The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 313

“What are you doing?”Triodana was bewildered to see Azadin’s focus shift away from him to something else.Araiel’s voice, like the Emperor’s, was only visible and audible to Azadin, the contractor, unless there was a medium with a physical body. However, Triodana faintly sensed the presence of something magical.”What is this?””Sorry, I’m busy!”Azadin left Triodana behind and quickly leaped out the window.The inn window had a wooden latch, which Azadin broke with his body as he jumped out.”Ugh! Stop right there!”Triodana also began to chase Azadin, but without revealing his Celestial wings, Triodana in his human form could not dare to pursue Azadin.However, he couldn’t transform into his Celestial form and reveal his true colors within Saint Mallory. While Triodana hesitated, Azadin shook him off, climbed onto a nearby building, and activated Araiel’s voice.A spirit in the form of a transparent bird flew through the sky, guiding Azadin.The direction Araiel’s voice was leading him seemed to be towards the distant docks…As soon as he climbed onto the building, a strange sight unfolded before Azadin’s eyes.The sea was frozen, and ice was being pushed onto the shore.”What is this?!”Saint Mallory was located in a low-latitude area with plenty of sunshine, so it was actually difficult for knights to even wear armor and move around. The seawater was cold, so it wasn’t considered a tropical climate like Butuma, but it was a place where it was hard to see snow even in winter.But the sea was frozen, and ice was being pushed in? It was an absurd anomaly.Azadin immediately ran towards the place where the petitioner of the gold coin was.”S-Stop! Sir Azadin! Don’t run away!”Triodana’s shout came from behind Azadin, but Azadin pretended not to hear him and ran, asking Araiel’s voice.”Who is the petitioner? What’s the petition?”[The petitioner is Ahalji. You know him, an old acquaintance.]”Ahalji? Never heard of him.”[The Celsord [a type of warrior] who came at you with a gold coin the day before yesterday. Never heard of him? You’ve become lax since becoming a Holy Knight. A herald should remember everything, right?]”No, I’ve been setting up a lot of long-term plans lately and have many subordinates to manage, so I don’t have the mental capacity to spend on that. More importantly, that guy… that’s too much. Shouldn’t I have received that gold coin as a duel fee? And he’s using it for a petition?”[If he wanted to claim that his gold coin was his, he should have at least remembered his name.]Azadin felt a pang in his heart as he heard Araiel’s voice being sarcastic.The Emperor’s voice was made from fragments of Emperor Yaeslat’s soul. Similarly, this artificial spirit called Araiel’s voice was created by imitating a part of Araiel’s soul. Her speech habits and tone would reflect Araiel’s, but Azadin was not close to Araiel, so he couldn’t understand her speech habits or personality.Apart from being blood relatives, Azadin and Araiel were practically strangers. Nevertheless, Araiel was faithful to her bond with Azadin, the bond of blood, to the point of sacrificing everything.’I wish I had known her better.’ He felt pain at the bond with his family that he could no longer mend.’This freezing sea is also strange. Hmm?’Azadin felt a murderous intent directed at him and turned his body.In an alley near the beach, a place where the floor was cleaned by spraying seawater, the limestone on the stones had melted, leaving a white lime stain. Azadin slipped on the stone path.Icy blades narrowly missed his head.Ice chunks, bigger than a grown man’s arm, had fired ice blades at Azadin.”Ugh!””H-Help!”Sailors and soldiers were fighting against the ice that had been pushed in from the sea, and the ice golems that had appeared on top of the ice.”This is…”Azadin grabbed Grimslaw’s mace instead of his Seramite longsword. The tree trunk transformed, lengthening the axe handle and turning it into a giant axe-spear. The Azure Executioner, made of Azure Steel, clung to Grimslaw’s wood, restoring the Azure Executioner’s original form as an axe-spear.”Hup!”As Azadin jumped in and swung the axe-spear, the ice golem’s waist was cleanly cut in two. As expected, the hard and sharp Azure Executioner worked better than the soft Seramite longsword against the hard ice.As Azadin swung the Azure Executioner and jumped in, the ice golems fell like autumn leaves in an instant.”Ah!””It’s Azure Steel?!””Amazing!”The rescued sailors and residents were amazed as they watched Azadin.”T-Thank you. Who are you?””I am the trainee knight, Azadin.””Azadin?!””…A member of the Herald clan?”It seemed that rumors about Azadin had spread in Saint Mallory, as everyone recognized him just by hearing his name. Their expressions darkened, as if the rumors about him were not good.The Order of Salvation was no exception in their hatred of the Herald clan, so the rumors about Azadin were that he was an obvious spy, a brazen assassin, and an unavoidable evil that they had to let in to uncover the conspiracy of the Herald clan that had attacked Corasar and Butuma.It was natural for people to be confused when the protagonist of such unlucky rumors suddenly jumped in and saved them.”Hmm. I have a bad feeling about this.”Azadin felt a chill coming from all directions and felt uneasy. This chill. It felt somehow familiar.’It can’t be… No. It can’t be.’Azadin pushed aside his uneasy premonition and ordered the people around him to evacuate.”Evacuate inland, away from the coast! Don’t fight back, just run away! Oh, and has anyone seen a swordsman from Tarasar named Ahalji?””I’m here!”Ahalji waved his hand from the top of a warehouse that had tilted to the side due to the ice. This Tarasar man was holding a saber in one hand and a small round metal shield in the other, fighting the monsters with the Tarasar-style saber swordsmanship.However, saber swordsmanship was basically for fighting humans. Techniques like deflecting an opponent’s attack with a shield and striking their head with a sword would have been fatal to humans, but they only made a scratch the height of a person’s head on the ice golems.Yet, he had somehow managed to survive until now.Azadin jumped in and swung the Azure Executioner, instantly slicing the ice golem vertically.It was cleanly cut in two from head to crown. Once the ice was broken, the magic of the Azure Executioner activated in the crack, cleanly splitting it left and right.This weapon’s performance was maximized when striking materials that were prone to breaking.To those who didn’t know the details, it looked like Azadin had so much power that he split everything he hit.”Good heavens! Amazing! Ah, I used the gold coin!””I know! Hey, Ahalji! Shouldn’t that gold coin have been given to me as a duel fee? I thought I had just left it with you temporarily because the change wasn’t right, but you used it.””Haha. Don’t be so picky. Don’t you know the saying, ‘Let bygones be bygones’?”Tarasar people say ‘let bygones be bygones,’ but they were famous for retaliating thoroughly if they were harmed. To be precise, they always retaliated for things that involved bloodshed, but they dealt with things that involved money or goods in a haphazard manner.’He somehow came to the Arangi region.’Arangians were obsessed with honor and considered it a challenge to their honor if even a part of their property was taken. In other words, they were the type to always seek bloodshed even if it was just a single coin or a single livestock, making them very incompatible with the Tarasar people.It was fortunate that Tarasar and Arangi were located at opposite ends of the continent, but how did this Tarasar man end up in a region swarming with Arangians?Azadin shouted to Ahalji while dealing with the golems.”I saved you, so say the petition is complete!””Ah, I understand! The petition is complete…”But then, a roar echoed.From among the ice that had been pushed in, grotesque beasts appeared instead of ice golems.Hair grew from the corpses of people killed by the ice golems, and they transformed into something like giant snowmen.The transformed appearance was familiar to Azadin.’It’s a Wendigo? Damn it. I had a bad feeling about it since earlier, but could it be?’Azadin suspected that there might be a Wendigo’s dagger inside these glaciers.If so… did these glaciers come because Azadin used the magic to find a weapon? Did the Wendigo’s dagger that Azadin had lost return with a terrible disaster and suddenly attack Saint Mallory?’Is this because of me? No, this is a mess. I didn’t expect this.’Azadin felt dizzy as he looked at the iceberg that had covered the entire dock, the ice golems that were harming people everywhere, and the Wendigos.The property damage and casualties were enormous, and was this all because of one spell?’Ah, this is not the time. I need to recover the Wendigo’s dagger…’Just as Azadin was about to come to his senses and move forward.”Behold!”A loud voice and light burst forth from the sky.A person with angel wings spread out was flying in the sky, emitting a dazzling light. It was so bright that even Azadin couldn’t look directly at it.However, Azadin could recognize who it was.Triodana.The Celestial belonging to the Order of Wisdom couldn’t hold back and spread his angel wings, revealing his true Celestial form.’What? That guy is incredibly powerful? He’s on a different level than Izmilla? He even seems more powerful than Karna.’Azadin was shocked by Triodana’s power, which was emitting a terrifying force and shining as brightly as the sun.Triodana spread his angel wings in the sky and repeatedly fired terrifying fire blasts at the icebergs and ice golems.A fire tornado descended from the sky, connecting to the ground, engulfing the icebergs and ice golems, and literally tearing them apart.The fire tornado repeatedly struck the glaciers, tearing apart the golems and Wendigos on top of them. Then, Triodana spun in the air.His body was engulfed in a giant tornado, and he plunged straight down into the center of the iceberg.-KWAANG!A roar like a meteorite falling shook the heavens and the earth.-KWADDEUDDEUDDEUD!The glacier that had been pushed onto the land flowed back into the sea. Triodana had smashed the icebergs, causing the ice chunks that had been pushed onto the land to flow back into the sea.And Triodana picked up a large dagger made of bone from the top of the iceberg.The source of the power that had created the iceberg, the Wendigo’s dagger.’…Ah. It really was that. This is a big problem.’Azadin looked at the Wendigo’s dagger with dismay.