SSS-Knight in a Hero World-Chapter 87: Tired of that one elf

"That still doesn’t give you the right—

"If that’s the case, then you’re a hypocrite."

Eos closed the personal space between them, leaving no room for Felix to breathe. "You’re racist, are you?"

"?! What kind of shit are you blabbering about!?" Felix exclaimed, his face turning red from embarrassment.

Racism is quite a blemish on a knight’s career. What good being would trust someone who might not even protect them from the very beginning?

But to be fair, it’s a blemish on anyone.

Felix looked around, afraid that someone might have heard them.

"Pfft, bwahahaha!"

"????!" Felix reacted terribly.

Accusing Felix of racism, when she herself acted suspiciously like that at their first meeting.

A tone and demeanour that switched for no apparent reason.

Felix was a fool to not arrive at this conclusion any sooner.

This bitch is crazy!

I want to run away, but I can’t leave her with their tombstones. Felix stood his ground.

She laughed. "You’re like a piglet that squeals for its mother, only for it to be dreaming." Eos crunched over, holding onto her stomach. "I’m so sorry, the resemblance is uncanny, even for me."

No, I was wrong... she’s just insane.

I’m sorry, everyone. Felix quietly backed out and left the tombstones to Eos’ tender care.

The next day.

The same time.

Felix carefully scouted the surroundings. Seeing that the tombstones were untouched and the elf nowhere to be seen, a sigh of relief was the only thing he could let out.

But unsurprisingly to the tombstones, they already knew that Eos would surprise even a knight’s heightened senses.

This time she was a bit grumpy, constantly bugging Felix’s ears. Her words were just at the edge of ticking him off as he tried focusing on reminiscing about the past.

Then the next day was different. There was terrible weather, a total mood killer in the form of a light drizzle and heavy fog.

Surprisingly, the moment Felix arrived at the tombstones of his comrades, he saw that Eos had erected a thin barrier of heat that kept the water out.

When Felix phased through the barrier, his eyes immediately caught the elf’s closed eyes and almost statue-like stillness.

She said she was crying from joy days ago, but now she’s a grave keeper? Felix thought briefly before ignoring her presence and kneeling to each of the tombstones in long intervals.

The two did not utter a single word to each other that day.

But the next day returned to the usual. Eos would surprise him, Felix would react, and the two would tolerate each other until Felix left.

But this time, he regrettably expected her disastrous appearance, so there was not much of a reaction coming from him.

"Why do you keep coming back, Felix?" Eos asked, standing silently behind him.

"..."

Felix remained in his kneeling posture, completely still, as if he was unaware of Eos’ presence.

However, his face was constantly shifting. Turning serene for a few seconds before souring just as suddenly the next.

He threw apologies at the bewildered stone. Random life stories, regrets, happy moments, news. Anything his state of mind could throw.

But in the end, Felix might as well have been throwing bits of his mind into a bottomless abyss that would never reply even to his mere presence.

Learning to give up when it counts is one of the true lessons for a knight.

Eos caught onto his feelings, or perhaps she had already caught on long ago and simply got tired of Felix sobbing worthlessly.

Her red lips parted slightly, but nothing came out this time.

Felix would be the one to surprise her.

"...those knights, do you remember what they looked like?"

Eos took a while to reply, surprised that the human remembered her words, let alone started considering it.

"I couldn’t tell back then since it was dark, but I’m sure they wore all black. Nothing more," Eos answered.

Felix found it strange that her voice was flat, but he dismissed it.

"Knights, and especially knightly orders, are allowed to wear any style or motif as long as it’s unique enough.

Everything except the most degenerate displays is permitted.

But there is one exception.

The color black is not allowed to be used, because the Holy Knight Order uses it."

Felix took a deep breath and stood up, before politely sitting on top of the tombstone he had been kneeling toward.

He stared at Eos’ unchanged face, then continued with a serious expression. "What I’m about to say is classified, but I think you deserve to know this, as you are a victim in this.

The Holy Knight Order is the last standing knight order from the era of old.

In other words, they were formed in an era before the prophecy was seriously considered."

As you know, the Holy Knight Order of today are members of the Church of Light and are devout followers of the Goddess of Purity, Sol.

But of course, they weren’t like that at the beginning. The Holy Knight Order from that time were actually...

Slaves.

"...slaves?" Eos said, stepping a bit closer to him.

Felix softly nodded and continued to impart his forbidden knowledge. "...they were all gifted individuals taken from all sorts of races, but the majority of them were human.

However, these slaves were fractured into groups that weren’t even related to one another, but they had one key concept.

Use talented people for your own means.

It took almost a thousand years for them to unite and formalize as an order. They gained freedom and autonomy from that.

But despite that millennium-long struggle...

They are actually still slaves to this day."

Eos said nothing as she hopelessly stared at Felix with a strange look that actually started bothering him.

To get that feeling away, Felix continued. "Do you know what the knight’s creed is?"

Eos shook her head clearly. "No."

Perhaps due to pride and joy, Felix yapped for nearly half an hour about the intricacies and nuances of the knight’s creed and the rules that encompassed it.

It was only thanks to an elf’s long life that Eos wasn’t actually bored the entire time.

"In short, the knight’s creed of today is the result of the new generation of knightly orders that formed because of the prophecy.

But compared to the informal and numerous rules of my creed...

The Holy Knight Order is absolute and is only composed of three rules...

At least, that’s what the current generation of knights have come up with."

"Is their creed a secret?" Eos asked.

Felix sighed out a growling breath and turned away. "The old and new generations of orders are too different.

There was even a time when I genuinely wanted to behead one of their captains.

But compared to my case, there have been far more dangerous frictions between the old and new knights, and from those engagements...

This is what we came up with."

Felix suddenly locked eyes with Eos and raised his index finger toward the sky.

"Thou shalt not harm your masters."

Felix extended his middle finger.

"Thou shalt obey your masters unless it conflicts with the first law."

Then he extended his ring finger.

"Thou shalt protect your own life unless it conflicts with the first and second law."

. . .

"That’s it?" Eos shook her ears, wanting more.

"That’s all we know at the moment, and please don’t spread this around," Felix said.

Eos gave it a long, drawn-out thought. "Those are some strange rules they must follow.

Say, what would happen if this master asked their knight to die?"

"They kill themselves on the spot," Felix answered instantly. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"What if two masters ask them contradictory orders?"

Felix paused, but he did know the answer as he tried to recall something.

"There was an expedition to the Serpent’s Cocoon. My order was partnered with the Holy Knight Order. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to see it since I was just an apprentice.

But this is what happened. The mission was a success since they reached the required depth to explore, but one priest wanted to continue down further.

Of course, the lead knight of my order refused, and one of the other priests also sided with my order.

Things got a little heated, and one of our spies caught a peculiar situation later that night."

Felix covered his mouth, but it was obvious to Eos that his cheeks were reddening and moving upward.

"There was a small group of knights inside the priest’s tent, and the two priests started arguing.

Things got a bit too far, and the priest that wanted to descend deeper ordered one of the knights to kill his fellow priest with reason being blasphemy."

Eos perked her ears up and moved closer. "What happened?"

Felix shrugged his shoulders. "Absolutely nothing. The knight stood there emotionlessly like a statue, according to the spy."

"Then...?"

"One of the priests mysteriously died that night, and the entire expedition group ascended back to the surface.

The end."

"Huh," Eos uttered with a blank but satisfied expression.