I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 57

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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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Episode 57.
The aura was faint, yet unmistakable.
What Leon sensed emanating from Delan was certainly Sacred Power.
Only, its concentration was far too thin.
‘At this level, he’s practically an ordinary person.’
Sacred Power is determined by one’s innate vessel.
Natural talent is absolute; it is nearly impossible to expand the vessel itself through acquired effort.
The rare cases of acquired growth that occur are merely the late flowering of inborn talent, nothing more.
That is to say, the Sacred Power Delan possessed by birth was far too meager to become a Paladin or Priest of the Three Gods.
‘Is that why he wasn’t invited?’
With such talent, he would struggle to become even a Novice, let alone a Paladin or Priest.
No, he’d be fortunate if he wasn’t treated like the half-wit Leon had been before regression.
‘I wonder—if my senses hadn’t fully awakened yet, could I have felt an aura as faint as Delan’s?’
【I don’t think so. Your senses before they developed were dull as a stone; you wouldn’t have detected something this faint at all.】
‘Then it’s quite likely the Order’s selection priest overlooked it.’
Talent of this caliber is worse than useless.
No selection priest would recommend induction to a rural pharmacist with such meager ability—it would be shameful to even suggest it. Better to be grateful for a sturdy body and live out one’s days.
Yet Leon’s gaze lingered on Delan’s rough, calloused hands.
‘……He said his skill was considerable, didn’t he?’
According to Baron Borges, the pharmacist of Pnevalren was more skilled than most physicians.
Leon immediately understood that the source of that reputation lay in the faint Sacred Power dwelling in Delan’s fingertips.
Given the pharmacist’s profession, which centered on compounding medicines, the efficacy of Delan’s drugs would be especially potent.
The same prescription passing through Delan’s hands would surely achieve effects bordering on the miraculous.
‘Remember the mutant in Silvaren Forest channeling Sacred Power?’
【The one that threw itself at you while clutching a corpse?】
‘Right. It wasn’t neutralized by Sacred Power despite being a Contaminated Entity.’
The mutant didn’t neutralize against Sacred Power—instead, it absorbed the residual Sacred Power lingering in the corpse, using it to repair its body.
The corpses he’d witnessed in Elderit showed the same pattern; they displayed an unnaturally active approach to processing and utilizing Sacred Power for heretics.
At the same time, another possibility surfaced in Leon’s mind.
‘……Was Ilseran Youngsik a similar case to Delan?’
【It’s possible.】
‘Especially since Ilseran Youngsik is an only child. Count Ilseran has no other sons, so there’d be no reason to push him toward induction.’
No noble would wish their heir to join the White Light Order instead of remaining with the house.
Dedication to the Order was certainly an honor, but if the heir devoted himself to it, the family line would end.
So it was entirely plausible that Ilseran Youngsik was a bearer of Sacred Power unknown to the outside world.
【You’ve never met him, have you?】
‘Ilseran Youngsik? No. I don’t even know what he looks like.’
Leon searched his memories, but only one image surfaced.
A monster’s form, twisted beyond recognition after becoming a Contaminated Entity.
Having witnessed that grotesque sight with scarcely a trace of his original form remaining, Leon could not claim to ‘know’ his face.
【Looks like you’ve found the condition.】
‘Roughly, anyway. I’m not certain yet, but…….’
Unlike Delan, Leon had never encountered Ilseran Youngsik in his intact state.
To gain certainty in his hypothesis, he needed a ‘living’ subject before the corruption.
“What brings you here?”
Delan looked between Coleman and Leon before asking.
Both wore military uniform and armor with swords at their sides, so respectful speech came naturally.
“Sorry for the late hour, Delan. This gentleman is Sir Leon Servaline from the Imperial City. Sir, this is Delan, the pharmacist of Pnevalren—a skilled healer of such ability that there’s no one his equal in these parts.”
At Leon’s bearing and the title of “sir,” Delan’s head bowed of its own accord.
Delan also perceived that Coleman was showing considerable deference to the young man before him.
“I’m Delan.”
“Leon Servaline. I’m a Paladin with Arseriel.”
Delan bore the exhaustion of someone who hadn’t slept in days, yet color bloomed in his cheeks at the mention of Arseriel.
Like a man trapped in a hopeless situation who had finally found a breakthrough.
“You’re from the White Light Order!”
“Yes. Baron Borges informed me of concerns about an epidemic. Would you mind explaining the situation in detail?”
At Leon’s question, bitterness flickered across Delan’s face.
Then he began to explain.
“At first, I thought it was simply an outbreak of influenza—this season sees it often enough. But the rate of spread is abnormally fast, and the patients’ condition is so bizarre that it defies understanding.”
Speaking thus, Delan led Leon and Coleman deeper into his cottage.
The cramped cottage reeked of acrid herbs, and one corner overflowed with medicinal ingredients and dried plants piled like mountains.
Delan unfolded a bundle of medical charts from a corner shelf and continued speaking.
“Red flowers bloom across the entire body, and when the fever subsides, a rash erupts. Bruise-like patches appear in various places as well.”
As Delan’s detailed explanation progressed, Leon’s eyes grew sharp and narrowed.
It was familiar.
It resembled the symptoms of a certain plague that had ravaged the Northern Region before Leon’s return to the past.
Surely not.
But the timing doesn’t align, does it?
“Could this be Hongwhae-byeong?”
“You know of Hongwhae-byeong?”
Delan’s eyes widened with apparent surprise.
Leon’s brow furrowed even deeper.
“Roughly, yes. It’s highly contagious, but a healthy adult contracts fever and recovers within three days. Scarring patches remain, but… Are you saying the Hongwhae-byeong that emerged in Pnevalren differs from the ordinary form?”
“Yes. In the ordinary Hongwhae-byeong, patches should appear, the fever should subside, and recovery should begin. But this time, patients are developing additional symptoms at the point when they should be improving.”
Before Leon could ask what those additional symptoms were, Delan lifted a tattered cloth hung in one corner of the cottage.
Inside lay a child, the entire body covered in patches, groaning under high fever.
“This is what happens.”
The child appeared to be around ten years old, breathing in ragged gasps as the red flowers spread across every inch of skin.
When Delan carefully pulled back the blanket covering the child, the horrific state of the legs hidden beneath was revealed without mercy.
The affected area was not merely rotted skin—it bulged disturbingly tight, as if something within were forcing itself outward, looking ready to burst.
Between the pustules rising above the dark crimson discoloration, blood-red veins pulsed grotesquely, as if a new limb or some unknowable organ were trying to pierce through and grow from the child’s leg—a sight of pure horror.
“This doesn’t appear to be the symptom of an ordinary illness.”
The child swallowed a groan.
Leon regarded the sight silently for a moment, then tilted his head toward the wound.
Simultaneously, he murmured inwardly to Ecrizei.
‘There’s definitely contamination, isn’t there?’
【Certain. The amount is strangely minute, but it’s definitely contamination.】
The contamination mixed into the child’s twisted leg was incomprehensibly faint.
To cause such physical deformation and symptoms, dense contamination would be required—yet the boy’s symptoms were far too mild for someone exposed to that concentration.
As if…
‘It’s like something’s been processed further.’
【It must have been diluted somewhere along the way.】
‘Right. There’s definitely something refined about it.’
Leon stared at the pulsing dark-red veins and slowly clenched and unclenched his left hand.
Though the form and manifestation differed, this was undoubtedly a contamination response.
If so, he should be able to selectively absorb only the contamination as he had done before.
Setting aside his bewilderment, Leon brought his left hand to the child’s affected area.
“Se-Senior Knight? Without any protection, you shouldn’t—!”
Delan and Coleman cried out in alarm, but brilliance was already pouring from Leon’s left hand faster than they could stop him.
As clear, cool light enveloped the child’s leg, the dark-red veins crawling across the skin recoiled as if screaming.
At the same moment, the child’s face, twisted with pain, recovered its peaceful expression in an instant.
“This… this is…”
“A miracle, if I’ve ever seen one. Are you a Priest of healing?”
“That I’m not.”
The two of them showered him with praise, but Leon had no leisure to reciprocate.
Leon met the child’s slowly opening eyes and spoke softly.
“Are you awake?”
The child gazed up at Leon for a long moment with vacant eyes, as if just waking from a terrible nightmare.
The place where the terrible high fever and pain had drained away felt foreign.
As his blurred vision finally sharpened, the unfamiliar boy’s face came into focus.
When the child caught sight of the stern-faced boy in polished armor and his expression began to fill with fear, Delan quickly spoke from beside him.
“It’s alright. This is a knight from the White Light Order. You needn’t be afraid.”
At the sound of Delan’s familiar voice, the child seemed to relax, and the wariness that had gathered in his eyes gradually melted away.
Leon bent to match the child’s eye level and asked again, calmly and clearly.
“Before you became ill, did you venture somewhere you didn’t usually go?”
The child, still somewhat dazed, looked back and forth between Leon and Delan’s faces.
After a brief hesitation, the child’s eyes rolled as he searched his memory, then he began to speak haltingly.
“There’s a clearing in the forest behind the village, and I picked some Frost Mushrooms there. We all shared them together, and then…”
“Frost Mushrooms?”
At the child’s explanation, Delan gasped and cried out.
And he added with an air of bewilderment.
“You never mentioned anything like that to me, did you?”
“W-well… I mean… it really was Frost Mushroom. I thought that might be the problem….”
The child’s voice trembled under the weight of Delan’s intensity.
It was a reasonable reaction to panic over.
Frost Mushrooms were rare, true enough, but they were edible fungi that anyone knew about—the child couldn’t have imagined such a thing could be the cause.
Yet Leon’s eyes sharpened at the child’s words.
“Will you show me where that clearing is?”
“I-if you go northwest from the village entrance, you’ll reach it pretty quickly….”
The child, still wary, gave directions to the clearing.
Leon confirmed the location once more, then rose from his seat and spoke to Delan.
“I’ll examine the mushrooms in that clearing. Delan and Coleman—please check whether the other patients in the village consumed the same mushroom, and whether any remains are still lying about.”
After instructing the two of them thus, Leon set off at once toward the forest clearing.
Cutting through the cool northern air and pushing past the dense birch woods, the clearing the child had described came into view.
In the fairly spacious clearing, Frost Mushrooms had formed an unnaturally massive colony.
【Surely mushrooms don’t normally flourish with such vigor?】
“They don’t.”
The Frost Mushroom colony that filled the clearing was beautiful—like a white carpet of snow blossoms spread across the earth.
Dewdrops beaded on their caps shimmered with moonlight, luminous and fine, and the pure white mushrooms undulated with such plump abundance that it was impossible to imagine they harbored any poison.
Yet Leon was not seduced by this tempting sight.
Rather, in that unnaturally vigorous vitality, he sensed a deep, sickening wrongness.
The surrounding trees were withering, drained of vigor from their roots, yet only the Frost Mushrooms surged forth with grotesque abundance.
At the very heart of this anomalous colony, Leon felt a presence both familiar and strange.
Deep beneath the earth—something deliberately buried by someone’s hand. An unmistakable foreignness.
To be continued ▶
A Paladin who made a contract with an evil god
Author
Lam Dat
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication date
March 27, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227066
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited. Violators may face criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes your precious manuscripts.

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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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