The people Al met this time were indeed acquaintances he had met once before.
That knight leader with the two red stripes carved on his black armor.
Along with several attendant squad members, all fully armed in heavy "tin-can" armor. The color scheme was black, white, and gray, looking like a minimalist, highly efficient majesty.
Their silent demeanor and vigorous, decisive actions allowed one to intuitively feel their superb combat prowess. If they changed into sci-fi gear, they would look extremely similar to those superhuman warriors from a certain 40k universe.
Al really liked the aura they projected and eagerly desired to accept these warriors under his command.
The red-striped knight remained as vigorous and decisive as ever. Led by the bodyguards, he walked to the place where Al received them, then directly unhooked his sword, knelt on one knee, held it in his hands, and presented the weapon to Al.
"?"
This scene looked familiar.
The boy was momentarily dazed, recalling the hallucination he saw when the Green Knight snatched him away.
"Why perform such a grand gesture?"
Al did not step aside or refuse. Standing calmly amidst the cluster of his bodyguards, he asked with a stern voice.
The red-striped knight did not rise. The attendants behind him also knelt on one knee, their right arms resting across their right knees, heads bowed.
This posture of fealty gave Al a slight sense of secret satisfaction. The leader of the knights, that red-striped knight, spoke with a muffled male voice from behind his visor:
"Previously, we went to fulfill our vows. Subsequently, the Goddess guided us here, to perfect our virtues."
He held up the longsword in his hands, head bowed, revealing loyalty amidst his silent majesty.
Al felt as if the bloodline inheritance from the distant, other-world Cathay—already mixed with an unknown amount of power and blessings within his body—was about to awaken.
He was just about to step forward quickly and help the red-striped knight up.
"To gain a general today, it is truly like a tiger growing wings!"
"A fine, robust warrior! Bestow upon him a shoulder of pork!" [Reference to Fan Kuai in Romance of the Three Kingdoms]
It wasn't until the centaur girl with a cold face hooked her fingertips into the gaps of his armor and pulled him back slightly that he coughed and realized something was wrong.
"I do not understand what you mean by 'fulfill our vows' and 'perfect our virtues'."
"If you intend to join the tribe and fight with us against the Greenskins and other threats to the mortal realm, I welcome all friends who come sincerely."
Although during that sudden accident, Lileath had dispatched her suspected (or outright) loyal lackey, Bretonnia's number one simp, an incredibly strong fighter who had probably killed more Bretonnian knights walking the path of the Grail Quest than he had monsters (just kidding):
The Founder of Bretonnia, Gilles.
The Green Knight.
After he abducted Al like a human trafficker kidnapping a little boy, the Reveler mockingly said [You have gained another mother], and the message sent by the All-Knowing Mom conveyed a simple and clear fact to Al:
That green tea Goddess—whose stance is very hard to define as either destroying the world or saving it, Chaos or Order, who holds the titles of Fay Enchantress, Goddess of Mists Ladrielle, Moon Maiden, and many other sockpuppets and titles—the Lady Lileath, intended to buy shares in Al's enterprise.
The brand was the mark; Al already possessed Lileath's blessing.
But perhaps because a certain audacious boy was furious at the time, failed to control his emotions, drew his sword at the sky, and angrily scolded Lileath—who originally wanted to stage an epic drama with her soon-to-be-acknowledged son, playing out a scene like "The End Times approaches, Goddess teach me!" "Today, favored by the Goddess, I am willing to acknowledge the Goddess as my adoptive mother!"—as:
"A witch playing with magical prophecies."
Making a certain Goddess, known as the Old World's biggest hypocrite, lose a lot of face. Although the brand was stamped on Al's body, due to the boy's disrespect, she gave him the cold shoulder for the time being. Who knows if she was silently lurking, secretly stirring up trouble in the background, planning to jump out when a major event occurred to establish the majesty of a Goddess and a mother before Al.
After all, even back during the Council of the Eight Winds in Athel Loren.
When her true face was exposed, questioned by a group of honest, straightforward people who had been deceived! lied to, and used for thousands of years—and whose souls were going to continue being used even after death—Lileath had never been humiliated right to her face.
"A witch playing with magical prophecies."
Al might not have realized it, but those words truly displeased Lileath immensely; in short, her defenses were broken.
And his four AFK lurking Mother Goddesses, who were secretly plotting who knows what grand schemes behind the scenes, were also clearly very displeased with Lileath's behavior of encountering a potential blue-chip stock and forcefully buying shares to squeeze onto the train halfway. They were also happy to see a little conflict between Al and Lileath, a display of "motherly love and filial piety," so they wouldn't explain the reasons to Al either.
Furthermore, Al had always viewed the fact that "your mom is Lileath" as a tragedy. Back when he suspected there was a Lileath sockpuppet among the Bloodmother or the Four Gods, the boy felt like the sky was going to fall.
Since that time, Al hadn't focused his attention on this. When it came to matters involving gods, he knew his arms and legs were scrawny; if the sky fell, he had his Four Mothers holding it up, so he didn't take it to heart. He had enough blessings and didn't lack this one for the time being, so he had just ignored it.
It wasn't until this group of formidable knights, whom he had previously interacted with and who left a deep impression on him, suddenly appeared again that he began to review that sudden, unexpected experience.
It was too much of a coincidence. Just after being branded by Lileath, he runs into a group of knights clearly from Bretonnia. If there was no connection between the two, Al would absolutely not believe it.
And here they are, the knights have come again.
The red-striped knight's voice sounded like a talking rock, unexpectedly giving people a feeling of trustworthiness. Even if he were an enemy, one wouldn't feel like they would hear a lie from this person's mouth.
"Previously, we were living in seclusion north of Carcassonne."
"The King of the Estalians was assassinated, and the mark of our Order was left at the scene. The Round Table Council was also summoning us, but we did not wish to get involved in this matter, so we ignored it."
Al nodded, then suddenly froze.
The mark of their Order was left at the scene...
"F-Fleur-de-lis, Sword, and Grail?!"
An Estalian officer—an early convert and outstanding devout follower of the Bloodmother, who believed the Goddess of War was cowardly and hypocritical, and that the Bloodmother was the true Lord of Hosts, the God of Power and Glory—cried out in shock at this moment.
That silent assassination, whose consequences shook the heavens and earth, was something no Estalian could ignore, because it was the beginning of all these disasters.
The gloom of arguments, division, and civil war; the attacks, the Green Tide, the successive defeats...
Although the currently exhausted Estalians no longer had the energy to obsess over exactly whose handiwork that assassination was, and it seemed there was no need to obsess over it anymore, the matter involving the assassination of the City Prince still lingered as a shadow in the hearts of many.
The red-striped knight did not answer, whether out of pride or pure indifference.
"The Lady sent us a revelation earlier: If the Green Tide cannot be stopped, the subjugation of the Southern Realms will also shake the tranquility of Carcassonne. At the same time, if this unsolved case is not settled, it will inevitably become a stain upon us, which is detrimental to the future of Order."
"Thus, we traveled south from Manaan's dry dock (formerly Bordeleaux). Under the protection and guidance of the Mists, we settled the score for the shame planted upon us by that filthy race."
Having spoken, the red-striped knight remained motionless, maintaining the posture of holding up his sword.
Al couldn't help but ask: "What do you mean by 'settled the score'..."
An attendant knight took down a bundle hung behind his waist, which Al hadn't noticed. He untied the rope and threw it onto the ground.
The blood-soaked sack rolled over once, and out fell a head that made one feel uncomfortable at first glance. It couldn't exactly be called ugly, but it was incredibly evil, exuding a dangerous aura even in death.
A Skaven's head!
There was also a rope-like tail wrapped around its head. The tip of the tail, a sharp bone spur, was plunged into the Skaven's eye socket.
Al was stunned for a moment. That Estalian officer proactively stepped forward, ignoring the blood and gore to turn over and inspect the Skaven's head.
"A Master Assassin of Clan Eshin. Who knows what rank this assassin held. The Lady guided us to their hideout, along with Skaven Grey Seers and Warlock Engineers."
"When we found them, the Skaven were relocating an Undercity. We attacked the place, destroyed all their war machines, and killed all the warlocks... The Lady appeared and told us that the opportunity to perfect our virtues and re-establish order had revealed itself."
"Thus we came to this place. I offer my longsword to you. In the forging of the World of Virtue, we... shall be your longswords."
With perfectly synchronized movements, the knights drew their swords and plunged them into the ground.
"For the World of Virtue, your longswords."
Al: (⊙_⊙)?
Centaur Girl: (▼へ▼メ)
Bodyguards: (⊙o⊙)…