The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 400

“Speaking of which, I wanted to talk about Midiam Etar.”

“Ah, you mean Etar’s daughter?”

“Yes. I thought the clan would be trying to make a deal with me using her as leverage soon. But why haven’t I heard anything yet?”

Azadin had declared himself the King of Banlung, and even the Church hadn’t shown much reaction. Now, Azadin was the undisputed King of Banlung. His subordinates called him King, and Azadin accepted it as his due.

They were actually calling him ‘Your Majesty.’

In this situation, the Aragasa, the messenger clan that Azadin knew, should naturally side with Azadin, along with the Northern Empire.

They had belittled and opposed him as a traitor to the clan, an enemy who crushed the clan’s dreams, and the disgraced Azadin, but now he had achieved too much.

‘If you look at the substance, it’s all like a fleeting dream.’

On the surface, Azadin was a peerless hero who had risen from nothing, or rather, from the status of an untouchable, to the throne.

“Could it be that Midiam escaped, and they can’t make a deal because they don’t have her anymore?”

“No, are you just probing me?”

Delia feigned ignorance at Azadin’s probing question.

“Even if Midiam Etar escaped, it’s fine. There are more things to negotiate with her safety added in. Delia, you just need to convey my words to the elders. Oh, and make sure to tell Sion Etar directly.”

“No, I mean, really. If you keep probing like that, it puts me in a difficult position. The elders are already suspicious that I’m cozying up to you.”

Delia said that and sighed.

With that, she had practically admitted that the messenger clan did not have Midiam Etar in their custody.

Just asking other messengers if Midiam had escaped would put her in a difficult position, which meant she had told Azadin everything about Midiam Etar’s whereabouts. That’s how it could be seen.

If Midiam Etar was still in the messenger clan’s grasp and hadn’t escaped, there would be no reason for her to be in a difficult position.

“There’s no reason not to probe when I benefit from just standing still.”

Even with Azadin’s light probing, the upper echelons of the messenger clan would suspect whether Delia, the working-level person, had betrayed them.

From Azadin’s perspective, he could stir up his opponent with just a few words without spending a penny or breaking a sweat.

His current political position gave him the power to trouble Delia with just his tongue.

“It’s amazing how someone who couldn’t even be a messenger or a servant is now enjoying tormenting and squeezing those beneath him just because he became king. I would appreciate it if you could consider the position of those of us who do the actual work.”

“So, what about the meeting?”

“I’ll contact you as soon as it’s ready. But could you let me know what you’re going to offer so I can prepare myself?”

“The Sun of Seonwoo.”

“That’s a bit difficult. We’re keeping it as the clan’s last hope.”

“Wouldn’t the answer change depending on what I offer? Just get the meeting prepared for now.”

“And you’re not going to ask for something else at the meeting, are you?”

Delia looked at Azadin suspiciously.

Azadin just laughed it off.

*********

As winter approached, the cold became even more severe.

Visen Province, which was connected to Butuma and part of Banlung, was famous for its warm climate year-round, or rather, its hot and humid summers. But even here, frost was forming.

Azadin’s light of kingship was protecting Banlung, but it couldn’t completely stop the abnormal weather.

It would have been better if it had snowed. The sleet made the environment so cold that ordinary people would freeze to death.

This was also fatal for the Bri, ogres, and goblins.

The ogres, who were naturally resistant to the cold and had high body temperatures due to their massive size, could withstand the cold, but driven mad by constant hunger, they began to eat their own troops, the goblins and Bri, alive.

Naturally, no proper battles took place.

However, this changed the nature of the conflict from war to plunder.

The lives of nomadic plunderers and settled peoples who defend against them are always at the expense of the settled peoples.

When the farms outside the city walls were attacked, those gathered on the farms had no choice but to flee to the walled cities with their possessions.

Then the cities suffered from food shortages. They had to somehow transport the goods they hadn’t managed to bring, but that task was not easy in the unfamiliar cold.

Zekt’s solution to this was simple.

“Will you hand over the prisoners?”

Zekt used Nether’s sorcery [dark magic] on the prisoners of Visen Province, making them hosts for new parasites.

There might have been some justification if he had taken the bodies of those who deserved to die and used them as soldiers for the sake of others, but many of those who had flocked to the city to escape the cold and the rampaging monsters were people who had been caught stealing a few loaves of bread or a handful of barley.

Zekt, who had even controlled these people with Nether’s sorcery, was not satisfied and became even more greedy.

“I’ll be tampering with the graves of the unclaimed.”

He used necromancy [magic to raise the dead] to raise the corpses from the graves.

A terrifying force was created, and it was hard to tell which side was the army of evil.

Zekt sent this force to attack the plunderers’ camps, causing them to destroy each other.

The ogres fought well, befitting their large size, but it didn’t matter.

When both sides were destroyed, Zekt used sorcery on the ogres’ bodies to replenish his forces again.

Zekt, who had been winning without regard for means or methods, had uprooted most of the plunderers in Visen Province and had moderately depleted his forces to control their numbers.

Only Zekt’s close aides and soldiers who had recently been parasitized by the blood-sucking parasites returned to the Visen fortress.

However, the gates of Visen were firmly closed.

And on the walls, armed soldiers, the Count of Visen, and the Bishop of Visen appeared.

*********

“Hmm? What is this behavior?”

Zekt asked, looking at the Count of Visen, who had closed the gates.

“Lord Zekt. It seems your joke has gone too far.”

“Joke? What do you mean? Is it because I used Nether’s sorcery? Come on, be honest. Ordinary soldiers would have frozen to death just marching.”

“The King’s Church has issued an excommunication order against Count Azadin, whom you have sworn to follow. Those who are loyal to him are also heretics and excommunicated, so Lord Zekt, you will also lose your position as an Inquisitor and be excommunicated.”

Zekt’s prediction was wrong.

The reason they were saying this to Zekt was not because he had used sorcery, but because they had decided to betray Azadin and Zekt according to the will of the King’s Church.

‘Right. It was a shallow loyalty from the start. But this is unexpected. The King’s Church is showing such decisiveness.’

Zekt asked, just in case.

“Hmm. Does that also apply to King Karnago IV of Arangi?”

As Zekt approached the wall while asking that, the Visen crossbowmen and musketeers aimed at Zekt.

“Don’t come any closer. We are afraid of your magic, so we don’t know what you might do.”

Being a province of the Banlung Kingdom, there were quite a few musketeers and crossbowmen.

Zekt stopped when he saw their numbers.

“Then please answer my question, Bishop. Has King Karnago IV of Arangi been excommunicated?”

“That… Of course, those in such a position have a great influence on the people, so we cannot excommunicate them without reason. We must give them a chance to be sufficiently reformed and correct their mistakes, wouldn’t you agree?”

It was not easy to excommunicate a king. Since King Arangi had recognized Azadin as his adopted son, the political burden the King’s Church would have to bear to excommunicate Azadin’s associates was too great.

Did they do this knowing that?

“Then what about me?”

“If Lord Zekt corrects his mistakes and becomes loyal to the Church again, we will actively welcome him. And what’s more? If you help us, we can easily deal with the excommunicated Azadin by making him lower his guard, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Hmm. That’s unexpected. I thought that by now, you would have recognized Count Azadin, or rather, King Azadin, and sought peace. No one knows what will happen when this Fimbulwinter [a great, harsh winter] gets harsher, so shouldn’t humans stop fighting each other first? You might even have to excommunicate King Arangi.”

Zekt, who knew the nature of the Church well, realized that the atmosphere of the Church had changed due to an unexpected variable.

Originally, the Holy Knights of the King’s Church were excellent in individual combat, but they were not very useful in war.

They were excellent as knights, but they did not have the ability to lead a war. War cost a lot of money.

Until now, the King’s Church had been passing on the cost of this war to the lords or the king, while they took the honor.

So, he thought that they wouldn’t directly confront Azadin, who had seized the throne by establishing his own military force….

‘Something happened. What is it? What on earth happened that made such petty people of Visen look down on me and do this? The Bishop of Visen, that guy used to be afraid of me and couldn’t even make eye contact with me no matter what I did, when did he become so brave?’

Zekt, as an Inquisitor of the King’s Church, openly used sorcery to instill fear in others.

But the Bishop of Visen, who couldn’t even make eye contact with him before, was not afraid of him and showed hostility.

Zekt, whose pride was hurt, questioned the Bishop.

“Even so, you could have said it nicely. Is it really necessary to betray me while I was away, braving this sleet to subdue the plunderers for Visen, to protect the Church’s honor?”

“Wasn’t it that damned messenger clan that broke the order first! A soulless blasphemer as king! I cannot accept it! Moreover, that blasphemy! How dare they revise the scriptures and call it the New Testament!”

“Oh, it seems you’ve misunderstood something.”

Zekt smiled.

“What I’m angry about is that you’re giving King Arangi a chance even though he doesn’t want it, but you’re betraying me. It’s always been like this. Just because I was born a few months later. Because my eyes look bad. Like how one brother becomes king, and another has to go into unwanted exile. But now, even these lowlifes are looking down on me and discriminating against me….”

Zekt’s troops began to glow.

They had reduced their numbers to enter the castle, but they were still enough to attack Visen Castle.

Yellow flames rose from their bloodshot eyes. These flames actually burned with heat like sulfur fire and began to burn their bodies.

Zekt’s army charged towards the walls of Visen.