When people heard that the kidnapped villagers were alive, their relatives began arriving with carts one after another. Criel, who stood at the front of the procession, was also pulling a cart.
"You look so composed despite everything."
The floating horse head's chatter hung in the air. Criel raised his right hand and waved it dismissively. The gesture clearly conveyed his wish for the nuisance to go away, like someone shooing a bird.
"Come on. Who else would guide you if not me? The journey's boring, so let me tell you a story."
But Orishin, the horse head, showed no intention of quieting down.
*The only one who knows where the missing people are is this thing.*
And if this horse head had set some kind of trap, he needed to stay close by to be prepared. Until they reached the place where the missing people were supposedly kept, he had no choice but to remain at its side.
Criel opened his mouth, partly willing to listen and partly because walking in silence was indeed boring.
"Not about me. Let's hear your story."
"Me?"
"Why did you kidnap those maidens in the first place?"
"Ah! That. I told you already. It was the only way to avoid eating people."
Orishin began the story by cursing the Abyss spawn who had planted the seed of the Abyss in him and placed the curse. As Criel already knew, a baicon naturally possessed the trait of devouring faithful husbands.
"But after living in these mountains for years, I couldn't bring myself to devour people born and raised in this land!"
Killing followed by cannibalism would have been an irreversible corruption. Orishin had agonized over how to resist the demonic nature forced upon him.
"And then?"
"I'd heard that unicorns like virgins, but more accurately, they like 'purity.' At first, I tried to endure by drinking clean water from mountain springs, but the demonic energy leaking from my body contaminated the water."
"If it couldn't be solved through diet, why didn't you go to a temple from the beginning?"
"This mountain is closely connected to me, which helped me resist corruption. Anyway, I thought about it and realized that virgins symbolize purity, and their hair symbolizes chastity."
This bastard, surely not. Criel glared at Orishin with disbelief.
"I thought eating their hair might help. It didn't taste good though."
So even in this world there are people who eat strange things instead of seeking proper help. Criel felt a headache coming on.
"Nobody died! Their hair just got a bit shorter. With corruption spirits appearing frequently around here, I'd say I managed pretty well!"
"Be quiet."
Unable to listen anymore, Criel waved his hand at the horse head spirit. But being a ghost, his hand simply passed through it. Orishin flew around Criel, shouting in an exaggerated voice.
"You think you can defeat me with mere hand gestures? Aaaaargh!"
The gauntlet coated with holy water proved effective even against the horse ghost. After scolding the squealing Orishin to move faster, Criel gazed at the mountain range.
More precisely, he was imagining a military camp somewhere beyond those mountains. Once this job was done, he would be discharged.
Though he felt uneasy about having to return to report his discharge, it was just a few more days of hardship. Criel was happily imagining what he would do after being discharged.
***
While the villagers reunited with their separated families, and the potato field kid who discovered his hair had been cut almost to baldness during his unconsciousness was trying to beat the horse ghost with farming tools—
Criel was quietly packing his belongings. His luggage was actually quite simple; preparing mainly involved cleaning his blade and maintaining his armor. Father Jakabil noticed him.
"Are you planning to leave already?"
"A knight carrying a sword would only make these people uncomfortable if I stayed. Just as it's a knight's virtue to help good people in distress, it's also a knight's duty not to cause worry to others."
The knight who had arrived at dusk was planning to leave around the same time. The priest considered asking him to stay the night but then shook his head.
"Thank you for keeping your promise."
"Please convey those thanks to the commander. I merely followed orders."
The moonlight was bright, and thanks to his Dark Knight abilities, walking the forest path wasn't difficult. However, a corner of Criel's mind sensed something odd.
"Why don't you just come out?"
"Busted, damn it."
That horse head again. Criel wondered if he should soak his gauntlet in holy water once more.
"No, wait, listen for a moment, friend. Is it okay to just leave a spirit's corpse abandoned like that? Won't it attract monsters with its smell?"
"If I report to headquarters, they'll send scholars for purification and research. Father Jakabil has military chaplain experience. He's already taken temporary measures to prevent monsters from gathering."
"This is bad..."
The horse head must have had a reason for lingering around. Criel hesitated between annoyance and curiosity, then decided in favor of curiosity.
It was a choice born from the characteristic leisure of someone about to be discharged.
"What's the matter? You've been hovering around me."
"Sharp knight. I like knights like you."
Orishin quickly revealed his concerns. While the physical corruption had left when he died, the stain on his soul needed proper purification.
"What about Father Jakabil?"
"Ha! That's too heavy a burden for the old man. He could do it, but he'd die from overwork! Purifying a curse that affects a spirit of my level requires several priests working together."
What Orishin wanted was to find a priest order that could cleanse his soul. This wasn't difficult for Criel. Having served with the Western Army, he had become acquainted with the priests there, whether he liked it or not.
"I'll introduce you to the Western Army priests."
"Oh!"
"But stay quiet while you're following me."
"This guy understands! I believed you were a true knight from the moment I first saw you!"
Ptooey.
Orishin spat something out. It was quite familiar to Criel's eyes.
"A baicon horn?"
"Actually, it's a bit tiring to keep appearing and chattering like this. I didn't have enough strength to break my original horn, and it seemed wasteful, so I took out the one stuck in my eye. I'll rest inside this, so call me if you need me."
It was funny hearing the talkative horse say conversation was tiring, but there was no reason to refuse when it offered to lower its volume. As Orishin disappeared into the baicon horn as if being sucked in, the night path finally became quiet.
Criel ran vigorously toward his discharge.
***
He could not be discharged.
"What can I do? The commander who needs to approve your discharge is away."
"This can't be happening. This can't be..."
"You're a soldier in name only, practically a free knight. The commander treated you well, so I don't understand why you're so averse to military service."
The white-haired old staff officer joked. Criel felt memories of his military service in Korea welling up.
No matter how comfortable, the military is still the military. The desire to escape its characteristic stuffiness was an instinct ingrained in him.
"Finance Director. Can't you write a discharge certificate as the acting commander?"
"You're directly under the commander's command. It would be overstepping my authority."
Behind the dejected Criel came the sound of the Finance Director clicking his tongue.
"That's what you get for fighting too well. If you had fought moderately and lost at the trial by combat, the commander wouldn't have set his eyes on you."
"As I've said repeatedly, it wasn't intentional. Damn it..."
He wanted to unleash all manner of creative curses, but doing so would diminish his Grace. Criel compressed all his emotions into that single "damn it."
After leaving headquarters, Criel trudged toward the priest quarters. He was heading to where the military chaplains stayed.
He had handed Orishin over to the priests as soon as he arrived at the Western Army garrison. As the person who brought Orishin, he needed to check how things were going.
"However, Orishin could not be freed from the curse. Having used too much strength to persuade the knight, Orishin inexplicably received a verdict of irrecoverable during the subsequent purification process..."
This was what Criel heard as soon as he entered the priest quarters. The sight of a unicorn head muttering pitifully on top of a baicon's horn was surreal even by the standards of the fantasy world he had fallen into.
"What happened?"
Despite his sudden appearance, the priests, already accustomed to the suspicious appearance of the scorched knight, answered calmly.
Whether it was because the baicon's horn was used as a medium for the soul, or because the curse was too strong, the priests couldn't determine, but they explained that the Western Army priests lacked the capacity to purify Orishin's soul.
"Waaaaaah! What, what is this, priests! Me, an Abyss spawn? Me, unable to be purified!"
"Purification isn't impossible. It's just that the process might cause irreversible damage to your soul, spirit."
The priest continued with an analogy that purifying a curse so closely bound to the original soul was like trying to extract ink dissolved in water.
"It's difficult but possible. If you could meet with the high priests at the main temples of each denomination in the Holy Kingdom's capital, or even without going all the way there, if you could meet those called saints by the church—"
"Those are wandering addicts who travel to every corner of the world helping the unfortunate! Impossible to meet them!"
Criel felt the priests staring at him. The trial by combat that had gotten Criel stuck with the Western Army. Everyone knew well that among those involved in that trial, there was now someone called a "saint."
"I want to help too. But headquarters won't approve my discharge—"
An idea flashed through Criel's mind.
His orders stated "resolve the incident in Loran village." And this unicorn's predicament was, broadly speaking, an extension of the Loran village incident.
If Criel left the Western Army garrison to help the unicorn, it wouldn't be disobeying orders!
"Sob sob. I can't live as a corrupted being. I should die. But if I die while buried in the Abyss, even after death—"
"No. On second thought, I think there's a way."
"What!"
"I'll take this spirit with me."
I'll become a legally discharged knight. Criel made that resolution.