KNM: Volume 8 Chapter 8

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, and StellarAshes.

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Story of the Young Devil

Aklan’s Crazy Four

“GLE!”

A silver-haired, blue-eyed, handsome lad sat leisurely on a branch. His eyes were half open, not knowing if he was awake or asleep. He was wavering about on the branch, making an onlooker fear he would fall off. But as soon as he heard the yell, he elegantly flipped around, and laid flat on the branch on his stomach, while lazily looking down at the people below.

“What?”

Three people stood below him, two males and a female, all wearing Magician robes. One of the guys looked older, seemingly more than twenty-five years of age, with a bearded face. The other looked more proper and elegant, much like a scholar, and he looked around twenty years of age.

The girl’s face was delicate and clean, even if her beauty wasn’t considered stunning, especially since her smile was bright, and very pleasing to the eyes. Nevertheless, she grabbed a rock from the ground without any reserve, and without saying a word, she threw the rock towards Gle on the tree branch.

She yelled while laughing, “Get down from there! Didn’t we agree to go prank the School of Knights?”

As soon as he heard the word “prank”, Gle’s spirit lifted, especially when the target was the School of Knights whom he never got along with. He yelled excitedly, “No problem! I’ll get down immediately.”

With another flip, Gle dexterously jumped down from a few meters above the ground; his skillful movements were unbefitting of a frail Magician. After jumping to his three companions, Gle looked at the proper man strangely and asked, “Qiusi? What a surprise; you plan on playing with us?”

Qiusi revealed a warm smile. In the eyes of a bystander, this smile could make them drop any guard they might have for him, but in front of his companions, his smile was comparable to the devil’s.

Qiusi raised the pile of paper in his hand and laughed mysteriously, “I’m just helping the teacher deliver the homework to the three of you class-skipping students, don’t misunderstand me; I am an excellent student.”

Having said that, he put the pile of paper in Gle’s hands, then left without pausing, or saying anything else. In the eyes of an bystander, he didn’t even look like he was friends with the other three.

“Joykill!” Gle looked at Qiusi’s back, and grunted.

“Don’t be like that! Qiusi doesn’t have a choice. He belongs to a rather famous family in the Aklan Republic. Last time, his father warned him, and told him to stop being acquaintance with us bad students.” The bearded man smiled as he explained.

“Barbalis, aren’t you in the same situation? You’re in the most prestigious family for Magicians in Aklan Republic. How come your father didn’t come to warn you?” Gle rolled his eyes, thinking the man looked more like a delinquent artist than a Magician.

Barbalis disagreed, “And because I come from a family of Magicians, you have no idea how much my old man wants me to be friends with you. He often sighed you’re not a woman, or I’m not a woman; otherwise, we could marry each other, and he could add the ‘one in a million Magician genius’ into the family, then do all sorts of Magic experiments with you.”

Gle smiled as he said, “I’d rather die than to marry you” as he threw a small fireball. Barbalis also put on a whole “I’m so scared” comical face as he dodged the fireball with ease.

“Okay! Stop fooling around!” Susanna, the only woman in the group, yelled, and the two men obediently put away their playful expressions while staring at her with wide round eyes.

She rolled her eyes and said anxiously, “Quick! Quick! What’s Qiusi’s plan this time? I can’t wait to put those pretentious Knights in their place.”

It was the men’s turn to roll their eyes. The entire academy thought the Crazy Four was led by the genius Magician Gle; Barbalis joined in because he admired Gle’s magic, so he followed him around. As for Qiusi, he was a good student who was forced to join after being threatened. Lastly, they thought Susanna had a crush on Gle, and because of it, she follows them around to do bad things.

However, it could not be any further from the truth!

Because Susanna’s speciality was healing magic rather than combat magic, she learnt fist-fighting. A favorite pastime of hers was to go face-to-face against Knights. Many of the Knights in the School had tasted her fists. Any Knights who showed the slightest hint of arrogance had all uncoincidentally received a “shocking education” from Susanna, then embarrassingly asked their Holy Knight classmates for a heal.

Barbalis was curious, “Huh? We’re going to prank Lancelot this time? I don’t think he messed with us?”

Susanna held a tight fist, and yelled into the sky, “I hate Lancelot the most~!”

The two men had already covered their ears the moment she made a fist. Gle also began to count, one, two… fifteen, and then he murmured, “Almost there, Susanna’s lung capacity is about twenty seconds.” He then put down his hands.

Sure enough, Susanna stopped and tried to catch her breath, and as a result, she was no longer torturing anyone’s ears.

Barbalis thought it was strange, “Why do you hate him so much? Don’t people call him the perfect Knight? Don’t tell me he discriminated against you?”

“He didn’t!”

Gle then asked, “Did he not duel with you because you’re a woman?”

“He did duel with me seriously, and he even used a formal Knight’s challenge.” Susanna said with a pouting face.

Barbalis continued to investigate the truth, “Is he too ugly and the sight of him polluted your eyes, so you want to beat him up and make him even more ugly?”

“He’s super handsome! It pains me to even hit his face.”

“Then what do you hate about him, exactly?” The two men asked in unison.

Susanna said righteously, “He’s strong and a gentleman who conducts himself perfectly, and he’s so incredibly handsome. A man like him is going to break countless women’s hearts! So I have to use this opportunity to disfigure his face, and save my fellow women from the heartbreaker Lancelot!”

Gle couldn’t help but touch his own face. He had heard rumors that, in the ranking of the most handsome males in the Academy, he was third on the list. The list of “most-hated” people Susanna would yell into the sky, might one day be “accidentally” yelled out loud…

“Open Qiusi’s plan, quickly.” Susanna hurried anxiously.

Gle took up the pile of paper, and the title on the first page was, ‘The higher they fly, the harder they fall!”

 

“Good! Good plan!” Susanna’s eyes shone, not caring she had to play a pregnant woman and accuse someone of playing with women and then abandoning them.

The smile on Gle’s face was becoming larger and larger, “I have a feeling, we will definitely get expelled this time!”

“Doesn’t matter!” Barbalis laughed suggestively, “My father will welcome you to live in my house for a long time.”

On the other side of the Academy, the perfect Knight Lancelot was training his sword skills earnestly, unaware of the existence of the “Pancake” plan in the world, and its target being him.

It was a plan just like others of Qiusi’s: they always took insane amount of effort and time. Gle and Barbalis spent a full three months trying to set up the Yaron plains.

They also had to pay attention so it would have an effect on the world, but not too severe, so Qiusi could hint at his father, who was the advisor to the Prime Minister, to give the mission to the Knight students. He also mentioned casually of there being a very powerful Holy Knight, etcetera.

After three months, the mission was eventually given to Lancelot, and operation “Pancake on the Ground” had formally started.

* * *

Barbalis and Gle took up the acting roles due to their ability to use teleport to move around quickly. One impersonated an evil Magician, and the other an evil Knight.

When Lancelot kept his team of Knights afar and came in alone on his unicorn to scout, the two suddenly jumped out. Barbalis first used a ward to trap him, then Gle took out a sword to challenge him.

Every time they would have a prank and they needed some sort of professional skills, Gle would suddenly study enthusiastically. This time, he went undercover in the School of Knights for three months, so he could learn the Knight’s sword skills and aura. He awaited this duel with much anticipation.

“Gle!” Barbalis said quietly, so the opposing Lancelot wouldn’t hear him.

“What?” Gle held his sword adeptly, while wearing a full suit of black armor. It was near impossible to tell he was actually an Magician.

“We have to lose, you remember that, right? Please don’t win!”

Barbalis was very worried. Despite Lancelot being the strongest Knight in the Academy, but nobody knew how strong Gle’s immeasurable strength truly was; the only known thing about him was he never had a record of losing in anything, and even the instructors and principal of the Academy didn’t dare to challenge him.

“Shut up!”

With a sword in Gle’s hand, and his opponent standing imposingly on the other side, they both felt, at the same time, neither of their opponent was weak. Gle could sense in his opponent’s eye that Lancelot was a rare and true Knight. He had already completely forgotten about the “Pancake” plan by now, and all he wanted was to duel to his heart’s content without any inhibitions.

The only thing one could see was the white and black figures clashing again and again in close combat, and neither the white aura nor the blue aura seemed to have an advantage over the other. A duel between a comprehensive prodigy and a Knight prodigy began. No one except perhaps Barbalis, who was a bystander in all this, knew who eventually won.

‘It was too fun of a fight!’

Finally, the “Pancake” plan failed completely, or rather, Susanna yelled at Gle so much that he became the “Pancake”. Even Qiusi would often look at Gle with a laugh, because he became the only victim of the whole operation.

Lancelot, on the other hand, was visited by the Dragon Emperor himself, and given him the title “Paladin”. In the following hundreds of years, his title of Paladin had became so well known, it matched the level of the Black Knight Blood Wolf, but all these happened much later.

* * *

“Damn! That was really unlucky.” Gle was hanging on the tree branch, while looking at Knights from afar, and the Dragon Emperor dressed in purple.

Barbalis rolled his eyes, and blamed him mercilessly, “You caused it yourself!”

Gle heard, but he didn’t care. Instead, he pouted. As much as he loved pranks, he loved dueling more, regardless of the types of duels. A duel without inhibition was as fun to him as five interesting pranks.

“Forget it! The prank was bound to fail from the start.”

Barbalis murmured. As usual, their framing pranks never succeeded, and they were the only victims from them. Nevertheless, the Four never got tired of them.

“AHH!” Gle suddenly yelled.

Barbalis was in shock, and asked hurriedly, “What? What?”

“Oh! God, someone please tell me, the woman with boxing gloves challenging the Dragon Emperor for a duel is not Susanna.” Gle covered his face, not wanting to look in that direction.

Barbalis immediately turned his head, and then dropped his jaw, “That crazy woman!”

In the distance, a woman with leathered clothes had metallic boxing gloves on both of her hands was pointing the Dragon Emperor in one hand, and had her other hand on her waist. The Aklan principal next to her looked like he could faint at any moment.

“I’ll go help!”

Gle examined the situation; the Dragon Emperor smiled graciously, as if he would actually accept Susanna’s request for a duel. So as much as Gle loved duel, how could he not go participate? Gle disappeared without a trace, then appeared right next to Susanna.

“Hey! Don’t win…” Barbalis reminded Gle as usual, but before he even finished, Gle was gone.

Barbalis looked into the sky and sighed, “What a joke! What would happen if they beat the Dragon Emperor in front of the whole Academy… but, it must be fun to watch!” Barbalis then disappeared too, to go watch the show.

* * *

Meeting

A seemingly malicious man with black messed up hair was humming as he walked unsteadily. A wine bottle was in his right hand, and judging from his red face, he was at least half drunk.

If one paid more attention, they would notice the man actually wore formal Knight uniform, specifically a black Knight’s uniform. However, it was riddled with holes and covered in patches, and therefore looked more like something a beggar would wear more than a Knight’s uniform. Such a fallen Knight was rare to see, especially since he was walking along the roads next to the most famous Academy in the Aklan Continent, Aklan Academy. This was a place where, if their sign fell off, it would have been pulverized by ten Auras and eight Magic spells before it landed.

The clean and tidy crowd of Knights glanced at this man at an angle, with anger on their faces. When the Magicians’ ridicule laughters could be heard, the dozen or so of Red and Blue Knights decided they couldn’t let this unclean Knight pass. They proudly held the sword in their hands, and surrounded the man with black hair.

“Only Knights can wear Knight uniform.” A Blue Knight among them showed an arrogant look; he could never believe the homeless man in front of him could be a Knight.

The black-haired man showed a silly smile. He then pushed his hair aside, then pointed the Knight’s badge on his chest.

The Blue Knight looked at this badge and, as much as he didn’t want to admit, thought this man may actually be a Knight, unless he somehow managed to rob a badge from a Knight? But he still wouldn’t let this homeless Knight go, and instead he was even more infuriated. If the man in front of him was an impostor Knight, then they should teach him a lesson and declare to everyone homeless nomads could never be Knights.

“I challenge you to a duel!” The Blue Knight yelled imposingly. He was determined to teach this man a lesson about never making Knights look bad.

At this time, the man finally fully opened his half-closed eyes. The bright eyes glanced at the Blue Knight challenging him, and said lazily, “Name, academy, and rank?”

Blue Knight hesitated, then remembered these things must be said in a formal duel. He only wanted to teach this man a lesson, so he didn’t think about it too much. Being embarrassed he had forgotten a duel’s formalities, the Blue Knight replied angrily, “I am a Blue Knight from the School of Knights, in Aklan Academy, Milan.”

A light shone in the black-haired man. His eyes did not look at Milan; instead, he tilted his head, and his eyes landed on another Blue Knight next to him, one with long, brown hair, and his eyes were as blue as the sky.

Everyone thought it was strange, and they looked in the direction the black-haired man gazed. They were shocked and felt uneasy, because the person stood next to them, who had been quiet but his eyes had been fixed on them, was the most powerful, perfect Knight in the Aklan School of Knights — Lancelot. The Knights were secretly glad they had not attacked, and the homeless man was really a Knight. If Lancelot saw them attack an ordinary man, no good could possibly come from it.

“You look strong.” The homeless man narrowed his eyes as he examined Lancelot, whose face remained unchanged.

Lancelot was looking at the homeless man’s clothes. The black Knight uniform was rather messy, and even the lining looked discolored, but one could still vaguely distinguish its color.

Seeing Lancelot staring at the homeless man’s uniform, the Blue Knight who challenged him remembered, he could determine his rank by looking at the color. He looked towards the dirty uniform, and realized the lining was… “Silver! Silver Knight? How is that possible?!” Milan was in shock.

Everyone was shocked, and even the homeless man seemed to be startled by Milan’s yell. He then murmured, “So what if I’m a Silver Knight. There are plenty of Silver Knights on Dragon Continent. I’ve already graduated from the Academy for years, I can’t believe a little runt who hadn’t graduated would dare challenge me.”

Milan heard the homeless man’s murmur, and he was so scared that his face changed colors. He couldn’t have imagined the person in front of him was a Silver Knight. Had he known earlier, he wouldn’t dare to challenge a Silver Knight even if his life depended on it.

The homeless man said casually, “I am Blood Wolf, Knight aligned with Darkness, people call me the Dark Knight. My rank is Silver, and I graduated a long time ago so I don’t have a school to tell you. I am now working under the third Prince of the Dragon Empire. Right, if you want to know, look at your 3:30 direction. The silver-haired man flirting with the girl would be the third Prince, and he’s here with his father.”

Everyone looked in the direct Blood Wolf stated. Sure enough, there was a silver-haired man there, standing pitifully while covering half of his face with his hand, while the woman next to him was looking angrily at him.

“Hey! Cappuccino, did you get slapped again?” Blood Wolf yelled loudly.

Cappuccino turned around and said as if he had been wronged, “All I did was say I was a Prince, and she slapped me.”

Blood Wolf shrugged, “Probably because the Prince in reality is far too different than the ideal Prince Charming, so when she got mad, she probably slapped you to vent her anger.”

He then murmured, ‘Every time when I tell people I work under you, and then see what you’re doing, even I want to slap you!’

While these two were going back and forth, the dozen of Knights who provoked him had already turned pale. Just a Silver Knight was more than they could handle, and now there was even a Prince. Now they don’t even know how they’re going to die.

Blood Wolf ignored the trembling Milan, and walked towards Lancelot, whom remained claim and waited for him.

“Hey! How about a duel with me?” Blood Wolf asked with anticipation.

Lancelot looked curiously at Blood Wolf, then walked out of the crowd. Everyone was surprised, because Lancelot’s body was covered in wounds. His white uniform had many holes, and there were spots of blood throughout. Many of his wounds were still bleeding.

Blood Wolf hesitated then asked, “Oh! Did you just finish a fight?”

Lancelot nodded, and a smile appeared on his face. Although he had no idea why he fought, but it was still a fight he very much enjoyed, especially since there was a strange Knight with a blue aura…

“AHH! No fair! I want to fight too.” Blood Wolf yelled loudly while jumping around, as if he desperately wanted a fight.

Cappuccino slowly walked over. As he examined Lancelot, whose age appeared to be near his own, he said to Blood Wolf, “Stop being shameless! He looks ten years younger than you, isn’t challenging him to a duel a bit too shameless, even for you?”

“I didn’t challenge him? All I’m doing is telling him to challenge me.” Blood Wolf continued to declare shamelessly.

“Such a bad Knight, no wonder I’m the only who’d have you.” Cappuccino knocked his own head helplessly.

“Hmmph, you’re such a bad Prince, no wonder I’m the only one working under you.” Blood Wolf responded without backing down.

The two of them actually began to argue right then and there, and they both were trying to dig up old wounds, such as “You spent more time in the academy flirting with girls than training with your sword”, or “You hid a dozen bottles of strong wine under your bed”, etc…

“Haha, are you two really a Prince and his Knight?”

A few loud sounds of laughter could be heard. Both of them curiously looked in the direction of the laugh, and saw a few Magicians standing there. None of them looked old, and the person standing in the front, was a young Magician with a hooligan smile.

“Who are you?” Blood Wolf asked without much interest. He hated fighting with Magicians, because it was too boring for him. He enjoyed the clashing of swords between Knights far more. Since these people couldn’t be challengers in a duel for him, he quickly lost interest.

“Gle.”

The young man said straightforwardly. As soon as the crowd heard this name, though, they took a deep breath, and began to scream. Some of them even began to take a few steps back, then turned around and ran as fast as they could.

“Aklan Crazy Four?”
“My God! It’s the Magician prodigy, Gle.”

Before long, the place was almost empty, leaving behind only Lancelot, Cappuccino, Blood Wolf, and the group people called the Crazy Four, even though there were only three of them there. Blood Wolf stared blankly, then asked, “Are you guys… really that scary?”

“Bombing the School of Knights three times,” Lancelot, who had remained quiet before now, had finally spoken, with a solemn anger in his eyes.

“Beating countless innocent Knights,” He took another step towards Gle.

“Being indecent to female Knights,” He put his right hand on his sword.

Gle finally opened his mouth to refute, “Hey! That one I deny. She was indecent to me first. I said I was going to scream, but because she didn’t want to be embarrassed, she screamed first. I’m the victim! Victim! Do you understand?!”

“Great… you could be a victim.” Cappuccino looked like he was envious.

Lancelot, however, ignored Gle’s explanation. He unsheathed his sword, and didn’t seem to care his body was covered in wounds and there were three people on the opposing side. To him, no matter at what time or what place, righteousness must be maintained.

“… And causing troubles at Yaron Plains.”

Gle heard and was shocked. He said unconsciously, “How did you know?”

Lancelot said calmly, “Smile.”

Hearing what Lancelot said, Gle touched his face reflexively. He didn’t expect him to recognize him from the smile. When he was in Yaron Plains, he was wearing half a mask. Did he underestimate Lancelot? He thought Lancelot was just old-fashioned Knight with a bit of strength.

He had no idea his two companions were glaring at him. Gle’s hooligan smile was, in fact, quite unique, so it was not strange to them that Lancelot recognized it.

“Are you going to duel?” Blood Wolf’s face was covered with excitement, “How about a 3v3 duel? No no, you guys are too young. How about this: aren’t you guys the Crazy Four? Go find your fourth, and we can have a 3v4, how’s that?”

“Good! Good!”

Gle also seemed excited, and Susanna, who feared there might not be a battle, was already putting on her boxing gloves. Barbalis had no choice but sigh and trying to think of a way to contact Qiusi, thinking he might come with a God-knows-what funny-looking mask.

When the three Knights and four Magicians competed against one another without seeing each other as enemies, their faces were filled with exciting smiles because they could fight with such powerful opponents. And after they finished, all seven of them fell to the ground, laughing, because this fight had got them all acquainted.

But, no one had imagined, many years later, the fight became a real fight to the death, and the place they would compete on was the entire world…

* * *

Master and Apprentice, or…?

“Barbalis!” Gle barged into the dorm like a tornado, interrupting Barbalis’ meditation in the process.

Barbalis helplessly ended his meditation, then complained, “Hey! Could you please let me meditate? I’m not a super genius like you, I still need to meditate.”

“Shut up! Tell me quick, what do pets eat?”

Barbalis looked curiously at Gle, and noticed he was holding a bag made of cloth in his hand. It was about the size of a dog? Barbalis thought to himself. Although technically speaking they weren’t allowed to have pets in the Academy dormitory, but the Crazy Four had already broken just about every other Academy rule, bombed the School of Knight twice, and half destroyed their own School twice, and once completely.

So what does it matter if they had a pet? If they would raise the pet obediently instead of causing troubles, the principal might even come and give a prize to the pet.

“Give it some leftovers. Or if it’s too young, feed it milk.”

Barbalis answered carelessly. He knew Gle’s personality was on the extremes: he’d either keep at something at the very end, or lose interest immediately. He planned to find out which of these attitudes Gle had towards the pet before he acted on it. Otherwise, if he helped to take care of the pet for a few days, then Gle throw it away, wouldn’t it be a waste of his time?

“Milk, okay, I’ll go buy milk.” Gle put the bag on the bed, then left much like how he came in.

Barbalis sighed. He feared Gle would be back soon, so he didn’t plan to continue his meditation. He began to organize his magic notes.

While organizing, he heard a small cry. Barbalis glanced at the cloth bag; could it be a kitten? It was possible; Barbalis didn’t seem to care. In any case, before Gle was certain he was going to raise this pet, Barbalis wasn’t going to give it any attention.

Before long, Gle came in like the wind again. He held a milk bottle in his hand, then grabbed the bag, and put the bottle up to the bag.

Barbalis squinted at Gle, and reminded him, “Put it in a plate, and let it lick it.”

Gle paused, and said “Oh”. He then actually poured the milk into a plate, then put the bag down in front of the plate. The crying sound was getting louder and louder; the baby-like crying sound gave Barbalis the goose bumps.

“He’s not licking.” Gle frowned.
“How can that be?”

Barbalis finally stood up, and walked towards Gle. He looked towards the cloth bag, and finally saw what kind of “pet” was inside. He froze completely, and his eyes didn’t move until Gle prodded him. He said with a stutter, “T-this is a pet?!”

“Yup! Cute, ain’t it?” Gle said as if it were natural.

Indeed it was cute. Chubby pink face, soft golden hair, and large eyes. Everyone would love such a cute… baby, and it was 100% human!

“I’m still thinking about a name.” Gle looked a bit a troubled. This was the first time he was trying to come up with a name.

“You’re really going to raise him?” Barbalis’ face darkened. How old was Gle? He’s going to raise a child at 18? He was actually praying Gle would throw him away after playing with it for a while, so he could put this child in an orphanage.

“Yup! He even knows how to call my name.” Gle snickered, while frequently poking the baby’s white and chubby cheeks.

“Call your name?” Barbalis was very skeptical. Can a baby this young even talk?

“Yes! Listen.”

Gle used his finger to tickle the baby’s armpit. The infant laughed as it made the sound of “Gle, Gle.”

“…”

“Fun, isn’t it? I’ve decided to raise him.” Gle said casually, as if he were declaring he’s adopting a dog.

“Seriously?” Barbalis asked solemnly. He knew, if Gle was serious, no one could change his mind.

“Seriously. I will raise him to be the strongest Magician. Of course, just not as strong as me.”

“Name?” Barbalis said the only response he could think of.

Gle thought seriously for a moment, then asked with a smile, “Which do you think is better, Mizerui or Silver Moon?”

“What the heck is in your head? There’s nothing common between these two names.” Barbalis touched the back of his head, “Call him Mizerui. He has golden hair, not silver. It would be strange to call him Silver Moon.”

Gle nodded, and raised the child high up in the air as he laughed, “Mizerui! Be good. Grow up quickly, so I can do some experiments.”

‘Experiments…?’ Barbalis suddenly realized, he had no courage to ask Gle what kind of experiment it was. Perhaps, in time, he might, out of the kindness of his heart, steal Mizerui and take him to an orphanage.

Of course, eventually the kindness of his heart still lost to Gle’s powerful magic and unusual temper. Because of such, the world had one more dangerous rank-X wanted criminal.

‘Anyone Gle raises with his own hands, as long as they’re alive, will become peerless masters.’ Barbalis whispered to himself.

(Warning: extremely dangerous, do not try at home, mortality rate approximately 99.8%)

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