A Practical Guide to Ending a One-Sided Love - Chapter 5

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The holy war could be described as a massive purification operation carried out under the Empire’s leadership. It was a periodic rite that swept away heretics who constantly coveted the continent, and through that, reestablished the authority of the Benignus faith.

Large and small kingdoms across the continent, including the Holy Principality of Rimasoth, formed allied forces to assist the Empire. Among them, the paladin order directly dispatched by the Principality carried an especially distinct symbolic meaning.

Priests and knights who possessed divine power were born only in the Principality. That was precisely why the Principality was both the cradle of the faith and a sacred nation that even the Empire could not touch lightly. The only force capable of defeating the monster legions commanded by heretics was divine power.

A single paladin who wielded divine power possessed combat strength equal to that of an entire platoon of ordinary knights. Accordingly, the Chivalric Order of Rimasoth was the core of the Empire’s army and allied forces, an indispensable manpower resource.

That was why the order was considered a national enterprise of the Principality. There was even a joke that Rimasoth’s greatest export was not divine relics produced by the headquarters of the Knight Corps, but paladins themselves. By leasing or dispatching knights to other nations, the Principality gained numerous economic and political benefits.

And among those paladins of Rimasoth, Bjorn was particularly outstanding in skill. Superior physical attributes and their application, stamina that seemed to transcend human limits, and swift judgment. Even excluding his overflowing divine power, there was no one who could rival Bjorn in individual combat ability.

As if all the grueling training he had endured had been for this very day, he reaped the lives of heretics like an angel of death, flaunting the true extent of his abilities, which he had never before had the chance to unleash.

On the battlefield, there was no room for stray thoughts to arise. Only the act of killing monsters and enemies, slashing and stabbing, occupied Bjorn’s consciousness.

Memories of being abandoned by his parents, the harsh experiences of his childhood, and the utterly loathsome life in the temple. The remnants of the past that had tormented him incessantly vanished along with the severed limbs of his enemies.

Most of his comrades struggled under the endless slaughter, but Bjorn instead felt a kind of liberation. If the purpose for which God had sent him down to this land was to use him as His iron hammer, then Bjorn was willing to carry out that duty.

Thus, Bjorn fought without shying away from death. Like a man with no tomorrow, like someone who had already thrown his life away. In truth, he was not afraid of death. Rather, he even harbored a quiet wish for the eternal rest that would follow.

However, the time in which he felt a sense of fulfillment in life for the first time since his birth was brief, and all things came to an end. With the retreat of the heretics, the holy war came to a close in a mere—of course, by Bjorn’s standards—five years.

On the day the end of the war was officially declared and their return decided, while his comrades rejoiced without exception, Bjorn alone felt hollow.

Was he to return to the Principality and resume that tedious and meaningless life once more? For someone who had never assumed he would survive the war unharmed, it was an unfathomable prospect.

He had believed he would be martyred on this land and enter eternal rest. Yet things did not go as Bjorn had wished.

He had fought wildly as though his life held no value. Yet fate seemed unwilling to claim his death, saving him time and again.

Enemy arrows always missed him, and blades failed even to graze his body. Even when he was finally driven into a corner as if granted permission to die, a way to survive would inevitably present itself.

Even so, as one who had received a share of divine authority, he could not dare to take his own life.

And so Bjorn grew curious about God’s will. Why did He continue to let live such a disloyal servant, one who did not even know how to be grateful for life. Was it because he had committed an unforgivable sin in a previous life, and was now being made to atone for it. His thoughts eventually reached even that point.

Thus, when he returned to the capital with reluctant steps, Bjorn had already finished making one decision in his heart.

‘I will take lifelong vows and become a monk. If that can complete my atonement, then…’

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like an ideal solution. He had no lingering attachment to the secular world anyway. If he remained in the capital while retaining his status as a paladin, it was obvious that the same situation as five years ago would repeat itself.

The temple did not forbid paladins from marrying. No, they actually encouraged it. There was the doctrinal reason that the union of man and woman and the bearing of fruit was the highest good, but in truth, it was because they hoped for the birth of more children with divine power.

Thus, before Bjorn, who had long since passed marriageable age, only two paths remained. To continue the detestable Sacred Flower activities, or to be pressured into marriage like a breeding stud.

Rather than walk either of those paths, he would have chosen to be dispatched to another holy war, but the next holy war lay in an uncertain and distant future.

Therefore, only one option remained for him now.

To become a monk and withdraw far from the world, hiding away deep in the mountains.

At last, as if he had regained hope, Bjorn’s heart grew calm.