Book 2: Chapter Sun Knight’s Daily Duty #2: “Smile, Wave, and Be the Church’s Human Billboard.”
Book 2: Chapter Sun Knight’s Daily Duty #2: “Smile, Wave, and Be the Church’s Human Billboard.”
At the end of the worship service, the future king was to parade around the entire city as usual, and the Twelve Holy Knights were to follow behind him like sheep.
So, after Storm and Blaze helped me onto my horse, they both got onto their own horses and rode behind me. Of course, Leaf and the others in the “good, warm-hearted” faction were also following behind me.
The only one who was riding by my side was Judgment Knight, and behind him were the knights in the “cruel, cold-hearted” faction.
In front of us was the crown prince, our future king. On his left and right were his most trusted royal knights, and behind them were Judgment and myself.
The effect of the Hymn of the God of Light I had sung was quite noticeable. All of the people standing along the roadside were so passionate that it seemed as if the God of Light had really descended. Both sides of the road were crammed with people whose loud cheers nearly caused my ears to explode.
Haha! From what I remember, the only other time that the people behaved in such a wild manner was when that world-famous theatrical troupe came here to perform. But when His Majesty the King goes around conducting his inspections… Well, let’s just say the best one can hope for is that the situation doesn’t become like that of a farmers’ market.
I remember the last time when that fat pig conducted an inspection. It happened to be during tomato season, so there was an abundance of tomatoes… As a result, the royal knights who were accompanying him completely stopped eating tomatoes from that day onwards. This is also one of the reasons the king could never gain the favor of the knights. If they had to accompany the king for a few more inspections, they would probably never eat any fruits or vegetables again.
Shortly after we began our parade, Judgment looked at me from the corner of his eyes quite a few times. To onlookers, it would seem like he was glaring at me, but I understood that it was a worried expression. My face was so pale that it was comparable to the color of flour, mostly because I was so hungry.
Judgment’s riding posture was straight as an arrow and his eyes were focused dead ahead. He gave off an ominous aura, and the look on his face was as if he did not want to be approached by neither the living nor the dead. However, he asked me in a low and concerned voice, “Are you feeling alright?”
“No I’m not! I’m so hungry that I’m going to starve to death. I want to eat blueberry sandwiches, I want to eat honey biscuits, and I want to drink milk.”
I mumbled my response while simultaneously smiling and waving at the surrounding people. Since it was so loud over here, they wouldn’t be able to hear what I was saying anyway, and most likely they would just think that I was once again speaking of the God of Light’s benevolence.
“…”
The corner of Judgment’s mouth twitched, and it seemed almost as if he was about to smile. Fortunately, his skill in acting cool for more than ten years was on par with my own skill in faking smiles for more than ten years, and he forced the corner of his mouth back down, making it look like he was in an extremely bad mood instead. However, he was actually consoling me, and said, “Just bear with it for a while, we will be able to eat soon.”
Bear with it for a while? I think that, given our current speed, which is slightly faster than walking, finishing our walk around the entire city would take about…an entire day!
Who are you kidding? I’m definitely going to be so hungry that I’ll fall headfirst off my horse halfway through!
Would a Sun Knight who falls off his horse while riding still be considered a knight? Although, my riding skills are quite bad… I mean “not that great.”
But at the very least, I can’t fall off my horse. Thinking back, my teacher had already warned me of this.
“Child, as a holy knight, even if your swordsmanship is poor… it doesn’t matter! At least your self-recovery ability is very good, so you won’t die even if you get chopped up by enemies a few times.”
That year I was thirteen years old and had been learning swordsmanship from my teacher for three years. The other Twelve Holy Knight successors had all cleared the intermediate level evaluations already. Judgment had even cleared the advanced level evaluations a year before that, and it was only me who was still unable to clear the beginner level despite attempting it three times.
“Child, as a holy knight, if you cannot master your battle aura… it doesn’t matter! At least you have mastered the clerics’ specialty Light Shield, and if we were to look at the effects of each, a Light Shield and a battle aura aren’t all that different.”
I was sixteen years old back then, and had been learning from my teacher for six years. All the other Twelve Holy Knight successors had mastered battle auras, and it was only me who still had not mastered it. By the way, Judgment had mastered his battle aura when he was thirteen.
“However, child, as a holy knight, you must know how to ride a horse! If you can’t ride a horse, how can you still be called a knight? You might as well create the Twelve Holy Foot Soldiers instead!
At that time, Earth just happened to have jumped across the highest hurdle on his horse from behind me. His posture was so graceful that even I wanted to cheer.
Now that I look back, maybe my bond with Earth was dissolved at the age of sixteen.
Finally, my teacher got so furious that he got on a horse, rode up beside me while carrying the Divine Sun Sword and said, “Get on the horse now. If you dare to fall off your horse again, I’m going to send you to meet the God of Light. You can recommend creating the Twelve Holy Foot Soldiers to Him!”
Fortunately, I was so afraid that my body was frozen and couldn’t move. The horse had also been scared by my teacher’s fury and didn’t dare to move either. In that situation where neither horse nor rider dared move an inch, thankfully I wasn’t sent by my teacher to meet the God of Light.
However, from that time onwards, I have never dared fall off my horse again… At least not unless I was 100% certain that my teacher couldn’t see me. And now, at such a grand event, it’s entirely possible my teacher could be watching the festivities from some corner. So, if I were to dare fall off my horse, next year on this date could very well be the anniversary of my death.
But if I have to starve for an entire day, perhaps I really would faint from hunger and fall off my horse. I anxiously begged Judgment for help, “Judgment, do you have any blueberry biscuits on you?”
“No.”
Judgment glanced at me. It was most likely because I looked so terrible that he quickly added, “Don’t worry, the crown prince is very busy, and he only arranged to parade around the main roads. It should only take us about half a day to finish the parade.”
After hearing that I still had to wait for half a day, my heart sank…Oh no! My face must always maintain a brilliant smile.
I had been greeting the crowd by waving my left hand in a slow and elegant manner, but once I heard that we had to continue travelling for half a day, I immediately adjusted the speed of my arm, slowing down the pace with each passing wave…
“Child, now I will teach you how to wave at a crowd.”
“Teacher, do I really need to learn something like waving?”
“Child, using your normal speed of waving, if you wave continuously for one minute, how many times will you wave in total?”
One minute later…
“Teacher, I waved eighty-eight times.”
“Then, the last time I went on a parade with the king, how much time did it take?”
“About three hours.”
“Now, child, let’s do some math! If you waved eighty-eight times in one minute, after waving for three hours, how many times will you wave in total?”
“Fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty times.”
“Child, now let me ask you a health education question: if you wave continuously for fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty times, what will your hand look like?”
“…I don’t know.”
“That is why, child, you are now learning how to use one thousand waves to handle one parade. Or do you want to wave a full fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty times during all of your parades in the future?”
“Teacher! Please, you must teach me how to wave!”
The longer the parade lasts, the slower one’s waving speed should be. The movements of one’s hands should become wider, and at the same time one’s upper arms should relax and hang naturally since one would only use one’s elbow joint to move the forearm, minimizing the energy used and the number of waves. So far, it has been guaranteed that even if I waved for an entire marching session, that evening I could still play eighteen rounds of mahjong and hug hot babes as usual… No, no! I mean I could still practice swordsmanship and correct documents as usual!
This is the waving technique that my teacher taught me!
Even though my teacher had already passed on his entire waving technique to me, I was still facing difficulties this time. Judgment just said that we had to march for half a day, and his half a day lasts about five hours. If I limit my number of waves to one thousand, then I can only wave two hundred times in an hour and 3.33 times each minute, which means that I have to take twenty seconds for each wave!
This…this kind of waving speed is just too slow—with such a slow speed, will people think that I’m having arm cramps?
While I was contemplating what to do, Storm’s voice came from behind me. “Sun, could you come and chat with me for a while?”
“Brother Storm, would you like to talk about the God of Light’s benevolence or the God of Light’s devotion?”
Of course I would! I was actually trying to find someone, anyone, to talk to so that I could pass some time not waving, so that my subsequent waving speed could be increased slightly. However, I never thought that Storm would actually initiate a conversation with me.
But Storm initiating a conversation with me is a strange thing; he always says that talking to me for one minute is about as exhausting as winking one hundred times. We only need to talk for ten minutes for him to have an especially good night’s sleep that night, because he would be way too tired.
“We don’t need to look for a topic, its fine to just talk about anything; I just want to pretend to be talking.” After Storm’s hurried explanation, he saw my doubtful expression and added, “You know, there are hundreds of women on this street right now, and this march will pass by more than ten streets. If I have to wink at every single woman, then at the end of this march, even if I don’t go blind, I will still suffer a horrible fate. So, my teacher taught me the technique of handling this march with only one thousand winks!”
“…” Why does this sentence sound so familiar?
Just then, Storm turned to the women on both sides and gave them an elegant smile, causing them all to start squealing. Then, he immediately rode over beside me and began “chatting” with me.
“My teacher said that for some reason, women always like to see two beautiful men standing very close to each other. Even if the appointed Sun Knight isn’t an extremely beautiful man, at least he would still be an ordinarily beautiful man, so one can’t go wrong by finding and talking to the Sun Knight. I don’t even have to wink one thousand times; even if I don’t wink for the entire march, I just have to pat your shoulder once in a while or tidy up your messy hair for all the women to squeal until they faint.”
After hearing this, my entire body became rigid and I unconsciously kicked the horse’s stomach, causing it to immediately jump to the side beautifully. During that instant, I could feel myself and the horse entering a state of being one in spirit. I communicated sufficiently to my horse my disgust at being touched by a man, allowing it to perform such an appropriate action!
My horse! You must be a stallion, my good brother! When we get back, I will definitely let you eat the best grass.
“…Don’t worry, I don’t have any interest in touching men. I will just behave and wink one thousand times; you just have to speak a few sentences to me to pass the excess time.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness I don’t have to be touched by Storm. If I had to be touched, I would rather wave twenty five thousand eight hundred and forty times. Anyway, at night I don’t have eighteen rounds of mahjong to play or hot babes to hug, so even if my hand becomes paralyzed it doesn’t matter.
I smiled gently and said, “Then, would brother want to talk about the God of Light’s benevolence or the God of Light’s devotion?”
“That…” Storm’s expression looked like he was having a hard time deciding.
Then, to prevent me from talking about the God of Light’s benevolence or the God of Light’s devotion, Storm enthusiastically began talking non-stop. It really was great; I didn’t have to wave or speak, and besides being hungry, I had nothing to complain about in my current situation.
So hungry, I want to eat something…
I looked up and down at Storm Knight. If humans could be eaten, I wonder which part would be the tastiest. The chest, the thigh, the calf…
Storm slowly stopped talking, and asked in an unusual tone, “Did I say something wrong? Sun, why are you giving me such a strange look?”
Hearing that, I shook my head, and then simply lowered my head. I didn’t look at Storm again, so as to prevent him from saying that I’m looking at him in a strange way again. However, by lowering my head, I saw two horse ears sticking upright. Since stewed pig ears are very delicious, horse ears shouldn’t be too bad either, right?
“S-Sun…” Storm called again, a little hesitant. However, I was too busy salivating over the horse ears, and didn’t even have any time to respond to him. But, he raised his voice to shout, “Sun! Hurry and look, there’s an uproar!”
I raised my head upwards, and just happened to see a big red tomato being tossed up into the sky. With the blue skies and white clouds to set it off, it seemed even more plump and rosy… A very delicious tomato!
The tomato drew a perfect arc in the air…
Splat!
In the end, it landed on Judgment Knight’s body. The crowd suddenly stood in a sea of dead silence.
Good, good! With the relations between me and Judgment, getting a tomato from him would be easy! I swallowed my saliva, and shouted, “Judgment…” Give me the tomato to eat!
Before I could finish, Judgment had already calmly plucked the tomato off his clothes. Then, he used his extraordinarily good horse riding skills to trample the tomato into a pulp.
Afterwards, he coldly looked at the person who threw the tomato, saying, “Next time, this will be your fate!”
Seeing the tomato that had been trampled into a pulp on the ground, the courage of that person who had thrown the tomato at Judgment immediately disappeared without a trace. He dejectedly slipped into the crowd, and soon even his shadow couldn’t be seen.
Tomato… I looked at Judgment’s clothes that were stained with traces of tomato, and then looked at the tomato on the floor that was trampled into a pulp. My tomato! Bastard! Why do you have to throw it at Judgment? Why not throw it at me? I’m so hungry that I already want to bite the horse’s ears, so why don’t you throw the tomato for me to eat?
That tomato is sure fragrant! Because it had been trampled into a pulp, its fragrance was even stronger. Ah, ah! I really want to eat tomatoes. I actually forgot to tell Adair that he still had to prepare fruits after the meal. First I’ll eat a blueberry sandwich while drinking milk, and occasionally I’ll grab a few pieces of honey biscuits to eat. Finally, I’ll ruthlessly gnaw on a tomato. Just thinking about it makes me think that it must be the most blissful thing in the world.
“Sun Knight, please could you… Sun Knight? What do you think?”
What do I think? I smiled a little absentmindedly while I said, “So hungry….”
“Ah?”
“Sun Knight, how long do you need to think of a name? Please don’t waste my time, okay?”
Hearing Judgment’s low and cool voice, I was brought back to my senses abruptly, only to see that there were around a few thousand eyes staring at me from all four sides.
This is bad! I actually went into a trance because of starvation.
Because I was a little unclear about the situation, I could only observe the situation around me. Before me stood a man and a woman. Watching their movements, I concluded that they seemed to be husband and wife. Moreover, in the mother’s hands there was a new-born child. Thinking back to what Judgment mentioned about “thinking of a name”, I immediately knew what to do!
I immediately displayed an extremely radiant smile, saying, “Her name will be Hungri then. I hope that this girl will become as sweet as honey and as graceful as Grisia.”
It can’t be wrong! They’re definitely trying to get me to name this child. This kind of thing has happened to me quite a few times, so often that as soon as I see an infant that is less than a week old, I have an urge to help name them.
“Oh!”
The crowd came to a sudden realization, and one by one, they started cheering, “What a good name, Hungri, Hungri!”
Phew! As expected, I wasn’t wrong. It’s a good thing that my reaction was quick, and at least averted a humiliating crisis. I really admire myself, that I could even make such a comeback… However, come to think of it, that couple doesn’t seem to be very satisfied with this name. Both of their facial expressions seem to be a little odd.
This is a little strange. Usually, asking me to give a name is nothing more than a gesture of good luck. Thus, as long as it’s not a strange name, usually people would happily accept it. Moreover, although the name Hungri is a little less common, it’s not to the point where it sounds bad, right?
At this moment, Storm leaned toward me while on horseback. With a face of awkwardness, he whispered into my ear, “Their child is not a girl, but a boy.”
“…”