Myths Reawakened

Inside Filomina’s office were three women and one man. The sound of slapping continued nonstop.

Since a chosen knight was involved, they were obviously playing cards.

Given her status, a chosen knight’s card buddies had to be another chosen knight, or at least a Holy Maiden at Legendary rank. Being the District High Reverend didn’t qualify Filomina to sit at the card table, but she barely qualified because she was a legendary mage. It made sense for her to play cards with her superior.

As for Kristen...

Darienne had summoned her on purpose. She knew that Filomina and Kristen were master and student, and she knew that both had sacrificed their purity for the church. She also knew that the master and student were riding in the same car, making them igloo sisters[1].

Those aren’t the point. The point was that the master and student didn’t know what they were sharing.

Therefore, Darienne organized a card game not to play cards, but to enjoy Wayne’s plight. As a chosen knight, she was humble, honorable, fair, compassionate, honest, and brave, devoting her whole life to safeguarding the world. With the sacrifice she had made, it wasn’t unreasonable for her to have her successor entertain her, was it?

Darienne didn’t think she had crossed a line!

After losing three games, however, her intention changed. Darienne forgot that she was supposed to be making a clown out of Wayne; she only knew that she would be the clown if she didn’t win one game soon.

Soon, she had lost nine consecutive games. Competitive as she was, she had moved the goalpost from best two out of three to best ten out of nineteen. She had no more room for failure.

She had lost all her chips in the fifth game. In the sixth and seventh games, she shamelessly lost all of Filomina’s and Kristen’s chips. In the eighth game, she lost White Night Creed. It was now the ninth game. If she lost again, she would be spending her night with Wayne.

Darienne gravely looked at her hands. Before she made every play, she had to ponder for a long time, so carefully that anyone who looked at her face would think she was playing a game of life-and-death.

“Hey, have you made up your mind yet? Are you following or not? We’re all waiting for you!” Wayne spoke impatiently from behind a tall mountain of chips. “Get better or keep losing. Don’t waste all of our time and hesitate like a girl.”

“Bastard, who did you just call a girl?!”

Darienne furiously tore her cards into small pieces. Under Filomina’s and Kristen’s blank stares, she flipped the table and sent it to the ceiling with a bang.

It was Filomina’s massive office desk, about 1.5 meters by 2 meters in size, big enough to fit two people. Now, though, it was lodged into the ceiling, hanging serenely from above.

The chips flew and scattered, revealing Wayne with a knowing look. He shrugged, giving Filomina a faint smile.

Unfortunately for her, he won their bet. If she didn’t mind, he would honor the bet and return home to his younger sister for some healthy exercises.

Filomina looked away as if she had swallowed a fly. What bet? She didn’t know what Wayne was talking about.

(눈‸눈)

Kristen huffed. The degenerate meter in this room was too high!

Damn it, the High Reverend had a young kept boy, while the chosen knight was a gambling addict. When had the church become like this?

“Brat, play cards when we’re playing cards. Why did you resort to personal attacks? Are you a sore loser or what?” Darienne was thick-skinned and shameless enough to turn this against Wayne. “Did you provoke me verbally on purpose because you know me, being hotheaded, would flip the table in a fit? Then I wouldn’t keep winning?”

“Have you won even once?”

“I was going to!”

Darienne’s face flushed. She could take any insults, but not insults to her card skills. She argued that she hadn’t adapted to the new environment, that the local card players were bullying an honest woman like her, that her luck was still jetlagged. Then she claimed that Wayne had cheated, Filomina had fed him cards, and Kristen was just bad. Her many excuses left Wayne in awe. The office might as well be a stage for a comedy skit.

Filomina and Kristen didn’t find the show entertaining. The former was imagining Wayne exchanging saliva with his younger sister, while the latter was imagining him exchanging fluids with her master. Their long, slim necks weren’t strong enough to support their heads and the heavy green caps on their heads. They looked down silently.

What could they possibly say? That the church next door had been winning and showing an ugly side, while their chosen knight had flipped the table as a glorious sore loser?

That would be pathetic!

Wayne alone was entertained. While others might be intimidated, he knew Darienne and could say for certain that while she was a sore loser, she would never use violence against her card buddies. Neither would she cheat with her power just to win a game.

Disregarding her tendency to flip the table, she was a card player with integrity.

Wayne was proven right. Darienne brought the table lodged in the ceiling back to its original place with a wave before sitting down, reverting to a beautiful ice queen like nothing had happened.

She didn’t mind Wayne disturbing the card games with under-the-table tricks, so she hoped that the others would drop the issue just as calmly and rationally as she was.

We wouldn’t dare not to. x2

Wayne was going to say something, but Darienne cut him off, “Wayne, why haven’t you summoned White Night Creed all this time? I told you to train hard. Have you gotten lazy?”

Compared to Wayne slacking off, Darienne was more worried that Moula and Leo would shamelessly seduce her successor even after losing him to her. She wondered if Wayne hadn’t used White Night Creed because he had been too busy practicing with Elemental Mantra and Dawn Doctrine.

Shadow Nightmare would blush if it could blush.

“I tried to summon it a few days ago, but didn’t succeed.” Wayne turned to Filomina and said to Kristen, “I was going to surprise you and transform into the Moonlight Knight, but to my surprise, I couldn’t draw the divine artifact.”

He picked up White Night Creed and said to Darienne, “Pretty sure you lost White Night Creed again.”

“Of course I didn’t. I only asked Moula and Leo to keep an eye on it. A chosen knight losing their weapon? Ridiculous. And it’s back in my hand, isn’t it?”

“You flipped the table, didn’t you? Just like what you did earlier.”

“Earlier?” Darienne scoffed, arguing shamelessly, “Who saw? What nonsense are you spouting? Do you have a witness?”

Wayne didn’t. This was the Church of Moonlight’s head office in the city. Filomina and Kristen would have no choice but to lie blatantly to protect the chosen knight’s honor. The knight herself could abandon her honor, but not the followers. Whether they had to argue or cover the truth, Darienne, the Moonlight Knight, had to remain an aloof beauty.

Filomina rubbed her temple. She had reason to believe that she had been lied to, that the higher-ups of the church had only fabricated the lies for dignity because they knew the truth about the Moonlight Knight.

“She can be observed, but not approached. If you get too close, you’ll be frozen to death.” That was most likely a lie to deceive a naive girl like Filomina.

Stay away from the chosen knight if you don’t want to die. (✗)

If you get too close, the chosen knight will be exposed. (√)

Filomina regretted believing the higher-ups’ nonsense as a naive girl. The truth was out of the bag: Wayne was right that the Moonlight Knight was a gambling addict who flipped the table when she lost, and she regularly gambled with her divine artifact.

There were even two other chosen knights like her in the world. Was there anything more absurd than that?

There was: all three chosen knights who were addicted to cards belonged to the Life Alliance.

Filomina pounded her chest. She couldn’t wrap her mind around losing a bet that should’ve been a certain victory. Was Wayne right that the goddesses were card addicts, too, and the chosen knights had only been playing cards to cater to them?

ε=(′д`*)))x2

The High Reverend sighed. Life was hard.

When she realized that there was another sigh coming from her side, she turned to Kristen in confusion, wondering why her student was dejected. Hm, she was probably disappointed in their chosen knight.

You’re too naive, Master!

Kristen saw right through Filomina. In this materialistic and hedonistic world, an old woman as pure-hearted as Filomina was few and far between. She hoped it stayed that way.

After being on the receiving end of the scumbag’s trickery and the side quest of resisting Senna as a trio, Kristen was no longer the naive senior she had once been. She could guess that Wayne was involved with Filomina, and Filomina had been kept in the dark, blissfully ignorant of her lover’s disloyalty.

Ha, it wasn’t so simple. Wayne was loyal to his heart and lower head, loyal to his future wives and lovers, and loyal to the life of abundance ahead of him.

See the Moonlight Knight? She’s loyal like that, too!

Kristen couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

Filomina was puzzled. Why did her student roll her eyes at her? Kristen even looked haughty and pleased with herself. What was there for her to be pleased about?

The changes in their expressions didn’t escape Darienne. Amused, she steepled her fingers and rested her hands on the desk, saying slowly, “Wayne, what have you been up to lately for you to forego training?”

“Rebellion.”

“???”

The answer caught Darienne off guard. She had expected Wayne to say that he had been busy, which would allow her to direct the conversation to his womanizing. What did he mean by rebellion? A literal rebellion?

“Some time ago, Windsor declared war on Prussia. The royal family moved against the Tulip Families to centralize power...”

Blah, blah, blah.

“Now, my father has moved his office into Buckingham Palace. Once he centralizes power and turns the royal family into powerless puppets, and I take over him as the head of the family, I’ll be able to transfer the palace’s ownership and become Windsor’s new king.”

“...” x2

Kristen was shocked. Why hadn’t he told her about becoming Queen? Was it supposed to be a surprise, or did he have someone else in mind?

Darienne’s jaw went slack. If Wayne played around this much when he was merely a scion of a rich noble family, how far would he go once he was Prince and later the King? Can your body take it, brat? Don’t mess around so much that you can’t even use a bow.

Realization dawned on Filomina. No wonder things had been so quiet after that night. This was what was going on. Who would be the Queen, though? Wayne’s younger sister in the Lando family?

“So you’ve been rebelling. Then you must have been busy...” Darienne murmured.

She didn’t know much about rebellion, so she immediately changed the subject back to what she knew well, going all out to make up for the card games she had lost.

“Wayne, I remember you telling me that the mage who had led you onto the path of magic is a member of the Church of Moonlight, and you were only stolen by the Church of Nature later.”

Wayne didn’t say anything. He knew Darienne was up to no good the moment he saw Filomina and Kristen in the office. Unfortunately, he was such a scumbag that he wasn’t panicked at all.

Darienne should refrain from celebrating prematurely. Her efforts were destined to be wasted on an entertainment she would never get today.

Darienne scoffed at his lack of reaction. “Wayne, you’re the successor of the Moonlight Knight, so I have to remind you to correct your private life. You not only represent yourself, but also the church and the goddess. Countless eyes are watching your every move and word. Do you understand?”

“I do, but that’s rich coming from you,” Wayne snorted.

“No talking back! No arguing!” Darienne glanced at Filomina and Kristen. “You also told me that to win you back from the Church of Nature, two mages from the Church of Moonlight had gone as far as sacrificing their purity to tie you down, didn’t you?”

1. The original joke is a vulgar joke that does not translate into English. Referencing how the Emperor Qin, founder of the Qin dynasty, standardized the weights, measurements, and wagon axles to facilitate economic development, the line can be literally translated into, “The master and student have matching wagon axles and the same currency, their measurements unified.” The wagon part refers to cars in the modern language, and “driving cars” is slang for having sex. The same currency (coin) is a pun of a vulgar term for female genitalia. Darienne is thus saying that Filomina and Kristen are sleeping with the same person. ☜