I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 45

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 45.
Leon swallowed a crude curse that threatened to spill from his lips.
Outside the Barracks, Sion had seemed to accept the talk of the divine will, but now—standing before Aila—he was placing Leon on the chopping block without hesitation.
“Why the Divine Stigma?”
“It appeared that you weren’t controlling your Divine Stigma, Lord Leon.”
“Leon couldn’t control it?”
Aila’s gaze turned toward Leon, her expression puzzled.
Then, as if some realization dawned on her, her features shifted subtly.
Aila looked back to Sion and asked.
“Explain in detail.”
Sion glanced toward the report still spread across the table.
It was a gesture meant to emphasize that the answer wasn’t written there.
And indeed, the report contained no mention of Leon’s Divine Stigma—something Sion wanted to discuss—as deliberately as any pendant worn by Yiseline.
This meant the matter was too sensitive to be set down in print and required direct reporting to Aila, the person in charge.
Sion opened his mouth in an even tone.
“When I arrived at the site with my unit, what I found was a filthy slaughterhouse where a terrible heretical experiment had been conducted. There I discovered Lord Barka and you isolated within, and immediately secured the area. Lord Barka’s injuries were severe at the time, but thanks to the assistance of the Holy Priesthood and Efricio, a member of our order, the situation was resolved without incident.”
Sion paused there, his eyes sweeping across those present.
It was as though he were gauging their reactions to his words.
“While Lord Barka, having recovered from his wounds, showed some difference of opinion with me, you vanished down a particular corridor. We subsequently discovered a number of missing persons in the opposite passage, and while securing that scene, I received a report that you had collapsed.”
What followed was an accusation masquerading as a report.
Sion even employed cunning phrasing to downplay his own fault while emphasizing Leon’s recklessness, displaying a pettiness that was hard to stomach.
【A difference of opinion? That’s rich—as if it wasn’t as grating as Corbin’s constant complaints.】
Ekrujae bristled with indignation, but Leon tamped down his rising fury and swallowed his true thoughts in silence.
So that’s why Sion had seemed so eager to accept things earlier.
At this moment, Sion didn’t even realize he’d struck Leon in the back.
He probably thought he’d merely done his duty.
“I could not comprehend why you approached an unknown Contamination Source so rashly. There was a Holy Law Scholar present above ground, and since you knew this, I found it all the more inexplicable.”
It was, admittedly, a reasonable question.
Aila, who had been listening in silence, suddenly turned her gaze toward Leon, but he kept his expression unreadable, his lips pressed firmly shut.
Sion’s voice that followed carried even greater conviction.
“I thought there must be another reason. However, when I asked you afterward, you insisted that ‘the Divine Stigma reacted on its own.’ Of course, the will of Arseriel contains many things beyond the comprehension of lesser men, but even accounting for that, I found it difficult to accept.”
Wrapped in courteous language though it was, this was a sharp accusation questioning Leon’s loss of control.
A suffocating silence fell over the Barracks, until Ekrujae spoke.
【This one is smooth with words. Shouldn’t someone shut that mouth?】
‘Wait. If I interrupt now and rush to defend myself, Aila’s temperament will only work against me.’
Leon steeled himself and waited for Sion’s next words.
“The entity in that Stone Chamber was likely a corrupted form the heretics had been using. No matter how specialized your Divine Stigma is in Purification, it should have required a Holy Law Scholar’s verification. Your actions, proceeding without following such procedures, were reckless to a degree that defies comprehension—unless, of course, you had some other purpose in mind.”
With that, Sion looked toward Leon once more.
Leon was about to open his mouth to refute words that had clearly crossed a line—
“That last part sounds like baseless speculation to me.”
“Does it? However, I cannot rule out the possibility.”
“Possibility, then—and a rather subjective one at that.”
Aila, whom Leon had believed would maintain strict neutrality, sided with him.
To the shock of all present, Aila continued.
“Sion. Your deeply faithful conjecture can be set aside for now. What I want to hear isn’t a third party’s interpretation—it’s the facts as stated by the person involved.”
Aila cut through Sion’s statement with a sharp edge and turned her head.
“Lord Leon. Are Sion’s claims factually accurate?”
Aila’s crimson eyes fixed upon Leon.
Her gaze contained a mixture of suspicion and concern.
…….
Before answering that question, Leon’s eyes briefly met those of Tristan, whose expression had grown grim with frustration at Sion’s relentless inquisition.
In that moment, Leon recalled that Tristan had added a small lie on his behalf, and with that memory, Leon composed a face of injured composure—guilt concealed beneath calm—and spoke.
“The sequence of events is accurate. As Lord Barka testified, I did approach the Contamination Source rashly and attempted to purify it. However, Sion’s conjecture about other motives is clearly unfounded. I simply didn’t anticipate that the Divine Stigma would react so strongly.”
“It wasn’t intentional?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Aila’s crimson eyes didn’t blink once as she asked.
As if determined to catch even the slightest hint of deception.
“It was certainly a misjudgment on my part to approach the Contamination Source with such faith in the Divine Stigma.”
Leon spoke thus and inclined his head slightly.
His lowered gaze and tilted head were perfectly calculated to appear genuinely penitent.
“…Well, you certainly pulled off some reckless stunts back in Acalon.”
Aila smiled faintly as she said it.
Then, composing herself, she turned her attention to Sion.
“Does that clear things up?”
“No, but Commander! Leon’s argument is clearly sophistry!”
“Sophistry? It sounds like a perfectly sound explanation to me. Unless you have some concrete evidence beyond your own subjective suspicions?”
Her voice took on a dangerous edge, laced with barely contained anger.
It was an unmistakable warning to Sion for crossing the line.
“Regardless of his intentions, Leon’s Divine Stigma is genuine. Arseriel’s holy relic, the Glory of Gold Light, proved it, and countless priests and knights from the upper ranks have confirmed it since his initiation into the Church. To doubt Leon’s Divine Stigma is to deny the eyes of the Church itself. Are you truly suggesting that all these faithful believers are fools?”
Aila’s rebuke left Sion’s face rigid and pale.
As Sion’s lips trembled with a mixture of grievance and fury, Corbin wedged himself between them with his characteristic lighthearted laugh.
“Whoa there. Both of you, steady now. I don’t think Arseriel would appreciate seeing his children squabble like this. Sion, the Commander’s right—the mission went smoothly, so how about we drop the stubbornness, hmm?”
Corbin’s deft mediation punctured the tension that had been threatening to explode.
Aila clicked her tongue in displeasure and swallowed back a deep sigh, then withdrew her gaze from Sion and turned back to Leon with a curt nod.
“That’s enough. And Leon—I heard you paid the price for your recklessness in this affair. You couldn’t leave the carriage the entire way back to the Church, they tell me? Go straight to the Central Barracks once this meeting ends and see Lillian. Have her examine your condition first.”
It was a practical reprimand for the uncontrollable power, masked as a medical order.
Just as Leon was about to release a sigh of relief, Aila added one more thing.
“Make sure you recover to full strength as quickly as possible. You’ll have an inconvenient schedule ahead of you.”
A schedule?
Everyone, Leon included, exchanged puzzled looks as Aila retrieved an elegant Parchment Scroll from beneath a stack of documents and placed it on the table.
Impressed upon the red sealing wax that bound the parchment was the insignia of the Roscardia Empire’s imperial house—a pair of lions clutching a sun in their claws.
“An envoy came from the imperial palace. This is an official invitation to those who distinguished themselves in the recent subjugation.”
The mood shifted instantly.
Tristan, who had been carefully gauging the atmosphere until now, was the first to voice his complaint.
His face, flushed with indignation, looked ready to tear the invitation to shreds at any moment.
“Damn it all! An invitation? Are you serious? We just got back from that cesspool in the Eastern Region. And now you want us to drag ourselves to the Capital without even time to recover? To march straight into that viper’s nest and play court jester?”
“For once, I find myself in agreement. Must we truly go?”
Now even Sion had joined Tristan in protest.
With Leon looking equally reluctant, Aila responded firmly.
“Yes. It’s mandatory.”
“Hell and damnation!”
“Tristan, watch your tongue.”
Aila shot a warning at the endlessly cursing Tristan.
Though there was little heat behind it.
Aila herself agreed with Tristan’s characterization of the imperial court as a nest of vipers.
She simply hid the exhaustion seeping through beneath her sense of duty as Commander and the seasoned composure built over long years.
“Keep it moderate. I’m going too.”
“You as well, Commander?”
“That’s right. So keep your grievances to yourself. Especially you, Tristan—be careful not to cause trouble in the heart of the Empire.”
“Am I a child? I have that much judgment at least!”
“Do you? I’d like to believe you’re not a child, but watching you sulk like this makes me reconsider.”
“Commander!”
“Easy, easy. Tristan, settle down.”
Corbin chimed in as he tried to soothe the now flushed Tristan.
“If even you must attend, Commander, then it’s truly unavoidable. Surely you’re not requiring all the elite knights?”
“Mercifully, no. Those mandatory are Leon, Tristan, and Sion. But I’d like you to come as well, Corbin.”
“Ah, as I suspected. I couldn’t very well miss an occasion like that, could I?”
Corbin’s face took on its characteristic affable expression.
Then, as if resigned to the inevitable, he gave a light shrug.
“Well, can’t be helped then. At least I’ll get to see some glittering nobility for a change.”
In truth, the four’s resistance was meaningless from the start.
Short of having one’s head severed and ceasing to breathe on the spot, there was no justification for declining an invitation sent directly from the solemn imperial palace itself.
That Parchment Scroll, cloaked in the polite guise of an invitation, was in substance nothing less than an Imperial Decree that could not be refused.
Aila then drew the line decisively and commanded dismissal.
“Everyone has worked hard. Tristan, Sion, and Leon—you must depart for Rostelron tomorrow without delay, so prepare your equipment and rest accordingly. Leon especially, you still don’t appear fully recovered, so go straight to see Lillian at the Central Barracks once we’re done here. That’s all!”
To be continued ▶
A Holy Knight with a Contract to an Evil God
Author
Ram Dhat
Publisher
Seok Hwan Kim, Se Ra Choi
Publisher
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
March 27, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227066
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※ Pentagram welcomes your manuscript submissions.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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