The Shadowed Legacy Of The Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 204

The terrible itching and pain continued, but after a while, another torment began to take its place. It was hunger.

“How amusing. Abandoned by my clan, my left hand severed, and in pain… yet hunger takes precedence. By the way, seeing how they just threw me out here without treating my wounds, it seems they just left me here to die.”

Azadin, in agony, approached the prison bars.

“Hey! I’m awake!”

As Azadin shouted, he saw the guard flinch. They didn’t approach him but disappeared to call someone. It seemed they thought Azadin, a member of the herald clan, might attack them and open the bars.

“They’re not very friendly. They’re wary and afraid of me.”

He had expected things wouldn’t be good when he woke up in the prison and saw that everything, starting with his weapons, was gone, but the situation seemed even worse than he thought.

[The Golden King is dead, and someone has to take responsibility.]

“……”

[Fortunately, the Cheonggeon Union is requesting your release. Since you are the adopted son of the Cheonju [the leader of the Cheonggeon Union], punishing you would also cause trouble for them. With the light of the King’s Hwa [a spiritual power] gone, the Cheonggeon Union has become stronger. They are the Nether’s kin, so they have achieved great merit. Those who want to punish you cannot ignore the Cheonggeon Union.]

“That alone doesn’t make the situation optimistic, does it?”

Azadin gave a bitter smile.

The relationship with the Cheonggeon Union’s Cheonju was entirely false.

For Azadin, relationships with others had always been like this. Aldis and Kazas had also chosen Hatir over Azadin.

No, even saying this was just nonsense.

To them, Azadin was just a pitiful child. An object of cheap pity, not someone to be compared to his father, who had the blood of a god, or the reincarnation of the woman he loved.

The entire clan was blinded by the revenge and power before their eyes, covering up the fact that Hatir had deceived them and branding Azadin as a traitor.

And now that the Golden King was dead, how would the people of Butuma treat Azadin, the herald clan member who had assassinated the king?

He felt like he was left alone in this world.

No, he had been alone in this world from the beginning. He had merely clung to life, relying on cheap pity.

So now, it was only such a false relationship that was protecting his life.

“Azadin. Are you awake?”

Then, a voice came from the next cell. It was Karchen.

“Were you also imprisoned?”

There was no sign of movement. She must have been lying unconscious in her cell and woke up when Azadin made a commotion.

That meant…

“Because I’m a herald clan member. Since the Golden King is dead, someone has to take responsibility. Besides, it’s clearly my fault that I fired the siege cannon into the royal palace. I dared to aim a cannon at His Majesty’s residence.”

It meant that Karchen had also been deposed and was now a prisoner.

“You’re doing something foolish. If it weren’t for your actions, things would have been much worse.”

When Azadin had captured Haldun’s group, Karchen had planted explosives in the royal palace prison and moved some of the siege cannons from outside the palace to inside. It was a measure only possible because she feared the herald clan more than anyone else.

She had detonated the explosives to drive out Kazas’s group and fired the siege cannons to save Azadin and drive out Hatir’s group.

But now that the Golden King was dead, she had also been deposed for the crime of firing cannons at the royal palace.

“If this was going to happen, I should have just surrendered to the clan. Now that His Majesty is gone, we’re back to being soulless blasphemers. His Majesty was the only one who was uniquely unbiased.”

Karchen lamented her fate, now like a kite with a severed string, with the Golden King gone.

From the way she spoke, it seemed that the clan had approached her before the incident and tried to persuade her, but she had opposed the clan to side with the Golden King.

“Manja-Zadek… His Majesty was a worthy lord.”

Azadin smiled bitterly, remembering the Golden King who had thrown himself in front of him.

“What about the children? What about Midiam and Ismail? Were they captured?”

“I made them escape. Those children weren’t captured.”

“That’s a relief.”

At that moment, there was a commotion outside the prison.

“Your Highness! No, you can’t! It’s dangerous!”

“Don’t talk nonsense. If I can be assassinated by those imprisoned here, then I don’t deserve to be the successor to the Golden King. Clear the way.”

“……?”

A young man arrived in front of Azadin and Karchen’s cells.

He was a handsome young man with dark skin and golden eyes. He resembled the portraits of Manja-Zadek in his youth, and his height was comparable to an ogre.

Azadin was also quite tall, but this man was about 50% taller, more than twice the height of most women.

“Prince Your Highness.”

Karchen said, bowing her head.

“Karchen. And Golden Herald. It’s regrettable that things have turned out this way.”

“Prince Your Highness?”

Azadin already knew most of the situation from the Emperor’s voice, but he pretended not to know, curious about what the prince would say.

“I am the Golden King’s legitimate son, the First Prince Amun-Zadek. Golden Herald. Or should I call you Azadin? Is that alright?”

“Of course, as you wish.”

“Good. Then let me explain the situation.”

Prince Amun-Zadek looked Azadin up and down and said,

“I know that you have been loyal to my father. However, people are claiming that you have been colluding with the enemy. Above all, the military wants to eliminate Karchen, the Golden King’s crows [a group of spies or agents], who have been a thorn in their side.”

“Your Highness. I have sworn loyalty to His Majesty and kept it. And that loyalty will continue unchanged if Your Highness succeeds to the throne.”

Amun-Zadek smiled bitterly at Karchen’s words.

‘If I succeed to the throne? She doesn’t think I’m the king yet.’

Indeed, the Golden King had many children. Amun-Zadek was the most likely successor, but another of the Golden King’s children, Darhan-Zadek, was at the fortress confronting the northern ogres.

What if he, who was leading the northern armies and fighting the ogres, requested the throne?

‘What a foolish woman. Sticking to principles in this situation. Or is that why she’s wise?’

Amun-Zadek felt both annoyance and pity for Karchen.

‘This woman was loyal to my father. She’s also skilled. Since she’s a herald clan member by birth, she’s not a threat to power. She’s a good tool. However, the support of the capital defense forces is important, and since her loyalty isn’t directed at me, I might have to kill her?’

He was thinking such thoughts when Azadin asked Amun-Zadek,

“What is the current situation? What about the throne?”

“The Golden King was killed by the herald clan, and the throne has been defiled. The power of the Nether has poured out, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the age of Jupiter, the prophecy of the madmen, has begun. We can no longer defend Butuma, so we have all abandoned the royal palace and fled. The Nagas have taken over the Butuma royal palace, and the people are constantly fleeing from Butuma.”

Butuma, which had been defending well, unilaterally crushing the Nagas. But with one act of destruction by the invading herald clan, the royal palace had fallen. Was that what he was saying?

“There must have been a lot of casualties. Are there any problems with the people fleeing? They’ll need food and shelter.”

“Yes. Fortunately, with the support of the Bel Hoda sugar plantation owners, we were able to minimize the casualties.”

“Is that so?”

It seemed that the Bel Hoda plantation owners had carried out Azadin’s request.

They were indeed merchants who knew how to keep their word. Thanks to them, the people who had to flee in a hurry were able to receive sufficient supplies and evacuate without major losses.

When Azadin had asked Bel Hoda, he had no idea that this would happen and had only asked for it as a precaution, but it had ended up saving many lives.

However, Amun-Zadek’s expression as he looked at Azadin was not that of someone facing a benefactor who had saved many lives.

“Yes. And they petitioned to save you. How did you manage to win over the stingy Bel Hoda merchants?”

“……”

“The Cheonggeon Union’s Cheonju is your adoptive father, right? The Cheonggeon Union are the envoys of the Nether, the kin of Grimslaw, so they have become a great force in this situation. When the light of the King’s Hwa disappeared, they opened a path for people to escape with the power of the Nether’s kin. Their contribution is so great that it won’t be easy to purge you, who have their support.”

Amun-Zadek said, smiling faintly.

“You’re a really troublesome fellow. I was hoping you’d die from your wounds and just threw you in prison… but you didn’t die and came back to life. Your vitality must be amazing.”

“You’re honest.”

“If you’re the son of Yae-Gas, the God-King, you’ll be able to be honest too. You can be as honest as you want without any repercussions.”

Amun-Zadek said, getting up.

“I can’t kill you with my own hands, but I can’t keep you alive either. There are complicated circumstances involved. So, either wither away in this prison.”

“Are you going to starve me to death?”

“No, before that, we might retreat further and leave you here. The Nether’s territory is expanding. As a result, you’ll either starve to death or the Nagas will get their hands on you. If you don’t like either option, I’ll leave you a rope, so if you need it, use it to kill yourself.”

Azadin had gathered the Bel Hoda plantation owners and gained the support of the Cheonggeon Union members to prepare for the coming disaster.

Thanks to that, he was able to save many people in Butuma, but because of that, he had become someone that Amun-Zadek had to eliminate.

“Don’t you have any intention of saving me and restoring the throne together, Your Highness? If things continue like this, Your Highness will lose everything.”

“I’m not someone who bets on such a slim chance. I’ll make good use of the copy of the God-King’s Scripture you brought.”

“……”

It was a statement that could have made him angry, but Azadin soon lost interest.

Abandoned by his clan, at odds with Aldis and Kazas, he felt that this conversation was meaningless.

“Karchen. You will follow me. And what happened here, you understand?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Karchen had no choice but to accept Amun-Zadek’s offer.

Listening to the sound of the iron bars scraping, Azadin sat quietly in his cell, sinking into himself.

Then, Amun-Zadek threw his silk belt to Azadin.

“If you can’t bear the suffering, use this to hang yourself.”

That was Amun-Zadek’s mercy.

“My mind is complicated, so please leave me in silence.”