The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 222

Plank Martensias was born a bastard of the Van Reung royal family.

The problem was that King Van Reung had too many bastards. There were already so many of his illegitimate children in the King’s Church that they rejected him.

At this rate, the King’s Church in the Van Reung region might become entirely filled with King Van Reung’s offspring. There was even suspicion that King Van Reung was trying to seize control of the King’s Church using his bastards.

In the end, Plank was sent to the Rescue Knights with a donation.

Plank, who possessed the blood of the Yegas God-King, rose through the ranks within the Rescue Knights, eventually reaching the position of Commander, just below the Knight Commander.

And on that day, an oracle was given to Plank Martensias by the great Archangel of the Trinity.

‘The last knight you appoint will become the flower of knighthood.’

Plank Martensias was greatly disappointed upon hearing the prophecy.

Wasn’t that saying that he was not the flower of knighthood?

No matter how hard he tried, how much he trained, or how many achievements he made, he was not the flower of knighthood, but merely a stepping stone for the next generation of knights.

At the time, he did not know the repercussions that the prophecy would bring and was merely dissatisfied with the harsh prophecy.

After that, he served as the Knight of Wisdom, symbolizing wisdom among the three virtues, for more than 30 years.

Under his command, the Rescue Knights continued to prosper, but beneath the outward appearance of prosperity, the organization was collapsing. The white magic of the Rescue Knights was weakening day by day.

Thanks to the constant influx of bastards of the Yegas gods, they were able to maintain the appearance of white magic, but if their magic continued to weaken, would they be able to fight against the prophesied Age of Jupiter when it arrived?

However, peace continued, with neither the Age of Jupiter nor the Netherstorm stirring.

Even without being able to use white magic, the fiefdom continued to have good harvests without the Nether’s monsters challenging them, and the Knights were prospering.

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The Hybris Peninsula has been famous for its fertile land since ancient times.

Even without special fertilizers, crops grew so well that it was a land coveted by many monarchs since ancient times, but the Netherstorm existed before this Hybris Peninsula.

When the gravitational pull of Jupiter grew stronger and the Netherstorm stirred, monsters would appear and turn the land into a wasteland. Even if ambitious monarchs took control of the Hybris Peninsula, they would be consumed by the effort of fighting off the monsters that invaded afterward, and they would perish.

In the end, no monarch could take control of the Hybris Peninsula and had to give it up, so only the Rescue Knights could become the masters of this land.

The Rescue Knights used the produce from the farmland of the Hybris Peninsula to support the Knights, and in return, they had to fight on the front lines against the Nether’s monsters.

But as peace continued… military spending decreased, and the Rescue Knights began to accumulate enormous wealth. The knights began to have other thoughts, and Plank Martensias also realized that his ambition, which he had been suppressing, was beginning to surface.

At that time, a young man came under his command, and his name was Cohen Lionheart.

He was the former prince of Asander.

He was not a bastard but a legitimate son, but after his mother died and his father, the king, remarried, he became the biggest rival of the new queen.

Unable to withstand the pressure from the queen, he joined the Rescue Knights to avoid death.

Plank planned to use this Cohen to establish his power in Asander, and he actually succeeded in his plan, returning Cohen to the throne of Asander.

The new king’s teacher, a great national scholar, and himself a noble descendant of the Van Reung royal family.

Plank’s plan was so successful that he gained fame as a great figure. Vassals of the Van Reung royal family came to him and secretly suggested that he should also aim for the throne of Van Reung.

Everything was going too well.

However… as Plank was returning from meeting with the nobles of Van Reung, he was attacked by a group of assassins.

These assassins, who appeared with the Emperor’s messengers, the Messenger Clan, easily defeated and killed Plank’s close aides, the Knights of Wisdom, with their amazing skills.

Plank fought against them, but then he discovered someone among them with familiar swordsmanship and posture.

“Are you out of your mind? Cohen! You are a king, how can you be directly involved in an assassination? Moreover, working with the Messenger Clan?”

Cohen Lionheart himself had come to kill his teacher, Plank.

“You were definitely the last person my teacher appointed, weren’t you?”

“Foolish! You are already the king of Asander! How can you do this because of a ridiculous prophecy about the flower of knighthood? And how can someone who assassinates his teacher be called the flower of knighthood?”

“Of course, this is just collecting one more card. I don’t know if I’ll use it, but I want to keep good cards in my hand. And Sir Plank, Knight of Wisdom. If that title is true, think about it. Is there any reason for a king like me to let someone who tries to interfere in another country’s succession and replace the king live?”

Cohen had a reason to eliminate Plank even without the prophecy. The prophecy was just a seasoning that added a bit of interest.

“The gold coins we received are only for this much.”

“The rest is between you and your teacher.”

The Messenger Clan retreated after defeating the other knights besides Plank. Cohen Lionheart, using the swordsmanship he had learned from Plank, pointed his sword at Plank.

“Now then, teacher. Please show me the power of the Knight of Wisdom!”

“Foolish!”

Plank crossed swords with his disciple.

And soon he realized.

That he could not defeat Cohen Lionheart, who had become a king and possessed the Divine King’s Scripture [a sacred text or artifact granting power].

“I’m disappointed, teacher. You’re so old and weak! How can I justify trying to eliminate you by trading with the Messenger Clan?”

Cohen calmly said as he pierced Plank’s heart with his sword.

“Excellent…”

Plank could only answer that.

“It’s thanks to having a good teacher. But you’ve grown old, teacher.”

Thus, Plank was killed by his disciple, and his corpse was left in the field.

But for some reason, he later awakened as a death knight and began to wander the place where he died, suffering from boredom.

He wanted to know how long it had been since he died and what had happened to Cohen Lionheart and the Rescue Knights, but there were not many people passing through this desolate wilderness. Even if there were people passing by, most of them would freeze just by looking at Plank, who had become a death knight, so there was no conversation.

Then, suddenly, a female ghost appeared and asked him to save someone, so he couldn’t help but go out of curiosity.

Plank lightly descended the cliff and landed on the bank of the rapids where white spray was rising continuously.

There, a young man was lying unconscious, and even from afar, he looked similar to the female ghost he had seen earlier.

“I thought you were asking me to save a lover or a sweetheart, but it was a blood relative.”

A pack of wolves was gathering around the young man.

Was the power of the Nether growing stronger? The wolves’ faces were shadowed, and within those shadows, human faces were emerging.

“Screeech.”

“Meat…”

“I want to eat.”

The wolves, making eerie sounds as they tried to approach the young man’s body, all retreated when Plank approached.

“…Plank of Wisdom.”

“A revenant who could not die.”

“You were killed by the hand of the disciple you raised, yet how dare you wander around shamelessly, claiming the name of wisdom?”

The shadows within the wolves mocked and ridiculed Plank.

Plank smiled bitterly and approached the young man. The young man had an unrefined scent of life. It was a captivating scent that he could clearly recognize now that he had become an undead.

Perhaps this young man had somehow managed to survive at the brink of death through a miraculous magic.

‘Is it the king’s miracle? Or the Nether’s magic? Either way, it seems like this young man doesn’t have many days left.’

As Plank placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, the wolves retreated.

“We cannot fight Plank of Wisdom.”

“What suits the undying is a life without rest and…”

“Empty boredom.”

The wolves disappeared, mocking Plank’s situation.

“How can such things appear without any special magic? What is the world coming to?”

Plank was worried about the pack of wolves that had been influenced by evil forces, but it was not the time to worry about others. Wasn’t he also a death knight?

As he pondered his own situation, he examined the young man’s condition. The young man was shivering in the cold, curled up.

“Ah… this.”

Sir Plank recalled the aura of cold that was spreading around him and smiled bitterly.

His cold aura, as a death knight, was actually pushing this patient young man further towards death.

Plank gathered firewood around the young man and lit a fire, then moved away from the flames.

“Troublesome and ridiculous. It better be worth it.”

Fortunately, the young man soon regained consciousness.

He was startled and looked at Sir Plank, then got up from his spot… but Plank just stared at him silently.

“…Who are you? Did you start this fire?”

“Yes, young man.”

“……”

“A very beautiful young lady ghost called me from up there to save you. So I came.”

“Excuse me, but it seems like you are not alive, sir.”

“Haha. You saw right through me. You’re not blind. I am Plank Martensias, the Knight of Wisdom among the three virtues of the Rescue Knights. Or should I say, I was Plank Martensias? No, no. Even if I’m dead, I maintain my essence as Plank. What I’ve lost here is, yes, I’ve lost my position as the Knight of the Three Virtues of the Rescue Knights. So just call me Plank.”

“If it’s a beautiful young lady ghost…”

“She looked like you. Haha.”

At those words, the young man was startled and put on a mask over his face. He acted as if he had shown something that should not have been seen.

“Have you suffered a lot because of your face? Well, with such looks, it would be quite troublesome for both women and men.”

“No. This… is not my face.”

“Not your face?”

“I stole my sister’s eyes.”

“Hmm?”

Plank was intrigued by those words.

He stole his sister’s eyes?

Moreover, the mask that the young man was wearing and the curved bow at his waist told him that this young man was a member of the Messenger Clan.

“It’s a long story.”

“That’s good. The night is long, there’s still plenty of firewood left, and this ghost is hungry for stories, so will you tell me your story? As payment for saving you.”