The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 44

“I will do it.”

“No, please let me do it.”

“Compensate for what you’ve plundered. I’ve written down all your houses. You wouldn’t want to meet me again after doing something foolish, would you?”

As Azadin traveled, he sought out victims he could find—those who had been robbed and were sitting by the roadside crying, or those who were walking aimlessly—and compensated them as much as possible. For those he couldn’t, he gathered testimonies and wrote their names on a list.

He couldn’t get more involved in compensation because he was in a hurry, but he did as much as he could.

*********

“I-is that all done now?” Bienne asked, and Azadin smiled.

“No, there’s one more thing left.”

“What?”

“To temporarily eliminate your combat power.”

“Huh? What? What are you talking about?”

Instead of answering, Azadin took out a pair of tongs from his luggage. They were tongs for arrowheads, used when making or handling arrows.

“Consider yourselves lucky. If you had committed murder, I would usually inflict permanent damage, but as far as I’ve confirmed, it seems you haven’t killed anyone, so I’ll let you off with this.”

“Huh? Let us off with this? What are you… Ugh!”

The pain of having fingernails pulled out raw was enough to make even a grown adult cry like a child.

After Azadin pulled out the thumb and index fingernails of Bienne and her group and chased them away, Tarki let out a sigh of relief.

“To think they would try to harm their own flesh and blood for the sake of inheritance. People are truly wicked. I was even getting along well with Bienne, brother.”

“I know, right? Inheritance shouldn’t mean that much.”

Azadin said that to Tarki and wiped the tongs. Then, Midiam spoke to Azadin.

“It seems like you’ve recovered a bit now.”

“Why?”

“No, it’s just that you returned the luggage to the people who were robbed. It’s nice to see you back to your old self. Does pregnancy make your emotions fluctuate so much?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

Azadin sighed.

“The act of giving birth in the Curse of Duty is not a normal pregnancy. That kind of thing doesn’t happen.”

“But you were really different from your usual self.”

“I can get angry and emotional too. When that happens, anyone can lose control of themselves. And by the way, the one making me angry right now is you, Midiam.”

“Huh? Me?”

“Yes.”

Then, Ismail asked.

“Didn’t you sell the silver candlesticks that Tarki’s mercenary group plundered? Why are you so diligently returning these items?”

“That was too much. It was too much for me to return alone, and there were too many mercenaries at that time. And anyway, the people in that village would have had to evacuate.”

“Evacuate…”

“Ogres are coming. They need to evacuate, and returning the plundered goods, which were mostly furniture, would only hinder their movements.”

“But you still took the profit, didn’t you?”

“I can’t help it. I’m the type who lives with flexibility, depending on the situation.”

Azadin was a good person, but not a pushover. As the Emperor’s messenger, he needed to have a firm grasp of the harsh reality.

“On the other hand, this was easy to return, and the amount was small. Why? Are you complaining about that?”

“I can’t understand you. You’re like… an anomaly. I find it much easier to understand those who are obsessed with murder or plunder.”

“Is that so? I understand you to some extent, though.”

“You understand me?”

Ismail felt displeased that Azadin understood him. It felt like he was being told that he was easy to figure out, which made him feel repulsed.

At that moment, Tarki, who was leading the way, clicked his tongue.

“Everyone, be quiet. There are Relief Knights ahead.”

“Huh? Relief Knights?”

Azadin began to show interest.

*********

As they approached Salasma, it was crowded with people everywhere. Refugees were pouring in from all over. After a month-long drought, the river had dried up, there was no support for the frontier, and ominous things were happening everywhere.

Meanwhile, the Count’s children, the bastards, were running around looking for the Divine Scripture and plundering people wherever they went. So, people who had lost their livelihoods were heading to Salasma, where there was at least some food and clothing.

In an open space near Salasma, several merchant guilds and the Relief Knights were running a relief center by renting out an entire inn.

“Oh, the three-winged wheel!”

Azadin was delighted to see the flag of the Relief Knights, which had a three-winged wheel as its symbol.

“It’s the Relief Knights, indeed. Hmm, excellent.”

“…….”

Midiam and Ismail were speechless, watching Azadin rejoice at the good deeds of the Relief Knights.

Unlike the King’s Church, the Relief Knights wouldn’t rush to kill the Messenger Clan on sight, but their members were also Hybris people. They also regarded the Aragasa [Azadin’s clan] as soulless blasphemers and despised them as cursed beings, just like everyone else.

The relief center was also being run by ‘donations’ forcibly taken from merchant guilds. Moreover, the Relief Knights were taking in children from parents who were giving up their children among the refugees to increase their numbers.

Rumor had it that the Relief Knights had a vast amount of land on the ‘Inner Sea Peninsula,’ their headquarters, and they needed countless serfs to cultivate the area.

The dark rumor about the Relief Knights was that they were gathering orphans and refugees from all over under the guise of providing relief, and taking them to develop the Inner Sea Peninsula.

“Should I tell him? No, even if I did, it seems like the Relief Knights are precious to him. It’s no use talking, right?”

Midiam closed her mouth, watching Azadin pleased with the relief efforts of the Relief Knights.

“It’s surprising. For a young lady to be so considerate of others.”

“No, it’s, it’s just that…”

Midiam shrugged.

“Since there might be a new life in Azadin’s body, giving him too much stress isn’t good for a pregnant person.”

“Hey. I can hear you, you know?”

Azadin was dumbfounded by Midiam’s words, which treated him like a pregnant person, and snorted.

“Well, my dismissal was probably a mistake made by the higher-ups because they were afraid of Arael, so if I go and talk to them, it can be resolved.”

After some time, Azadin, who had calmed down, realized that he had many ways to negotiate with the higher-ups of Aragasa.

He had two copies of the Divine Scripture and had accumulated a lot of gold in a short period. There was probably no other messenger who had processed three gold requests in such a short time.

‘It must be because there are so many crises right now that people are making requests without hesitation. The Hybris people think of calling a messenger as if they are selling their souls to the devil.’

People who have hoarded the Emperor’s gold only use it when they are in real danger and cornered… They don’t have the Emperor’s gold because they like the Messenger Clan.

In other words, if there is a drought like now, and the Kurt gods rise up to find the Divine Scripture, wouldn’t the messengers in other places also be boasting record-breaking gold recovery rates?

Thinking that way made him feel a little uneasy.

‘Everyone in the clan hates me, right? What if they don’t listen even if I ask them to revoke my dismissal? They might try to kill me and steal my copy of the Divine Scripture?’

Azadin shook his head, thinking that far. No matter how much they disliked him, it was already in the realm of paranoia to be so hostile and unreasonable.

“Let’s prepare for camp!”

*********

They prepared for camp on the dry riverbank. They didn’t carry tents because they were heavy, so preparing for camp usually meant leveling the ground.

“Why do I have to do this menial work? I’m a noble and a knight.”

Tarki grumbled as he picked out stones from the ground.

“Just work there for a bit.”

Azadin gave Tarki, who was complaining, work to do and looked around. There were other refugees, but when Tarki, a knight, started preparing for camp, they all quietly moved away and made space.

As it became dinner time, people working at the inn were seen distributing blankets with the Relief Knights’ mark and bread.

“Blankets are available for rent. Since they are for rent, you must return them.”

“If you don’t return them, you will fall into hell in the afterlife or be reborn as a Messenger Clan member.”

Midiam chuckled at those words.

“Those are very motivating words.”

“Well, the blanket recovery rate will be terrible, so will all these people be reborn as clan members?”

“I guess so.”

Midiam said that while looking at Azadin’s stomach.

“What? Why are you looking at me?”

“No, it’s just that if some of the people who didn’t return the blankets are born into our clan, then if the Curse of Duty is activated and you give birth to a child…”

“Hey. Droopy eyes. Was she always like that?”

“Yes.”

Ismail lowered his head and said that. He seemed to be feeling embarrassed by Midiam’s words.

“Her colleagues must have hated her a lot?”

“What are you talking about? My colleagues worshiped me.”

Midiam shrugged and boasted.

“Oh, but let’s go get some of that bread.”

“Huh? We have our own food, don’t we? I thought you wouldn’t touch the relief supplies?”

Midiam looked at Azadin, thinking that he was a good person at heart, even though he kept his boundaries. He was basically friendly to the people of Hybris, helped the weak, and was strict with the strong.

But here he was, touching the relief supplies that the Relief Knights were distributing to the refugees? If he did that, wouldn’t that reduce the amount of food for the refugees?

“No, I just wanted to see what the Relief Knights’ relief supplies are like.”

Azadin said that and approached the cart distributing relief supplies and spoke to a Relief Knight.

*********

“He must be busy dealing with people, why is he talking to them?”

“Maybe he really likes the stories of the Relief Knights. So he’s trying to talk to them and get close to them somehow.”

After a while, Azadin came back with a loaf of bread that the Relief Knights had given him.

“You actually got the bread?”

“Of course, I didn’t plunder the relief supplies. I made a donation.”

“A messenger gave money to the Relief Knights? A donation?”

“Yes.”

“…….”

“What, why? Do you have a problem with that?”

“You were there for quite a while, though. What did you talk about?”

Ismail asked in a cold tone.

“Um, I asked if I could get the Relief Knights’ mark that’s on the blankets on this parchment, but they said they wouldn’t do it.”

“…….”

“Why would you want that mark?”

“I wanted to have the Relief Knights’ emblem. It’s cool, isn’t it?”

“…….”

Midiam and Ismail looked at each other blankly.

“I don’t think it’s that great. It’s not a dragon, it’s just a wheel.”

“But it’s the Relief Knights. Hmm. Our Aragasa doesn’t have many symbols. The hawk is our symbol, but we can’t show it off anywhere.”

Azadin fiddled with the new mask in his arms. The mask made in the shape of a hawk was the symbol of Aragasa, but because they were persecuted, they couldn’t openly display it.

“The Relief Knights in the storybooks might have been heroes who treated everyone equally, but the Relief Knights in reality will try to kill us as soon as they find out we’re from the Messenger Clan. Even if you like the Relief Knights, they will betray your feelings, aren’t you afraid of that?”

Midiam asked, as if she wanted to subtly torment Azadin.

“It’s okay. My faith isn’t like that. Even if they persecute me and eventually kill me, that doesn’t betray my faith.”

“…….”

Midiam listened to Azadin’s words and realized that his liking for the Relief Knights wasn’t just a simple child’s admiration, but something deeper, closer to a strong belief.

Would faith really not betray him?

Suddenly, Midiam had a premonition that the fate that would soon come to Azadin would test that faith.