Laughsalot was not a true knight. That is to say, he had only relied on his talent, skill, and high stats to reach the level that he was in. He did not go through rigorous training, life and death battles to push his body.
As such, he was unaware of the real strength of a True Knight who did not simply rely on his stats and talent, but trained their physical body to the limit of transcendence.
The food he drugged wouldn’t have much effect on her body, which was able to reach level 8. Much less needs to be said now that Reinhardt has even used the [Radiant Renewal] on them, removing all harmful condiments from their body.
It was a pipe dream of Laughsalot if he thought that Zerina would come looking for him to satisfy her desire.
"No, I need to wait patiently. Maybe it is taking time to kick in." And so, like a donkey trying to reach for the carrot dangling right before it, he couldn’t let the woman he was infatuated with go.
Laughsalot waited for Zerina outside his cabin the entire night. The day was over and the sun was up; however, his dream remained a dream, and he slowly fell asleep in front of his door.
At the crack of dawn of the next day, the members of the Order of the Temple of Light, refreshed from a good night’s sleep, began preparation to set out.
In front of the stronghold gate.
"Please, please wait." Suddenly, with dark circles in his eyes, the person who appeared before Reinhardt and the others was Luaghsalot.
"How? What? You are all... all aright?"
His question was quite peculiar. The Divine Paladin grinned and teased the man, "Yes, the food that you prepared was quite good. We are all refreshed now. I thank you for the hospitality. However, our mission requires haste, and so we must move now".
Saying so, Reinhardt mounted his warhorse and led his squad out of the stronghold. No one was able to stop him or his order from leaving, more like they were unable to.
On top of the wall, standing there with his fist tightly clenched and body shuddering was Laghsalot as he watched the Order of the Temple of Light disappear into the tainted lands out of sight.
His expression was twisted in fury, and he was gritting his teeth so hard that he might have even broken a few.
"Whoa, look at his expression. Someone is completely forgetting about keeping appearance." The members of the order of the Temple of Light laughed as they saw the stronghold commander’s expression crumble.
They all knew what the other party planned and how splendidly it all got foiled. While assembling at the empty square of the stronghold, they all saw the pathetic conditions of the other knight order. Tired from waiting the whole night, most of them fell asleep in the corridor and the toilets.
"Serves them right. However, it’s still not enough. My blood boils just from thinking about what they were planning to do to our female knights".
Bob, usually the calm one, was quite mad. His upright character did not stand for such heinous plots.
"You don’t have to be mad anymore. I exacted a just revenge right before we left the stronghold," Zerina suddenly added, her expression one of mischief.
Reinhardt, who was leading the order at the forefront, saw that expression and couldn’t help but arch his brows.
"What did you do?"
"Hehe, nothing. I just gave them a taste of their own drug while playing a little dirty. Since they wanted to drug our girls with aphrodisiacs, I mixed the entire batch they had on stock into their water tanks. By now, those lots must be having quite some fun".
Zerina’s voice was calm and normal, as if what she did was nothing out of the ordinary. However, all the male members of the Temple of Light who heard her couldn’t help but tremble at the thought of what was currently going on inside that stronghold.
The knight order manning that place were all males, if they were all drugged using aphrodisiac, then... don’t think, don’t think. Everyone hurriedly shook their heads, discarding the thought out of their mind.
At the same time, they were forced to realise the fierceness of their female knights and their new holy knight.
Even Reinhardt had the same thought and decided not to get on Zerina’s bad side from now on.
.
.
Tainted lands, as far as the eye could see, it was a pitch black wasteland with a monotonous sight. Land as dark as ink, sky an eternal grey, dried up trees and plants, and distant roars of the demonic beasts.
The place was a dark and dreary nightmare that weighed down on one’s nerves and could be quite a lot, especially for new recruits who had never seen such a sight before.
"M-My goodness, everything is pitch black here. Is it even possible to navigate our way in this place?"
Kevin questioned, steering his warhorse forward. They were currently marching in a neat formation where every group of squire and recruit was paired up with a knight. The one leading their group was Vangeance, and a silver haired... little girl?
"You are thinking something rude. Do you want me to beat you up just like how I did to Vangeance when he let an attack from a squire hit him?" The silver haired girl spoke softly; however, the contents of her words sounded quite scary.
"She is?" Gwen asked.
"Ah, she is Silvia, a high ranking knight and my friend," Vangeance introduced.
"I see. Was she away for a while? I don’t think I have seen her before coming to the Snowpoint City. On that note, you too are a new face".
"About that, we were away on a mission. You see, Silvia received the god’s trial, and I was with her helping with the trial".
"You weren’t of much use, though" from the corner, a snide remark came from Silvia.
Vangeance tried his best to keep a straight face and not flare.