Chapter 125: The Knight Byron’s Ordeal

The booming shouts and curses echoing from inside the mill confirmed Gawain’s suspicions. Without hesitation, he quickened his pace, leading the others forward.

The mill’s heavy door was pushed open, and sunlight flooded into the dim interior. Between the bright shafts of light and the shadows cast by haystacks, Knight Byron lay slumped and crooked, still shouting with surprising vigor. “If you were my squire, I’d kick your stupid head in! You brainless little brat! Are you trying to get yourself killed? You… Your Grace?!”

Byron finally adjusted to the sudden brightness, tilting his head toward the doorway. A tall figure stood framed by the light, followed by three others. The mute boy was the last to enter.

“You’re looking pretty lively,” Gawain greeted the knight lying in the hay. “We were all wondering if you were dead or alive, but didn’t expect you to still have the energy to curse loud enough to be heard from dozens of meters away.”

He stepped forward, but halfway there, Byron shouted sharply, “Your Grace, don’t come closer! I’m cursed by the cult’s dark magic! I don’t know if it’ll spread!”

Gawain frowned. He could tell something was wrong with Byron—otherwise, the knight wouldn’t be lying here cursing—but only after his eyes adjusted to the dim light did he notice the strange markings on the man’s skin.

Dark green-black veins snaked across Byron’s exposed arms, hands, and neck, covering much of his body. Some of the lines crept near his eyes, resembling exposed veins beneath the skin.

Besides the curse, Byron’s body bore many injuries, including a swollen half-face.

Sir Philip gasped, “Damn… what happened to you?”

“I found the cultists, but they found me too,” Byron forced a crooked smile, his body stiff as a board—only his head seemed movable. “The details are long, but to put it simply, I lost… Your Grace, are you here investigating the cult as well? How did you know something was wrong here?”

“A serf turned into a living bomb at the docks—definitely the work of the End of All Things cult,” Gawain replied casually. “And since you hadn’t sent any word back, we knew something was up. Just lie still for now; maybe you can be saved.”

“No use,” Byron said grimly. “That cultist’s magic is powerful. I can feel it eating away not just my flesh but my mind. I see seven or eight afterimages of you all…”

Pittman stepped forward from behind Gawain, strolling over with a teasing grin. “Stop imagining things. Your ‘afterimages’ are just from your swollen eyes—a simple nerve curse, nothing more.”

The old druid crouched beside Byron, beginning to examine the spread of the curse. Gawain, watching from behind, let out a relieved breath. “So it can be cured?”

“No matter how wild the End of All Things cult grows, it’s still rooted in druidic magic. Especially curses—they almost always have a druidic counterspell,” Pittman said, pulling incense and ritual carvings from his pack. “Honestly, if I faced the one who cast this, I might be outmatched. But dealing with the leftover curse? That’s another story. Looks like whoever attacked you really underestimated you, Sir Knight.”

Byron’s eyes darkened with weariness. “He probably started underestimating me the moment he knocked me flying…”

That was reassuring.

After confirming the curse was treatable and Pittman could control its spread, Gawain crouched beside Byron. “What’s the situation in Tansan town? The place is under lockdown, and we can’t get in.”

“Start from three days ago,” Byron said, taking a deep breath. “Before that, everything was normal. Nothing happened in town except that Viscount Andrew bought a batch of slaves—that was the only news. Then, three days ago, the castle suddenly issued a lockdown order, claiming cultists had infiltrated the town. No one was allowed in or out. You should know, I was already arranging a second batch of slave traders and lining up merchant ships. The lockdown was a huge problem, so I went to the castle to get a special permit signed by Viscount Andrew. It was all proper and normal… but I got unlucky and found traces of the cultists.”

“The lockdown was indeed issued by the castle, and cultists had infiltrated the town. But the whole thing was a conspiracy—the cultists were inside the castle, controlling Viscount Andrew himself to issue the order. When I entered the castle hall, I felt a foul presence. Talking to the Viscount, I heard a secret whisper in his voice that wasn’t his own. Realizing something was wrong, I tried to make a proper knightly retreat—but halfway out, a robed figure spotted me. The cultist hadn’t fully taken over the castle or the Viscount yet, so they carelessly let me in. But they couldn’t let me leave…”

Gawain ignored the knight’s self-righteous phrasing and frowned. “How did you escape?”

Based on Pittman’s assessment, the cultist infiltrating Tansan was likely a level four or five member of the End of All Things cult—mid-tier power. Byron was also a level four knight, so their strength was comparable. In a rural area, that made Byron a formidable opponent, but cultists with strange dark magic and battlefield tactics often outmatched knights of equal rank.

It was understandable Byron survived the initial encounter, but escaping from the castle—now half a cult stronghold—was puzzling.

Pittman was already performing a cleansing ritual, using incense and druidic magic to neutralize the taint inside Byron. Muttering prayers to the nature gods, Byron’s complexion visibly improved. He gathered some strength and continued.

“During the fight, the cultist’s magic hit me, and I fell into a cave behind the castle. There was a pool of water there, which saved my life. I found it connected to an underground tunnel—turns out Tansan has a tunnel system beneath it. The cultist probably thought I was dead or was too busy with other things to follow. I crawled through the tunnels for a full day and night before finding the exit… right next to this mill.”

Everyone exchanged looks. Amber muttered, “That’s some serious luck… almost unbelievable.”

“There are many underground tunnels in the south, most of which I helped build back in the day—like the network under the Cecil domain. But I didn’t know about Tansan’s tunnels,” Gawain frowned. “Maybe they were built after my first death, by those who came after.”

Sir Philip pondered, “If the tunnel exists, maybe we can sneak into Viscount Andrew’s castle through it?”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Gawain nodded, then looked at Byron. “What about this boy here?”

The mute child stood quietly by the haystack, watching with a mix of curiosity and caution. Byron glanced at him with a complicated expression and sighed softly.

“When I emerged from the tunnel, the curse had already taken hold. I wanted to report back to my lands, but I feared the curse would spread, so I planned to find a place to wait out my death… I couldn’t move well enough to reach my lands anyway. But somehow, in my daze, I ended up in this mill, where this boy saved me.”

“He’s mute, probably a slave of some merchant guild owner in town. Because of the strange lockdown, he was stuck outside the town. I lay here for two days, and he brought me food and water. Without him, I wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

Pittman finished his ritual and looked up at Byron. “The first thing we heard from you was cursing at that boy.”

“Can’t help it,” the knight grimaced, showing a crooked, ugly smile. “The curse was spiraling out of control. At first, I could barely suppress it, but then I felt it might infect others. The boy didn’t understand that at all… I chased him away several times, tried to explain what a curse was. Once, I even tried to crawl out and drown myself in the river, but I remembered downstream was the Cecil domain. While hesitating by the river, the boy found me and dragged me back.”

“Surprisingly strong for such a small kid,” Pittman said, packing up his ritual tools and glancing at the mute boy. “Looks skinny, but must have some muscle.”

The old druid stood and nodded slightly to Gawain. “The curse is gone.”

Gawain looked at Byron. “Can you stand and lead us?”

“Though I’d like to lie down a bit more,” Byron moved his arm, “I think dealing with the cult threat is more urgent. I’m about fifty to sixty percent recovered.”

Gawain nodded. “Good. Rest a moment, then we’ll use the tunnel you found to infiltrate the town.”

“But there’s one more problem,” Amber suddenly spoke, pointing at the mute boy. “What about him?”

“We definitely can’t take him in,” Gawain frowned. “But we can’t just leave him here either…”

He thought for a moment, feeling he couldn’t simply abandon the boy. Approaching him, he crouched down.

The boy stepped back half a pace, but kept his gaze fixed on Gawain.

“We’re going on a mission,” Gawain said softly, looking into the boy’s eyes. “Can you wait here for three days? If we come back within three days, you come with us. If not, follow the river south to a camp by the riverbank and ask for shelter.”

He pulled a talisman from his pocket and placed it in the boy’s hand. “Take this. They’ll take care of you.”

The mute boy accepted the talisman and slowly nodded.

(End of chapter)