Chapter 47: The Knight Who Hunted the Dragon

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Dagonite's performance as a knight attendant was not ideal.

But after all, it also gave him a position as a retainer of a local lord in Cornwall.

On the day of selecting retainers, Dagonite stood out with the loudest voice in the crowd and became one of the loyal knight attendants that the lord first picked.

Delighted to have secured his iron rice bowl, Dagonite loudly repeated to his master all day the words "I will swear deathless loyalty to you" on the day he was taken away among the youths.

After that,

He was then sent to the stables, where he spent each day with the pack horses used to carry goods.

However, Dagonite did not see this as a disgrace, but as an honorable mission assigned to him by the lord,

Every day he cleaned several pack horses until they were spotless, even though, due to the church's influence, these horses were rarely used.

When no one was paying attention, Dagonite would mount the feeble pack horse, pick up a tree branch as a lance, and practice charging.

But even without the slightest slack, he trained hard every day without rest,

The other youths who became attendants at the same time as him, in his envious eyes, each became a true professional knight—some heading to the battlefield, some to the big city, some to a fiefed village to live better lives.

Each time, he would take out his notebook and carefully ask each knight-companion for advice, meticulously noting all their experiences when they were promoted to knight, and thus understood the three elements required to become a knight.

Loyalty, courage, and justice!

But Dagonite still did not become a knight.

He thought it must be because he lacked loyalty, courage, and justice.

Thus, every day thereafter, he carved these words into the wooden rails of the stables, wrote them on his palms, and whenever the lord passed by, he performed the most devout and standard knight's salute, loudly swearing his allegiance.

Year after year.

Dagonite still had not become a knight, but because of his efforts and his loyal conduct, the lord made an exception to let him join his personal guard, and held him up as a model for the guard, praising him.

Thus,

On the day the new year arrived that year,

Although Dagonite had clearly not become a knight and possessed no knightly power, he was about to receive from the lord an extraordinary grant of the title of knight.

Dagonite's investiture ceremony was held that same day; the lord summoned the manor's subjects and announced the news to them.

That day,

Dagonite half-kneeled on the platform, lifting his head to look at his master with an expression of utmost sincerity and devotion, almost in tears.

The ceremony quickly proceeded to the step where the lord bestowed a sword upon Dagonite,

Dagonite, filled with an excitement he had never felt before, raised both his hands as if offering them to the body of Christ, waiting for the moment the sword would fall into his grasp.

Then,

——Boom!!!

A thunderous roar echoed across the ceremony site.

Dagonite heard the lord shouting at the top of his voice: "Guard the lord! Guard the lord!"

"Quick, kill that beast for me!"

"Deaf, are you deaf!? Dagonite!"

Dagonite hesitated not, rose to his feet, snatched the sword from the lord's hand, and with a long stride mounted the pack horse that the lord had had him feed for three years!

He drew his sword, struck the pack horse's rump with all his might, his whole body shaking like a sieve, eyes shut tight as he shouted loudly:

"What what!"

"You evil dragon! How dare you harm my lord!"

"I, Dagonite, swear I will kill you!"

The pack horse surged forward at a speed never before seen!

All the way, he leapt down from the platform, burst through the crowd, knocked over stalls in the domain, and stepped on the scattered oranges, splashing juice everywhere!

He broke out of the ceremony site, broke out of the village, broke out of the manor,

and kept charging until the surroundings fell silent except for the birds' chirping.

Dagonite opened his eyes,

and found himself in a forest tens of kilometers away.

At that moment,

he realized that he had finally become the professional knight he had always pursued.

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"Dagonite has neither talent nor the firm will of his peers."

"Relying on his slick personality, he slipped into the lord's guard,"

"yet when protecting the lord, the thought of fear arose."

"I thought what frightened me and made me flee under the pretense of chasing was a dragon, but in fact it was merely a wild boar."

"By the time I realized my mistake, felt remorse, and turned back to the territory, the lord to whom I had sworn loyalty died right before my eyes."

Saying this, Dagonite lowered his head in dejection and gave a self-mocking laugh.

After hearing this story, Su Ya didn't know how to evaluate it for a while, and could only pat him on the shoulder.

"Dagonite, you're not wrong; fear is human nature."

"Well then, that wild boar—did you take care of it?"

Dagonite shook his head and sighed:

"I've been chasing that wild boar for over ten years, serving more than ten monarchs in the process, yet it still got away. Using Sir Ecto's intelligence channels, I investigated and found that the fellow is probably in Canterbury now."

Hearing this, Su Ya couldn't help but raise his eyebrows,

To have a master‑level knight spend over ten years hunting a wild boar that's still alive and kicking—what breed, what level of boar is that?

Moreover, although this story sounds like the confession of a coward, it seems to hint at something off everywhere.

At that moment, Dagonite shook his head and returned to the subject.

"The utmost emotion can be transformed into the fiercest flame, igniting the battle crest and opening the gate to the professional tier, even if it is 【fear】, an emotion that makes people feel disgusted."

"This emotion made me a high-level cavalry."

"The battle crest that burned after being ignited left a mark of 【emblem】 on my body—something I regard as shameful, yet it has saved my life countless times in danger—"

Dagonite slowly raised his hand, removed his gauntlet, and showed Su Ya the black pattern on the back of his hand.

It was a pattern of a torch raised high.

"The name of this emblem is—"

"【Shadow Vanish】."

Su Ya stared at the emblem's pattern and curiously asked, "Is this the combat technique you want to teach me?"

"No."

"My liege, each person's ignited battle crest burns into a different emblem, depending on the choice made at that moment and one's mindset."

"This emblem, at the high-level warrior tier, is called Emblem Combat Technique; at the master tier, it is called a special expertise; at the hero tier, it is called an innate ability; at the legendary tier, it is called a mind‑world."

In short, it is something that keeps growing as you grow.

By this point, the gloomy night sky had already begun to show the pale white of dawn.

Dagonite stood up and spoke:

"Lu Kan sent me here to tell you how to obtain this ability."

"And to tell you the path we will have you walk from now on."

Su Ya blinked: "My path?"

"We will no longer teach you combat techniques; all your techniques must be learned by your own observation. Your future direction—whether you live or die, become a swordsman or an assassin or anything else—is entirely up to you to decide."

"The path of a king is not for subjects to interfere!"

"Besides,"

Dagonite suddenly gave a hehe laugh and simultaneously translated:

"Limited to this morning's meal, all the food that little brat eats from now on must be obtained by his own combat hunting. Otherwise, let him starve."

"These are Lu Kan's exact words."

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(End of chapter)