The Regressor of a Fallen Baronial House

Chapter 31. Baum Territory's Mine (3)

"What do you mean by that!"

Aubert’s shout filled the small cavity.

"Blanc, you must have seen an illusion. Everyone gets nervous during their first real battle."

Noel also took Aubert’s side, doubting Blanc’s mental state.

The remaining ten knights also looked at Blanc with suspicion.

Receiving those gazes, Blanc quietly turned his head and called his faithful training hall keeper.

"Rakshar, did you see a face?"

The Werewolf with grey fur answered, his trembling eyes filled with tension.

"Yo, Young Master. I did not see a face either. Just two round things floating in the darkness……."

"It has no face!"

One of the squires let out a sharp scream.

It was the squire who had been beaten earlier for failing to hide his nervousness. He was curled up, trembling uncontrollably.

"There was no face! This place is cursed! We have to get out! We have to get out!"

As if having a seizure, the squire spat out his words and, as soon as he finished, grabbed a torch and ran wildly towards the path they had come down.

The group merely watched with bewildered hearts as the squire, swallowed by fear, lost his mind.

While everyone maintained a heavy silence, not knowing what to do, Blanc spoke in a firm voice, catching the falling morale and calling for attention once again.

"My mind is clear. I am a knight acknowledged by Aselheit. My spirit has not succumbed to injustice and fear."

Meeting Blanc’s burning gaze, the knights realized he was neither scared nor in a confused state.

"I do not know what it is, but something dark and wicked is disturbing our minds. Everyone, wrap yourselves in Aura."

Feeling the conviction in Blanc’s eyes, the knights followed his instructions and wrapped themselves in Aura.

Wrapping oneself in Aura was the act of refining one’s mental world and drawing it out into reality. Therefore, maintaining Aura not only strengthened the body but also had the effect of elevating the mind.

As soon as the knights wrapped themselves in Aura to confront the unidentified wicked entities, the two faces floated up again at the entrance where the two knights had disappeared.

"Lord Noel? Lord Aubert?"

"Why are you not following? Lord Stefan is waiting."

Looking at those faces again while wrapped in Aura, Aubert could not help but be shocked.

"This crazy……."

It was because, as Blanc had said, they had no faces.

No, to be precise, their faces were mashed, making it impossible to distinguish eyes, nose, or mouth.

"Rakshar!"

At Blanc’s command, Rakshar quickly nocked an arrow and fired.

The arrow hit one of the two faces.

"KIEEEEEEK!"

"Why don't you save us! Save us! Get us out!"

Letting out agonizing screams, the two faces disappeared once again.

Even long after the two faces vanished, the knights could not speak.

"What kind of dog-like situation is this……."

The first to break the corpse-like silence was Sir Hansen, the oldest and most experienced among the ten knights.

He wiped his face, which was drenched in sweat, and spoke.

"Sir Blanc is right. Something wicked is targeting us."

"Damn it……."

Having experienced something eerie, the knights felt in their bones that this task would absolutely not be easy.

"We must save them."

Blanc spoke to the knights who were at a loss for what to do.

"The missing people might already be dead. However, if those bizarre things earlier were truly Sir Carlo and Sir Asat……."

Blanc tightly gripped the sword he was holding.

"Did they not speak? They asked to be taken out. We must rescue our comrades who are bound by dark things even in death."

Blanc was right. This search party had come expecting that rescuing Stefan Tolome would be difficult anyway.

Just because something eerie passed before their eyes did not mean they could sit down and give up. After all, they were the knights of Tolome.

"We retreat."

However, Noel, who was acting as the practical leader of the search party, had a different thought.

"Brother!"

At Noel’s words of retreat, Aubert rushed at him in a rage, but he had no choice but to agree with the words that followed.

"This is actually better. Rather than resisting a completely unknown enemy while fumbling in the dark, it is correct to prepare sufficiently with the enemy identified."

As Noel said, the knights had somewhat identified the enemy they had to face.

Entities capable of emitting such wicked and bizarre energy and bewitching people could only be Warlocks who had sold their souls to demons.

If they left the mine right now and obtained holy water or holy relics from the Goddess Religion, their future advance would be much easier.

'Things are becoming easier!'

What Noel was saying was actually what Blanc wanted to say.

Through memories of his past life, Blanc knew well that what lurked in the Baum Mine was a Warlock’s curse.

However, one could not simply stop by the Goddess Religion and bring holy relics to snipe Warlocks without any reason.

Therefore, he intended to give them the conviction that Warlocks were involved at the entrance of the mine, then prepare thoroughly and explore with Edwin, who would arrive as the rearguard.

Since he knew the way, it was fully possible if he was with excellent knights.

"But Father is!"

"If Father were here, he would have made the same choice. Do you intend to send the knights of Tolome to their deaths without hearing anything, swept away by momentary emotions?"

However, if they did this, the rescue time would be delayed, and Stefan Tolome’s life could not be guaranteed, so Blanc had been worrying about how to solve this, but now Noel was solving that worry for him.

'He is an excellent knight.'

Watching Noel judge with cold reason, Blanc could not help but admire him. It must have been Noel’s judgment to rush to the Tolome family to request support as well.

Indeed, the lions of Tolome were extraordinary.

"We will retreat. Do you agree?"

It was truly difficult for the word retreat to come out of the mouth of a knight who must always be brave.

Seeing everyone hesitate and look at each other, Blanc stepped forward.

"My brother’s judgment is correct. A knight must be brave but also possess wisdom. I support my brother’s judgment."

"That is…… correct! Knowing when to withdraw is also the way of a knight!"

"Leaving what we can do and just charging forward cannot be called courage! Let us prepare and return!"

As soon as Blanc finished speaking, the knights began to agree as if they had been waiting. If not for their pride, following Noel’s words was a hundred, a thousand times the right thing to do.

"Then let us move."

Having obtained the knights' consent, Noel took the lead again and tried to go back up the path the squire had run towards earlier.

"What kind of disaster is this……."

The winding downhill path they had come down had disappeared at some point, and a massive wall was blocking the group in its place.

***

It was the second day.

Since the search party had been trapped in the mine.

"Damn Warlock bastard. If I catch him, I won't let him off easily."

Aubert spat roughly and grumbled.

The group was walking aimlessly through the dark mine.

Fortunately, the squires had prepared thoroughly, so they had been able to move without starving so far, but even that would end by tomorrow.

"It feels like we keep going in circles."

"I feel that way too."

Even without Noel and Aubert saying it, everyone here felt it.

That they were lost.

The mine map given by Baron Tigor Baum was useless. Aside from being a crude map to begin with.

"Should we have just taken a fork instead of breaking the wall back then?"

"Even if we did, it likely would have been the same. We have already fallen into the trap of the wicked thing."

Seeing the wall blocking their way back, the knights had not obediently turned around to choose a fork in the road.

Fortunately, among the search party was Sir Bauer, whose main weapon was a war hammer rather than a sword.

The reason he used a war hammer as his main weapon was simple. It was because his strength was Herculean.

With Sir Bauer’s fierce hammering, the group broke the wall blocking their exit and walked out confidently, but looking back, they wondered if they had been lost since then.

If they had chosen one of the three forks instead, they would at least have had something to use as a reference point to compare with the crude map.

Even now, Sir Bauer was looking at the group, wondering if he had done something unnecessary.

Anyway, since then, they had been walking aimlessly.

For two whole days.

"It would have been less frustrating if something had just popped out."

As Aubert said, if an enemy had popped out or if they had found the missing knights, which was their original purpose, it would not have been this frustrating.

The only result they had obtained while walking for two days was a tentative answer to why Carlo and Asat’s faces were visible to their eyes but not to Blanc and Rakshar.

"I don't know for sure, but could it be because Rakshar and I have never seen Sir Carlo and Sir Asat?"

Blanc offered the opinion that perhaps those terrible things couldn't transform because they hadn't seen the two knights.

In other words, wasn't it that they confused the knights' minds to make them hallucinate? That would explain why Blanc, who had no basis for hallucination, didn't fall for it.

Blanc's words explained it roughly.

The squire who ran away had also not been in the service long enough to have encountered the two knights who operated outside.

"That sounds plausible."

"Though we can't be sure. Definitely, these guys seem to be the type that plays with people's minds."

If Blanc's hypothesis was correct, it meant these guys used methods to manipulate people's minds. In other words, to avoid being manipulated by them, one had to constantly wrap oneself in Aura.

"Groan……."

Sir Hansen, the oldest, made a groaning sound, sweating profusely.

No matter that knights radiated power through Aura, it was impossible to do this activity all day long.

Moving while constantly maintaining mental focus was something that gnawed away not only mental strength but also physical stamina.

They had lasted two days only because they were the elite knights of Tolome and no battles had occurred in between.

Eventually, starting with Sir Hansen, who was the oldest and lacked stamina, they began to reach their limits one by one.

"Shall we split into two groups and take turns maintaining Aura?"

"These are knights. If they show signs of derangement and go wild for even a moment, the damage will be uncontrollable."

"But we can't keep maintaining Aura like this. Everyone is already exhausted."

Watching Noel and Aubert argue, Blanc rummaged through the backpack Rakshar was holding, as if expecting this.

"Brothers."

"What is it, Blanc?"

They were brothers who looked like they would raise their voices and fight if left alone a little longer. No, not just them, but all the knights who were maintaining Aura and focusing were in an edgy state.

"There are many ways to elevate the mind, but using Aura is indeed the most excellent method. However……."

"However?"

"There is also a method using drugs."

"Drugs?"

At the mention of the harsh word 'drugs' coming from the mouth of a fourteen-year-old boy, Noel frowned.

Did he dabble in drugs because he lost his parents at a young age and had nowhere to rely on?

Noel thought he should scold him severely and lead him to the right path, but.

"Here."

"What is this?"

"It is Mint Candy."

"Mint Candy?"

What was in Blanc’s hand was candy that children ate.

"Why this?"

Noel looked at Blanc with a puzzled expression as he offered the Mint Candy. Aubert beside him was also looking at Blanc with an expression that said, 'Why this all of a sudden?'

"I know this is one of the specialties of High River here. It is famous for its strong and unique taste…… It seems my servant packed it thinking of me."

"So?"

Noel continued to demand an explanation.

"I tried eating one to wake myself up since I was sleepy, and the taste was very…… quite…… Please try one."

As if no further explanation was needed, Blanc handed the candy to Noel.

Noel stared blankly at the candy Blanc handed him, then realizing the surrounding gazes were focused on him, quickly tossed it into his mouth.

And then.

"Ugh……."

He frowned deeply, distorting his face.

"Right. This is enough to be called a stimulant. It is a candy that has reached the realm of drugs."

Noel personally realized the utility of the Mint Candy Blanc brought.

"Everyone come and take one. With this, I think we can stay alert without necessarily wrapping ourselves in Aura."

And now, all the knights and squires here would also feel its utility.