Kazius kept staring at the paper in disbelief. After all, he knew very well what The Church was like. This all reeked of being a power grab by The Pope. The fact they seemed to be trying to downplay their actions and twist things as if justice has been achieved… It didn’t sit well with him at all.

‘How the fuck did that happen? Why are they not making a big deal of this?!’

Kazius could not help but recall The Princess’ face from the parade all those years ago. He did not know her personally, but this whole thing bothered him. Not to mention, this all was more than questionable. The fact that Kazius no longer saw The Oracle as a God meant that Kazius did not take any of this at face value. In denial or not, killing the entire family that descended from The Hero who created this country was not something that could ever sound right to him.

‘It didn’t even say it was something seen in The Oracle itself. The report says The Pope had a vision. You’re telling me, The Pope had a bad dream and our King was killed because of it? What a joke.’

It was then that Alex spoke up. “That is really upsetting.” He admitted with a frown.

Kazius sighed, relieved that for once it seemed that Alex also saw things as wrong.

“I know! I wish I could have seen the execution in person.” Hank sighed out, sounding disappointed.

“Exactly! How dare they fool us for so long! I would have loved to see their heads roll!” Alex laughed out at the thought.

Kazius frowned, his stomach turning at the way they talked. Disappointment washed over him. He really did always try and hope for once his friends would see things the way he did…

“Don’t be too disappointed, Kazius. We can still have fun today despite missing such a fun event.” Leo assured himself with a warm smile.

“Exactly! Let’s do our rounds and then celebrate! I will buy you a drink, how about it? Food? So cheer up!” Mark laughed out, patting Kazius on the back.

Kazius couldn’t even bring himself to fake a smile for once… This was all so wrong. But it would be okay… It had to be… Right?

“I… I suppose you’re right… I will try and not be so disappointed.” Kazius stated, a half-truth. Indeed, he was disappointed, but not about what they believed he was disappointed about.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Alex exclaimed eagerly, leading the group out of the building so they could patrol Marv.

Of course, even with the lack of guards, no one committed much crime in Ratier. Fear of an all-seeing Oracle was just too great… As for those that did commit crime on the rarest of occasion… Considering how The Church treated misbehaving children… Kazius was grateful he had never had to set foot in the Prisons of Ratier.

Memories of Priestess Rosette and High Priest Jordan came into Kazius’ mind. It took all his physical restraint to not visibly shudder. He may be an adult now, but what they did to him and the other kids was not something he would ever forget.

All this happened in Ratier… Yet everyone else seemed to not think anything was wrong. Was he the last sane person left in this world? Or maybe he was crazy? Were Thimdur and Zelphar just as bad?

His mind was practically doing backflips while he worked. He barely made conversation with the others, but thankfully that could also be interpreted on him just being that focused as they walked around Marv.

“Kazius, can’t we call it quits? It is already so late.” Mark whined.

“I don’t get how you can keep going. Aren’t you starving?” Leo questioned, looking exhausted.

“You guys are such wimps; I am so glad The Orphanage toughened us out. Kazius is just that dedicated. He wants the streets extra safe since it is a Holiday.” Alex stated with a scoff.

“But it is 7pm! Our scheduled time was over 2 hours ago!” Hank exclaimed.

Kazius snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the time.

‘7pm?!’

He would look up at the sky, shocked that it was indeed dark out. He had been so deep in thought he had not noticed. He just paced in circles around the whole city while thinking and stressing… And the group had just figured he wanted to be extra careful.

“I’m sorry. I was just wanting to be sure everything was clear… I think we could call it a day… I’m surprised the squad that was meant to come relieve us hasn’t ran into us though… Maybe they are patrolling closer to the outskirts of The City…” Kazius stated, attempting to put his thoughts aside and focus on his job.

Mark groaned, clearly unhappy with the idea of looking around more. He had definitely been excited to go out flirting and drinking. There was nothing he loved more than women. Holy Knight or not, it wasn’t against the code to have such a mindset. After all, it was rumored some of the more beautiful women in the Kingdom tended to get assigned to a harem of The Pope… Not like anyone had seen it to confirm it.

“Come on, once we check in with them, we can go celebrate at the pub.” Kazius sighed out. At this news, he got eager cheers from the group. Honestly Kazius wanted today just over with. The last thing he wanted now was to go out and celebrate. The report and his friends’ reaction to it… It all bothered him… But he would put up with it for their sake.

With that, the group would set off to go find where the other patrol was at… There seemed to be almost no sign of other knights… Which was not entirely unexpected considering the situation with The Ceremony… But this was just downright ridiculous. They should have ran into another squad by now…

It was then Kazius heard it. A loud bang, promptly followed by brief silence and then a choir of horrified screams.

‘What the hell was that?’

It was then the ground began to shake as another loud bang rung.

At this the squad began to panic and scramble. After all, with the little crime, something like this was not something the average Holy Knight was ready for.

Kazius would take little time to react, raising his hand. It was a simple gesture, but this immediately stopped his friends from scrambling or any panicking. Kazius had worked hard to earn their respect and his leadership shined in emergencies the most.

“Come on, let’s figure out what is going on. Be alert!” Kazius exclaimed.

With that, the group would move on. As they approached, they would be able to see part of the city had been turned to rubble, the sounds of battle out in the distance.

It was then Kazius finally spotted the members of the squad that was meant to relieve them, they were in the middle of motioning civilians away.

“What is happening? Any orders?” Questioned Kazius as he approached one of the Holy Knights, he was recognized quite quickly considering his rank.

“The city has been attacked by a band of Orcs! There are Trolls and Ogres too! This is crazy, they have never gotten so close to the city before. There are no orders, there is no one with the rank to give them! Not with the ceremony going on.” One of the Knights started in panic. While the other squad had been fast evacuating the civilians, it was clear that he was freaking out.

Of course, with the training of a Holy Knight, that came with more detailed knowledge about Monsters that was otherwise forbidden. The information was usually rather incomplete and obscure though, so knowing what was attacking was far from helpful in this situation.

That being said, according to proper rules in The Holy Knight order, they need to wait for someone of at least a rank of Commander to give orders. The problem was, there was no one of such rank here. Kazius had the highest rank in the area at the moment.

This was horrible timing. There was only a small company of Holy Knights at Marv, 30 in fact, including Kazius and his 4 squad members. Things were bad. They were massively outnumbered. No Commander either…

‘What are we supposed to do? Just sit on our hands and wait? Evacuate who we can, but not do anything that would breach the rules too badly? Fuck this rank garbage! I need to at least organize a proper defense! I won’t allow the city to go undefended over something so stupid.’

“One or two of you can keep evacuating the citizens. Another one of you needs to go find backup from any nearby town that you can. The rest come with me; we will defend Marv as long as we can.” Kazius commanded.

Of course, at first there was some hesitation. He was not supposed to be doing this and they knew… Then again… The situation was very unique… Alex surprised him, being the first to respond with a firm salute. Usually, he was stickler to the rules of The Church… But it seems he too believed their duty was to defend the city.

“Yes, sir!”

The group would finally respond, joining in the salute. With that, they would set off. Kazius had never seen other Monsters in person. It seems it was finally time for him to see what Monsters were like.