The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 464

Azadin’s food stores were being moved to various locations across the country, under strict management. Portions were prepared for city residents, and when expeditions or large-scale transport were needed, the nearest stores were emptied first. These were then gradually refilled from more distant locations, allowing for flexible supply management.

This sounds simple, but to ensure the smooth movement of supplies, they needed to track the grain stock of every city in near real-time.

And Azadin managed to do it.

There was a tremendous waste of administrative power, but Azadin actually needed that waste.

It was necessary to provide jobs for administrators, scribes, and intellectuals.

Most of the refugees were ordinary people who made their living by farming, but some were from the literate class, such as lawyers, scholars, patent attorneys, and writers.

Simply assigning these people to manual labor would have been akin to destroying them.

So, even though it consumed a lot of administrative power, Azadin gave them jobs. Thanks to this, they built an organic and flexible supply system, and there was a major reorganization of the administrative system.

That’s why it was possible to evenly distribute resources across this vast country, without any shortages or surpluses.

But this was also Azadin’s weakness.

Azadin’s territory, where he tried to save everyone, was riddled with vulnerabilities.

In particular, there had been several attacks on Azadin’s supply system and warehouses.

Spies from the Northern Empire, various malcontents who held grudges against Azadin, and even cultists.

Many had tried to attack Azadin’s warehouses, but sabotage operations that targeted warehouses in the rear, not in combat zones, usually failed.

No matter how elite the agents were, warehouses were not so easily destroyed.

However, on the day the black sun rose and there was an ominous solar eclipse, there was a sudden uprising in the Relief Knight Territory.

The corrupted paladins from the Wisdom Order, who had been lying low, and the Nether cultists who had been hiding among the people, all rose up at once.

The Courage Order and the Mercy Order stopped them and eventually repelled them, but there were enormous losses in both warehouses and lives.

In particular, the concentrated attacks on the warehouses caused massive food losses.

Moreover, starting from that day, not only in the Relief Knight Territory but also in other places, Nether cultists attacked food warehouses simultaneously, causing large and small losses of life and massive losses of supplies, which inflicted enormous material damage on the Azadin army.

*********

The existing administrative officials and Garasan, who had newly joined the Azadin army as a staff officer, calculated the losses in the Relief Knight Territory and reported to Azadin.

“At the very least, there has been a loss of 5,000 ‘seok’ [a traditional Korean unit of volume, roughly equivalent to 180 liters], and an estimated loss of 10,000 ‘seok’ of grains, fish, and dried meat.”

“Five thousand to ten thousand ‘seok’? Chitai uses the unit ‘seok’.”

Other countries use bushels, but here they use ‘seok’.

“Haha, because you use such uncivilized units like bushels, everyone suffers even with such fertile land. Ah, and Asander also uses ‘seok’. A ‘seok’ is slightly less than the amount a grown man eats in a year. It’s more than enough for a woman, so it’s easy to think of it as a year’s worth of food for one person. It’s a very useful unit.”

Garasan replied.

“At that rate, a bushel is also the amount a person eats in two months.”

Other officials grumbled.

“You’re a newcomer, but you’ve managed to push through with ‘seok’. But if we go down south, there will be fights over weights and measures. Should I sort it out?”

“Haha. Isn’t it the demeanor of a king to organize weights and measures, including rulers and scales?”

Garasan’s words implied that if Azadin wanted to revise the weights and measures, he should conquer the entire continent of Hybris.

He was supposed to be a Confucian scholar of the Clear Stream faction, but he said everything he wanted to say even in front of the king, which Azadin liked.

“Let’s leave the weights and measures aside. So, are you saying that a year’s worth of food for ten thousand people was burned in this incident? It would be hard to burn it all at once, even if you gathered ten thousand ‘seok’ in one place and set it on fire.”

Azadin had such doubts. Even if you burned a warehouse storing ten thousand ‘seok’ of grain, it would not be so easy to burn it all. There would be grains left that the fire had not managed to burn, but was it really all burned without a trace?

However, Garasan submitted a document with additional data.

“It wasn’t just one warehouse that was burned, but 29. There were attacks from all directions, including Arangi, Banreung, Chadra, and Sandokar, and it was only thanks to the defense of Guhal that the damage was limited to this extent. This attack was truly malicious and controlled, and I report that it could not have happened without someone being behind it.”

If Nether fanatics or cultists had attacked without a plan, such a precise attack could not have been carried out.

The messengers of the Nether are so huge and alien that the world where humans live looks like a grain of rice with writing engraved on it, placed on tweezers. It’s easy to destroy everything, but it’s difficult to properly manipulate and recognize it, so for such precise sabotage to be possible, a person must have been involved.

“Ten thousand ‘seok’. Considering the size of the country, it’s not a big amount.”

“In times like these, it’s as precious as gold. It’s the very life of the people. Especially with Your Majesty’s management policy….”

Garasan joined Azadin’s military and received documents from his predecessors, which he changed to the Chitai style and shared with the scholars of Chitai.

The scholars of Chitai were deeply impressed by Azadin’s management policy.

Azadin’s efforts to mobilize all the nation’s capabilities to feed the people were clearly contained in this data.

The numbers in the data were just lifeless numbers, but what they showed was how passionate Azadin was, representing his dedication.

“To burn such precious food in these times. It’s sabotage, but they’ve crossed the line. They’ve violated the gentleman’s agreement, so I will definitely retaliate accordingly, but….”

Azadin clicked his tongue.

The most suspicious person right now was Cohen Lionheart of the Northern Empire.

Otherwise, everyone else was too busy managing their own countries because the Hybris continent was too vast.

In the midst of the Fimbulwinter [a great winter that precedes the end of the world in Norse mythology], the only ones vying for hegemony over the entire continent were Cohen Lionheart of the Northern Empire and Azadin, the Overlord of the South.

However, this time, it didn’t feel like his doing.

“Cohen Lionheart eliminated his teacher to receive the prophecy that he would become the flower of chivalry. He also tried to plant his forces in the Relief Knights, but in any case, he is a man with a strong ego. He is trying to become a legendary hero, a great holy king, or even an emperor or more. Such a person can certainly launch a food offensive that starves the people. This food offensive will damage my reputation. But being so deeply involved in Nether magic will inevitably tarnish his reputation.”

“That’s a wise judgment. And that’s why there’s a rumor spreading in all of our cities.”

“What rumor?”

“The rumor that Your Majesty will now conscript a large number of troops and throw them into suicide missions.”

“…….”

That was a very good way for Azadin to handle things.

Ten thousand ‘seok’ of food is gone?

Then, just kill that many people. There are plenty of battlefields where Azadin’s army needs to deploy troops anyway.

If they deploy more troops to the Btooma front and reduce the burden on the elite troops even a little, that many refugees will die, and the demand for food will decrease.

Moreover, isn’t fighting the Naggas [a type of monster] , enemies who are not human, to recover Btooma a glorious battlefield?

“So, that rumor spread like wildfire?”

“Yes. Someone definitely spread it intentionally.”

Even if Azadin conscripted troops to reduce expenses, there were only a limited number of people who could point it out so blatantly and spread it across the entire country at the same time.

“It seems like the spies of the Northern Empire did it for sure.”

“I am ashamed.”

Jibek and Nicelda, who were listening, bowed their heads.

Their mission was counterintelligence, to crack down on the inside against spies.

Unlike when they were struggling with a lack of talent, they now had the support of the Mercy Order of the Relief Knights and the Etar clan of the Messenger Clan, so their counterintelligence capabilities were by no means lacking, but they had been hit hard by sabotage and civil operations, so they had lost face.

“So, what are you going to do? It’s true that there’s a shortage of food, but there’s this rumor spreading among the people.”

“I’m still going to conscript. If I don’t, what will I give them as rations? They’re not starving and falling into banditry because they’re being given rations under the pretext of being soldiers.”

Azadin took a firm stance against someone’s civil operation.

“And I don’t deliberately throw people to their deaths. I would never fight like that, would I? Everyone is doing their best on every front, so if I get scared by this kind of slander and change my attitude, it would prove that they are right.”

“That’s a great decision. But then there’s the problem that there’s a real shortage of food. How are you going to deal with that?”

“I’ll have to plunder the Northern Empire.”

“Yes?”

Everyone was taken aback by Azadin’s sudden remark.

*********

The news that Azadin was suffering huge losses from attacks by Nether monsters and cultists and was retreating from Chitai was rather perplexing news for the Northern Empire.

Why wouldn’t they be happy that their enemy was in crisis?

However, the Northern Empire sensed that there was a new force behind this that they did not know about.

First of all, he was not the one who burned Azadin’s food warehouses.

It was not his doing that King Sebalhan of Chitai was corrupted by the Nether.

However, what has happened now looks like his doing to anyone.

While the people are passing it off without much comment, the Kingdom of Karasar is now beginning to suspect the murder of their king.

‘And that’s what I did. Damn it. Why is everything so twisted?’

Karasar and Tarasar are gradually distancing themselves from the Northern Empire.

They are in desperate need of support from the Northern Empire because they have no food reserves, but that’s it. They don’t want to get any closer to the Northern Empire than that.

Sebalhan suddenly turning into a Nether monster in Chitai may have defeated the Azadin army for the time being, but it was ultimately a loss for the Northern Empire.

They are also worried about the fact that Azadin’s food warehouses were attacked and burned by Nether cultists.

If Azadin thinks that this was the work of the Northern Empire, then there is no telling what Azadin will do now.

Now that the gentleman’s agreement has been broken, the other side may also send spies to Asander to carry out sabotage operations.