The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 183

#184. Naga Island 6

“W-what is this?! What’s wrong with my eyes? Or am I going crazy?”

Dehashuram was horrified by the carnage unfolding before him.

“Ah, there.”

Surprisingly, one of Azadin’s group, Jiswa, approached.

“Y-you are?”

‘Why is this guy here?’

Azadin’s group was only three people. So why is one of them here? Does that mean they attacked the sea serpent Naga’s camp with just two people?

Dehashuram was bewildered, and what this guy said was even more absurd.

“Ah, Master Azadin sent me. He said the promise is likely to be fulfilled, so I should load the boat with enough food and water.”

“Huh!?”

Dehashuram was speechless with disbelief.

‘So, he’s saying that because he’s sure he’ll win, he sent one of the three to prepare the luggage?’

Meanwhile, Azadin was skewering the Nagas who attacked him with a campfire skewer, then plunging them headfirst into the fire before moving on to the next victim.

“Excuse me, but you made a truly excellent choice, Dehashuram.”

“Indeed. Shati.”

Dehashuram couldn’t deny Shati’s words.

“Is this the power of a messenger of the clan and a disciple of the Demon King Kazas? Amazing. When we surrounded him at the pier, we should have disarmed him and demanded the copy of the Divine King’s Scripture. Ah, no. If we had, my head would have been the first to fall.”

When they surrounded him at the pier, it was when Azadin was most vulnerable, but it was also when Dehashuram was most vulnerable.

“Prepare the boat. It’s beneficial to get him out of here quickly. Treating him with the customs of hospitality was a godsend. Indeed, the Demon King Kazas was famous for shaking the Naga Empire, and his disciple is just like him.”

Originally, Dehashuram invited Azadin with the customs of hospitality because he saw Azadin as a weakling he could eliminate at any time.

It could be said to be the *yoyuu* [composure] and arrogance of the strong.

However, seeing Azadin sweeping through the sea serpent Nagas, he thought it was a good thing he didn’t fight him recklessly.

“Shati.”

“Yes, Nagaraja.”

“Deliver a message to him.”

“…Understood.”

*********

Azadin was getting tired of fighting the sea serpent Naga warriors.

The sea serpent Nagas, with their terrifying strength and fighting spirit, tore apart the undead created by Scott—the corpses of their own comrades until just a moment ago—and rushed at Azadin.

At first, Scott mocked such Nagas with corpse explosion magic, but that magic had the disadvantage of consuming a lot of mana.

“Captain. I’m starting to… run out of mana.”

“Alright. It’s time to retreat. How’s Jiswa’s situation?”

Azadin asked the Emperor’s voice.

[Jiswa and Shati have prepared a boat on the sand dunes below the sea cliff. The Nagaraja is keeping his promise.]

“Really? Let’s take refuge there.”

Azadin created distance using the undead as a barrier and shot his bow. He had used up all his arrows long ago, and now he was using a slingshot to fire stones from the ground or the horns and spiny fins of the sea serpent Nagas.

He had shot all the large stones on the ground, and now there weren’t many stones within reach that were worth firing.

The skin and scales of the sea serpent Nagas were so thick that firing anything but a stone with some weight was meaningless.

“Retreat. Cover the rear.”

“Got it, Captain! But after using this, my mana will be completely empty.”

Scott poured his remaining mana into empowering the undead. Leaving the rampaging undead behind, he quickly moved with Azadin. Scott, who usually relied on a wheelchair, was quite fast in short sprints when he started running.

But….

“Huff… huff. I’m… short of oxygen!”

“Your stamina is really bad.”

“If you have a lot of muscle, huff… huff… you need to breathe a lot of oxygen. Ah, oxygen is air, Captain. And my brain is as much of a muscle as any other…”

“Stop talking and breathe, breathe.”

“Huff huff… h-high intelligence requires that much oxygen…”

“I said stop talking and breathe. Do you want to talk that much?”

Azadin went down the slope of the sea cliff and arrived at the boat with lights on. Jiswa and Shati were waiting on the boat.

“Why isn’t Shati staying among the Nagas?”

“Well, that’s…”

Shati was embarrassed.

Currently, she is afraid of her own kind. She is of low status, failed her mission, and is an accomplice of an alien race who ruined the Nagas’ business. Although she was forced by Azadin, there are signs that she cooperated.

In this situation, she is safer next to Azadin than with her own kind.

“The Nagaraja taught me magic to steer this small boat. Without my magic, it would take a long time to row this small boat to Butuma. So, I have no choice but to go with you, so don’t get the wrong idea.”

“Really? That’s too bad. I thought you were finally going back to your own kind.”

“R-right? But, well, the Nagaraja can’t send other subordinates, can he? Anyway, the Nagaraja said he was grateful for avenging his servant, but he also said it was too much…”

The Nagaraja, Dehashuram, had asked Azadin to find his gardener’s son and avenge him if he couldn’t find him. However, he never imagined that Azadin and Scott alone would kill so many sea serpent Nagas.

From the perspective of Dehashuram, a water serpent Naga, it was good to see the sea serpent Nagas bleed, but the Butuma Kingdom also had to suffer great losses. The best scenario was for both sides to be destroyed, but here, Azadin had inflicted considerable damage on the Naga forces.

“Anyway, these guys will come to Butuma as an army later, so it’s not bad to reduce their numbers in advance. But this can’t be the only outpost, so we need to go to Butuma quickly to prepare defenses and organize the Cheonggeon Party. So, Shati, is that all you heard from Nagashuram?”

“No. He had a message. The Demon King Kazas was a figure feared even in the Naga Empire and was also a traitor to the Naga Empire. He said that Kazas had to stop his advance due to the side effects of Kazas’s power. If you are using Kazas’s power, you must have the same weakness.”

“Hmm. Well, there aren’t any other options right now. Let’s go. Shati.”

“Oh, Captain. Think of me as dead for a while. Even if I am an orc born under the star of genius intellect, I used too much mana and even ran with my body, so the muscles that are created are further tightening my breath… huff huff…”

“Stop talking so much and breathe, breathe.”

“Huff huff. Ugh. I’m dying.”

Scott lay down on the boat and fell asleep as if he had fainted.

‘It’s such a bizarre group, but it’s more reassuring to be with them than with my own kind. I must be crazy too.’

Shati smiled bitterly and cast a spell to start the boat.

*********

Azadin was so exhausted from the battle with the sea serpent Nagas that he collapsed on the boat and fell into a death-like sleep. He was in such a deep sleep that he couldn’t even feel the boat rocking.

How long had he slept?

Azadin woke up with a stomach ache that felt like his insides were being torn apart.

“Ugh.”

“What’s wrong? Master Azadin.”

“My stomach hurts.”

“Are you going to the bathroom? Since it’s a boat, um… Scott is doing it.”

“Doing what?”

Azadin saw that Scott was in the sea. He was coming up after doing his business in the sea.

“Hey, Captain, look at this. When I do my business, the fish gather.”

“…I don’t really want to see that.”

Azadin turned his head away from Scott, who was doing his business in the water.

“You slept quite a while. Are you hungry? Eat this. But you’re having a nosebleed?”

Shati broke off some dried rations and gave them to Azadin, noticing that blood was flowing from his nose.

“Hmm. That’s why I woke up.”

Azadin felt the powerful torrent of energy created by the clash between his incomplete *Hwajopungwol* [a martial art technique] and the white mana extracted from the Divine King’s Scripture copy raging inside his body.

He quickly dispersed the torrent and sent it throughout his body, and the pain disappeared, and his whole body was filled with power.

However… this time, he felt his muscles, ligaments, and bones creaking from their own power.

And then came the thirst for power.

Azadin took out the Divine King’s Scripture copy and grabbed one that was heavily charged with mana and absorbed the power.

The pain disappeared, and a sense of relief came, but the more he did this, the greater the impact would be during the next seizure.

But in the current situation, he couldn’t give up Kazas’s power and throw away his strength.

“Did we move while I was sleeping? Where are we now?”

[It’s about two hours away from Bell Hoda. It will take another day to get to Butuma.]

The Emperor’s voice answered.

“We’re already near Bell Hoda? We came quite fast?”

“I controlled the currents, and Jiswa rowed hard.”

“My hands feel like they’re going to fall off. Haha. But I think I can make it to Butuma.”

“Are we going straight to the coast to Butuma?”

“Yes. There’s no need to go by land, is there? We can take turns sleeping on the boat.”

“Indeed, it’s better to go by boat.”

Azadin thought Jiswa’s opinion was valid.

But then, the Emperor’s voice spoke to him.

[Messenger Azadin, there is a petitioner.]

“…Ah.”

Someone nearby had used the Emperor’s gold coin.

Originally, Azadin was in charge of the area near Salasma, so this area should be under the jurisdiction of another messenger….

Due to the civil war of the Messenger Clan, a petition had been sent to Azadin.

[A petition has come from a fishing village near Bell Hoda. Originally, this area is under the jurisdiction of another messenger, but…]

“Did he die?”

[He refused.]

“Refused? Is that possible?”

[The Araiel faction and the Council of Elders are modifying the service contract with strange powers. No, in the first place, the service contract you have now is very different from when the Emperor first created it.]

“……”

[Originally, this is information I shouldn’t tell you, but the number of proper messengers is decreasing, so I have no choice but to disclose the information to you, the second messenger in the messenger hierarchy, and entrust it to you.]

“So, the change in the service contract is the Council of Elders’ tyranny? To manipulate the young people as they please?”

[I cannot tell you who changed the contract, for what reason, or how, but I can say that a being other than the Emperor has distorted this service contract. In the Emperor’s time, there was no such evil as the curse of service, which killed people and made them give birth to children regardless of gender and die.]

“Hmm. Well, this is something. It’s worth being promoted. You’re telling me that. But I also have to go to Butuma now, and I might be able to save many lives in Butuma, so is there any reason to waste time here listening to the personal circumstances of one petitioner?”

[Will you also refuse?]

“No. Of course not. I beat up a lot of Nagas on Dehashuram’s island just now, so it’ll work out somehow.”

Azadin said optimistically, and Shati, who was listening, was flustered.

“Is that it? Didn’t you say we should rush to Butuma right now?”