Chapter 79 Close at hand
As the setting sun shone, the valley sandwiched between two high mountains was filled with slowly moving villagers.

After walking for a whole day, their legs were already numb, and the slope was getting steeper and steeper, with almost no support except the crutches in their hands.

However, both the villagers and the top officials of the Papal States were in a good mood.

During this trip, apart from a few people who caught a cold and broke a leg, there were almost no problems that affected our progress.

This made Horn a little suspicious. He checked everywhere, fearing that something might go wrong at the critical moment.

But now, they have arrived at the designated crossing point on time.

Walk across the cable bridge not far ahead and you will enter the mountains in the center of the Thousand River Valley.

By then, the knights would not be able to chase on horseback on the mountain roads.

Yes, these villagers will soon be free from the threat of the church's army.

Danji sat cross-legged on the top of the hill, resting his head on Black William's horse legs, quietly looking at the setting sun.

Twenty years ago, as a rookie, he would never have imagined that he would mingle with these villagers and escape from the pursuit of other knights.

Is he still a knight?

The long sword that represents the knight's identity is hung on the saddle.

But Danji couldn't get it because he couldn't lift it.

He didn't know when it started, but he could no longer hold the knight's sword steadily.

Every time he wanted to draw out the sword, his hands shook like a sieve.

Danji thought of Horn, who had been shaking as badly as he had been when the Holy Father took over.

He had mixed feelings about Horn, first thinking he was a fraud and then a cultist.

Later on, he no longer knew what Horn was.

"Brother Danji, I caught a wild rabbit. Come and eat it tonight."

"Okay, I will definitely come."

As the villagers walked by, Danji withdrew his hand in greeting and the smile on his face gradually faded again.

How happy these people are! In the past twenty years, Danji has never seen such happy villagers.

Maybe they will still be stingy, still try to take advantage of others, and still make unreasonable demands.

But they were different from before, but Danji couldn't tell what exactly was different.

The Gulag Monastery is such a great place.

If the Gulag Monastery were an isolated island, Danji might be willing to live there forever.

But the knights came, the church came.

They left the paradise-like island.

"Dangie, what are you doing sitting here?"

Holding a bowl in his hand and drinking rotten bread soaked in rice paste, His Holiness the Pope squatted on the ground, like a farmer squatting on the doorstep to eat.

He still had to tell stories to the villagers and plan tomorrow's route and march during dinner time, so he might as well have dinner early.

"I'm tired, take a rest."

"I don't feel tired when I'm using the one-stage breathing method, but you're tired after using the four-stage breathing method?"

Without answering Horn's question, Danji asked softly, "Your Majesty, when you went to see our Lord Myrcella, did she say that those guilty knights would go to hell?"

"What crime have you committed? It's okay. I'll tell my mother. If you behave well in the future, I can give you a reduction in your sentence."

“Will I go to hell?”

"Probably not." Horn slurped a mouthful of rice porridge. "First, you are a high-ranking official in the Papal State. Second, you are a good person, better than many knights."

Danji didn't reply, but gently stroked the leg of Black William's horse beside him.

"If you're really scared." Horn put the soup spoon in his mouth and took a sip, then cleaned the rice paste on it and handed it to Danji.

"Come, holy relic."

Danji took the spoon in confusion.

"I am the son of my mother. I can basically be considered a holy relic of my mother. Then my things, according to the principle of transitivity, are also holy relics." Horn stretched out five fingers. "This spoon can atone for the sins of 500,000 years."

Holding the spoon in his hand, Danji's serious face suddenly couldn't hold back and he couldn't help laughing. Horn slurped the rice paste in circles, with a smile on his face.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty..."

Before Danji's laughter stopped, a child soldier came crawling out from the bushes.

"What's wrong?" Patting Dange's shoulder, Horn quickly stood up and walked over.

"Those knights, they are coming, I saw them, there are so many of them, so many."

Time suddenly became quiet.

"The knights are here, how come so soon?" Without caring about the heat, Horn swallowed the rice porridge and monster meat in one gulp and asked incoherently.

The soldier's face was covered with small wounds separated by bushes: "I don't know, but they did come."

"Goat, call all the messengers!"

Handing the clay bowl relic to the child soldier, Horn wiped his hands on his pants and began to issue orders quickly.

"Throw away irrelevant baggage... that broken pottery bowl is irrelevant baggage!"

"Call back the people who are collecting potato roots for firewood... the potato roots are not everywhere, go quickly!"

"Let the ten households cross the cable bridge in teams at a faster speed. Do not cut in line!"

The child soldiers rushed down the hillside and conveyed the new news to the ten households, and the team, which had been advancing slowly, increased its speed visibly.

As soon as Horn gave the order, Sissi came running over from the other side of the hillside: "Your Majesty, do you know that the knights are catching up?"

"I know." Horn looked into the distance. He didn't know how long the knights would take, but at least he couldn't see their figures clearly for now.

"This is a three-day journey. We are three full days away. They only set out yesterday at noon, and they arrived this evening?"

"Perhaps they left all the infantry and baggage behind?" Sissi wiped the sweat from her forehead. "Besides, you only walked 50 miles in three days. If the road wasn't so muddy and they had to look for our traces, they would have arrived long ago."

Jeanne was climbing up the hillside from the other side at this moment. "What's going on? Why did the team suddenly speed up? There are still many people scouting and collecting potato roots nearby."

"Blow the whistle and tell them all to come back. The knights are following us."

Before Horn finished speaking, the villagers below began to run and shout.

"Shameless things! We agreed to race on foot, but they actually rode horses?"

"Don't we use horses for carriages?"

"That's different. We are from the same priestly family. We are either juniors or veterans. How dare those stinky knights cheat?"

"Hey, understand me, are people without legs not allowed to use crutches?"

Although they were laughing and cursing, the villagers still moved their sore calves swiftly and quickened their pace.

"How long will it take them to arrive?" Horn looked to the west. Among the mountains, he could only see black swallows flying in the red sun.

"Maybe five little hourglasses (5 minutes)."

"How long will it take us to walk there?"

"At least until the sun is blocked by that mountain."

"That's the time of eight little hourglasses."

Xixi glanced at the crowd below: "At least two to three hundred people will not be able to cross the bridge in time..."

"Are you going to give them up?"

"If we ask them to throw away all their baggage, will it be in time?"

Horn and Sissi were discussing heatedly behind him, but Danji didn't move, he just stopped laughing.

He raised his head and saw the mountains rolling and the evening glow penetrated the clouds, cutting through the mountains and green land.

It had been cloudy all day, but the sun came out in the evening.

Danji raised his head and closed his eyes. The wind was mixed with faint laughter and footsteps, the creaking of wheels rolling over the ground, and the rustling of leaves in the evening breeze.

After opening his eyes again, Danji pulled out the knight's sword from the saddle.

The sword no longer shook.

(End of this chapter)