Chapter 44 – Not jailbreaking?
The three remaining people came out from the prison. The girls looked on as Brendel easily handled the patrolling wardens, and the entire process was silent and practiced. Freya had her suspicion that Brendel had special training as a Highland Knight, but was it necessary to train to do something like this?
After the wardens were settled, the four of them walked towards the central area of the level. The guard who kept watch of the keys was surprised when they saw them coming out from the darkness, and subconsciously pulled out the sword from the wall.
Brendel immediately raised his gauntlets he stole from a warden and charged over to him. A blue shimmering glow washed over the gauntlets as he blocked the guard’s sword. The blue light was around the size of a soccer ball, and there was a force from within that pushed away the sharp blade.
Brendel grabbed the sword away when the white mane light infantry became surprised, and pushed him back to the wall with tremendous force. A dull thud and a withering gasp could be heard as the guard fainted. Brendel saw that the guards were merely normal soldiers, so he did not use fatal force and simply knocked them out.
Freya blurted out after she watched him knock down the final foe: “I can’t believe you’re so strong. If I did not see you in action, I would still be naive about the strength of the knights.”
“You don’t have to look down on yourself. A mid white-ranked swordsman is more than enough to handle the guards.” Brendel searched for the key to go up the next level on the warden.
“White-ranked swordsman?”
“It means unranked,” Ciel explained next to her: “The blacksteel, silver, gold swordsmen rank counterparts are, squires, knights and veteran knights. The blacksteel swordsmen are Aouine’s knights’ reserves.If there are any nobles with slight potential, they would be sent to great noble families to become squires.” (TL: The pacing of words is a little unclear here, but nobles probably have nothing to do with swordsmen. They are just training to become knights.)
“According to tradition, a grade 1 ranking swordsman enjoy the authority of not taking off his hat when they meet low ranking nobles like squires and lords, but this tradition has stopped approximately fifty years ago. Any rank that is below the blacksteel swordsmen, would be unranked. Typically the army guards, militia are of this level, separated only by the words of ‘upper’ and ‘lower’.”
“So this is how it is classified.” Freya stood pensively. Just a while ago her mind was still mired in being the top militia swords user, but now her horizons have broadened.
But Ciel was not done yet as he had seen through his lord’s intention to nurture the girl, so he continued: “A blacksteel swordsman represents a grade 1 power, silver swordsman as grade 2 power, gold swordsman as grade 3 power. Our wizards counterpart are cantrip wizard, first circle wizard and second circle wizard. There are also similar distinctions for the priests and other professions, and these distinctions are not of a country’s standards, but from the Holy Cathedral of Flames’s strict rules.”
The girls blinked repeatedly as they received the lesson. It was not actually uncommon knowledge for the commoners, but Bucce was simply too isolated.
“The strongest kingdom like Kirrlutz and Bansel, their standing army’s soldiers are comprised of the blacksteel rank, while most of the captains are of the silver rank. In comparison, more than half of Aouine’s border army’s soldiers have not reached the blacksteel rank, and even an appointed captain of the knights is at the intermediate blacksteel rank.” Ciel intentionally pointed things out.
“Ciel, if you spread this, our heads would be chopped off.