The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 12

The sight of the ogre, a greedy monster wielding a large obsidian axe and tearing apart beasts alive to devour them, was enough to make anyone lose their will to fight and tremble in fear.

Azadin had plucked out one of their eyes each, and the scene unfolding before them now was so gruesome that their remaining single eye seemed filled with resentment.

They tried their best to twist and escape through the gaps in the meat box they were trapped in, but seeing the goblins below them scrambling to eat the blood and flesh that oozed out from the gaps made them reconsider.

Even if they escaped from here, they would only be caught by those goblins.

Just then, the ogre stopped walking.

“Human village. Big. Strong fortress. Lots of meat,” the ogre said, patting its belly.

“Boss, what should we do?”

“Huh?”

The people were all startled.

Usually, a group consisting of ogres, hobgoblins, and goblins would have the ogre as their leader. But this ogre was clearly calling one of the goblins ‘boss’.

Then, one of the goblins stood up. This goblin, not even a hobgoblin the size of a human, but a goblin similar in size to a human child, was covered in tattoos made with dark blue pigment and held a wand decorated with animal bones in its hand.

“The Great King of Fangs desires the Divine Scripture. The Divine Scripture is in that village… That is… The Great King of Fangs… Krrreeeeek!”

The goblin, who had been speaking so well like a human, suddenly began to scratch its face wildly with its fingernails. The goblin, who had self-harmed to the point of drawing blood and tearing off pieces of flesh, opened its eyes wide.

“Divine Scripture! It’s mine! Mine! King of Fangs!? I will become the King of Fangs with the Divine Scripture! Eat shit! The King of Fangs is far away, and I am close! The Divine Scripture is…”

The goblin raised the bone-decorated wand. An ominous yellow flame rose from the wand, swaying in one direction, towards the village, even though there was no wind.

“I will have the Divine Scripture! Let’s go! Goldoo!”

The goblin said, urging the ogre.

“Goldoo. Store meat. Don’t eat it all at once, store it and eat it for a long time. Goldoo is a smart ogre who knows how to invest for a crisis.”

The ogre patted its belly and moved forward with the other goblins. Soon, the gate with a bonfire burning in front of it came into view.

*********

The village guards stood on the watchtower, watching the approaching ogre army.

“…Damn it.”

“There are so many.”

One ogre, three hobgoblins, and about ten goblins attached to each hobgoblin, all wearing clothes adorned with the clan’s emblem.

They weren’t just wandering monsters, but members of a regular clan, a vanguard or scouts.

“It’s okay. Our gate is strong…”

It was then that the hunter spoke.

-Whoosh!

A large rock flew and collided with the gate wall. The ogre had picked up a large rock and thrown it.

The gate held, but the latch jumped up greatly, and dust and wood fragments poured out from the gaps in the gate.

“Hic?!”

“Oh no!”

“Shoot!”

Following the hunter’s instructions, the archers began to shoot arrows. However, the ogre was carrying a meat box made of large logs in front of it, so the arrows only hit the box and fell off.

“Heave-ho!”

The ogre picks up another rock. The hobgoblins approach the gate with shields, and the goblins charge behind them.

“Kuh!”

The archers made a mistake by focusing their first attack on the ogre. They managed to take down some goblins with the second and third arrow attacks, but now the enemies were already clinging to the bottom of the gate wall.

The hobgoblins held their shields over their heads to block, and in the meantime, the goblins were hammering and gnawing at the gate with their saw-like weapons.

“Heave-ho!”

The ogre threw another rock. This time, the rock flew over the gate wall and was about to hit a guard who was shooting arrows.

“Aaaah!”

“Whoops!”

At that moment, a hand suddenly reached up from under the wall, grabbed the guard’s belt, and pulled him back to safety. The rock narrowly passed over his head and hit the tower of a nearby building, embedding itself there.

“Hic?!”

“W-what, who are you?”

“Huh?”

Everyone was surprised. A man wearing a hawk mask was hanging on the gate wall, holding a person’s belt with one hand and clinging to the wall with the other.

It was incredible strength.

Holding a person with one hand was unusual, but with the other hand, he was supporting the weight of two people, including himself.

And that bird mask on his face?

“Can you get down?”

He lowered the person he was holding to the bottom of the wall and climbed onto the wall himself.

“I will join the defense of the gate.”

“Who are you?”

“Just a passing… Imperial Messenger.”

He said, unfastening the bow from his waist and stringing it. Usually, when stringing a bow, one would place the bow between their legs, bend it using the strength of their whole body, and then string it. But this man strung the bow with his hands alone, as if it were a child’s toy bow.

“Imperial Messenger?”

“From the Messenger Clan?!”

“Yes, I am from the Messenger Clan.”

The man who had suddenly appeared called himself a member of the Messenger Clan and picked up an archer’s quiver that was lying on the ground.

*********

“Please be careful.”

A woman holding a lantern carefully lights the way, worried about Azadin.

Among the refugees, consisting of the elderly, children, and women, the relatively sturdy young women were holding lanterns to light the way, and two of them were assigned to Azadin, Midiam, and Ismael, whom they had never seen before.

“It’s alright.”

Azadin was grateful for their consideration in allocating two of their few lanterns to them.

“How pathetic.”

Midiam clicked her tongue.

“What is?”

“For a knight who receives a stipend from the people to abandon them. It’s not elegant. It’s disgusting.”

“So, you also think that protecting the people of Hybris is more beautiful than abandoning them.”

“…Ah.”

The Messenger Clan, the people of Aragas, had various opinions about their future course of action.

Among them was how to interact with the people of Hybris, who originally lived on this continent. There were many different opinions on this.

They persecute us, so we must also hate them.

They are inferior to us, so we, who are superior, must rule them.

For the people of Aragas, who had lived under curses and oppression, the people of Hybris were disgusting beings who were weak and dared to challenge them without knowing their place.

But…

Nevertheless, Midiam was saying. It’s a disgrace for a knight to abandon his people.

The people of Aragas have hated the people of Hybris for a long time due to persecution and oppression, but despite that, she was saying that protecting and defending them was a beautiful thing.

“That’s true. Is it strange that I, an Aragas, am sympathetic to the people of Hybris?”

“It doesn’t matter. I think so too.”

Azadin said, taking out a mask from his pocket.

“It seems people are too kind when I pretend to be blind.”

*********

When you pretend to be blind, you often meet kind people.

As a member of the Aragas people who are persecuted by the people of Hybris, it would be good if I could hate all the people of Hybris.

But after experiencing such kindness, it becomes difficult to hate everyone.

Well, even people who are kind to the blind sometimes throw stones at them when they find out he is a member of the Messenger Clan, but that is inevitable as long as the King’s Church controls the people.

[Is he protecting the people?]

The Emperor’s voice shouted as he watched Azadin climb the mountain path towards the gate village.

[Well done, my messenger!]

“So, is this worth one gold coin?”

[No, not that. Anyway, well done. My praise is the Emperor’s praise, so aren’t you honored?]

“You’re not giving me a single coin, but you’re still praising me…”

Azadin grumbled and climbed the mountain path, returning to the gate village alone first.

He changed his appearance by putting on the clothes he wore when he pretended to be a blind pilgrim. He straightened his hunched body, changed his expression, put on his mask, and entered the village, saving a person who was about to be sacrificed and standing on the gate.

“A member of the Messenger Clan?”

“The demon of gold coins?”

“A soulless, unholy being… Why?”

As people wondered, Azadin kicked the quiver of the archer he had rescued.

The arrows flew into the sky, and Azadin reached out, grabbed the arrows, and shot them at the ogre.

-Swish!

“No way…”

He had already shot the arrows, but they were blocked by the box the ogre was wearing on its chest, and the other parts were not very effective due to the thick fat.

But…

-Thwack!

Two arrows pierced the ogre’s eyes at the same time.

“Kuuuuaaaack!”

The ogre screamed and fell backward, and people poured out of the box on its chest.

“Huh?!”

“W-what is that?”

It was like magic.

Dual Shot, a specialty of the Messenger Clan that allows them to fire two arrows and have them hit almost simultaneously. If it hadn’t been for Dual Shot, even if the first arrow had hit the eye, the ogre would have flinched in pain and surely protected the second eye.

But Azadin used Dual Shot to take both eyes at the same time before the ogre could even guard them.

“Kkkuaaa! My eyes! It hurts!”

The ogre, enraged, swung the obsidian axe in its hand and moved, but the creature that had lost its eyes couldn’t even walk properly.

It tripped over rocks and staggered down the mountain path, causing trouble for the nearby goblins instead.

“A-amazing!”

The tide of the battle had turned in an instant. The most powerful ogre had been neutralized, so now all they had to do was defend using the wall.

But…

While the guards were in shock, this member of the Messenger Clan, who had taken out the ogre’s two eyes in one go, jumped down from the gate towards the goblin army.

“No!?”

“He’s crazy…”

It was suicide.

There was no reason for a master archer who could hit an ogre’s eyes from this distance in the dark of night to abandon the advantage of the wall and jump down.

Shooting at a long-range target with a bow is different from jumping into the melee below. As if to mock their worries, a loud noise echoed.

-Thud!

Azadin jumped down from the wall.

“Huh?”

He landed on top of a hobgoblin that was blocking with its shield.

It was a stomp. As if stepping on an ant, Azadin simply stepped on the hobgoblin, shield and all, and stood calmly, looking at the surrounding goblin horde.

That arrogant, strong, and composed figure… captured the attention of the people of Hybris, the guards who were hostile to the Emperor’s Messenger.

“Amazing.”

Admiration came out involuntarily.