The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 399

#400. The Age of Revelation 1

Zekt, the former Inquisitor who had joined Azadin, led his troops back towards Visen, a province of the Banlung Kingdom.

Their mission was to rescue Visen from the attacking ogre, goblin, and Bri legions.

“It’s fortunate he left with his soldiers. All of them were afflicted with Nether’s sorcery, those blood-sucking parasites. It’s a terrible magic that forces them to obey the orders of the one who possesses the original blood. To be able to cast it on over a hundred soldiers… he truly is Lord Zekt, but it also shows how deep the darkness within him runs.”

Jibek was relieved that Zekt had gone to save Visen with his sorcery-afflicted soldiers.

When Zekt was part of the King’s Church, even if he used sorcery, it was a problem that could be contained by the church’s reputation and power.

However, if Zekt used sorcery within Azadin’s army, it would directly damage Azadin’s personal reputation.

Zekt seemed to understand this, and he volunteered to go to Visen to expend his sorcery-afflicted troops.

“I know. It’s… it’s necessary, but it’s distressing.”

Azadin frowned.

The people Zekt had cast sorcery on could not be fully saved.

If the blood-sucking parasites that had entered their bodies were surgically removed, the host human would die in terrible pain.

The only way to save them was to use healing power and burn the parasites with powerful white magic, but it was already too late.

Lord Zekt, trusting in the parasites’ control, had not supplied the army with food. They were already dead, but thanks to the parasites’ life force, they were in a state no different from living zombies. If the parasites were burned now, they would die too.

In other words, Zekt had set out to save Visen with what had become an undead army.

“What do you all think of Lord Zekt joining us?”

“Everyone thinks poorly of it. And so do I.”

Not only Jibek but also the Chadra Ogres, who had been loyal to Azadin for a long time, opposed bringing Zekt into their ranks.

This was because Azadin had offered Zekt the throne to bring him in, which was seen as going beyond the scope of rewarding merit.

No matter how great Zekt’s lineage was, wasn’t it too high a position to promise a newcomer compared to those who had been with Azadin since he was a commander of a small, insignificant fortress?

And Jibek opposed not because of the issue of rewarding merit, but because of Zekt’s character.

“He is of a noble lineage closer to the king than anyone else, yet he is consumed by inferiority. He is convinced that he has greater abilities than the existing kings, and at the same time, he is someone who may never be satisfied. Even if he becomes king, his joy will be temporary, and he will soon realize that he wanted the throne only to resolve his inferiority and jealousy. When that happens, he will surely cause bigger problems. He is not someone who will be satisfied with peace. He is not someone you should keep close.”

“I agree with that point, but if he becomes peaceful enough to want to betray us, that alone would be a success. And I said that I promised him the throne when he could control it. Do you all understand what that means?”

Zekt could not control the throne. That was what Azadin was implying.

“Is that so? But what if…”

“If he becomes able to control it, I will gladly accept it. It’s a burden too heavy for me to bear alone. More importantly, the immediate problem is the food shortage.”

Azadin trembled with fear.

“Human schemes are easy. What’s truly frightening is Fimbulwinter [a legendary, harsh winter] and the food shortage it will bring.”

“And people’s hoarding. It’s still the beginning of winter, but people are already starving to death.”

Fimbulwinter had begun this fall. Since the harvest had been completed, there should have been enough food to last the winter, but hoarding was already rampant, and the king and nobles were fighting each other, causing people to starve to death everywhere.

In this situation, Azadin’s forces had released too much food.

“Honestly, we should have fought a bit more, but everyone surrendered too easily. I didn’t expect King Arangi to suddenly try to adopt me. Are you telling me that the King’s Church might even recognize me? I deliberately wrote the New Testament declaration very aggressively, but if they still recognize me, then it will be really difficult.”

Azadin trembled with fear that the King’s Church might recognize him.

“Surely that won’t happen?”

Jibek was dumbfounded at Azadin’s absurd worries.

“No, Jibek. You never know. It turns out that people are much weaker to the strong and stronger to the weak than I thought. Their attitude when they feel I’m weak and when they feel I’m strong is clearly different. If you peel back the layers of the King’s Church’s clergy, they’re all cowards.”

“But isn’t their teaching a tradition that has lasted for hundreds of years? They won’t be able to break it so easily.”

“I hope that’s the case. We’ve had too many bloodless entries so far. Even if we seize the hidden assets of the Dwarven Arrow and secure grain from the Chadra Highlands, it’s hard to feed people, proselytize, and expand our territory. And I can’t release drugs with my own hands when I’m claiming to be king.”

A significant portion of the Dwarven Arrow’s hidden assets were drugs or gold bars. With Fimbulwinter predicted, the value of gold bars had plummeted, making them worth little. Nevertheless, the Dwarven Arrow’s hidden assets were of great help to Azadin because they had stockpiled a considerable amount of alcohol, weapons, and various metal ingots.

The Dwarven Arrow, true to their dwarven nature, had stored alcohol, tin, zinc, and copper ingots as preciously as gold and silver bars, which were useful even in the Fimbulwinter situation.

And there were drugs, but Azadin could not release them.

They were kept without being incinerated for medical use in case of emergency.

“How about reducing food distribution and not accepting refugees now?”

“If we do that now, those who have supported us will immediately turn their backs. We would lose everything as quickly as we expanded our power.”

As Azadin said that, a messenger came running from below.

“Your Majesty! We’ve found it!”

“Found it?”

“Yes! The sellswords, no, the warriors Your Majesty hired have found the Emperor’s treasury in the deepest part of the Heart of the Mountain!”

“Ah. That’s a relief. I feel a bit better.”

Azadin breathed a sigh of relief.

*********

The messenger clan, as the Emperor’s closest aides, had confirmed that the Emperor had prepared treasuries in various places with vast amounts of wealth and was stockpiling something.

The legend of the Emperor’s treasure and the mint that produced the Emperor’s gold became known to the world.

However, what Azadin found strange when he went to the first floor of the first treasury was…

There were records that it was built with a huge budget, but what was inside was questionable.

Emperor Yaeslart believed that his reign would be eternal, and his lifespan was among the longest of the Yaegas gods [a pantheon of gods].

The reason he died without deciding on an heir to the empire was rather because his divinity was too excessive, and his body could not withstand it and ascended.

The stronger his power as a Yaegas god became, the less he ate or drank, transcending carnal desires and the secular world.

After his lover and the leader of the messenger clan, Harkonia, died, the Emperor, who had lost interest in the world, passed away.

What on earth would such an Emperor leave in the treasury?

The answer was right before his eyes.

“These are… seeds.”

Delia, the manager of the Van Dyke Merchant Guild, who had come to see the treasury being opened, clicked her tongue.

“I know. It’s unexpected.”

Azadin smiled wryly as he looked at the Emperor’s treasury, which was storing all kinds of seeds.

The Emperor had also foreseen Fimbulwinter and had compiled and stored food, books, contemporary farming methods, and technical manuals.

And the intensity of that foresight was enormous.

It was as if he had foreseen the reconstruction after most people had died and civilization had been destroyed, as there were farming books, seeds, samples of farming tools, and dwarven forging techniques.

“The Emperor wished for this treasury to be opened after more people had died. This is quite a grand scale.”

Based on his experience when he first approached the Emperor’s treasury, Azadin suspected that the Emperor’s treasury was not a place to store magical treasures or weapons, but rather a kind of facility to respond to the human crisis, Fimbulwinter.

More than expected, the Emperor had predicted and prepared for a much grander future, a future where humanity would be destroyed and rebuilt.

Azadin was taken aback by that harsh prediction.

If the Emperor’s prediction was accurate, this was not a place that should be opened now.

“Still, there is a tremendous amount of grain stored. If this much grain had been released on the market in a normal year, grain prices would have plummeted, and farmers would have been in tears.”

Delia checked the supplies in the warehouse and clicked her tongue.

“At current market prices, it’s worth a fortune. You could easily buy one or two cities. Congratulations, King Azadin.”

“……”

It was not something to be congratulated on.

Azadin had to use all the grain that came in anyway.

Rather than the wealth and power that grain would bring, the Emperor’s prediction was too harsh for his liking.

“More importantly, what’s that empty space over there?”

Azadin pointed to an empty space in one corner of the grain warehouse. There was an empty space where a device that could be pulled by a single cart had been.

“That’s where the Sun of Seonwoo, a magical tool, was located.”

“The Sun of Seonwoo? What’s its function?”

“It’s a magical tool that artificially emits light, allowing crops to be grown even underground. But that has already been taken out. This treasury has already been opened once before. There are traces of the Banlung dwarves digging a tunnel next to the treasury and looting it. They came looking for gold, silver, and magical treasures, but they were disappointed because there was only grain.”

“The Sun of Seonwoo wasn’t in Banlung… Where did it go?”

Azadin asked, looking at Delia.

Delia sighed deeply at his gaze, as if he wanted her to tell the truth.

“Yes. To tell you the truth, my clan took it as payment for a request from the old dwarven king of Banlung.”

She confessed the truth.

“The messenger clan took it? Hmm. They’re not thinking of farming in the sanctuary, are they?”

“They probably are. If they can use that magical tool to farm in the sanctuary, then when Fimbulwinter ends, our Aragasa will be the only intact force.”

“And they’ll rule the empty continent? Doesn’t that seem meaningless? A king of a deserted island?”

“That’s what we’ll do in the worst-case scenario.”

Delia said that and then flinched.

It was because he was still looking at her with a questioning gaze.