“As for the well, you can wait for the new Priest. Do not directly... Hm? Gelin, you didn't leave?”
Macar had gathered the villagers and was warning them about the water source when he noticed Ogre riding in on the dragon-blood horse.
“Your sword.”
Ogre tossed Macar's sword back to him.
When he was retrieving the sword, Ogre had noticed that the snake-man's head wasn't completely dead yet; it could actually use its tongue to prop itself up and move around.
Had its body not been pulverized, it probably could have even reattached it.
Seeing such a resilient life force, Ogre truly couldn't bear to let it suffer, so he kindly helped it move on.
“Thank you.” Macar took his sword and sheathed it back into the scabbard at his waist.
‘I should have brought a warhammer instead.’
Macar felt the inadequacy of a sword—even bolstered by battle qi, it was highly ineffective against heavily armored enemies.
“Respected Lord Paladin, thank you...”
None of the surrounding villagers complained about the property damage Macar had caused; there was only deep gratitude.
This wasn't just because Macar had saved them.
It was also out of respect for the strong.
“You still have to protect me, so of course I had to come back and check on you. After all, where could I go alone?” Ogre dismounted and smiled.
Originally, he had prepared to step in and help Macar, but he hadn't expected Macar to be so formidable, solving the entire crisis on his own.
“Actually... you could have just abandoned me,” Macar stammered. Ultimately, he didn't say anything further, instead turning to the villagers. “Have any of you seen any other Professional-grade raiders?”
Macar hadn't forgotten that those two guys also had a so-called “Big Sister.”
He had to protect Miss Gelin.
“The bandits... weren't they all killed by you, my Lord?” An elder villager stepped forward.
“That's impossible...” Macar frowned.
It wasn't a large number of enemies he feared, but rather enemies he couldn't find. If this “Big Sister” wasn't here, it would be troublesome... something was bound to happen to this village again.
He wasn't afraid of retaliation, but what about the others?
“Let nature take its course, Kar.” Ogre walked over, leading the horse. “Let the horse rest first, and we can slowly figure out the rest. The actual reinforcement from the Church of Dawn should arrive soon anyway.”
“I'm just worried... Ah, forget it.”
Macar took a deep breath, collecting himself. He understood that Ogre was right; panicking over certain things wouldn't help.
“Do you have any food here?” Macar asked, turning his head.
Since they couldn't solve the problem for now, they might as well get into top condition.
“Yes, yes! Please follow me, both of you,” the head villager hurriedly led the way.
“Kar, I'm not very hungry,” Ogre hinted.
One could never be too cautious. It wasn't that Ogre didn't trust these villagers, but rather that the danger hadn't been fully neutralized. Who knew what the bandits hiding in the shadows might do?
In any case, they would be heading to the town later, so letting the dragon-blood horse rest and recuperate now would suffice.
They could just leave it to eat the horned horses' fodder.
No matter how insane those bandits were, they likely wouldn't have gone as far as poisoning the fodder in advance.
As for Ogre himself—he wasn't afraid of anything wrong with the food or drink, as his ogre constitution was highly reliable.
When consumed orally, most beast-grade poisons or drugs were completely useless against Ogre.
But Macar was different. He was a pure human—even with his Knight constitution's reinforcement, he was still highly susceptible to being targeted.
So he would just have to endure a little hunger for now.
“Uh... then let's just let the horse rest. Just leave us a room,” Macar said, catching Ogre's drift and agreeing that there was no need to linger too long in this place.
“Just bring me some books to read,” Ogre said.
“Of course, right away.”
With their recent combat achievements commanding absolute respect, their requests were quickly fulfilled.
...
“Gelin...” Macar stared at the handsome Ogre before him, always feeling an indescribable sense of strangeness.
“You had already left. Why did you rush back?” Macar asked, deeply puzzled.
“I believed you would win,” Ogre replied, picking up a book delivered by the villagers titled 《The Complete Guide to Postpartum Care for Economic Mana Beasts》 and began flipping through it.
“But that was extremely dangerous.”
Macar turned his head and looked out the window. Just outside was the dragon-blood horse, peacefully feeding.
“But you dropped your sword.” Ogre lowered the book slightly. “Without your sword, you might have lost.”
“But a combat between Professionals...” Visibly touched, Macar turned his head back, wanting to impress upon Ogre just how dangerous his actions had been.
A battle at the Professional level was almost completely out of reach for a non-Professional—it was the vast chasm between the mortal and the extraordinary.
Almost all instances of an Apprentice defeating a Professional were sheer flukes, one-in-a-million occurrences.
“I no longer have any family, but you still do.” Ogre cut off Macar's lecture, replying earnestly, “Aunt Mima would worry about you as well.”
In Ogre's view, there was nothing wrong with saving others—but one had to ensure their own safety first.
If Macar had been crippled right from the start, Ogre felt that he would have probably just left directly—there was no conflict between helping within one's ability and staying out of a hopeless situation.
“I won't lose.” Macar stood up and gripped his sword. “I am... a Paladin, after all.”
“Perhaps.” Ogre smiled slightly, offering no further rebuttal.
Perhaps this was exactly why the Church of Dawn possessed so many Senior Professionals.
Compared to those noble Knights, the Knights of the Church of Dawn were the ones who truly lived like Knights.
...
“We really don't know how to thank you enough,” the villagers offered their gratitude to Macar as they prepared to depart.
“Taking good care of Dawn's believers is the best gift you can give me.” Macar gazed toward the several freshly piled graves nearby.
Buried there were the Dawn guards who had died defending the village, alongside the Reserve Cleric...
Very few Knights or Clerics of the Church of Dawn in the frontier lands ever died of old age.
‘What a pity. They didn't die at the hands of monstrous variants, yet they fell to their own kind...’ Ogre offered a silent prayer in the direction of the graves.
He wasn't a believer of Dawn, but that didn't stop him from respecting these people—these individuals born of common villagers and orphans were the true defenders of the Empire.
“Let's go, Gelin. Don't dwell on it too much—they have merely gone to meet the God.” Macar reached out a hand to Ogre.
‘Hopefully, there really is a God,’ Ogre thought.
He then took Macar's outstretched hand and nodded.
“Yeah...”
...
‘God decrees the dusk, taking away the souls of all deceased believers, and granting them new life when the dawn arrives—we are all children of Dawn.’
—《The Divine Words of Dawn》 / On God and His Believers.
...
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