Published at 5th of August 2021 10:36 pm

Volume 2 Chapter 51: The Holy Country of Marineford

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

The three of them continued talking inside the office.

Cain tried thinking about what he knew about the Saint, and remembered the name of Meline, the wife of Yuuya, who had been the first king of Esfort.

“Right, Cain, you don’t know about other countries. Magna, explanation please.”

The King asked Prime Minister Magna to explain.

“It takes around a month to get from Esfort to the Holy Country of Marineford by carriage, heading south-west. It’s a country that spreads the teachings of the seven main gods of this world. They dispatch bishops and priests to each country to preach the teachings of the religion, which, by the way, is also our country’s state religion, to the masses. Unlike in countries with nobility, their king is called a ‘pope’, with a new one being elected when the previous one passes away. Under the pope, there are also cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and finally, priests, in that order, who all contribute to maintaining the operation of the country. Amongst them, a Saint is a woman who possesses the [Saint] title. When they receive their baptisms at five years old and notice the title, they’re taken away from their families to the country’s religious headquarters and raised with care. As for what she does, I don’t really know the details, but as she’s the only person in this world who has that title, even our country has to treat her with politeness.”

The king and Cain both nodded that they understood. The Prime Minister confirmed that Cain had indeed comprehended everything, then continued on.

“So, we’ll have you go to this country’s borders with the royal knights, and have you fulfil the role of bodyguard while she’s here in Esfort. You are a noble and, at the same time, an adventurer. Also, the Saint would probably find it quite stifling to be constantly surrounded by adults. Thus, Lady Silk and yourself will accompany her. Her Highness Princess Telestia will most likely have to wait for you here in the royal capital. Obviously, it would not befit the princess to accompany someone, whoever they might be. We’ll also make requests to other adventurers, so please meet up with them there.”

“– – – – might there be a chance I can refuse…?”

“… Cain, you think you can refuse? Stories about Drintor’s walls have already reached the royal capital. About how you built a wall not much smaller than the one here. Are you planning on founding a new country and starting a war with us… Didn’t you say you wouldn’t do something like that, and that I should not worry about it? See, I would not have had to interfere here if it were a matter of common sense… but, you are able to do unimaginable things. People everywhere are getting quite antsy, you know. However, naturally, the country is intending to send guards to help out, as well as craftsmen to help build all the buildings. Of course, money too.”

The king squinted at Cain, observing him. As Drintor was close by, the news had, unsurprisingly, been brought to the royal capital by merchants near immediately.

“Naturally, I have no intentions of doing so. However, there’s a forest full of monsters right next door. Apparently, those monsters have overflowed from the dungeons there in the past. Which is why I came up with countermeasures. Regarding the money, we will gratefully accept it, as I don’t know how long everything will take with just the citizens to work, and the territory’s pockets aren’t unendingly deep either.”

Cain tried to clear everything up, cold sweat trickling down his back.

“Well, then that’s good. Even if we went to war with each other, you alone would probably beat our country. So then, please be her bodyguard.”

“– – – – understood.”

Cain nodded his acceptance with a bitter smile, at the kings hard-to-dispute words.

After the meeting finished, Cain went home in the carriage while being bothered, his arms crossed.

During the summer holidays, he had been planning on going to the territory of Malbeek, the home of Silk’s parents and the territory of Leebert, the home of Tifana’s family.

“As I thought, I’ll have to fly over there once and then use [Transfer].”

Nobles were obligated to leave behind money in towns they passed through, however the two months the summer holidays lasted for didn’t leave enough time for Cain to be able to fulfil that obligation.

Cain decided to abandon his role as a noble, and travel only the shortest distance possible conventionally.

Returning to the mansion, Cain had a meeting with Koran.

Unsurprisingly, hearing that Cain was going to guard the Saint, Koran was exceptionally shocked.

“The Saint-sama, is it… There’s no way I wouldn’t be surprised. And then, you were chosen to be the Saint-sama’s bodyguard slash escort…”

“I didn’t really want to accept, but His Majesty told me he would send people to Drintor to help out, not to mention providing extra money, so I didn’t really have a choice in the end.”

Cain replied to Koran resignedly. He may have been registered as an A-Rank adventurer, but he didn’t have much experience with requests other than monster subjugation.

His first escort request would likely be a challenge. He could use [Search], so there shouldn’t be any problems, but he was still worried.

“I’ll be going to the Malbeek and Leebert territories this weekend to get points to transfer to later.”

“Understood.”

Cain sighed, smiling bitterly at his busy schedule.

The next day, during school, he was immediately approached by Teles and Silk.

They seemed to have already heard about him being assigned as the saint’s bodyguard.

“Cain-sama, I heard from father. To think you’d become the Saint’s bodyguard… I doubt anything will happen, but please do watch out. And then Silk is also to go with you… I asked father if I could go as well, but he refused.”

Telestia, upon hearing that Cain would be going to accompany Silk and the Saint, had also pleaded with the king to let her go as well, but she was refused, as ‘there is no way we can send a princess’.

Thanks to that, Telestia had been in a bad mood ever since the morning.

“It’s a pity you can’t come, Teles. I’ll be going with Cain-kun. He might not be coming to the territory of Malbeek, but going on a trip with Cain-kun will be nice.”

Hearing that, Telestia’s mood worsened even further, and she was now nearly scowling.

“If it’s just Malbeek, if I had a little more time, I might just be able to go. And although I can’t talk about it here in the school… and if we did that, Teles would be able to come with us too, perhaps.”

He was intending to go via transfer magic, but they were currently in a classroom, so naturally there were other students around. Cain thought that it should not be known that he could easily use the legendary transfer magic.

Hearing Cain’s words, Telestia’s expression relaxed.

“Cain-sama! Let’s have a tea party at the royal castle next week. Please tell me about it then! Definitely, okay!?”

Telestia demanded an answer, grabbing hold of Cain’s shoulders and shaking him violently.

“Yeahyeah I get it Teles, I’ll go to the royal castle next week. By the way, please let go of my shoulders, it kinda hurts…”

Noticing what she had just been doing with a “Huh?”, Teles blushed and then hid her face in her hands.

“Oh no, how could I…”

Then, the door opened, and in came the homeroom teacher.

“Hey hey, homeroom’s about to start, so sit down, you lot!”

Hearing the teacher’s voice, Telestia and Silk returned to their seats.

After having attended the two lessons before noon, as he didn’t have any lessons of specialized subjects in the afternoon, Cain went to the library.

He hadn’t had a chance to go there yet, but as it was the library of the academy in the royal capital, the place had acquired quite the number of books over the years.

He asked the librarian where he could find all the books he had deemed necessary, and then went to look for them.

The first book was about the continent’s geography. This world had maps, albeit not very detailed ones. Castles, towns, forests and roads weren’t that easy to map out, after all. There wasn’t much there about other countries other than ‘Here be dragons’. As it would be disadvantageous if the maps were leaked to other countries, so most maps had ended up being stored away in the academy’s library without even being sold.

Checking the map of Esfort, Cain confirmed the locations of the Malbeek and Leebert territories.

Next, he skimmed through a book on history, as he thought it necessary to look up the history of the Marineford religion and Holy Country.

Nearly 300 years ago, Yuuya and Cain’s parents were summoned by the Marineford Holy Country.

Due to the appearance of the evil god Aaron, all the countries waged war on each other, and a flood of monsters also occurred. Thus, the legendary jewels hidden in the Holy Country had then been put to use.

The jewels, given by the gods themselves and then hidden away, were apparently currently somewhere in the holy city, the home of the pope and the Saint.

The jewels apparently slowly accumulated the magical power in the atmosphere, and had been doing so for hundreds of years now.

Apparently, it was impossible for Cain to find out when the next summoning would be able to be carried out.

Only the pope, the Saint, and a select few of the highest-ranking cardinals were privy to that information.

“So there might come a time when people are summoned here again, just like mum and dad and Yuuya-san were…”

Thinking so, Cain finished reading and closed the book.

TN: I’ve been translating “マルビーク領” (Malbeek/Marveek/Marvik) as “Malpeque”, because both the first TL and the manga translated it as that, but the inaccuracy here is kinda starting to get on my nerves, so I’ll be changing “Malpeque” to “Malbeek”

Share