The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 295

“Huh?”

Azadin was momentarily taken aback, seeing the familiar weapon that had suddenly flown to him.

‘Why is this here?’

Of course, Azadin had used the magic of weapon retrieval.

However, it was just a minor prank that he himself hadn’t expected at all.

‘No, I was trying to find Wendigo’s dagger, so why did this fly over?’

However, those who didn’t know the situation could only see it as someone throwing an axe to kill Azadin.

“Who is it?!”

Izmilla, who had been sitting next to Azadin, rose in anger.

Not only her, but all the other Celestials also prepared their weapons, bracing for an attack.

At that moment, the outside became noisy.

“Captain! That God-King Slayer….”

The adjutant shouted as he rushed in, then stopped in surprise.

“God-King Slayer?”

Azadin smiled wryly at the words.

“No, that’s not what I meant….”

The adjutant who had spoken was flustered.

Azadin was from the Messenger Clan, and ‘God-King Slayer’ was one of the derogatory terms for the Messenger Clan.

“I’m talking about the wanted man, Zibeck.”

“Zibeck?”

“Yes. The fallen holy knight who killed the prince of Butuma and fled! I absolutely did not mean to insult Lord Azadin.”

“………”

Azadin was in a complex state of mind, not knowing what expression to make.

*********

The Celestial Fire Knights, who had driven out Bree’s army, sent scouts north to see how far the Bree had retreated.

However, the person who caused the commotion this time appeared from their southeast, from this place.

“It’s Zibeck, the God-King Slayer! Be careful. He’s a very dangerous person.”

“Dangerous person?”

“Don’t you know? He’s the one who killed Prince Darhan Zadek of Butuma and fled! He’s a fallen holy knight who betrayed his lord. He must have received sinister power from the messenger, that’s why he was able to kill the God-King of Yegas, Prince Darhan Zadek, right?”

“……”

Azadin knew Zibeck’s character well.

There was no way that the stubborn man, who had endured even a human trash as his lord, would kill Darhan Zadek and run away.

But how could he convince these people of that fact? Most of the Celestial Fire are just children. The only ones who are somewhat mature are Captain Karna and Izmilla.

It wouldn’t be easy to persuade or convince them.

“Firewinter!”

Azadin called his hippogriff and climbed onto it.

“I’ll fly ahead and block their retreat first. Then we can talk.”

“Talk, you say?”

Karna was curious.

“Yes. I’m somewhat acquainted with Sir Zibeck.”

“What?”

“You know him, the God-King Slayer?”

The expressions of the Celestial Fire Knights became strange.

Azadin, who was from the Messenger Clan, knew the fallen holy knight Zibeck. Was it a communion between God-King Slayers? Even those who were trying not to insult Azadin couldn’t help but think that the two were classified as the same God-King Slayers.

Azadin knew that, and he highly appreciated that they didn’t say it out loud.

‘I thought they were all kids, but they all have patience. They don’t seem like bad guys at heart.’

Azadin rode his hippogriff and flew into the sky.

*********

As soon as he gained altitude, he saw people moving towards the southern forest in the distance.

“Where…”

Azadin sent out Araiel’s voice [a form of telepathic communication].

The lingering magic that interfered with Araiel’s voice still remained. But perhaps because the Bree sorcerers had retreated north, it wasn’t as unusable as before.

Azadin discovered a group fleeing south in the blurry shared vision.

“Where….”

Azadin flew ahead of the fleeing group and lowered his altitude there, attempting to land. The forest was so dense that there was no suitable place to land, but Firewinter was very clever, breaking branches with its front and hind legs as it landed.

The landing, breaking through the dense trees, made a loud noise. It was fortunate that it had rained last night; if the trees had been dry, it would have sounded like thunder and lightning.

But….

Just as Azadin was lowering his altitude to land, something flew from the front.

A spear made of bone, carrying the undead, flew and attacked Azadin.

Azadin threw Grimslaw’s mace from his saddle, intercepting the flying skeleton spear.

A loud explosion occurred in the air, and the skeleton spear shattered into pieces.

“Huh? That guy’s mace?!”

The sorcerer who had cast the skeleton spear was startled to see Azadin easily blocking his attack.

“Could he be the leader?!”

“Scott….”

Azadin recognized that the sorcerer who had cast the skeleton spear at him was Scott McGreene, the orc necromancer who had once acted with him.

Scott was moving on a necromantic tool made from the corpses of Bree… he had gathered four Bree legs to make something like a headless centaur and was riding on top of it.

Even though Azadin had no particular ill feelings towards necromancy, and could even learn and cast necromancy through Araiel, it was a bizarre shape that evoked an unbearable sense of disgust.

‘Why does this guy make such bizarre and grotesque things so well? It’s amazing that he does this without any ill feelings. Is this orc sense?’

Azadin waved his hand.

“Scott, is that you? Why are you here?”

Before he could even ask why he was here, a knight wearing rusty and messy armor appeared from behind Scott.

It was Zibeck.

“Sir Zibeck.”

“Lord Azadin… I’ve heard the rumors. That you’ve become a member of the Rescue Knights….”

Zibeck smiled wryly. He looked like he hadn’t eaten or slept properly for days, his body was a mess.

“Are you okay? Hey, Scott. Why did you leave Sir Zibeck in that state? You look relatively fine.”

Scott, who had a lot of muscle mass and therefore ate a lot, was relatively fine, but Zibeck was extremely haggard. When Azadin pointed that out, Scott shrugged.

“He says he won’t eat the stolen food.”

Even as he said that, Scott was putting something in his mouth and chewing it.

“Let’s get out of here for now.”

“On the hippogriff?”

“No. If we fly into the sky with people, we’ll get caught. We need to avoid the eyes of the Rescue Knights, don’t we?”

Azadin said that and ordered Scott to set up traps behind them.

“I already did.”

Indeed, Scott had already set up many obstacles behind them using necromancy.

The Celestial Fire Knights all used sacred white magic, and the seramite longswords they possessed were like poison to the undead.

Nevertheless, Scott’s necromancy seemed to be blocking the Celestial Fire Knights well in the right places.

“Okay. Then….”

Azadin supported the emaciated Zibeck and fled south.

*********

After heading south for a while, they soon found an empty pasture.

Azadin got off and looked at the barn, seeing signs that people had taken the livestock. The fields were full of spring pumpkins waiting to be harvested, and other crops also showed signs of being cared for for a while, so it seemed that the people who had been here had left very recently.

And there were hoofprints and traces of camping tents everywhere.

“This is where the Celestial Fire was stationed.”

Zibeck said.

“Then we can rest here for a while. Let’s change your socks first.”

More than anything else, the socks inside the boots had to be changed on time. Azadin took off Zibeck’s boots. The clothes and socks inside the armor were all soaked in blood and in terrible condition.

Azadin took water from the rain barrel and washed Zibeck’s feet.

“You don’t have to do this. I’ll do it myself.”

“Don’t be stubborn. You’re in terrible condition, what are you talking about?”

Azadin made the stubborn Zibeck rest and gave him some dried food.

“Eat slowly. This isn’t stolen, so you can eat it, right?”

“You’re making me ashamed.”

Zibeck felt ashamed at Azadin’s words. He had refused to eat the food that Scott had stolen, not only because of the rules, but also because he was actually in despair.

Zibeck was ashamed that the fact seemed to be immediately exposed.

Meanwhile, Scott was lying on his back, snoring loudly.

“What the hell happened? Why did you join up with Scott?”

“Darhan Zadek was assassinated.”

“By whom?”

“It’s presumed to be a henchman of the Northern Empire.”

“Presumed?”

Zibeck told him what had happened.

*********

Prince Darhan Zadek gathered the remaining forces of Butuma and collected troops, supplies, and manpower, rising as the most powerful force.

The other princes also gave up competing with him and cooperated, and Zibeck joined Darhan Zadek’s retinue, participating in the battle to recover Butuma.

But then, an envoy from the Northern Empire of Kohen came with the King’s Church.

The King’s Church brought meager subsidies and supplies, and the envoy from the Northern Empire asked Darhan Zadek to marry his daughter.

Marry his daughter and give the throne of Butuma to the child born between them.

Darhan Zadek politely refused, saying that he was not yet in a position to start a family, in response to their blatant ambition.

But that night, an assassin broke into Darhan Zadek’s residence and killed him.

Zibeck, who was on night watch that day, tried to catch the assassin, but the assassin fought Zibeck evenly for more than ten exchanges with amazing swordsmanship, then easily shook him off and escaped.

And the King’s Church pointed out Zibeck as the murderer of Darhan Zadek, because Darhan Zadek’s blood was on Zibeck’s sword.

The throne of Butuma, which had lost its leader, was handed over to Darhan Zadek’s four-year-old daughter, Chrisala, for reasons of legitimacy, and Adrata, the son of the Northern Empire, was appointed as Chrisala’s guardian and regent.

In the process, all of Zibeck’s defenses were ignored, his honor fell to the ground, and only the false charge of God-King Slayer remained.

The King’s Church and the Northern Empire had approached in the first place to take Butuma into their own hands.

Although they could not catch the assassin and make him confess his identity, it was clear from the circumstances that the assassin was also a figure influenced by the Northern Empire.

“So, I met that orc while fleeing. That orc… was chasing Grimslaw’s mace.”

“Ah. So that’s why.”

Azadin took out Grimslaw’s mace and the Azure Executioner that had returned to his hand.

“It was returning to its owner.”

Grimslaw’s mace had the function of returning to its owner on its own. Perhaps when Azadin lost these weapons in Butuma, Grimslaw had secured the Azure Executioner and then tried to return to Azadin on its own. But perhaps Azadin’s movement was faster than the speed of Grimslaw’s mace, so it couldn’t catch up?

‘I was trying to find Wendigo’s dagger, but why this guy… well, it’s good that it’s back. I was feeling a bit lacking with the seramite longsword anyway.’

Azadin was grateful that Grimslaw’s mace and the Azure Executioner had returned to him, and suddenly became curious about Zibeck.

“Then how did you get involved with the Celestial Fire?”

Then Zibeck replied:

“The Celestial Fire… are enemies.”

“Huh?”

Azadin was taken aback by the sudden declaration of hostility.