Knight: from Apprentice to the Almighty

Roland shook his head helplessly. He stepped slowly into the cavern, approaching the blood-red figure.

He studied it for a long while. After confirming he wasn’t mistaken, he called out softly.

"Freddy? Freddy? Are you still alive?"

Before the words had even faded, the snoring stopped abruptly.

The blood-red figure jerked its head up, revealing sharp fangs at the corners of its mouth, its eyes filled with confusion.

"Ngh... Who? Who’s calling me..."

"It’s me, Freddy..."

Looking at the Beastman’s familiar and somewhat earnest and simple appearance, Roland’s mouth couldn’t help but twitch slightly.

The figure bound to the cross was none other than Freddy, the Beastman student from the Royal Capital Knight Academy whom Roland had met a few times and spoken with briefly.

"You... You are..."

Freddy struggled to open his drowsy eyes. He leaned closer, trying to make out Roland’s face.

The next moment, his hoarse voice suddenly shot up, becoming sharp and filled with pleasant surprise.

"Roland! Is that you, Mr. Roland?"

"That’s right, it’s me..."

Roland let out a soft sigh and said,

"Don’t move. I’ll figure out a way to get you down."

"O-Okay! Thank you, Mr. Roland!"

Freddy’s voice was filled with gratitude.

Several swift glints of silver light flashed through the dim cavern.

In an instant, the vines and rusted iron chains binding Freddy all snapped.

"THUD!"

With a muffled thud and a spray of dust, the unsupported Freddy fell heavily onto the damp ground.

But the fall was clearly not high enough to injure the thick-skinned Beastman.

He quickly scrambled up from the ground, patting the dust off himself with his large palms, and rushed excitedly over to Roland.

"I really... I really don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Roland..."

As always, Freddy was clumsy with his words. He stammered for a moment before finally opting for a deep bow, expressing his gratitude with the most direct action he could.

"Never mind that, Freddy."

Roland used both hands to firmly lift the Beastman by his broad shoulders.

"Are you hurt?"

When Freddy shook his head, Roland voiced the question on his mind.

"How did you... end up in a place like this?"

Although Roland couldn’t pinpoint their exact location, based on the small fishing village where they first landed, this place had to be in the easternmost region of the River Domain, practically on the opposite side of the continent from the Royal Capital.

It was hard to believe that this student from the Knight Academy would appear here.

Recalling their last conversation, Roland asked tentatively.

"Freddy, were you... expelled from the Knight Academy?"

"Expelled? No! No, no!"

The earnest Beastman quickly shook his head, his tone shifting to excitement.

"Speaking of which, I have you to thank for that, Mr. Roland! Your suggestion to take quests from the Adventurer’s Guild and get rid of my volatile energy by slaying Demons was incredibly effective!"

"Thanks to your advice, not only did I pass this semester’s coursework assessment, but I even got a ’Good’ evaluation!"

Freddy puffed out his chest, looking quite proud.

"Then what’s all this...?"

Roland’s gaze swept across the damp, cold cavern walls.

Freddy followed his gaze, stared blankly for a moment, then scratched his head and began to speak, a little embarrassed.

"After the semester ended, I kept following your advice and took on some Demon extermination quests... Then, I ran into some... really big toads? Those things..."

At this point, a hint of resentment crept into the Beastman’s voice.

"They wouldn’t fight me head-on at all. They just kept spewing that foul-smelling poison gas from a distance! While we were fighting... I just randomly passed out."

Freddy scratched his foul-smelling hair with his thick fingers and flashed his signature, simple smile.

"When I woke up again... I was already here."

Hearing this answer, which was both unexpected and yet somehow perfectly in character, Roland opened his mouth but found himself at a loss for words.

"So, before you were brought here... was this area shrouded in mist?"

"Mist? Yeah, there was..."

Freddy nodded.

Receiving confirmation, the look in Roland’s eyes grew even stranger.

Even with his level of strength, Roland had always deliberately avoided dangerous, mist-shrouded areas when taking quests.

And yet this Beastman before him had just recklessly charged in all by himself...

After a moment of silence, Roland couldn’t think of a suitable comment, so he just changed the subject.

"So... why were you tied up here? Did those... toads not harm you?"

The Beastman furrowed his brow, trying hard to recall for a good while before slowly shaking his head.

"No, not only did those disgusting monsters not hurt me, they even... actively fed me. It’s just that the taste..."

He seemed to recall something truly awful and couldn’t help but gag a few times.

"And every night, they would come up to me one by one and... bow? I really don’t get it."

Hearing this, Roland raised an eyebrow.

A group of Slime Toads...

...bowing to a Red-skinned Orc?

The absurd image surfaced in his mind, and he couldn’t help but smile, even as his confusion deepened.

"Those toads... why would they bow to you..."

He was about to press for more details when he heard the faint sound of footsteps from the cavern entrance behind him.

Roland instantly gripped his sword hilt and spun around like lightning.

Freddy’s reaction was just as fast.

The Beastman let out a low growl. With a sudden exertion of force from both hands and a "CRACK!", he snapped off one of the bone altar’s supporting legs and held it tightly as a makeshift weapon.

A moment later, however, Roland’s tense nerves relaxed when a slender, familiar figure appeared in the light and shadow of the entrance.

He released his sword hilt and placed a hand on Freddy’s tense arm, signaling for him to relax.

"That’s because this little guy... has the ’Blood of Chaos’ flowing through his veins, if I’m not mistaken..."

Accompanied by the sound of light footsteps, Vanessa’s figure was fully revealed to the two of them.

The Witch’s gaze first swept with a trace of curiosity over the quiver on Roland’s back, then fell upon the tall, burly Beastman as she spoke slowly.

"Your surname should be ’Blood Roar,’ correct? In the ancient language of the Beastmen, it symbolizes... ’Hell’s Roar’?"

"You!"

Hearing the Witch state his hidden surname with unerring accuracy, Freddy’s signature simple expression vanished without a trace, replaced by the deep wariness of someone facing a great enemy.

"Who... who in the world are you?"

"That’s not important."

Vanessa looked around the sinister cavern with great interest, her slender fingers casually brushing across the unusually polished surface of the bone table.

"Besides... the story of your ancestor who betrayed the Abyss to become a hero who saved the world has long been recorded in numerous texts. Even if your clan now treats it as a forbidden secret, it’s not entirely unknown to those with a bit of knowledge."

She changed the subject, leaning slightly against the edge of the bone table. Her gaze returned to Roland as she spoke in a lighter tone.

"Compared to that... Mr. Roland, I think we need to pick up the pace."

"If my observations are correct, this region... is slowly sinking. Or to be more precise..."

The Witch raised her hand, pointing to the patch of land outside the cavern entrance that was clearly different from the surrounding swamp, her voice low and clear.

"It’s the surrounding land... that is slowly rising."