Chapter 179: Grail Knight

"Respected and noble guests, my master is currently performing evening prayers for the Lady, so I must trouble you to wait a while with some tea." The Count's butler seemed somewhat strange; the tailcoat he wore did not fit very well and was slightly tight around his belly.

His speech was also not very proper, with some elegant vocabulary mixed in with misused terms; he did not seem like a fellow of noble birth.

However, Sinuoli did not mind; it was a case of guests following the host's convenience anyway. After they waited for a moment, a tall and sturdy Human walked in from the back door.

Following his entry, the Humans present were fine, as they all had some status and it was not their first time seeing a Living Saint.

But the Dwarfs could not help but tense their muscles. Sinuoli narrowed his eyes slightly as he sized up Count Kairu; the Knight's body radiated an aura filled with strength, discipline, and faith.

"Greetings to you! Count!" Kangsitanting took the initiative to greet him.

"Things are going smoothly, young man!" Count Kairu nodded as he looked at the half-room full of Dwarfs.

"Our troops are passing through your lands, sorry for the disturbance!" Sinuoli also stood up to offer a greeting.

"This must be the legendary Prince Sinuoli, right? I have long heard of your virtues and valor! I believe that if you were a subject of Bretonnia, you would certainly have the opportunity to sip from the Lady's Grail!" Count Kairu's voice was loud and slow, appearing very imposing.

"Good fellow!" Sinuoli thought to himself, this Grail Knight really did not know how to speak, or rather, he displayed the pride inherent to Bretonnian nobles; of course, this might also be part of the reason he became a Grail Knight.

The room fell into a brief silence. Captain Gelunsen picked up the Warhammer that had been dragging on the floor; if Sinuoli showed any intention, he would be willing to test this Knight's skills.

"Hehehe, shall we eat together?" Fatisi stood up awkwardly to smooth things over. The Count's butler, whose professional standards were average, could probably not be counted on, so this matter could only be handled by him.

"Hmph! It is not your turn to speak, you Carcassonne sinner who drinks to excess and murdered your own brother!" The Grail Knight did not give any face at all; he directly pointed out the crimes Fatisi had committed in the past.

"Ever since I took the Crusade Vow, I have dedicated my body, my mind, and my soul to the Lady I pursue! Only He has the qualification to judge everything I am!" Fatisi Qishi had his sore spot exposed, but he could only stubbornly hold his ground.

However, this somewhat eased the tension that had originally filled the room. The group walked from the living room to the dining room further inside, and after they were seated according to rank, the food was brought up by the menservants.

Sinuoli poked at the meat chop on his plate. To him, the standard of this meal seemed somewhat meager, but he was not sure if this was the frugal style of the Grail Knight lord, if the year's harvest was poor, or if it was simply a lack of importance placed on it.

The oppressive atmosphere was finally broken by the Count himself. He asked about the situation along the way for Kangsitanting, and then complained a few times about the situation in his own territory.

Originally, the Kingdom Knights and Questing Knights under this Living Saint added up to a full company. With him as the arrowhead, setting up a lance formation might be an exaggeration to call invincible, but solving daily security problems within the territory was effortless.

But right now, let alone a company of Knights, even a company of Mounted Squires would be a struggle for Count Kairu to scrape together. He himself had reached the peak of both the knightly journey and the path of secular power, and was thus holding his post, but the Knights under his command still had their own pursuits!

Kangsitanting could do nothing to help with the Count's situation; was the Bo'erdeluo Gongguo not the same? Kangsitanting's father and brothers had all joined the great army serving the Lady, and under their call, the nobles within the duchy who believed in the Lady of the Lake had basically all sent out troops.

After promising to try and clear out any troublemakers along the way for the latter half of the journey, the banquet broke up in a hurry.

"How do you think you would fare against that Grail Knight?" Sinuoli asked the question he cared about most as soon as he walked out of the castle.

"If we had fought just now, I would have had full confidence in smashing that arrogant fellow's head! Even if he were to put on his family heirloom weapons or equipment blessed by the Lady of the Lake, he could not be my opponent in foot combat!"

Captain Gelunsen spoke with certainty, and Sinuoli believed it to be so. These were the most powerful group of Dwarf warriors in the Mountain Kingdom, and they were equipped with the best of the standard-issue gear. Sinuoli did not think a Count could pull out any weapons of exquisite quality or higher.

"However, that is a Knight, not infantry! If he were to mount a warhorse, I believe his horse would be no worse than that little brat Fatisi's, and then I would be in trouble!" Captain Gelunsen took a pinch of snuff and waved the Rune Hammer in his hand.

"This thing is very hard to use to defend against a charge!"

Sinuoli certainly understood; purebred Elf warhorses accelerated very quickly and had more stamina, allowing them to launch repeated charges. It was not as if they would fall into a melee after letting the first impact pass.

However, he mainly wanted to gauge their strength. In a real battle, no one would use Hammer Warriors to defend against a cavalry charge; at the very least, they would choose units equipped with Shields combined with ranged firepower to restrict them.

Because they were spending the night in a town with a Grail Knight lord, Sinuoli was not too worried about safety. After the troops rested peacefully for the night, they set off again.

The latter half of the journey was gradually approaching the duchy's capital, Bastogne, so security had improved. Near noon, Sinuoli saw a towering stone castle from afar.

"We can eat in the town below the castle!" Kangsitanting suggested. Moving residential areas outside of castles that served primarily military functions was a very common practice, as it facilitated management and also greatly improved issues like public hygiene.

With the increase in population, more and more Dukes chose to do this. In this dark age, most poor people hoped to gather together and live in places with sufficient military protection, and in the vast majority of cases, nothing was safer than a Duke's castle.

Sinuoli certainly agreed with this point; the Dwarf settlement in Bastogne was also outside the castle. He drove the army through the low walls of the town below the castle, where the atmosphere of the New Year's celebration still lingered.

It was mid-winter, and the new round of farming had not yet begun, so many temporarily idle Bretonnian people curiously sized up this Dwarf army.

In their short lives, they had never seen such a group of Dwarfs armed to the teeth; perhaps in their impression, Dwarfs were no more threatening than the Halflings from the Moot who often appeared as cooks.