A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

After hearing the whole story, Aisia briefly forgot her fatigue and smiled.

She'd been irritable from the dwindling supplies.

The fact that a knight-at-arms had to personally step in just to bring back a few merchants was telling of how dire the situation was.

What an utterly inefficient way to handle things.

That was just the kind of city Thousand Brick was. Being a knight-at-arms didn’t give anyone the luxury of acting high and mighty here.

Even Aisia needed time to adjust to the place. The feeling she had when she saw Lady Oara hammering a nail in with the flat of her short sword—well, it was hard to put into words.

It was like watching someone plow a field with a holy sword.

And yet, Lady Oara smiled.

Brightly smiling Oara.

Oara, the Smiling One.

The Laughing Blade, Oara.

Oara, with a smile like sunlight.

Every nickname for Lady Oara seemed to follow the same theme.

She smiled easily and often.

Aisia had seen that smile once and immediately wrote a letter asking the capital to send a few craftsmen, then sent it off with a pigeon.

"You're the best. Handsome too. As expected."

Aisia banished her thoughts and gave a thumbs up as she spoke.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"A Lady Oara-style compliment."

Aisia seemed to have picked up a sense of humor along the way. Enkrid listened as she filled him in on what else needed to be handled besides Jack the Blade.

Apparently, one of the deserters had joined forces with a heretic and founded a new religion—a full-blown cult now.

Aisia mentioned the cult leader had been holed up for about two years already, and judging by its size, she was sure a heretic bishop had a hand in it.

“I want to run over there and kill the bastard right now, but if a wave hits while Lady Oara’s away, we’re finished.”

That same reason kept Aisia from leaving too.

The harpies and monsters would poke at the city here and there, and if anyone left their post, a deadly raid could happen at any moment.

That’s why Enkrid’s arrival was so welcome.

Still, this wasn’t a simple battle. It was a pursuit. A hunt. A drawn-out fight. So Aisia wasn’t overly optimistic.

The cult leader was incredibly fast, always on the run. If he weren’t, she would’ve clenched her teeth, carved out the time, and killed him herself by now.

Honestly, if Enkrid hadn’t come, she would’ve found a chance to go end the bastard herself.

He wasn’t even some proper bishop of a dark cult—just a jumped-up lunatic calling himself a prophet or god. The kind Aisia could slit the throat of and be back by lunchtime.

Enkrid asked a few more questions.

Where the colony was located, its size, the traits of the cultists.

Aisia answered what she could.