Leaving traces into the forest.
Doing this would draw most of the pursuers into this area.
The forest is not an ideal place to search, which means their search will take time.
Couldn’t this buy her at least half a day to find, follow, and search for new tracks?
It likely would.
While drawing them here, the girl known as the saintess took a different route.
In plain terms, that was all it was.
The child was astonishingly clever.
Otherwise, who could be so thoroughly trained that such a method is etched into their bones?
Here, another question arises.
‘Why did the crusaders come personally?’
Rumor had it the Holy Nation’s pursuers were the Crusader Order.
One of the Holy Nation’s armed divisions had set out.
But why?
After all, it’s just a matter of pursuing a child.
Why would a crusader, who proves themselves through combat, come for this?
Because of the Crusader Order’s presence, they would have felt obligated to notify the kingdom.
His mind whirred, and he arrived at a single conclusion.
The one thing the saintess hadn’t anticipated was that someone with enough strength to slice through manticores as though chopping vegetables would sweep through the forest in one go.
Since Encrid had quickly scouted the forest’s periphery, he could draw this conclusion.
The unthinking suffer in effort, but the reward for his hard work was there.
He had read the fugitive’s intentions.
If he had been slowly tracking each trace one at a time, it would have been harder to pick up on these intentions.
The location of the pursuers: the forest east of Pelheim.
The target’s tracks stopped at the forest’s edge but pointed inward.
‘So, I’ve analyzed this information by turning it inside out.’
What about the Crusader Order?
Could they have anticipated this?
Possibly.
They know the saintess, and they’re the ones who tracked her this far.
After getting fooled and tricked a few times, wouldn’t they be prepared?
What would their preparation be?
‘So that’s why they increased their numbers?’
The money they spread around wasn’t simply to set up a net.
These were bait. Bait to lure the saintess into responding.
Even so, the evidence of their frugality with money was laughably obvious.
“Typically, they give half of the fee up front, but this time, it was barely enough to do the job. But, well, since the priest swore on his God, I thought I could trust them…”
From what he gathered, they knew these hired hunters wouldn’t be successful and had resorted to trickery.
They minimized the advance payment and cleverly leveraged their God’s name.
They were remarkably cunning.
While bounty hunters and mercenaries moved, the Crusader Order was probably also tracking the girl’s trail.
They must have taken a different route than the hunters.
From a distance, it was clear this was a hunt.
Like driving rabbits, they were herding hounds all around and guiding them toward the snares.
“Got me good.”
Encrid spoke.
No one is perfect, and things like this happen.
If he calculated the odds of wins and losses, the success rate in such pursuits was still less than half.
Becoming a Knight didn’t change that. Encrid hadn’t trained to become a perfect tracker.
Was he too late? Maybe.
But that wasn’t reason enough to stop.
It wasn’t over just because you were caught, nor did it end if you lost the trail.
If the success rate was fifty percent, that meant half the time he succeeded, and Encrid had been through enough of these to know that success came only because he never quit.
“Return to the city. Keep up with my speed.”
Encrid spoke and immediately took off running.
Bang!
The ground tore where he’d pushed off, screaming under the strain of his raw strength.
“Grah!”
A ghoul appeared in his path. Encrid didn’t even draw his sword, brushing past it and snapping its neck.
A flawless move of the Valaf-Style Martial Arts.
The ghoul’s neck broke, his spine tearing free as Encrid’s hands twisted, and the ghoul collapsed.
He tore through any monsters or beasts that crossed his path and kept running.
When he finally reached the city, he inhaled deeply, expanding his chest.
“Deutsche!”
The sound, amplified by his aura, echoed through the entire city.
“Waaah!”
A nearby child feeding a donkey fell backward in shock.
A construction guild worker hammering away on an inn’s frame missed and hit his hand, yelling in pain.
“Ouch!”
Ignoring the stunned stares around him, Encrid yelled again and sprinted, and soon, the one he’d called for emerged.
Once again, he was barefoot.
“Uh, what? What’s going—?”
Encrid, his piercing blue eyes gleaming, got right up in Deutsche’s face.
“Do you know the Crusader Order’s current location?”
Of course, he did.
Deutsche had continued gathering information from various sources after Encrid left.
“Yes, they were last seen to the north.”
They weren’t skilled at concealing their movements, so tracking them down wasn’t difficult.
But that was all he knew.
North? But where exactly?
Once again, Encrid decided to take the brute-force approach.
Meaning he’d make up for the lack of information with his feet.
“Let’s move.”
With a powerful shout, Encrid shook the city once more and darted off again.
“We’ll meet again, brother.”
Behind him, a towering man known as the bear-beast followed.
“Yes, I’ll be sure to thank you on behalf of my fiance.”
And the Fairy who followed with strange words.
All three of them, who had arrived so quickly, disappeared just as swiftly.
To those left watching, it seemed as if they had come and gone like the wind.
Deutsche felt momentarily dazed, as if he’d been possessed.
Whenever Encrid came, he always seemed to bring some unimaginable event with him.
Not long after catching his breath and returning to the mansion, yet another visitor arrived.
“Might I ask if you know where the people from the Holy Nation have gone?”
It was a man with a gentle face, his eyes slightly drooped. He seemed to be in his mid-to-late forties, clad in armor, which suggested he was no ordinary figure.
Most notable were his eyes—silver irises that shimmered with an unnatural light.
Moreover, he looked to be older than he appeared, at least that’s how it felt.
“If it’s inconvenient, you don’t have to answer, but I would be grateful if you could. Nothing bad will come of it, I assure you, brother.”
The man spoke.
Deutsche felt he couldn’t carelessly refuse him here.
The atmosphere, his tone, his demeanor, it was clear he was someone of considerable strength.
In the end, he thought, he might as well speak and deal with any fallout personally.
“Let’s go together, then.”
To manage any complications, he decided to accompany the man himself.
The man with the silver eyes smiled broadly.
“Thank you. I am grateful.”
* * *
The first thing the girl who would become the saintess ever held was a bow, and the first thing she ever crafted was a trap.
A simple snare with sticks, thin leather, and a stone to trigger a small fall, it could barely catch a mouse, but it was her toy and her game.
That was her childhood.
Now, a saintess turned runaway, she was determined to shake off those on her trail.
‘Pelheim.’
She memorized the city’s name out of habit, taking in the terrain around her before moving on.
By leaving traces at the forest’s edge, she knew she could shake most of the pursuers.
It was a lesson she had learned from experience.
‘They’ll get overconfident, I bet.’
Running as though she were being driven into the forest could easily look like a desperate escape.
That’s exactly how she wanted it to appear. She had no intention of actually delving deep into the forest.
She knew well how dangerous a forest could be to humans.
‘Maybe if it’s just a couple of flesh hounds or ghouls.’
The open fields provided better visibility, and her keen eyesight would reduce her chances of encountering danger.
But the forest? No.
No matter how sharp her senses, there were too many unknowns in its shadows.
She sensed it instinctively.
‘I’ll die.’
You don’t go into a forest without preparation.
Nor do you climb mountains without it.
Her grandfather had taught her that, and her experiences had proven it true.
So, she wasn’t going into the forest.
But she could make it seem that way.
She’d risked her life three times already, navigating difficult routes to mislead her pursuers.
After a moment’s consideration, the girl they called a saintess brushed a hand over her ear.
Though rounder than a Fairy’s, her ears were still pointed—a telltale sign of her mixed Fairy heritage.
The saintess surveyed the landscape once more and made her decision.
‘This is where it stops.’
If she started off as though she’d vanished into the air or sunk into the earth, they would grow suspicious.
She had to direct their thoughts.
She left prints that led into the forest.
To give the impression of a hasty escape, she snapped a few branches along the way.
Having created her trail, she tied a rope around her waist and attached a long, blunt stone to the end.
Whirling the stone, she threw it at a tree branch, securing it in place after several rotations.
Scaling the tree to be level with the ground, she moved from branch to branch, crafting a treetop path.
Traveling above ground would throw off those following her trail.
She planned to circle along the forest’s edge before exiting.
To pull this off, she’d need to move through trees like a flying squirrel.
She could. And so, she did.
If any flying beasts came, she would need to listen keenly and be ready to escape.
This too was a life-risking move, but the chances of such dangers were slim.
Where sunlight touched the forest’s edge, specters and large flying creatures would be unlikely to venture.
The main threat would be owl beasts, but being daytime, even that was less probable.
That was why she fled at this hour.
The result of all her calculations and actions was this.
‘Not bad.’
Everything her grandfather had taught her and all she’d learned along the way had brought her to this point.
Of course, none of this had been easy.
Escaping the Holy Nation was no simple feat.
To get this far, Saintess Seiki had relied on someone’s conscience and had another risk their safety for her.
A priest who had cared for her like a nurse and a monk who finally helped her escape.
They would likely be executed as heretics.
At first, she hadn’t understood, but after over eight months of training to become a saintess, she knew enough.
Enough to understand what this church intended for her.
‘Why is creating holy water or potions so important?’
The teachings claimed it was to prove holiness, but it seemed more like brainwashing.
She concealed her doubts and pretended to be obedient.
The saintess pushed her thoughts aside.
Now was a time for focus.
For the final part of her escape route, she pressed herself against the tree, holding on tightly to the branch.
Few might track her this far, but one never knew.
She took a deep breath, bent her knees, and jumped.
With a light push off the tree, she soared like a flying squirrel, hovering briefly in the air.
As her body leveled with the ground, she began to fall.
She tucked her shoulder as she landed, rolling smoothly and rising to her feet.
A flawless landing left her unscathed, though her wrist throbbed slightly, nothing that wouldn’t heal soon.
Retrieving her rope from the tree, she wrapped it around her waist and took off.
Her next goal was to circle back near the city and bypass it.
As she moved, she recalled how it all began.
That day had been truly dreadful.
She hadn’t realized it at the time, but looking back, she saw it clearly.
Had she handled things differently, maybe she wouldn’t be on the run now.
But, in truth, she couldn’t know for sure.
The church likely wouldn’t give up the title of saint easily.
Thanks for the Chapter Bro!!! :DD
Thanks for the Chapter.
Is it updated regularly? Also what is release schedule
Creo que he leído el manhwa, talvez lo esté confundiendo.. 🤔