36 Saved by a knight in not so shining armor.(1)

When Paul saw a troll in the middle of the path, he was quite surprised. It was large enough that he was able to see it from afar. His speed momentarily decreased when it was in his sights, and he considered avoiding it since he was on a tight schedule. His priority was to locate the missing children after all.

But a second later when he had come closer to the troll, he noticed its surroundings. There was a wagon that had a cloth over it, with a middle-aged man beside it. A few meters from the man two corpses were behind the Troll. And Lastly, there were two children in front of the monster, one unconscious on the ground while the other was facing the giant humanoid figure head-on with just a knife.

Seeing this, he decided against avoiding it, as it seemed lives were at stake. At the time, Paul didn't think about the possibility that the two children he had in his sights, were the ones he was looking for. The only thing he could think was that he needed to kill the troll before it could hurt the children.

So he took his Greatsword in both hands and leaped toward the Troll. Before it even noticed him, he swung his sword with incredible might and passed through the ugly monster with an equally impressive speed.

When he turned to look at the Troll its head was already rolling on the ground. Seeing this, he felt relieved that he made it in time to save the children. His expression softened though it wasn't visible to anyone outside as he had his helmet on.

After confirming the death of the Troll, his eyes went toward the children to check if they were okay. He found a silver-haired young boy looking at him with a smile. Although still a child, he could tell the boy would grow up to be quite handsome.

"Are you okay, young man?" Paul asked the boy and started walking toward him.

"Yes, Sir. Thanks to you, I'm fine." The child made a quick bow.

Paul was impressed by the boy's manners, as the child was quite young. But after coming a bit closer and noticing something, he felt unsettled. The boy's bright smile was unbefitting of his body's state. His entire attire was drenched in blood. A bit of blood was even splattered on his face. Usually one would attempt to wipe off the blood and end up smearing it or such. But it seemed like no such attempt was made.

The boy seemed to have no issue with this. Which is what made Paul a bit uncomfortable. But he cast away those thoughts as he didn't know the situation.

When he was right in front of the boy, he noticed the little girl behind as well. She seemed to be unconscious. Her clothes were dirty and torn in places, but otherwise, she looked to be fine. Her golden hair caught his eye as it was quite beautiful.

'Wait....a boy with white hair... A blonde girl...' Suddenly the gears in Paul's mind started turning.

"Are you two Dusk Nightmoon and Dawn Brightsun?" Paul asked hoping he was right.

"That's correct, Sir. We are indeed those two children." The boy answered.

"Good! My name is Paul, captain of the Knights of Squadron 8 in Erythrenes! I and Mr. Lucius were looking for you two!" Paul said he felt relieved that he managed to find the two children.

He noticed that when mentioning Lucius's name the boy's expression turned sour for a split second but he ignored it.

"Mind explaining the situation, Dusk?" Paul asked with a polite smile. He wanted the boy to feel at ease while explaining things. With the corpses around he felt the situation may have been a traumatic experience for the two children. And although the boy seemed to be fine, it's possible he was keeping up a facade to hide the fear and terror he held in his heart.

But before the boy could answer the girl behind had started groaning before waking up.

"Ah, Dusk?! Are you okay?! Did you beat the Troll?!" the girl started asking many questions right after waking without noticing Paul's presence.

--------------

Dusk was just about to make up some story about what happened to him and Dawn while they were away but the groaning of a certain someone interrupted him. When he heard it, he had a feeling that the one who just groaned would be the one who would make things complicated if he let them be.

Needless to say, the groaning figure was Dawn. Dusk hoped she would stay unconscious but she suddenly awoke with a jolt. She rubbed her eyes as both Dusk and Paul stared at her before her eyes widened and she started asking questions in a loud voice,

"Ah, Dusk?! Are you okay?! Did you beat the Troll?!" Dawn got up and shook him violently while asking.

"I didn't know you were so strong! You defeated those mercenaries, right? You even fought that monster! Is it gone?! Did you kill it?!" Dawn kept shaking Dusk violently as his head juggled around dangerously as if it would fall off at any moment.

But Dusk wasn't concerned about his head, he was cursing Dawn in his mind.

"This bitch....Now how do I explain the situation to the Knight? Let's just hope he doesn't take Dawn's words seriously.' Dusk thought as he sighed inwardly.

"Uh, little girl? You should stop shaking him like that before his head falls off." Paul said with a concerned tone.

"Huh?! Who are you?! Oh no! Another bad person! Don't worry, Dusk! This time I'll protect you!" Dawn came in front of the boy and glared at Paul before taking a fighting stance she saw him use.

Unfortunately, the stance Dusk used for knife and dagger users, while...Dawn was completely empty-handed. So it was not only useless but also strange to look at.

"No, no, no! I'm not a bad person! I'm a good person! I'm a knight!" Paul tried to calm down Dawn.

"Liar! Daddy said Knights look really cool and reliable! You don't look cool, you look scary!" Dawn shouted at Paul before running toward him and flailing her arms around to stop him from enacting his evil intentions(?)

Weirdly enough, Dawn did more damage to Paul than any Troll ever could. Not with her flowery punches but with her words.

Paul was deeply hurt by the fact that he was called "scary" as this wasn't the first time children saw him this way. One of the reasons he had become a knight was to give courage to children, but somehow he ended up becoming their greatest fear. He was even nicknamed [Death Knight] due to his armor being completely black due to being made with obsidian.

"Dawn, he looks scary to ward off his enemies and save more people. If anything since he saves the very people who fear him for his looks, he's an exceptional knight." The child of the Nightmoon family said.

Paul almost mistook his voice for an angel, as his words seemed to ease the hundreds of thousands of 'OH NO! IT'S THE DEATH KNIGHT! RUN, BEFORE HE KILLS YOU AND USES YOUR BODY AS FERTILIZER TO GROW WEED!' he had heard from children in the capital.

When Dusk noticed his gaze he gave him a Thumbs up with a smile. This caused a waterfall to form from his eyes which even came out of his helmet.

Dawn was not prepared for the sudden pouring of salt water and got wet.

"What the?! Water magic! Dusk, you're wrong! He's attacking me! I need to stop him!" Dawn resumed flailing one of her arms while blocking the 'Water magic' with the other.

Paul on the other hand, just cried silently faced with Dusk's kindness.

Seeing the situation before him, Dusk shook his head as he couldn't help but think all of this was some sort of comedy skit.

After a short while, both Dawn and Paul calmed down.

Then Dusk gave them both a made-up explanation of what happened. He said one of the mercenaries, the scar-faced man, attacked him but the other, a woman was against harming a child who had nothing to do with their job, so the woman tried to stop him. Their scuffle ended up escalating to a serious fight and in the end, they killed each other as they were equal in strength.

Dawn shivered when the scar-faced man was mentioned. Dusk knew she likely had a traumatic experience with the man so he purposely made him out to be the ad guy in his made-up story. Since Dawn didn't think of the man favorably he knew it would make her believe the story all the more. When Paul asked Dusk why he was drenched in blood he said he went to check the bodies in case the mercenaries were alive and he could help them stay alive. This seemed to satisfy not only Paul but Dawn too as she was perplexed by the sight she saw after waking up. She didn't know what to make of it at the time. As for the Troll, Dusk said he was able to hold it off somehow due to knowing basic fire magic and having trained in combat. He said the Troll noticed them really late and he didn't get the chance to do much before Paul arrived. Paul found this a bit hard to believe, as an 8-year-old holding off a monstrous troll even for a few seconds sounded impossible. Most children, even adults would be paralyzed when faced with a Troll.

When Dusk lied about his fight with the Troll, Dawn who had seen everything had opened her mouth to say something but Dusk's glare shut her up.

Paul seemed unable to believe Dusk's explanation when he momentarily fought with the Troll. He said he wanted to examine the area and left the two a bit.

"Dawn. From now on, don't say anything unnecessary. I'll do all the explaining if he asks questions. Got it?" Dusk whispered to Dawn. He didn't want the Knight to find out about his killing spree.

"Oh...okay!" Dawn agreed without too much hesitation. She found it strange Dusk wanted to hide some things but she was too glad about the fact that they both survived to care much.

As Paul's figure went in a certain direction, where a middle-aged man could be seen unconscious on the ground. Dusk prepared himself as he knew there was a high chance his fabricated tales would be found out if the man was questioned.