I Am a Villain, So What?-Chapter 196: The pilgrim’s goblet

I climbed the steep stone stairs leading to the top of the outer barrier.

The harshly cold wind instantly bit into my exposed skin. Just the freezing temperature alone made this place a torturous deployment. Having to fend off waves of monsters on top of it? It was no wonder the soldiers treated this place like a living hell.

I sighed, pulling my coat tighter, and walked to the edge of the battlements to check the state of the barrier.

It wasn’t good.

The physical wall looked like a beggar’s patchwork coat. There were hasty repairs everywhere. Where the original reinforced stone had been smashed, they had used regular rocks; if not rocks, then hastily chopped wood; in a pinch, they had even jammed frozen scraps of metal, broken carts, and hardened trash into the breaches.

But the physical wall wasn’t the real problem.

...The mana barrier is fading.

I narrowed my eyes, looking at the faint, shimmering blue dome that arched over the fortress. It was flickering weakly.

Of course, the monsters wouldn’t wait politely for the Empire to fix it. Until the barrier completely failed, the soldiers were forced to fight with this highly unstable shield protecting their backs.

"...Normally, it would completely collapse right about now," I muttered to myself.

In fact, according to the game’s lore, Winterguard was historically breached during the Academy’s holiday period. If you played the game ordinarily, you wouldn’t be here to see it. You would just read the horrific news in the Capital’s newspapers. The barrier would fall, Winterguard would be utterly devastated, and only the emergency dispatch of Platinum-Rank Knights and Imperial Archmages would barely manage to pull the front line back before the monsters reached the inner Empire.

Although the Empire wouldn’t fall, the massacre at Winterguard was inevitable.

The reason for the collapse was simple. The Frostward Core—the ancient artifact powering the mana barrier—was finally wearing out. It would completely shatter within a week, and they wouldn’t be able to secure a replacement in time from the Capital. A catastrophic monster outbreak would immediately follow.

However.

"..."

I reached into my spatial pouch. My fingers brushed against a large, pulsing, crystallized organ that radiated a massive amount of dense mana.

The Titan’s Heart. It was the core I had ripped out of the corrupted Treant Boss back in the Root of Decay dungeon. Because it was the core of an A-Rank boss monster, its mana capacity was staggering. Merle had spent the last several weeks painstakingly purifying it, meticulously stripping away the demonic corruption until it was a flawless, hyper-dense mana battery.

It was the perfect alternative to the failing Frostward Core. Because I was here, the timeline was going to change.

I looked out beyond the patched barrier.

Beyond the frozen meadows and fields that had been violently trampled by hordes of monsters, there was a stark, jarring anomaly in the landscape.

A pristine, snow-dusted forest. It was a sacred sanctuary that even the feral monsters of the Wilderness dared not defile. It was perfectly visible to the naked eye, standing less than a kilometer away from the fortress walls.

...Somewhere deep in that forest lies the holy artifact. The Pilgrim’s Goblet. It was the entire reason I had risked my father’s wrath to come to this frozen wasteland.

Long before the Northern Frontier became a cursed land of monsters and political exile, it was a holy passage. Pilgrims from the southern sanctuaries would journey north into the snow—not for military conquest, but for spreading their teachings, healing the sick, and offering solace to the isolated northern tribes.

Among them was a nameless wanderer, remembered in the church’s deepest archives only as ’The First Pilgrim.’

He carried no weapon. He carried no grand holy relics. Only a simple, battered metal goblet.

According to the lore hidden in the game’s library: He walked barefoot through blinding snowstorms. He shared his last drop of water with strangers and sworn enemies alike. He never once prayed for his own salvation.

On the final night of his journey, deep in the frozen wilderness, he finally collapsed from exhaustion. But when he awoke, the empty metal goblet in his hand was filled—not with melted snow, but with something completely clear... something luminous.

A voice, soft as the wind over the snow, spoke to him: "Let this vessel carry not water... but mercy."

From that day forward, the metal cup became known as The Pilgrim’s Goblet. It was never adorned with jewels. It was never glorified in grand cathedrals. It was just a plain cup, passed down quietly among the truly faithful.

Its power was incredibly simple, yet absolute: Any water poured into it could instantly heal fatal wounds and perfectly purify demonic corruption. But the magic only activated when the water was given freely to another, without any expectation of reward.

If the bearer harbored greed, fear, or arrogant pride, the water would remain entirely mundane.

Years later, when the frontier permanently fell to the monster outbreaks, the last known bearer of the Goblet—a young, terrified acolyte—fled north to protect it from being destroyed.

He never returned.

Some historians said he died freezing in the snow, still clutching the cup to his chest. Others believed he intentionally chose to hide it in a place where only the truly worthy would ever find it.

Over time, the Central Church officially declared the relic lost to history.

But the whispers remained in the hidden texts: "In the far north, where no path remains, a cup waits beside the bones of a pilgrim."

I stared at the pristine treeline of the sacred forest.

I wasn’t exactly a saint. I didn’t walk barefoot, and I certainly didn’t harbor endless mercy. But I had the Rosary of the Weeping Saintess wrapped around my neck, and I had the Divine Force required to claim it.

"Not right now, though," I muttered, my breath misting in the freezing air.

I would reach that forest and claim the Pilgrim’s Goblet before this vacation was over. But jumping the wall right now, while the fortress barrier was on the verge of collapsing, would only lead to a future where I returned to find Winterguard slaughtered and my escape route overrun by monsters. I needed to stabilize the defense first.

Crunch. Crunch.

The sound of heavy, armored boots treading through the snow broke my train of thought. It was a measured step, keeping a gentle yet precise military rhythm.

I didn’t need to turn around to guess who it was. The aura felt entirely different from the crude mercenaries I had just left behind.

"You’re here," I said, leaning against the frozen parapet.

Turning around, I saw James, the Vice Commander of the Winterguard garrison.

"Lord Lucien," James nodded respectfully, stopping a polite distance away. "What brings you to Winterguard at a time like this?"

It was a question I had heard numerous times in the past twenty-four hours, but the way James asked it—with genuine curiosity rather than mocking disdain—made me laugh softly.

"Well. Think of it as extreme vacation homework."

"Coming to Winterguard for vacation homework?" James offered a faint, dry smile. "Does the Imperial Academy actively want to assassinate its students these days?"

The Academy was being scolded instead of me for once.

"What about the other knights in the waiting room?" I asked, looking back toward the barracks.

"Still on standby. And still chattering away, I imagine," James replied, his tone carrying a hint of exhaustion. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

They must still be mocking me. After all, if I had heard a seventeen-year-old kid boldly declare that no one would die in Winterguard for a month, I might have laughed in his face, too.

"Sir James, you are surprisingly polite," I noted, studying his posture. "You’ve used formal honorifics with me ever since I arrived."

This was unusual. The knights who served under Arthur Whitmore were infamous for being unrefined wild beasts. Respect was earned through spilled blood, not noble titles.

"I learned it from my former superior in the Capital," James explained, his expression softening slightly. "Since she always uses strict honorifics, regardless of the situation or the person’s rank, I seem to have picked it up as a habit."

A female superior with flawless etiquette? I wondered exactly who he had trained under before being transferred to this frozen hell, but I didn’t pry.

’Maybe he is talking about his wife.’ I thought as I remembered father’s docile behaviour around mother.

"Why did you come out here to the wall, Sir James?"

"I am a knight, Lord Lucien. I simply follow orders."

"You follow orders without knowing the reason behind them?"

"By faithfully following orders, the broader strategic reason naturally reveals itself in time," James answered without a hint of hesitation.

Truly loyal. I could fully understand why Arthur trusted him as the Vice Commander of Winterguard.

I smiled bitterly. "It would be nice if the other knights in the barracks shared your discipline."

"They and I are not so different," James said humbly, looking out at the wasteland. "It’s just that this place is too harsh. The cold chips away at a man’s sanity."

I half-agreed with James’s words. As I’ve noted before, in a suicidal environment like Winterguard, it might actually be a survival mechanism to go moderately mad. However, a harsh environment also peels back the layers of a person to reveal their true nature. Not all knights possess James’s stoic composure.

"Let’s head back inside," James suggested, gesturing toward the stairs. "The wind on the barrier is too brutal when there is no active battle. Besides, there has been a sudden change in the schedule today."

"A schedule?" I furrowed my brow.

That reminded me—I hadn’t seen Commander Arthur since he dismissed me to the barracks. I assumed he had gathered the knights in the waiting room to prepare for a scouting mission or a monster wave. But if it wasn’t because of the monsters, why centralize the forces?

"Didn’t you know?" James paused, looking at me. "The Eldest Princess is arriving today for an official inspection."

"...The Princess?"

"Yes, Princess Rumina," James confirmed. "As you may have noticed, the mana barrier is rapidly weakening. The Capital has taken notice."

"...You don’t mean her," I whispered, rubbing my temples as a headache began to form.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing. I was just talking to myself."

A chill that had nothing to do with the northern wind ran down my spine. Why do I keep running into her? I had already accidentally caught Princess Rumina’s intense attention during the Dungeon Competition a few months ago. I thought laying low and coming to the frozen edge of the world would keep me off the royal family’s radar.

Now, I was hearing her name again. Right here. Right before a catastrophic monster outbreak.