Chapter 258: The Choices of Two Holy Knights

After comforting the little girl who was a survivor and sending the knights to take her down for a rest and the necessary checkups and treatments, another young Holy Knight, covered in blood yet with unwavering determination and wisdom in his eyes, approached Edwina.

The Holy Knight pulled out the holy sword stuck in the ground, burned the filth away with golden flames, returned it to its sheath, and then turned to look at the newcomer.

“It’s Holy Knight Kleisius; has the battle on your side ended?”

“Yes.”

The young Holy Knight, who had joined in this ambush, took off his helmet, glanced at the girl being led away by the Temple Knights, sobbing as she left, and couldn’t help but show a bit of tenderness.

“Can you believe there are still survivors?”

Edwina nodded slightly.

“Yes, it has to be called an unexpected miracle. While it’s thanks to our timely intervention, the fact that life remains in a place where the massacre took place might be the Goddess’s blessing in the shadows.”

“…This has nothing to do with the Goddess; this is a miracle created by profound familial love.”

Just looking at the corpses left by the farmer couple, Kleisius deduced the general situation and rebutted.

“Ha, perhaps.”

Knowing that arguing with a high-ranking Holy Knight with such strong opinions would be pointless, Edwina understood how to handle someone of his personality, especially given her long experience with Ulysses. She simply nodded noncommittally and changed the subject.

“This girl’s parents are dead, and the village has been wiped out. I’m planning to take her with me for now, see if I can find a suitable place to settle her, or maybe even take her to the Holy City to become a nun. I checked earlier, and this child has quite good affinity for Holy Light and seems to have received some theological education.”

Upon hearing this, Kleisius furrowed his brow, seemingly opposed.

“Is that really a good idea? We’re on a long trek, moving around, and we could face skirmishes at any moment. We don’t have the energy to babysit a burden.”

“And there’s also the possibility that this could be a deliberate trap left by the demons, implanting an insider within our ranks. If it’s the top-tier Soul-Eating Demon, it can easily attach itself to this girl and mimic her every move, and under our current conditions, it would be hard to check.”

Hearing this, the Holy Knight also raised her head, her golden eyes meeting his light blue gaze in the air.

But this time, Edwina did not back down.

“Are you saying you want to abandon that child? How likely do you think it is for a ten-year-old girl to survive alone in a place like this?”

“Acting Captain Edwina, I believe that as the leader of such a large force, bearing the crucial task related to the holy war, this isn’t the time for emotional decisions or taking unnecessary risks for one or two people.”

“…”

Seeing that Kleisius was still maintaining his serious demeanor and providing such an answer, the Holy Knight frowned, wanting to say something more. However, he suddenly smiled and changed the subject.

“If it were Princess Yuna, she would surely say this right now, wouldn’t she?”

“Undeniably, that would be the wisest choice. However, as guardians of our country and its people, if we cannot even protect such a little girl, how can we talk about the holy war? How can we speak of salvation?”

“Hmm? You…”

If the conversation had reached this point and she still couldn’t understand what he meant, then Miss Edwina might as well not be the acting captain anymore.

After all, she was essentially a top student from the Holy Academy and wasn’t foolish at all.

With his attitude suddenly doing a complete 180, Kleisius no longer held that serious demeanor, instead smiling as though he recognized something.

“Acting Captain Edwina, you’re great. To be honest, I think you’d probably be a better leader than that Saint of Bright Light; being overly rational… can sometimes make one seem monstrous and evoke fear… Ah, please keep this a secret and don’t tell her I said that.”

Before she could express her surprise, the young Holy Knight nonchalantly changed the topic again.

“Alright, back to the main point. I actually came to discuss something with you… Acting Captain Edwina, you noticed, right? The effects of the previous ambush on the Holy City are starting to show.”

Kleisius took out a strategic map from his possession, crouched down, and spread it out on a relatively clean patch of ground.

“Look, we’re here right now, and in recent days, the demon armies in the vicinity have noticeably begun to gather more densely. This indicates that the enemy has realized the threat posed by our forces and is attempting to hunt us down.”

Although the prior ambush on the Holy City did not truly break through the city’s defenses, merely launching an impressive attack before quickly retreating, the essence of Edwina’s force was never about breaching a city.

With just over three thousand knights, no matter how elite, taking a border city with such a small force was entirely unrealistic, even if they did win, they wouldn’t be able to hold it.

The strategy proposed by a certain fox lady, named “Surround Wei to Rescue Zhao”, revolves around trickery; pretending to aim for an attack on the Holy City, but actually just striking once before retreating, preventing the demons from grasping the true nature of their infiltrating forces.

The siege was a façade, while the actual goal was to divert the attention of demons on the front line, making them hesitant and causing them to overlook things, to lessen the pressure on Yuna’s side and create conditions for a counterattack.

Thus…

Finding a stone stump to sit down and rest, Edwina turned her head to survey the Temple Knights quickly cleaning up the battlefield and searching for possible survivors, before gently nodding.

“This is a good thing; while the pressure will only increase, and we risk being caught up and completely wiped out at any moment, the more demons we trap here, the more room Yuna will have on her end…”

“We must change our strategy going forward.”

“Hmm?”

Kleisius didn’t mind the confused sound from the Holy Knight Princess upon hearing a strange suggestion; he merely pointed again at the map, signaling her to watch closely.

“Acting Captain Edwina, don’t underestimate the demons. They can formulate strategies to lie in wait and ambush the Holy City, which indicates there are certainly some strategists behind the scenes planning this. We might trick them for a moment, but we can’t maintain that forever.”

“Look, our forces are currently positioned 40 kilometers north of the Holy City. The last encounter with the enemy happened just south of the Holy City, making a straight-line distance of nearly 100 kilometers, with several demon-set blockade lines in between.”

“In just one day, we’ve achieved such a long-distance rapid maneuvering, coupled with our earlier battles; the enemy has likely realized we possess some kind of special universal marching technique. Although we’ve been deliberately avoiding letting those flying wings appear before the demons, given our casualties, it’s going to be hard to keep that hidden.”

“Holy Knight Kleisius, you mean…?”

Without immediately answering Edwina’s question, the young Holy Knight simply looked up and countered.

“Generally speaking, the mobility of an army is inversely proportional to its size. Acting Captain, if you were in the demons’ position and discovered such a mysterious force with high mobility roaming in our rear, what strategy would you choose to respond?”

“…Concentrate overwhelming force, spread out a wide net, find the hiding opponents as soon as possible, and wipe them out to ensure stability at the rear. Otherwise, we will face great calamities.”

“Exactly.”

Kleisius smiled like he had everything under control.

“To be honest, Miss Xī’s way of thinking has given me a lot of inspiration, so the more predictable the enemy’s next move becomes, the more we must go against the grain and catch them off guard.”

“The main goal of the ambush has been achieved. If we cling too tightly to the original strategy, we will merely fall into cliche and underwhelming tactics, so…”

He pointed to the spot on the map labeled “Sachenau”, a riverside town.

“We don’t need to continue playing hide-and-seek with the demons; instead, we should head west immediately, using our soon-to-be-exposed high-speed maneuvering to strike unexpectedly at the weakened main demon force.”

“We will become the decisive turning point on the battlefield… a winning trump card.”

   

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