Chapter 40
Escape
There was a man named Grave in the dark side of Cleydale Kingdom.
He was not originally from the Cleydale Kingdom; he was born a baronet of Fandria, a religious state north of Cleydale, and was raised as a man of piety, but one day his father was disgraced by his political enemies and not only was he removed from his position as chief priest, he was later imprisoned and never returned after that.
Grave’s mother then left the country with the young Grave, and after a hard journey, they somehow had drifted to the Kingdom of Cleydale.
But the arduous journey left Grave’s mother disabled and she, too, was forced to follow in his father’s fate. Grave was left to live alone in a strange land, living in a slum and doing whatever it takes to survive, resenting the world and the aristocrats who had doomed him and his family to this fate.
But it was also a nobleman who saved Grave.
The man was a Cruz named Hoss, and it seemed that he and Grave’s father were acquaintances. Hoss apologized to the young Grave for not being able to save his father and mother, and took him in as a member of his family, even though he had been living in the slums as if he were a criminal.
But Grave refused to be adopted by Hoss, a nobleman, and chose to work under Hoss, as a dark knight.
Despite being in a religious nation, the upper echelons of the Fandria legal state were corrupt.
Even in this Cleydale Kingdom, there would be corrupt nobles. But knowing that Hoss and other decent nobles remained untainted, he came to believe that the difference was the power of the upper echelons of the country…the royal family.
If the royal family had the right power, the nation would not be disturbed, and Grave started to discipline himself strictly, training in both martial arts and magic, sometimes even going so far as to violate orders to destroy the evil that might disturb the nation.
In a sense, his passion could be described as madness.