With a thud, the male paladin was dropped to the ground, but he quickly scrambled back out of fear.
After listening to those words, what he and the woman thought was a beast suddenly began to shrink from its enormous size to the height of a normal man.
A rather good-looking and shirtless man.
Upon seeing him, the women’s fear-filled expression was momentarily replaced with a dazed look. She would have never suspected that a man so good-looking would appear in front of her all of a sudden.
Chiseled jawline, messily flowing hair, and a lean body. This man resembles the little boy from before but older; though he didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
However, despite this man’s appearance, something told the woman it wasn’t natural. A normal human shouldn’t have such a perfect appearance.
Along with that, he seemed strange, and as the people in the village with peculiar green markings over their bodies came to look at what was going on, that strangeness began to increase because he looked completely different from them.
No, he and his son were both the strange ones in this village.
“So, are you going to answer my question?”
The man’s tyrannical pressure from before returned, causing the male and female paladins to shiver. The man also turned to look at the procession; specifically at the smiling Bishop Adalhard.
Adalhard immediately stepped forward and with the smile still on his face he introduced himself.
“Great sir, I am one of the many Bishops from the Church of Ga-On which is one of the Seven Great Churches. I am here to spread the word of our Lord and the teachings of our Church to Ibbian Tribes like yours.”
“Oh? And here I thought we were called Barbarian Tribes? I must have misheard you from before.”
The handsome man said this with a raised eyebrow and Bishop Adalhard’s smile faltered a bit.
‘He heard me? But he wasn’t nearby. I didn’t sense him within a five-hundred-meter radius. To hear our conversation from such a far distance is not something a normal human could do. I heard the Indigenous Ibbian Tribes gained strange powers after living in the Unholy Mountain Range, but this man’s power is not what I have heard of or seen personally.’
Bishop Adalhard then thought about how the man had suddenly appeared within his senses like a ghost to grab the male paladin’s head; as well as his ability to transform into a miniature giant.
‘This village we picked to carry out our mission will be an arduous one. Oh Lord Ga-On, guide this child of yours in the right direction so I may fulfill the duty I was bestowed with, Amen.’
While Adalhard was saying a small prayer internally, the handsome man said once again.
“We don’t need the teachings of your Church, but I need to ask. How did you get past the barrier to enter our home?”
The handsome man said this with a freezing tone of voice.
Adalhard’s reaction internally was one of shock. The information was that these indigenous tribes did not know about the lands outside of the Unholy Mountain Range, and neither about the barrier that traps them inside.
But this man knows.
‘Lord Ga-On give me more strength.’
Adalhard’s prayers increased.
While this scene was unfolding, the little boy from before watched it for a brief moment before continuing on his way.
He hurried past the well-built but simple wooden houses in the village, all while a few people called out to him with familiarity. This seemed to be a common occurrence.
After some time, the boy reached his house which wasn’t any different from the others he had passed, but was weirdly located on the outskirts of the village; just over seven hundred meters from the village square.
After passing the small gate that surrounded the yard of the house, the boy paused for a moment as he suddenly missed stepped.
He looked down to see why his footing shifted, and he saw a large footprint with small spiderweb-like cracks spreading from it.
The boy examined how bigger the foot was compared to his own, which resulted in an inexplicable emotion rising in his heart.
“When will I be as strong as Dad? I really can’t slack off.”
With a serious expression, the boy went around to the back of his house and drop the large stack of firewood from his back causing a loud bang.
Without wasting much time the boy then went into a small makeshift shed nearby and brought out a large ax that was about twice his size.
The ax left a deep trail in the grass and dirt as the boy dragged it over to a chopping block in the middle of the backyard. After fixing the black ankle and wrist bracelets around his hands and feet, the boy placed one of the many firewoods on the chopping block and started his cutting.
His movements were slow but precise. Each block of wood would split in half with one of his strikes. The ax would also create a windstorm throughout the backyard as the boy swung it down; showing that the weight of the ax was absurd.
It didn’t take long for the boy to go through half of the wood he had carried back as his speed of chopping would get faster and faster.
The boy was soon breathing heavily and was drenched in sweat, but his perseverance seemed boundless as he continued without lessening his pace. ．
Though of course he wasn’t entirely focused on his task, his mind would wander back to those strange people that came to his village. He wanted to stay and watch like everyone else, but he had a daily training routine he couldn’t break under any circumstances; else his father would give him an earful.
As the only child of a single father who was perfect in every way imaginable, in this environment, the boy felt a heavy sense of pressure to live up to the expectations his father had of him but never voiced.
So he tried to ignore why those people from before came to his village and focus on his task.
However, this was the day that could have been said to spark it all.
A journey full of bloodshed.
A path full of revenge and struggle to let go of suffocating hatred.
On that journey further into the future, the boy would look back and wonder how different things could have turned out if he had paid a little more attention to those Evangelists.
Maybe if he was just a little stronger… like his father. Maybe things wouldn’t have turned out like how they would.