chose to flee for their lives in the face of life-and-death crisis.

Using the iron hammer left behind by his father and brother, Cyril smashed that greedily evil noble and his descendants' bloodline, every last one of them, into mincemeat, one hammer blow at a time.

One hammer blow at a time, not one left alive.

The noble had not given his father and brother a way to live, so Cyril also did not spare the noble's children and wives a path to survival.

And just as Cyril was about to swing his warhammer in hatred at the innocent by extension, someone finally stopped him.

Just as Cyril was on the verge of going mad and becoming a lunatic, he was fortunate enough to run into a knightly order passing through the area.

No, it wasn't passing through; the knightly order itself had received a request from a fleeing vassal and led a team to come destroy this evil noble.

It was just that they had still arrived one step too late, failing to save Cyril and his family.

The story after that was already quite cliché and ordinary.

Cyril was smoothly taken in and adopted by the monastery, changed his way of thinking, and was trained into a qualified Holy Knight.

He pitied the suffering victims of persecution, and would spare no effort to fight for everything they should have rightfully obtained.

However, perhaps he wasn't entirely qualified either.

Cyril held an excessively obsessive disgust and hatred toward the nobility, to the point of being somewhat unreasonable.

Even cultivator colleagues of noble birth, he despised just the same.

Although it didn't come to outright violence, he often had very stiff clashes with others.

Hatred.

This hatred did not affect Cyril's faith; on the contrary, it made his will even firmer, because it was precisely by relying on this hatred that he had reached where he was today.

At the same time, his innate talent was also rather outstanding.

From awakening as a professional at the age of nine, he crossed into a high-tier realm in just a short ten years.

Compared to Herbert, this time was very slow, but for everyone else, this was extremely fast!

Humble origins, tragic experiences, plus talent, strength, and faith… Cyril had almost gotten his hands on the old-fashioned protagonist's script.

He very naturally became a hope for the commoner faction of cultivators throughout the entire Mist Monastery.

Before Herbert came to the Mist Monastery, Cyril had been placed with high hopes; some cultivators considered him the outstanding one among the younger generation.

It was even said that he might become the next generation's leading figure in the future, with a certain probability of becoming the new Knight Commander.

The current two Cardinals — the Inquisitor was of commoner origin, and although the Knight Commander did not lean on the noble issue, he still could not conceal his own origins.

If the Knight Commander were also succeeded by a new Holy Knight of commoner origin, then they would be thoroughly satisfied.

Where there are people, there is the jianghu.

Although cultivators did not have too many worldly desires, they still had their own respective persistence on this issue.

Although Cyril was the most outstanding, people like him were not the only one; there were quite a few similar "geniuses" in the monastery.

They usually competed with one another, and also mutually inspired and chased after each other.

But all of this had already become old almanacs.

After Herbert appeared, the situation underwent a subtle change.

After a month of silent endurance, Herbert, this "incompetent and foolish noble scion," suddenly became like a completely different person.

From the perspective of Cyril and the others, Herbert was like a sinister venomous snake, finally revealing his sharp fangs after hiding for a month.

Herbert displayed his extremely sharp edge!

At the beginning, it only made Cyril and the others feel a sense of crisis, thinking that yet another competitor had appeared.

But very soon, everything became different.

Stepping into a high-tier realm in just over a month, easily taming a legendary giant dragon, blood-purging evil nobles, reshaping order for a nation…

Especially when Herbert returned in great victory from the Frost Crystal Dynasty, everyone shut their mouths.

At that moment, when he stepped into the monastery with his imposing presence, Cyril and the others even felt as if they were seeing a dazzling blazing sun.

The radiance Herbert unconsciously emanated easily overwhelmed the firefly-like glow emitted by those once highly-hoped-for geniuses like Cyril and the others.

Dreams, shattered.

And as the person involved, Herbert hadn't even really paid much attention to their existence.

The strong never care about the wailing of the weak.

It wasn't until seeing Cyril's angry resistance this time that Herbert realized his sudden appearance had probably rewritten many people's original scripts.

If Herbert hadn't appeared, then Cyril would have been the proper protagonist, with a bright future ahead.

But Herbert came anyway, seizing the identity, status, and expectations that "should have belonged to Cyril."

And regarding the resentment born from this situation, Herbert could only silently shake his head.

So what?

Even without Herbert, there would still be some Gus, Duncan, Ian, Elvis… there would always be other more outstanding geniuses appearing.

Someone said: "All the unfairness in this world is due to the parties' insufficient ability."

Although this saying may not necessarily be correct, it does indeed hold some truth.

Rather than holding oneself here and weeping, complaining about the injustice of fate, it is better to strive to resist.

Perhaps precisely because of this layer of connection, Cyril would so openly defy Bishop Rusty Nail's arrangement in front of everyone — although Herbert still didn't know what the specific mission was.

Herbert's side was calm, but the mocked Cyril was quite furious.

He suddenly forgot why he had been mocked in the first place, glaring at Herbert and clenching his teeth hard.

"You! You this…"

And Herbert then brought out the Internet's Six Arts, saying faintly: "Look, getting worked up again."

Cyril:!!?

"Alright, quiet."

In the end, the Knight Commander's coldly indifferent voice as usual suppressed everything, restoring Cyril's calm.

This Cardinal, whose entire body was pierced with rusty nails, was quite composed.

He paid no heed to Cyril's earlier protest, nor to Herbert's adding fuel to the fire, but instead cast his gaze toward the two prisoners behind Herbert.

After seeing Elisha's somewhat guilty look, he took a special look at Svanhild, who had wrapped her entire body up.

In the end, he only returned his gaze to Herbert, but his expression and eyes showed no change either.

In Herbert's words, this Knight Commander had always been pulling a stern face… ahem, looking very intense, and also very good at seizing other people's mommas.

After everyone had quieted down, Bishop Rusty Nail slowly said: "What you are to carry out is the Watcher's mission."

"I need you to go into the Shadow Lands and gather specific materials. It's a mission, and also a dangerous trial."

"For every trial of yours, the Monastery will arrange a protector to accompany you. This time, it will be Herbert and his companions."

After his cold explanation, he added even more casually:

"You may choose to accept the arrangement and obey Herbert's commands."

"Or you may refuse and go alone. The choice is in your own hands."

In short — take it or leave it, and don't scream when you die.

This Knight Commander was not a cold-on-the-outside-warm-on-the-inside sort of person; his indifference was the same through and through.

He bore the duty that came with the position of Knight Commander, carrying out his responsibilities meticulously.

He was also unwilling to let an outstanding seed like Herbert face danger, and would worry when he was put at risk — but it was only worry, nothing more.

For now, only the Judge — that musclebound bald bastard — could truly rouse his emotions… making him genuinely furious enough to trade insults with the man.

"Hm? A mission from the Warden?" Herbert's eyes widened slightly at the words.

How could it be her mission?

And on top of that, she had to single him out by name to protect these people…

Herbert immediately thought of what he had asked Bishop Ashes earlier — she was the first to know what he planned to do next.

Bishop Ashes knew he was going to the Shadow Lands, so was that why she had specially arranged these people to travel with him?

But what's the point of dragging a bunch of dead weight along?

Though Herbert had many doubts in his heart, on the surface he still nodded at once, accepting the mission with a look of delight.

"Understood. I will protect everyone well and absolutely will not disappoint the Warden."

Since he couldn't refuse, he could only obediently enjoy it.

Bishop Ashes probably wasn't so childish as to deliberately saddle him with dead weight just to spite him… that kind of thing was something only Nie Nasha would do.

【"Hm? Hey!"】

Herbert casually flipped off the Trickster God and turned a deaf ear to His complaints, continuing to ponder the situation at hand.

"Which means Bishop Ashes arranging these people should be her own plan and arrangement."

"And since these people are coming along, we absolutely can't make a big show of entering. We need to find a way to keep a low profile and not be exposed."

No problem — Herbert and the others had originally planned to sneak into the village, guns silent.

Now it was just a few more companions, making the target a little bigger, that's all.

"Oh, this can actually serve as a layer of disguise too. Even if we're spotted, people will only think we're a group of Holy Knights here to cause trouble — they won't guess we're going to assassinate the Dark Elf Matriarch…"

As for the use of these people… ahem, how to disguise them — Herbert happened to think of a brilliant method.

"Disguising ourselves as a slave merchant's caravan and slaves seems like a pretty good choice!"

"Right!"

"And that Cyril — one look and he's perfect for disguising as a slave!"

Let me make this clear, this is absolutely not an abuse of power for personal gain!

It's really just that he's too perfectly suited for this kind of role.

(End of Chapter)