The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 323

The Dwarven Arrow, including Chashan, was essentially the dark underbelly of the Banreung Academy and the Banreung Kingdom. The Banreung Kingdom, a union of the Eight Divine Tribes and the Dwarven Kingdom, was secretly backing an international criminal organization for their own gain. That organization was the Dwarven Arrow. While it was publicly known that Chashan founded it, he was ultimately just a puppet of the Banreung Kingdom.

That’s why Azadin had tried to keep Chashan alive, despite his unreasonable behavior. But this was his reward: Chashan had been caught causing trouble twice, and now he was pulling this kind of stunt. Azadin felt responsible for the torture and the severed finger because he had kept Chashan alive.

“What do you make of this?” Bernard asked, examining the finger. “Judging by the state of the torture, it was brutal. It was done while he was alive, while his finger was still attached. They clearly tried to inflict as much pain as possible.”

Bernard’s assessment was grim. If fingernails were torn off and the flesh burned with fire on a finger that had already been severed, the area would simply be scorched, and the flesh would fall off without further damage from blood circulation. However, the traces of blood being drawn even after the flesh had fallen off, and the signs of pain spreading as the flesh burned while blood was still circulating, indicated that the dwarves had been merciless in their treatment of Azadin’s merchant.

“Of course, they will pay the price,” Azadin said, his voice low and dangerous.

Azadin and his forces took the smuggling route and entered the territory of the Banreung Kingdom. It was like crossing a border, but there were no checkpoints or guards. Although it was part of the Banreung Kingdom, the basin under the Chadra Plateau was a densely forested area inhabited by goblins and brids [a type of bird-like monster] since ancient times. Most of the villages in this area were actually post stations created by the Dwarven Arrow’s drug trafficking organization.

As soon as Azadin’s group arrived at a nearby village, armed dwarves emerged as if they had been waiting.

“As expected! There’s no way you’d cross into the Banreung Kingdom with a large army! You must be Azadin!” one of them shouted.

“I’ll show you the taste of a blunderbuss! You uncivilized humans!” another yelled.

The dwarves were armed with loaded blunderbusses. They were brimming with confidence in their weapons. These flintlock blunderbusses, with their wide muzzles and long bayonets, were too heavy for anyone but a dwarf to handle. Yet, this ten-man squad could stop the charge of even an elite knight order.

‘Fighting a tercio [a Spanish military formation] is suicide,’ Scott, who was known for his self-confidence, had once said. This Dwarven blunderbuss formation was considered even more formidable than a tercio. As such, the Dwarven blunderbuss was not allowed to leave the Banreung Kingdom.

The flintlock blunderbuss was treated as equipment that was not allowed to leave the Dwarven Kingdom. Bringing this weapon out was a clear sign that Chashan’s patron was a powerful figure in the Dwarven royal family. He must have been confident of victory. If they completely subdued Azadin’s group here, they could hide the fact that the Dwarven blunderbuss unit had intervened.

However…

As Azadin snapped his fingers, a figure appeared behind the dwarven soldiers. The half-vampire, Nicelda, materialized behind them.

Shadow Step, a magic that allowed one to move from shadow to shadow through the shadow realm, was Nicelda’s specialty, thanks to her vampire blood.

That wasn’t all.

“Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon, Twilight!” Azadin chanted, appearing next to the dwarves.

“Huh?!” a dwarf exclaimed in surprise.

-Thwack!

-Crack!

Nicelda drew a side sword in each hand and began slaughtering the blunderbuss soldiers. The dwarves were heavily armored in chainmail and gambesons [padded armor], but Nicelda’s side swords pierced their faces with ease.

Azadin swung the Azure Executioner, striking the blunderbuss soldiers. The dwarves’ forearms and necks were severed, their limbs flying through the air. Normally, Azadin preferred to subdue his opponents without killing them or inflicting fatal wounds, but he was enraged by Chashan’s provocation.

As the enraged Azadin and Nicelda rampaged among the dwarves, the blunderbuss formation collapsed.

And…

A spider made of blood wriggled among them, turning the blunderbuss shooters’ muzzles towards the sky. Bernard used blood magic to create blood spiders from the wounds of the injured, interfering with the blunderbuss fire.

-Bang! Bang!

After making them shoot their blunderbusses in vain, the dead dwarves rose as undead. Scott used necromancy to immediately turn the recently deceased into undead.

“…What is this?!” a dwarf cried out in terror.

“T-These bastards! Weren’t they paladins?” another exclaimed.

The dwarves were terrified by the sudden appearance of blood magic and necromancy.

“Hey, you dwarf mafia guys, why do you expect your opponents to fight like righteous paladins when you cut off innocent people’s fingers and send them over?” Scott sneered. “Are you the only ones allowed to do bad things?”

“H-Help! What are you doing?!” a flustered dwarf shouted at the villagers. The villagers were armed with pitchforks, sickles, and rakes, but they were too intimidated by the might of Azadin’s group, who were quickly wiping out the blunderbuss soldiers, to dare to step forward.

“Shut up,” Azadin said, smashing the dwarf captain, who was urging the villagers to join the fight, with the Azure Executioner. The dwarf squad leader’s head was split open, and blood splattered everywhere. Seeing that, the villagers threw down their weapons.

“W-We surrender!” one of them cried.

“We didn’t do anything. What do you expect us to do when the dwarves threaten us with weapons?” another pleaded.

“Then everyone drop your weapons and stand here,” Azadin ordered, unable to hide his anger. He divided them in half and questioned them separately.

“Where did these dwarves come from?”

“That… they came from the northeast,” one of the villagers answered.

“Who is in charge? How many gangs are there? What is their troop strength?” Azadin asked, dividing the residents of the post station village into two groups. He also questioned the captured dwarf blunderbuss shooters and dwarven sorcerers, confirming that everyone’s answers matched.

Chashan and the Dwarven Arrow, a dwarf drug organization, were officially a drug and criminal organization. However, perhaps because they were afraid of losing their drug production source, they had brought in more troops than a mere drug organization and criminal organization could handle and spread them all over this area. However, because they didn’t know where Azadin’s group would come from, they had spread them out in various places, so the number of people stationed at each point was not that large.

“Good. We’ll take them out one by one,” Azadin said.

“What about the prisoners? If we leave them behind, it will be difficult to take them out one by one, won’t it?” Zebek, who had followed Azadin, asked.

“What is Sir Zebek’s recommendation?” Azadin asked.

“My recommendation is…” Zebek began.

“To kill them,” Blood mage Bernard said instead of Zebek.

“If we leave them alive, they will only expose our numbers and movements. It would be better to kill them,” Bernard explained.

“………” Zebek was speechless at Bernard’s words. In fact, that was the rational thing to do. They claimed they were forced to speak by the dwarves, but they were residents of the Banreung Kingdom, and basically, this was a place where they could not live without cooperating with the Dwarven Arrow. If they were left alone, they would somehow pass information about Azadin’s group to the Dwarven Arrow. However, Azadin’s group was not large enough to take them as prisoners. They had launched a preemptive strike with overwhelming destructive power and had decimated them, but Azadin’s group was not even ten people due to the limit on the number of passes.

The number allowed on the pass was five. Even including those who had followed Azadin, claiming they wouldn’t get caught, there were only seven people.

“Well, tactically, that’s not wrong. But Bernard, I am a Hospitaller [a member of a religious order dedicated to caring for the sick and poor]. I can’t do something like killing those who have surrendered,” Azadin said.

“Then what are you going to do? Are you going to use them as soldiers?” Bernard asked.

“I’ll use a different method,” Azadin replied. He then ordered the villagers.

“In two hours, make it look like you’re creating a fire. Make it look like the whole village is burning to lure the other guys.”

“…Yes?” a villager asked, confused.

“Make a lot of smoke so that it looks like the village is on fire. Within two hours. In two hours, the smoke must be visible within 10 leagues [approximately 30 miles] of this area. If the smoke doesn’t rise, then I’ll come back and punish you,” Azadin said.

“…….”

From now on, they would have to gather a lot of firewood, and if necessary, they would have to remove the roofs of their houses and burn the roof tiles and thatched roofs to create a plausible smoke. It was a harsh demand to create smoke that could be seen within 10 leagues in just two hours. Of course, it was much better than being massacred.

“You’d better start preparing now. If you don’t make a fire, I’ll take you all away and make you do forced labor. I’ll tie up the survivors and leave,” Azadin said, tying up the Dwarven blunderbuss unit and leaving with his subordinates.

“Oh, what should we do?” a villager asked, flustered.

“Ugh. It’s like the shrimp getting crushed in a whale fight. We have to do it! Well, there are trees everywhere nearby, so let’s start a fire and get some firewood! If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to burn some of the roofs,” another villager said.

“Roofs?” a villager asked.

“Yeah. Let’s think of this as an opportunity to replace the roofs!” another villager said. The villagers busily prepared to start a fire.

*********

“Hmm. They’ve started moving,” a dwarven sorcerer said, opening his eyes.

Just as Azadin and the Aragasa [a group of people with special abilities] used foresight magic or the Emperor’s Voice to scout the surroundings, the Banreung dwarven sorcerers could scout the surroundings with earth echo magic. With this magic, which allowed them to know the surroundings through the rumbling of the earth and the sounds transmitted through the ground, they could hear the sounds of blunderbuss fire much more accurately than through air transmission. They could not know the sounds of human voices because they did not shake the ground much, but they could distinguish the noise and vibrations of humans fighting.

“There was a fight here. The noise has subsided, so…” the dwarven sorcerer analyzed the sounds he had heard with earth echo magic and said, “It seems the village’s unit has been annihilated.”

“What? There was a blunderbuss squad there? How many troops did that guy bring?” a dwarf among them spat and stood up. It was Chashan, who had been captured by Azadin and then escaped.

“I told you not to underestimate that bastard, didn’t I? He’s the guy who defeated Chadra Oger and rose to prominence. And he’s a Herald Clan!” Chashan exclaimed.

“Boss,” one of the dwarves said.

“We know the enemy’s location, so gather all the troops! If we don’t wipe them out at once, we’ll be in trouble. Hey, Earth Keeper, what is their current location?” Chashan asked. The dwarven sorcerer called Earth Keeper used the earth echo spell, put his head to the ground, and listened.

“…I don’t know,” the Earth Keeper said.

“What? You don’t know? They must be moving, right? Can’t you find them?” Chashan asked, frustrated.

However, Chashan’s brothers and cousins stopped him. “It’s not the Earth Keeper’s fault, we should think about something else, brother,” one of them said.

“Yeah. There’s Selim, right? Maybe he’s coming on a griffin or something?” another said.

“Griffin? Flying here? That’s great. Just try to come!” Chashan said, a cruel smile spreading across his face. It was perfect to deal with those flying in the sky with a blunderbuss. Whether it was a hippogriff or a griffin, if they were shot with a blunderbuss, they would fall while flying. While a hippogriff or a griffin might recover their flight ability mid-fall, the rider on their back would fall helplessly. If Azadin’s group came on a hippogriff, it would be welcome news for the dwarves.