The Amber Sword

TL: I have to shift the Amber Sword schedule to every Friday instead. My art class stuff has begun to go into more irritating stuff like, craft a skull in zbrush and draw perspective stuff from blueprints, more muscles, gestures, time consuming crap etc. Luckily I’m starting on some digital illustrations on characters so I can finally post something interesting.

If I have the time, I might want to take on a temporary JP title.

Chapter 44 – Not jailbreaking?

The three remaining people came out from the prison. The girls looked on as Brendel easily handled the patrolling wardens, and the entire process was silent and practiced. Freya had her suspicion that Brendel had special training as a Highland Knight, but was it necessary to train to do something like this?

After the wardens were settled, the four of them walked towards the central area of the level. The guard who kept watch of the keys was surprised when they saw them coming out from the darkness, and subconsciously pulled out the sword from the wall.

Brendel immediately raised his gauntlets he stole from a warden and charged over to him. A blue shimmering glow washed over the gauntlets as he blocked the guard’s sword. The blue light was around the size of a soccer ball, and there was a force from within that pushed away the sharp blade.

Brendel grabbed the sword away when the white mane light infantry became surprised, and pushed him back to the wall with tremendous force. A dull thud and a withering gasp could be heard as the guard fainted. Brendel saw that the guards were merely normal soldiers, so he did not use fatal force and simply knocked them out.

Freya blurted out after she watched him knock down the final foe: “I can’t believe you’re so strong. If I did not see you in action, I would still be naive about the strength of the knights.”

“You don’t have to look down on yourself. A mid white-ranked swordsman is more than enough to handle the guards.” Brendel searched for the key to go up the next level on the warden.

“White-ranked swordsman?”

“It means unranked,” Ciel explained next to her: “The blacksteel, silver, gold swordsmen rank counterparts are, squires, knights and veteran knights. The blacksteel swordsmen are Aouine’s knights’ reserves.If there are any nobles with slight potential, they would be sent to great noble families to become squires.” (TL: The pacing of words is a little unclear here, but nobles probably have nothing to do with swordsmen. They are just training to become knights.)

“According to tradition, a grade 1 ranking swordsman enjoy the authority of not taking off his hat when they meet low ranking nobles like squires and lords, but this tradition has stopped approximately fifty years ago. Any rank that is below the blacksteel swordsmen, would be unranked. Typically the army guards, militia are of this level, separated only by the words of ‘upper’ and ‘lower’.”

“So this is how it is classified.” Freya stood pensively. Just a while ago her mind was still mired in being the top militia swords user, but now her horizons have broadened.

But Ciel was not done yet as he had seen through his lord’s intention to nurture the girl, so he continued: “A blacksteel swordsman represents a grade 1 power, silver swordsman as grade 2 power, gold swordsman as grade 3 power. Our wizards counterpart are cantrip wizard, first circle wizard and second circle wizard. There are also similar distinctions for the priests and other professions, and these distinctions are not of a country’s standards, but from the Holy Cathedral of Flames’s strict rules.”

The girls blinked repeatedly as they received the lesson. It was not actually uncommon knowledge for the commoners, but Bucce was simply too isolated.

“The strongest kingdom like Kirrlutz and Bansel, their standing army’s soldiers are comprised of the blacksteel rank, while most of the captains are of the silver rank. In comparison, more than half of Aouine’s border army’s soldiers have not reached the blacksteel rank, and even an appointed captain of the knights is at the intermediate blacksteel rank.” Ciel intentionally pointed things out.

“Ciel, if you spread this, our heads would be chopped off.”

“My lord, if you are not afraid of being executed, as an attached squire I would not be afraid too.” The youth lightly replied, before continuing: “My lord should also have the standards of a blacksteel rank. It is a very rare thing to see with your lordship’s age, and Ciel is very pleased to have the chance to follow such an outstanding person.”

[If I’m going to compare to the people with the ‘enlightened’ or ‘chosen’ status, or even the ones with knight talents, I’m nothing much at all. Then again the results that I accomplished are quite puzzling indeed.]

Ciel did not know the circumstances, but since Brendel felt good from the praise he did not reveal anything.

Especially when it came to the girls’ amazed gazes.

Ciel looked at the guard on the floor and asked softly: “Number 5, 17 and 22, these seems to be other prisoners in these three cells. Should we let them out to aid us in our escape, my lord? If the outside area is the soldier camp, the more people we have, the better our chances to escape.”

Freya glared at him. Brendel had talked about other stuff during their temporary stay in the cells. The people who were locked here were guilty of terrible crimes.

“No, it will affect my plans if there are more people.” Brendel said confidently.

“As you wish.”

Brendel turned his head back: “Romaine, do you know where your aunt is?”

She shook her head: “I don’t know exactly either, she only said that she would be staying with a relative.”

“Where is that relative staying?”

“The location is at Ponoa’s market. I heard that person is a distant relatative of my aunt. He’s a small fur merchant called Hood.” Freya said.

Brendel glanced at Romaine: “Your family certainly has the tradition of having merchants.”

Romaine merely smiled sweetly.

Since Brendel had the desired location, it was easy to decide on the next step. The first level of the prison was even smaller, and there was only one warden there. Brendel was certain that there were four wardens in their level because of them. He quickly settled the warden here and they proceeded upwards, and found themselves in the inner soldier camp.

He was familiar with this area, and he led his party swiftly to the warehouse and retrieved Freya’s half plate. They then equipped themselves with a sword. He found that it was a pity that the soldiers who fainted did not provide XP, otherwise he would have woken them up and knocked them a few times.

Ciel repeatedly gave the advice of freeing the other prisoners to let them escape from the riot: The reason was very simple, it was easy for them to handle one or two white-maned light infantry soldiers, just rush them from the shadows and they were down for the count. But once they got to the outside camp, it was impossible to escape with just the four of them.

But Brendel denied it.

In the midst of their discussion, Brendel had already led them to the highest point of this soldier camp; a tower. He opened the wooden door at the peak, and there was a open pathway in front of them. This tower was used as a last minute resort to aid the walls, and one of the areas overlooked approximately a fifth of the city.

But he was not here to look at the scenery. They had incapacitated seven guards along their way, and according to the standards of the white-mane army, they would discover that there was something amiss after ten minutes. He looked up at the sky. The sky was beautifully illuminated by the moon and stars, and despite the thick clouds, the shape of the moon could still be seen.

“What are you doing, Brendel?” Freya poked him from behind. A stray thought appeared in her mind and she wondered if this fellow actually broke out of the jail just to see the moonlight. Even though it was probably unlikely, but looking at the crazy actions that he did in the past few days, it might be possible.

She looked at Ciel next, and the youth also had his hands behind his back and looked up at the sky with his lord silently. They certainly had great coordination with each other.

“The moonlight tonight is pretty good.” Brendel answered.

“You—” Freya really wanted to punch his face to see if he could still laugh about it.

“My aunt said that the moon’s name is Luca, and was born because of Iren, a goddess. Because there is a moon,this world became mysterious.” Romaine also looked up at the moon and commented.

“Your aunt knows a lot,” Ciel also added in: “There is a secret amongst the wizards, a book called ‘The annals of darkness’, which described the things that happened long ago in the past.”

“Are you saying that Romaine’s aunt is a wizard?” Freya was stunned.

“That might not be so, it might be possible that she is someone related to magic. Some witches in the rural areas have also heard of such rumors.” He replied.

Freya’s eyes went to Romaine, but the latter did not seem to hear any of their talk and simply looked at the moon. Freya did think that Romaine’s aunt Jennie was indeed a little mysterious. She frequently brought strange things back to the village, and the villagers said she was a witch and did not really communicate with her family.

While Brendel listened to their conversation on one side, he suddenly heard strange words in his mind:

XVI: The Tower

The fallen ‘moonlight’ that devours light.

He was momentarily dazed for a while, and thought he was in an illusion. He quickly shook his head, but could not stop but remember that dream when he was unconscious.

In a scenery filled with ghastly darkness, isolated from the world. There was only a moon shining on the tower in the midst of a black lake, signifying the beginning and end of his dream. There was when he met Freya.

But when he was about to mull over this thought, the merchant girl suddenly said: “There’s something coming over, Brendel.”

The three of them looked around in alert.

After twenty seconds, they heard a low and dull sound of wings flapping. Freya was in vigilance and unease, but Brendel and Ciel were relaxed.

Brendel looked up, and the next instant a gargoyle broke through from the clouds. The rock devil with its wings extended contrasted deeply from the bright moonlight, and became a figure that was full of intrigue.

“Brendel, it’s your gargoyle!” Romaine recognized it immediately.

“Yes. Are you afraid of heights?”

The merchant girl hurriedly shook her head.

“W-what are you going to do Brendel?” Freya immediately thought of something and her face paled immediately.

..........................................................................

The Golden Apple Lord barged into Burnley’s home with a grave expression. This noble who was famed in the industry was checking out a finely crafted bronze armor with a magnifying glass. Any armor that was in the ancient era of ‘The Returning Light’ was prized by all collectors.

Burnley unhurriedly laid down his magnifying glass, glance at his partner with slight ridicule: “What happened, did that fellow went out of the city with his men?”

“It’s not something as serious as that, but the criminals tonight escaped!” When Esebar said this, he was so furious that he punched a random spot. He was actually not furious over the escape, but it was another madman who intruded his home and yelled at him.

“That is certainly a small matter. How did they escape?”

“I’m not angry over this.” The Golden Apple Lord shook his head and took a deep breath: “I’m angry over that ‘Tiger’ Luc Beson actually created a din in my home, saying that I locked a Highland Knight’s descendant in his prison and I caused him trouble!”

“Highland knight?” Burnley paused.

“Yes, he said there was a Highland Knight amongst the three, and his magician squire came to rescue him. Holy Mother Marsha above, he ran over to me and demanded to have him, saying that man must not be harmed and added to his army.” The Golden Apple Lord was in delirious anger when he spat his words out.

“And in conclusion?”

“The conclusion, the conclusion is I have to bring him to settle this! In the middle of the night, this bastard is just too much!” He roared.

“Don’t be too impulsive, let Granzon handle this. I’ll move some men from my personal army to aid you.” Burnely smiled and answered.

The Golden Apple Lord looked thankfully at him. It was the first time that he felt this rotund face was not as hateful. But after a while he reminded him: “I still have one more matter. I recently heard you moved a batch of armor to the city? You need to be careful. Even though it’s not a big matter to raise your own forces, you have to be careful of your secrets falling into your enemies’ hands.”

He looked around the room.

“It’s just a personal hobby.” The industry specialist continued to smile.

TL: The title is contradictory -.-

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