<h4>Volume 1 Chapter 5: Chance Encounter with the Forces of Light</h4>


    Trantor: The Light


    Edits by AstralTempest


    “And that was the events that had happened, mesdames.”


    “Alright Mercedes, you may leave. Oh and give mymand; Adrian is to be the chief judge of the newly built Bierbam court; Clement will be appointed the peerage of Dark Baron and given the fief of Tanade. As for Maltz, he is to be promoted to the Warden general for his merits in interrogation.


    “Thank youdy Be, I thank the mesdames in ce of those three; your servant shall leave now.” Mercedes exited the room with a bow.


    Be was currently enjoying breakfast with the girls, of course, Rnd and Annie were also present; they were ced to either side of Be, asionally Be would reach over and take advantage of them; they were still extremely shy, but they no longer struggled as they knew that to do so would just encourage Be further.


    “Rnd, my little treasure, have some milk; it’s freshly squeezed from the farm! Drink more, it’s good for your body’s development.” As she looked at Rnd’s frightened face, Be snickered as she forced a cup of milk down Rnd’s throat; Rnd had wanted to turn her head to the side but Be had held her head with one hand, rendering Rnd unable to move her head.


    “Are you still at odds with me? You should give in already.” Be didn’t really care for the struggling girl in her hands, she just continued to force milk down her throat; by the fourth cup, Rnd had stopped struggling. Annie was scared by the scene that was unfolding beside her and looked away; when it was her turn to be fed milk by Be, she chose not to struggle unlike her childhood friend and quietly let Be pour the milk down her throat.


    “Sister, when can you let me feel it too? These two sisters seem to really enjoy it!”


    “Sister, this ritual has to be repeated every day? What’s the theory behind it, can you let me try it too?”


    “*cough* Angel and Mia, you two should hurry up and finish breakfast, it won’t taste good anymore when it’s cold. We’ll leave this topic for another time.”


    Be changed the topic as there was something more important to discuss. ording to Maltz’s interrogation of Adris, there exists an ancient underground pce below the resting ce; the pce was where he found the strange tools and the books from which he learned the rope techniques.


    Last night her subordinate, Adrian had already led a bunch of fodder to scout ahead; the leader was Annie’s fiance, it was hitting two birds with one stone for Be right now. It would make thing less annoying for Be if he were to die there.


    “But Be, ording to the report the path is heavily trapped and very dangerous; even that old zombie himself doesn’t know how many traps there are. We should also send some fodder to scout a path.”


    “There’s no need Dolores, there is already ready-made fodder at the scene; you’ll know when we get there. Get Mercedes to arrange for all our troops on the western border to gather in front of the resting ce; oh, and also call my three strongest subordinates as well.”


    “???Skeleton King??? Fred is in the area, but ???Shadow Demon??? Tanpur and ???Skeletal Dragon??? Brant is pretty far. Are you sure you want to call those two as well?”


    “Yes, tell them to leave their maters to their own subordinates and hurry here; or else Fred will receive all merit and rewards after.”


    “Ok, I’ll have monsters send messages to those two.”


    After she finally finished all her arrangements, Be let out a long breath. She looked to the fearful Annie and Rnd, kissed each of them on the cheek, and took out the ck blindfolds.


    “You two wait for me here, don’t try to run~. Sleep for a while and I’ll be back to adore you girls when you wake up.”


    After she blindfolded the two girls, Be fed them a sedative fruit syrup and the two of them fell asleep no long after; Be ced the two sleeping girls in her own room and tucked them in.


    ___


    Adris resting ce, Be had led a raid on this location previously, there should have been no more zombies, but there was arge number of fresh zombies that seem to have only died recently. Currently, a party of several dozen people were having some difficulty exploring.


    This party was mostly made up of golden armoured cavalry, with a few people dressed in priest garbs. They were currently engaged in heatedbat with the zombies, because of the fact that they were mounted along with the priest’s blessings; theparatively small party made their way through the sea of zombies rather easily, with none of them showing panic on their faces.


    “Hayley sister, these zombies are the guard regiment that my brother Sidney took with him yesterday; did he turn into one too?”


    “nor, when did you start caring so much about your useless big brother? I’ve never noticed that you two had such deep sibling connections?”


    The Church of Light’s 2nd holy maiden, Alicia Hayley, poked fun at the female knight that was cutting down zombies in front of her.


    “I don’t care about that dumb brother of mine, his life or death has nothing to do with me. If he didn’t take my personal knight squadron with himst night, I wouldn’t be here in this crappy ce!” Stuart Eleanor swung the sword in her hand, several red shes of ???Jian Qi??? flew out of its de and immediately shredded the zombies ahead of her; the whole process was as flowing as water, with no opening at all to be found.


    Eleanor was fuming, while she was sleeping at night; her brother Sidney took her personal female knight corp with him. Those knights were like sisters to her, chosen from the friends that she had yed with since they were mere children; the rtionship between them and Eleanor had exceeded mere subordinates and superior.


    Eleanor didn’t care for Sidney whatsoever, the Stuart family didn’t have a lot of daughters, but they did have a lot of sons; even if Sidney was dead, their father would be able to pick a new sessor from the pile of brothers that they had. But those knights of hers were irreceable, everyone lost would be one lost forever.


    Eleanor left together with her brother Sidney; him to apany his fiance, her to meet with her good friend Randall Rnd, to discuss which knight school they would attend together; after they graduated from their current academies in three months. They had just met up for a while when she heard that another one of her good friends, Hayley, was also in the county patrolling with the church’s knights.


    Sidney was unusually enthusiastic about getting Eleanor to visit Hayley, saying that the four great families should pay their respects to the Church; she couldn’t hold against her shameless brother’s endless persuasion and temporarily left Sidney’s group for a while. Then her brother got into some big trouble, getting his Fiance Annie, and her good friend Rnd lost in this creepy ce.


    If she knew that this was going to happen, she would have followed Rnd and them. Eleanor regretted listening to that stupid brother of hers, she held the title of ???Rose Knight??? not only because of her beauty but her cultivation was already on the level of a holy knight, she would get her official recognition as one after she went to the knight academy.


    “Eleanor, you don’t have to me yourself; the God of Light won’t abandon anyone that believes in her, I believe that Rnd and Annie are safe and well.”


    “Hayley, you don’t have tofort me. If only I was there...I definitely would not have let them get taken by zombies.” Eleanor said confidently. She was one of the Octavian Empire’s(Knights) Four Beauty Knights, even Rnd wasn’t strong enough to be one.


    Hayley was inclined to agree with her friend, she didn’t believe that a holy knight would be stopped by this normal looking graveyard, but the sheer number of zombies there was definitely an annoyance. The two of them continued leading their party through the wave of zombies.


    ___


    “The fodder haven’t been wiped out yet? This...the level of fodder is so high?”


    Be’s group of four saw the party of knights fighting with zombies within Adris resting ce from quite a bit away; the fancy armour with its decorations and the familiar designs on their g gave away their identity as knights of the church. Be hadn’t expected that the forces of light would arrive so fast.???


    “There are three holy knights there, one...pseudo dragon knight, and a high priest. Those other knights should all be on the level of elite knights.” Dolores, as a princess of the demon empires, hadrge amounts of experience with human armies, she could approximate the levels of this human party.


    “More holy knights, are they not worth money anymore? We’ve already encountered so many.”


    Dolores was unable to answer Be’s questions; During her time back at the demon continent, there weren’t any records of this many knights, but it seemed like their intel was off.


    Be continued to observe, she saw a red-headed female knight who stood out even amongst the elite knights of the church. Be scanned Felia’s memories, that red-head girl should be the 2nddy of the Stuart house with the title of ???Rose Knight???, Stuart Eleanor.


    Behind Eleanor stood a girl in white priest robes, she should be the Church of Light’s 2nd holy maiden; her signature snow-white hair was easily recognizable, at the ceremony where Felia had be a recognized holy knight, it was this holy maiden who had blessed her.


    “Dolores, would you be able to win against this group?”


    “Apart from the youth that seems to be a pseudo dragon knight who might be a bit of a problem, the rest could be easily dealt with. Do you need me to fight? None of those three holy knights can beat me one on one.”


    As she looked at Dolores’ eager face, Be remembered that the girl in front of her was a princess of the demon continent; Dolores hasn’t had the chance to show her skill inbat after bing one of Be’s followers. Her power should be equal to that of a low tier dragon knight, a newbie dragon knight without a mount would not be able to beat her.


    “Don’t mind them, we’ll walk the other way.” Be decided to give up the thought of having contact with the Church’s knights; if anyone in that party recognized her, it would be an annoyance as she would be forced silence them.


    “Miss Hayley, there are other people approaching. They seem to be ordinary adventurers, there are only four of them.”


    “A party of four? They entered this nightmarish ce with on four people?” Hayley looked into the distance as she listened to her subordinate’s report; there were four figures pressing into the mass of zombies.


    Both Be and Dolores were d in a knight’s attire. But none of them brought a mount. Be’s armour was jet ck while Dolores’ was a very dark purple; they seemed to be specially designed and crafted.


    As for weapons, none of them brought ance or shield; Be had a jet ck sword and the dark red gauntlets on her hands. Dolores’ weapons were evidently the half meter long steel ws affixed to her gauntlets.


    “Dark Gold, isn’t this a material that is only produced by areas with lots of monsters? How do these two female warriors have a full suit of it? It’s not something that you can buy with money.” Eleanor’s shock showed on her face as she looked at the two knights in the distance, it was her first time seeing dark gold in person.


    As for the two lolis that followed behind them, they each wore an eyepatch as well as gothic lolita attire; with Angel’s being dark blue and Mia’s being dark red. They didn’t carry any visible weapons, Angel clutched a bandaged teddy bear while Mia carried a ck tome.


    Thisbination seemed weird to the Church’s knights as the two lolis didn’t seem to have anybat abilities; they looked more like two nobledies that came out to y, apanied by their bodyguards, they did not resemble an adventurer party at all.


    Eleanor was worried about them, as there were only four of them, with two being little girls; in her eyes, it would be only a matter of time before they would be enveloped and torn to shreds by the zombie horde.


    “I don’t think you should go Eleanor, look; the zombies are scared to approach them” After Hayley called attention to it, Eleanor realised that the zombies in the vicinity of those four did not approach them, as if they were wary of something.


    It seemed that these zombies still had some human instincts, including that of being scared of demons; not to mention the fearful demon aura that Dolores gave off as a demon princess. They weren’t willing to fight with Be’s group because of this.


    Eleanor decided not to listen to Hayley’s advice; out of curiosity she dashed to the side of Be’s group with a Knight’s charge.


    “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous here, you should leave!”


    “Er, we’re here to raid the crypt for riches; are the Church’s knights going to interfere with this?”


    Be noticed the observant red pupils that had been studying her, and lied. But she couldn’t help but take a few more nces as Eleanor’s body was only a little bit less voluptuous than Dolores’; the title of ‘Rose Knight’ was definitely well deserved.


    “This..I want to hire you girls, my elder brother identally entered this ce and we’re trying to find him; we’re not very familiar with theyout of this ce, so...”


    “You could hire us, but it seems that your friend doesn’t really wee us; we’ll take our leave here. Miss Eleanor, I advise you to not enter this area.”


    ‘No problem, as a holy knight there isn’t anything that I’m scared of. Wait... how do you know my name...”


    Eleanor was about to continue asking, but she discovered that the four of them had already left her behind, she was about to catch up to them but was pushed back to the location of the Church’s knights by the zombies that had surged forth to fill the path that they had opened for Be.


    Be’s group walked towards the entrance of the crypt, the zombies parted a path for her, as if they were her subordinates. Be’s advice to Eleanor was from the kindness of her heart; as she had seen her eagerness to help others.


    They learned from Duke Adris during his interrogation that his perverted smoke came from the depths of this crypt, there may be traps inside that use it. As for whether or not Eleanor listened to Be’s advice, it was up to her.