The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 243

The vermilion cinnabar mined at Vermilion Fortress was a crucial material for alchemy, so much so that this location was originally the most sought-after assignment for all Holy Knights.

This was because one could amass a fortune simply by siphoning off a small amount of the mined cinnabar.

It was common at the Chadra Highlands Knight Order headquarters for knights to offer all sorts of bribes and sexual favors to be stationed at Vermilion Fortress.

Even so, it was still a remote location, and especially since it was a place only for men, discontent was bound to accumulate.

Therefore, the Holy Knights serving at Vermilion Fortress often broke the precepts of the Relief Knight Order and bought slaves.

“Slaves? Are you serious?”

Azadin was horrified to hear the ugly truth about Vermilion Fortress.

“The higher-ups are aware of it. There have been many incidents of them laying hands on the wives and daughters of farmers.”

“The Knight Order’s higher-ups condoned it?”

“Well, isn’t the Knight Order basically engaged in slave trading?”

It was already an open secret that the Relief Knight Order was bringing people in under the guise of human edification, relief, and poverty alleviation, and making them work.

Moreover, since Vermilion Fortress was in a remote area of the Chadra Highlands, such a slave system was even more extreme.

Cinnabar was highly toxic, so workers at the mining site would eventually develop serious illnesses and die. Nevertheless, the Knight Order, blinded by the profits from cinnabar, continued to deploy workers.

“So? What happened?”

“The Holy Knight who was previously assigned here brought in a female prisoner, who was quite a beautiful witch.”

“A witch?”

“She was a witch who used Nether magic [magic that draws power from a dark, chaotic realm]. So everyone was afraid of her, but anyway, at the time, the Holy Knight squad leader and the female prisoner were on good terms with each other and were practically in a de facto marriage. But….”

“The squad leader died, and a new guy was assigned. To be precise, the new guy was the former squad leader’s superior, and he coveted the woman and the income from Vermilion Fortress, so he killed the former squad leader and took his place.”

“The woman ran off into the wilderness and disappeared, and after that, the newly appointed Holy Knight was torn to pieces and killed. Since that day, every time a new squad leader is appointed, a whispering voice comes from the darkness every night….”

“Legion, you’ve checked it out, right?”

Azadin turned to Legion. Legion was delighted.

“Of course, Squad Leader! You know I’m brave.”

“No, a werewolf wouldn’t be afraid of the night. So, what was it?”

“It was a Shade Hag.”

“A Shade Hag?”

“Yes, in the wilderness of the Chadra Highlands, witches who use Nether magic become corrupted by the power of the Nether and turn into fiends with hooked fingers and hooked noses. The female slave was quite beautiful, but now she has become a terrifying monster.”

“…….”

Azadin sighed, having confirmed the Knight Order’s ugly side. They broke the precepts and sacrificed humans for their dirty desires, turning them into monsters.

“So, everyone considered me as good as dead. Because the Shade Hag will surely kill the knights. How many have died so far?”

“Six so far.”

“What? Then the curse should be over?”

“Huh?”

“Ah, no. The first squad leader who died wasn’t killed by the Shade Hag, so the number of people actually killed by the Shade Hag is five.”

Azadin did the math.

Not only for hags, but in Nether magic or primitive magic systems, 6 is a sacred number and also the number of completion.

If the female slave made a wish to the Shade Hags and began to transform into one of them, she would need six sacrifices to complete the transformation.

If she started killing squad leaders for revenge, she would try to fill the number to six. And coincidentally, the last squad leader is Azadin himself.

“That’s too bad.”

“Huh? Too bad? Don’t tell me, Captain, you pity that witch?”

“Yes. The curse needs to fill the wild magic number 6 to be completed, and to complete that number, she needs to kill me, but unfortunately, I can’t die.”

“…….”

Everyone who was listening was shocked. How could he be so arrogant?

However, Azadin had made the decision after making a conservative calculation.

The Shade Hags’ abilities cannot harm Azadin. Because he is the Emperor’s one and only messenger and the younger brother whom Araiel saved by giving everything.

“What about the soldiers’ reliance on drugs?”

“They tried to escape, but the Shade Hags have widely surrounded this village. They won’t let anyone who was involved with Vermilion Fortress live. So, we allowed them to buy luxury goods and famous liquors from various regions with the profits from selling cinnabar. Otherwise, they would have all gone crazy.”

“The merchants can come and go?”

“Yes.”

“Seeing that, it seems like the one who did bad things to that woman wasn’t just the Holy Knights?”

“Hahaha. It wasn’t me.”

Legion said that, looking at Azadin as if he was in ecstasy.

“Y-yeah. It wouldn’t be you.”

“Hmm? Squad Leader. Don’t be fooled. This guy is even into women.”

Kalan warned Azadin.

“Even into women… what’s that? Ah, no, I’m not interested in your sex lives at all, so don’t talk about it. My head hurts. More importantly, if that’s true, why does the Shade Hag only attack the Holy Knights and not the soldiers?”

“Seeing that she only kills those who leave Vermilion Fortress, I guess she’s trying to kill them all by attrition.”

“What about the merchants?”

“The merchants didn’t touch that woman or her husband.”

From the story, it seemed that a woman who hated Vermilion Fortress and the Knight Order became a Shade Hag, and after that, she had been killing the knights who were assigned there, and for half a year, this place had become a no-man’s-land.

“Haa. Okay. Now that I know the situation, I’ll take care of it.”

When Azadin said that, everyone looked impressed.

Even after defeating those who had defied him with his strength, he didn’t hate them at all and said he would save them, so everyone couldn’t help but think well of Azadin.

Especially Legion.

“My goodness. You’re so beautiful.”

“Shut your mouth.”

Azadin called for the scribe, McDougall.

“Yes, I’m coming, I’m coming. What in the world is going on?”

McDougall was unaware of what had happened during the storm last night and was bewildered to see all the squad leaders bowing before Azadin.

“McDougall. First, stop all cinnabar mining operations.”

“What? Stop the operations? The losses will be enormous!”

“Cinnabar is toxic and people are dying. If we stop it quickly, more people will live.”

“Well, Squad Leader, I appreciate you thinking of the people, but the Knight Order has a cinnabar quota. If we don’t send that….”

Azadin would be punished. McDougall mentioned that point, but Azadin was unconcerned.

“I happen to have a solution.”

“You can solve it?”

“Yes. But to do that, there’s something I need to do. McDougall, can you investigate the villagers?”

“The villagers?”

“Yes.”

Both the scribe McDougall and the soldiers felt puzzled.

*********

Instead of stopping the cinnabar mining operations, Azadin moved the workers outside.

“From now on, we will cultivate the surroundings. Let’s repair the abandoned buildings and cultivate the devastated fields again.”

“Hey, if we do that, what about the cinnabar?”

“Farming is much less profitable than cinnabar.”

It was known among intellectuals that cinnabar mining was toxic and led to death, but the workers didn’t know that.

The toxicity of cinnabar didn’t manifest immediately but developed after a long period of accumulation, and the miners at the time didn’t live long in other mines anyway.

In other words, the workers were not well aware of the dangers of cinnabar.

On the other hand, while the squad leader was absent for half a year, the soldiers and workers at Vermilion Fortress embezzled the money earned from the mined cinnabar.

Most of it was taken by the soldiers with swords and spears, but the workers also received some of the benefits.

As the more they mined, the more money they made, the workers became greedy for the money it brought rather than the dangers of cinnabar.

“Rest assured. We will mine cinnabar. But not you….”

Azadin clapped his hands, and something walked in with a creaking sound.

“Huh?”

A group of skeletons were walking in an orderly fashion, holding pickaxes.

“Skeletons?”

“U-undead?”

Everyone was bewildered. Azadin was using necromancy to control the undead.

“From now on, these undead will do the cinnabar mining.”

Scribe McDougall was horrified to see that.

“Are you crazy? What do you think the Relief Knight Order is? Using undead?! Necromancy is an evil magic!”

“Then is it okay for people to be poisoned and die from toxic substances? It seems much more evil to make people mine cinnabar, doesn’t it?”

“So, when you asked me to check the unclaimed graves, it was to use this necromancy!”

Azadin had ordered McDougall to identify unclaimed graves, the graves of those who had no living family or descendants.

As he said, the undead here were only those who had no descendants or family ties. After all, necromancy was something that people were averse to, and no one would like their family’s corpses being used for labor.

“Actually, I thought about it a lot. I even considered paying the families a weekly fee for using their corpses, but no matter how much I thought about it, it didn’t seem right.”

Azadin said that, but at that moment, people were surprised.

“That’s a good idea!”

“H-how much will you pay?”

“…….”

People seemed willing to tolerate their family’s corpses being used for cinnabar mining if they were given fair compensation.

“Even if I disregard the precepts, I’m still a Holy Knight, that’s too much, isn’t it?”

“It’s not too much at all!”

“Of course!”

“That’s too much, isn’t it?”

Azadin repeated the words as if something was broken in him.

Thus, Azadin, having gathered the corpses he could to prevent the residents from dying from cinnabar poisoning, created undead, and after having them mine cinnabar, he began expanding the lodgings and farms.

Unlike the cinnabar mining work, which only required inputting simple tasks, building structures required a lot of improvisation, which could only be done by humans.

This was also to provide wages to those who did not have farmland right away.

There were many workers who would starve to death immediately if the income from the cinnabar mine was cut off, so giving them jobs and improving the environment of Vermilion Fortress was beneficial.

While improving Vermilion Fortress in this way, he prepared for the Shade Hag’s curse.

He had thought about going directly to where the Shade Hags were, but it was foolish to go around looking for the hags’ residence when he had only been assigned there for a short time.

Either way, the Shade Hags would soon come to kill Azadin.