Children of the Holy Emperor

That morning, Calmen, who was usually secretive, prepared to go out early. 

Instead of his knight’s uniform, he was in casual attire, armed only with a single sword.

“Man, aren’t you tired? These days, everyone just lies down in their quarters on their days off. How come you’re always out and about?”

“Bet he’s got a girlfriend lately. Who is she? Is she pretty?”

“……”

Ignoring the light chatter of his fellow knights, Calmen briefly glanced at them before turning away without a word. They were not people he was keen on socializing with.

“Wow, that guy! What’s gotten into him these days?”

“Ah, leave it. You know how the prince is these days…”

“Ah, he was from the 2nd Knight Squad, wasn’t he?”

Muttering could be heard behind him, but Calmen clenched his teeth and walked on.

He headed into the city to buy various groceries and a rather good bottle of liquor. 

Though the price was a bit steep for a knight’s salary, it was worth it. He’d often be chastised for frivolous expenditures, but every time he visited, the bottle was always empty.

Quickening his pace, he arrived at a slum on the outskirts of the capital by mid-morning.

The atmosphere in the neighborhood, which he had not visited in nearly ten days, felt ominously tense.

Armed guards roamed the streets, and here and there, Inquisitors from the Order of Saint Marcias could be seen.

People gathered outside their homes, buzzing with chatter.

“…What’s going on?”

Calmen approached the crowd to ask.

Just then, *CRASH!*

Loud sounds of breaking pottery echoed from across the street.

Inside the only small clinic in the neighborhood, guards and an Inquisitor were causing havoc.

“Are there any more patients hiding here?”

“Sir Knight! These are just patients with skin diseases, not cursed by demons!”

“Don’t be absurd. The rash is an early symptom of the curse! If you keep interfering, you’ll be deemed a heretic and arrested too!”

“Ah, Sir! At least spare this child! The child just has a fever, you see?”

“Ugh, quiet! Take this one away too!”

People were led away, one by one, by the guards.

Calmen was gaping at the spectacle when an old man beside him muttered,

“As you can see, the Inquisitors have come. They said they’re taking all the patients with rashes to the heretic court today.”

“Patients with rashes? Why all of a sudden?”

Then the old man shrugged.

“You know the curse that’s been turning people gray and mad recently?”

“Ah, the Gray Plague you mean?”

“What? That’s a disease, not a curse?”

The fact was already known to those who should know it, but it seemed the news hadn’t yet spread in detail to this impoverished area.

But why would the heresy tribunal, which surely knows the truth, be in such a hurry to take them away?

The old man tilted his head in puzzlement before speaking.

“Anyway, weren’t all those afflicted by the curse taken to the heresy tribunal? According to Inquisitor Nari today, the curse initially manifests as a rash. So now it seems they’re even taking away those who merely have rashes.”

“Ah, yes…”

“Anyway, they’ve been scouring every slum for days now. This village might just be the last on the list.”

“I see.”

Calmen looked at the people being led away with awkward eyes before turning away. The actions of the higher-ups were often hard to understand.

Perhaps some still believed this disease to be a curse. It seems they’re capturing as many people as possible before guidelines for managing the gray plague patients are established.

Calmen quickly walked a bit more and arrived at an old shack located at the end of the slum.

“Commander, I’ve arrived.”

He knocked twice on the door and, as usual, entered without waiting for an answer. However, the room had an odd, indescribable smell.

“…Commander?”

Confused, Calmen scanned the dim shack and found a man wrapped in a blanket lying in a corner.

“Commander!”

He rushed over and shook the man.

“Commander, what’s happened? Are you not well?”

Despite Calmen’s calls, the man did not respond at all. His body was unnaturally thin and his temperature was alarmingly low. 

Only the man’s faintly trembling, scruffy beard indicated that he was still alive.

“I will take you to the doctor right away!”

In haste, Calmen tried to carry the man on his shoulder and run. But then, a dreadful realization hit him.

Inquisitors. They were currently arresting all gray plague patients.

“No way…”

The sunlight coming through the open door revealed the man’s appearance. Rashes covered his body and his skin was turning gray in places.

A chill ran down Calmen’s spine.

‘…He’ll die! If we go out now, he’ll be taken to the heresy tribunal and executed!’

Grasping his trembling chin with one hand, Calmen racked his brain.

Think. Think about it.

For now, it was impossible to take the leader out without the Inquisitors noticing.

They had to stay hidden until the search was over, until the villagers were asleep. Then they would go to the medical center affiliated with the royal palace, where there would surely be proper guidelines for treating gray plague patients.

What happened after, he couldn’t clearly remember.

He changed the man into fresh clothes, burnt the old ones, ventilated the filthy shack that clearly had no one living in for days, and haphazardly put together an unidentifiable stew with the food he brought.

So when the Inquisitors arrived with their guards, Calmen was able to greet them with a smile, pretending to eat.

“Do you live here alone?”

“No, this is the home of an old man. I came to stay for a few days during my vacation. He went downtown and will probably return tomorrow.”

He avoided telling an outright lie about the house being his, considering that the villagers might be questioned for verification.

“…Hmm, is that so?”

The Inquisitor scanned the shack with his piercing eyes.

His gaze moved from the empty bed to the wardrobe, and then he gestured to the guard standing behind him.

Soon, the guard strode in, and without asking for permission, started thrusting his sword into the bed.

Finding nothing but straw, he then jabbed his sword into the wardrobe. *Shiik. Swiik*.

“If the furniture is this ruined, what am I going to tell the owner when he returns?” 

Calmen lamented about the furniture, to which the Inquisitor snorted dismissively.

“Seems there’s no one hiding here. Move on to the next house.”

After the crowd of Inquisitors hurriedly left, Calmen, who had been standing there observing the outside for a while, quickly pushed the table aside once he deemed it safe enough. *Creaaak*.

Lifting a wooden plank from the floor revealed a small space used as a liquor cabinet.

From there, he pulled out a man who was forcibly crammed in, laid him on the messy bed, and wiped his face with a wet towel.

The man’s pulse and breath were alarmingly weak, just enough to not catch the Inquisitor’s attention.

“Commander, please hang in there. Just endure a little longer; I will take you to a physician.”

Calmen murmured to himself as he massaged the man’s stiff limbs.

Hours passed as if they were decades.

When the moonless night came,

Carefully lifting the man, Calmen finally began to escape the slum.

Initially, things seemed relatively smooth.

Calmen, a Royal Imperial Knight, was a fairly skilled Aura user, and carrying an adult man was not much of a hindrance for him.

Quickly sensing the sparse patrols of guards and Inquisitors, Calmen successfully exited the slums at a swift pace.

However, upon reaching the main road where houses were, things changed.

The patrols were more frequent, and the wide-open road offered no place to hide.

“Hey, wait there!”

Finally, a member of the Capital Guard patrol spotted Calmen and hailed him.

Doing his best to conceal his tension, he stopped in a seemingly casual manner.

“Yes. What is it?”

“Where are you rushing off to this late, and who is that person you’re carrying?”

“Ah, that’s my master. He drank so much last night; I’m taking him home as he’s still not sober.”

Praying that the fine liquor he had doused his clothes in would do the trick, Calmen replied.

“Is that so? But why is his face so covered? Does he have a rash or something?”

The guard lifted his torch toward the man’s face.

It was at that moment that Calmen realized.

‘These guys, the influence of the heresy court has reached them.. I can’t just play this off!’

His decision was quick.

In the blink of an eye, Calmen wrapped Aura around his lower body and darted forward.

“What! You, stop right there!”

*Shrieeek*.

A sharp whistle sounded, and all the Capital Guards began to chase him.

“Heuk, heuk, heuk.”

His breath was running short.

Dashing through various alleys, Calmen tried his best to shake off the guards. However, they were closing in from all sides, making it impossible to evade them all.

His flight didn’t last long. Eventually, Calmen was cornered in a dead-end alley by several members of the Capital Guard, including two armed knights.

“Heuk, heuk. You! Making people go through all this trouble!”

Calmen glared at the guards as he shouted.

“I’m a knight of the Imperial Guard! If His Majesty hears of this, what do you think will happen? You think it’s alright to just capture a law-abiding citizen like this?”

“Imperial Guard?”

The advancing Capital Guards hesitated upon hearing Calmen’s surprising revelation.

While they couldn’t fully trust him, the young man’s formidable aura made them reluctant to label him an impostor.

“…Then why is someone who should know everything making this complicated for no reason?”

“It’s not some random civilians we’re dealing with. Those cursed by the demon need to be rounded up or dealt with today. This is an official order from above.”

“Running away on your own is despicable, but if you hand over the ones cursed, you’ll be let go.”

Calmen clenched his teeth.

He realized that the command came from higher up and that the Capital Guards prioritized capturing the cursed above all else.

‘Either apprehend or handle them.’

Should he have handed over the commander to the Inquisition and then tried to rescue him through the Imperial Palace?

No, no one who has entered there has ever come out unscathed. Moreover, in this dire situation…

He gently laid down the man on his back and gripped the sword at his waist cautiously.

Two armed knights and five guards.

It seemed improbable with his strength alone, but if he didn’t break through by force, there was no other way.

The only reason Calmen hadn’t drawn his sword yet was because he instinctively knew that doing so against the Capital Guards would extinguish even the smallest glimmer of hope he had left.

And at that moment.

Calmen saw a guard in the back aiming a crossbow at the man.

Without any more time to think, he lunged towards the man.

Zwiack! Thud!

The misfired bolt hit the ground and ricocheted.

“Damn, this punk finally!”

“Hey! Don’t kill the Imperial knight! Get him off first!”

Hands of the approaching guards maliciously grabbed him, but Calmen bit and tore at them, stubbornly clinging to the man.

How long was he resisting? Soon, a hail of kicks and stomps descended on him.

“Get out of the way! Move it!”

“What’s gonna change if you resist!”

“You gonna die with this cursed one?”

Smack! Thump! Smack!

As his consciousness started to fade amidst the violence, Calmen curled his body around the man as much as possible.

A muffled groan slipped through his tightly clenched teeth.

Please, someone!

Somebody please save the commander somehow!

And into his ears came,

“Hey, stop it right there.”

A soft but oddly piercing voice resonated.

“Are you guys Capital Guards? Why are you assaulting someone on the street? If there’s no proper reason, you should be ready for disciplinary action.”

“……?”

“…Who is this kid?”

The guards ceased their beating and turned towards the voice.

Standing there was a boy wrapped in a large, worn-out cloak.

Above the clearly standard-issue cloak, well-maintained light blonde hair emitted a yellowish glow under the torchlight.

The boy with a somewhat fierce expression was a face Calmen knew well.

‘…Prince… Morres?’

Why is he here?

The prince also seemed to recognize Calmen, widening his eyes before asking.

“Why is the man that Dame Claudia was so desperately looking for here at such a late hour?”

“…….”

“Ah, so that’s why you brought me here.”

“What’s this brat babbling about? Get lost!”

One of the guards spoke with bravado, but the prince wasn’t phased.

“The ones who should get lost are you guys. Or would you rather be beaten up here for your unjust violence?”

“…What?”

The guards’ faces turned grim.

“Kid, disappear while we’re talking nicely! Unless you want to taste the consequence of obstructing public duties.”

Two guards approached the prince, their hands on their sword hilts.

Then Crown Prince Morres subtly raised one corner of his mouth.

It was a smirk that annoyingly angered anyone who saw it.

“Was that your public duty? Seriously? From where I stand, you guys look like gangsters bullying people.”

“Grr, you!”

Shrring.

Finally, one guard, who was closest to the prince, lost his temper and reached for his sword.

Calmen almost screamed out.

These idiots, that’s His Highness! Don’t draw it!

Do they know what will happen to them for this mistake?!

Choking back coughs from his injuries and blood pooling in his throat, he would have shouted this if he could.

Prince Morres also saw the partially drawn sword, scratched his cheek, and made a peculiar face.

“Hmm, even if I tell you who I am, you probably won’t believe me. But let me warn you. Draw that sword, and you’ll surely regret it.”