The Belated Judgment (13)

40. The Belated Judgment (13)

"Do you still remember the legend of the Lone Knight?" Luther asked.

The warmth and light cast by the campfire crept across his face, but his smile had long since vanished. The firelight did not make him look any healthier; age and hardship were still truly there, carving at the stone.

Under their influence, every scar and every wrinkle stood out clearly. But what concerned the Lion now was no longer Luther's unnatural old age, but something else he had never seen in the old knight before.

"I remember," Lion El'Jonson said impassively.

He was concealing his thoughts, and he believed Luther was doing the same. They might have spoken hundreds of thousands of times, so similar situations had naturally arisen on many occasions. Luther was probably hiding it through experience, but for the Lion, it was nothing more than instinct.

Sometimes, he found it rather laughable. More often, though, he simply followed that instinct in silence, as naturally as an animal obeyed the law of survival of the fittest.

Still, he had not lied. Of course he remembered—how could he forget?

The Lone Knight, the origin of the Order, protector of the unarmed.

While knightly orders large and small were still busy building castles, taming commoners, and preparing for war, the Lone Knight had chosen to patrol outside his cave day and night. He demanded nothing in return and protected the unarmed without distinction.

It was he who had given the Order its unique spirit. To this day, that spirit had been expanded into countless virtues, flowing through the Dark Angels.

Yet even now, no conclusive evidence had been found to prove that he had truly existed.

Caliban's academic circles had even reached a consensus—the Lone Knight had never existed at all. He was