Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 114

After the soldiers left, skinny, mummy-like green elves scrambled to lick up the phlegm spat out by them.

The green elf who had been hit by a stone wanted to cry in sorrow as he watched, but tears wouldn’t come. They were drying up under the scorching summer sun.

It had been five days since they were captured by the humans.

The humans gave the dozens of green elves water only once a day and left them exposed to the scorching sun. They weren’t given any food at all.

The green elf prisoners were slowly drying up, feeling extreme thirst. The reason they weren’t killed immediately and left like this was a ploy to lure out the remaining enemies.

So, the green elf prisoners were confined in this place, clearly visible from the enemy camp. The Allied soldiers wouldn’t leave them alone.

Every day, they were pelted with stones, cursed with resentment-filled insults, and showered with phlegm. The hope for life seemed to gradually fade from the eyes of the green elves.

случайно [Russian: accidentally] passing by the camp, Kang Chan glanced at them and his eyes widened, noticing something.

“Huh! H, how!”

Kang Chan felt as if he had been hit in the head with a hammer.

“J, Jeina?”

Among the green elves, there was an elf who looked exactly like Jeina.

Unknowingly, Kang Chan approached the prison and stared at the female green elf. Her small stature, facial features, and even her blonde hair were completely identical.

Only her skin was green; otherwise, the green elf was like Jeina’s twin.

Of course, Kang Chan knew better than anyone that she wasn’t Jeina. There was no way the dead Jeina would return as a green elf.

But even knowing that, Kang Chan couldn’t help but burst into tears at the sight of Jeina’s familiar face. He never thought he would see her face again in his lifetime.

The green elf woman, who resembled Jeina, was also looking at him. At first, she was wary of Kang Chan, but soon she wore a puzzled expression.

The man was crying as he looked at her. Not knowing why he was crying, she silently gazed at his retreating figure with a desolate expression.

That night, Kang Chan visited the prison where the green elves were confined again.

“Who’s there?”

The soldier on guard duty was startled by Kang Chan, who appeared silently from the darkness, dressed entirely in black, and shouted loudly.

“Kang Chan, belonging to the Bismann Empire Hellainer Knights.”

“H, Kang Chan-nim [Korean honorific]!”

“It’s Kang Chan-nim!”

The soldiers guarding the prisoners were surprised by the name Kang Chan, and they looked at him with eyes full of awe.

Kang Chan was a rising star among the Allied soldiers these days – a Sword Master who started as a conscript and rose to the regular Knights Order.

His exploits in creating the special forces Black Wyvern and rampaging through enemy lines were known throughout the army, and Kang Chan was regarded as a mythical figure among ordinary soldiers.

Moreover, Jikyon, who was always with him, was also known to people as a goddess. Therefore, Kang Chan, who was always with Jikyon, was also called the ‘Knight of the Sky,’ a grand name given to him as a knight sent by heaven.

“Knight of the Sky-nim! It’s an honor to meet you like this!”

“Um, I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I’m not the Knight of the Sky.”

“Aren’t you Kang Chan-nim, who leads the Black Wyvern unit?”

“That’s right, but…”

“Then you are the Knight of the Sky. Loyalty!”

“…….”

‘Could it be that I’m being called the Knight of the Sky here?’

Kang Chan felt a little embarrassed as he was given an undeserved nickname without his knowledge. Besides, the Knight of the Sky… it was a nickname that didn’t suit him at all. A Dark Knight would be more like it.

“But what brings such a precious person to this humble place?”

“I came to see the prisoners.”

The soldier was surprised and asked back, as if a big shot like a Sword Master would come to see dying green elves.

“Yes? The green elf prisoners, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“Ah, I understand!”

The soldier was very curious as to why he came to see the green elves, but he didn’t dare to ask due to the difference in status and quickly opened the way.

“Loyalty!”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

Kang Chan passed the guards and arrived in front of the prison. Whether they were exhausted from the hot heat of the day, they were all lying down like corpses, sleeping.

Kang Chan approached the green elf he had seen during the day. Then, the green elves, sensing his presence, 벌떡 [Korean: abruptly] stood up and glared at him warily.

Those who held grudges against them often appeared like this at night to throw filth or threaten them with weapons.

There were 30 green elves trapped in the cage. 20 of them were Orc elves, and the remaining 10 looked like ordinary elves.

Kang Chan looked for the elf who resembled Jeina among them. She was also glaring at Kang Chan with a deep wariness.

Kang Chan looked at her and fell into deep sorrow again.

The green elf woman, who was receiving Kang Chan’s gaze, was puzzled again. The man who had come during the day and cried while looking at her had come again in the evening and was looking at her with sad eyes.

The green elf woman was puzzled by Kang Chan’s sad eyes and wore a puzzled expression. That expression made her look even more like Jeina, and Kang Chan, not satisfied with just looking, spoke to her.

“What’s your name?”

“…….”

Extremely wary, she didn’t respond to Kang Chan’s words.

“Are you scared of me?”

The green elf woman nodded silently, because there were many soldiers who targeted them because their appearance was very beautiful, just like elves.

They had tempted her, saying they would give her bread and water if she showed them her breasts. Of course, they weren’t the ones who would give them food even if they showed them.

“Don’t worry, I don’t have any particular feelings for you.”

He said that, but Kang Chan’s words were filled with deep emotion. In the first place, his words, coming at this late hour, seemed to lack a lot of persuasiveness.

Kang Chan saw that the lips of the green elf woman, who was staring at him intently, were cracked like drought-stricken land, and handed her the water bottle he had brought.

“Are you thirsty? Here, drink.”

When Kang Chan handed her the water bottle, she was startled and snatched it as if taking it away and drank the water urgently, but she only took a sip or two.

She shared the remaining water with her companions next to her, but the water Kang Chan brought was far from enough to satisfy everyone.

“Do you want to drink more?”

She nodded silently.

“Wait a moment.”

Kang Chan got up and asked the soldier to fill a large container with water and hand it over to the prisoners. Then the prisoners hurriedly took the water Kang Chan gave them and drank it, and everyone looked relieved and happy.

Soon, when the water in the water bottle ran out, Kang Chan was able to hear the green elf woman’s voice for the first time.

“Why… are you helping us?”

Her voice, which had been under the scorching sun for 5 days, was a severely cracked metallic sound, but it was originally a very pretty voice.

“Just, a nostalgia for the past?”

“Do I look a lot like someone you know?”

Kang Chan was startled for a moment at her very sharp question, but he pretended not to be and asked back.

“Why do you think so?”

“I knew it by looking at your eyes.”

Kang Chan was speechless for a moment.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you resemble a woman I know. A lot.”

“I knew it.”

A moment of silence flowed between the two, and Kang Chan stared intently at the woman’s face without saying a word, because her face, properly viewed from the front, really resembled Jeina.

The green elf woman, facing such Kang Chan, also stared intently at him. Clearly, he was an enemy, but for some reason, she didn’t dislike his gaze.

Kang Chan took something out of his arms and handed it to her.

“Take it.”

“What is this?”

What Kang Chan handed her was a pill that the space people ate.

“You’ll know if you eat it.”

“…….”

The woman looked at the pill Kang Chan gave her and was puzzled, but soon she smiled silently and said, “That’s right, wouldn’t it be better to die?”

She seemed to think that the pill Kang Chan gave her was poison. Certainly, in this situation, it might be happier to commit suicide by taking poison.

Kang Chan denied her words.

“That’s not poison.”

“Then what is this?”

“You’ll know if you eat it.”

“…….”

At Kang Chan’s words to eat it first, she swallowed the pill without any hesitation. Even if this was poison, she had nothing to lose, but after a while, she widened her eyes.

“H, how… how can this be?”

She felt her hunger gradually disappearing and looked at Kang Chan in surprise.

“One pill is enough to not eat anything all day.”

She didn’t know what to do with the feeling of fullness she felt for the first time in 5 days.

Kang Chan handed her a small metal box. She received the box, bewildered. When she opened the box, there were dozens of the pills she had eaten inside.

The woman looked at Kang Chan with surprised eyes.

“I don’t know if this will help you or be poison, but this is all I can do to help…” He was showing this favor because of his lingering feelings for Jeina, but Kang Chan himself knew very well that he couldn’t do any more.

She wasn’t the real Jeina. She was just an enemy to be killed.

“Goodbye.”

Mentalized, Kang Chan turned his body towards his camp. Then, behind his back, the green elf woman said softly, as if whispering.

“It’s Platina, my name…”

When she told him her name, he also told her his name.

“It’s Kang Chan.”

After Kang Chan left, the green elves, who had solved their meals with the pills he had given them, were noticeably in better condition, but no matter how much they solved their meals, water was more important than food, so their suffering didn’t change much, because the humans had completely stopped distributing water after that.

You can live for 3 weeks without eating, but your life is in danger if you don’t drink water for only 3 days. Water was very important for survival for both elves and humans.

Kang Chan often thought of Platina after that night. He tried not to think about it on purpose, but the more he did, the more worried he was about her suffering under the scorching summer sun.

She was suffering with Jeina’s face. Although she was the enemy green elf, just resembling Jeina made his heart ache, because Jeina’s suffering was the most terrible thing in the world for Kang Chan.

“Hey, are you thinking about those things in space again?”

Jikyon, who approached Kang Chan, who was full of anguish, spoke to him with a worried tone, but Kang Chan avoided her without answering.

“Hey~ Are you still angry?”

“…….”

“Okay, I won’t talk to you until you’re not angry.”

As Jikyon was about to leave Kang Chan’s tent with a dejected look, Kang Chan suddenly called out to her. Although she was hateful, he couldn’t stay silent with Jikyon like this forever.