The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 82

“Hmph. What help could two kids who haven’t even lost their baby fat be?” He was clearly talking about Midiam and Ismael.

“Merchants pay us, but aren’t you just trying to freeload? We absolutely cannot work for free.”

“What a stingy bunch. Understood. We’ll keep our distance.”

Azadin began to put some space between himself and the armed merchant caravan.

At that moment, a group that had been watching the armed merchant caravan crossed their path and then drew their weapons around Azadin’s group.

“Looks like they’re not with the merchant caravan…”

“Hey! You there!”

“Hand over everything you’ve got and disappear! Then we’ll spare your lives!”

“Hehehe.”

“……”

The armed merchant caravan, seeing this, sneered at Azadin’s group and hurried on their way. Even witnessing the bandit group attacking, they showed no interest and just continued on their path.

“They’re really heartless.”

Azadin gave a bitter smile as he watched the armed merchant caravan’s backs.

“That girl is quite pretty, isn’t she?”

“The boy is decent too. They’d fetch a good price, wouldn’t they?”

The bandits, looking down on Azadin’s group, already treated them like captured prey.

“It’s like this even when you’re with me. What was it like when you traveled alone?”

“We traveled with the peddler’s guild.”

Ismael said calmly.

“What should we do?”

“Hmm. Shall we resolve this without killing them, while also getting some information?”

At Azadin’s words, the bandits burst into laughter. There were six bandits, while Azadin’s group included the teenagers Midiam and Ismael.

It was natural to look down on them, but…

-Thwack!

Azadin lightly kicked a stone on the ground, caught it, and swung it with both hands, causing two bandits to scream and fall, clutching their groins.

“Huh?!”

“Kyak!”

“Y-you bastard!”

The surprised bandits drew their weapons, but Midiam and Ismael pulled out daggers from their belts and threw them.

-Thwack!

The daggers pierced the bandits’ heads and necks.

“Cough?!”

“Kyak!”

Two bandits fell. In an instant, four were incapacitated.

“I told you not to kill them.”

“There were six of them. It’s okay to kill two, right?”

“Life is irreversible. Once you kill someone, you can’t bring them back.”

Azadin said this and smiled.

“We should cripple them and give them a chance to become new people.”

“W-well, I doubt they would want such an opportunity.”

Midiam questioned Azadin’s unique way of respecting life.

“W-wait a minute.”

“S-spare us.”

The bandits were terrified by Azadin’s words and surrendered.

“I said I wouldn’t kill you.”

“Y-yes, so… we were originally civilians.”

“We couldn’t survive because of the drought, so we fled west, but there were no jobs, and begging had its limits, so we became bandits. But this is too much. Are you telling us to starve to death?”

“Considering that, didn’t you tell us to leave the children behind? Judging by the fact that you were going to sell the children, it seems like you’re dealing with slave traders?”

Slave trading was illegal in all the Eight Kingdoms. Nevertheless, slave trading was very active.

If they had a network with slave traders, the excuse that they became bandits simply to survive didn’t make sense. They would have had to be involved in banditry for quite a long time and systematically to establish a network with slave traders.

“T-there’s someone who does that for us.”

“Rumor has it that he’s a spy for Count Rantaric. To weaken Salasma…”

“Y-yes, that’s right!”

The bandits spilled information, but Midiam drew her sword as if annoyed.

“Azadin, what should we do? Should we cut off a finger or two?”

“Wait a minute. Let’s hear their story.”

“But there’s nothing to hear.”

“It’s not that… the bandits are saying things to survive, but it doesn’t sound like complete nonsense. Hey, where is this guy who might be a henchman of Count Rantaric?”

“It’s… over there.”

“If you go down into the basin, there’s an old logging village. He’s staying in that village. It’s a day’s walk from here.”

“There’s a three-way intersection, go north there, and then west at the next four-way intersection.”

“Hmm, what do you think, Ismael?”

“The general direction and distance are correct.”

Ismael, just by looking at Azadin’s gaze, understood what he was asking and confirmed it.

“Good. Then, shall we have you guide us to the slave traders?”

“What?”

“You said there’s someone you capture slaves and trade with? Guide us to them.”

“What? We told you the way, didn’t we?”

“I want to go as a customer. If I say I want to buy a woman, they’ll know.”

“B-but.”

The bandits were flustered. If they took them to the bandit hideout, there would naturally be more bandits, so they could show this arrogant guy what’s what. However, that would be the same as announcing their failure to everyone.

‘They’ll probably mock and ridicule us for being defeated by someone like him.’

‘But if we don’t take them…’

They frowned as they looked at the state of the guys who had been defeated by Azadin. The pants of the guys who had been hit in the groin with stones were stained with blood. They had been castrated.

“A-alright, we’ll guide you.”

*********

The bandits’ hideout was in the forest in the basin area. One of the tributaries of the Kora River flowed through the forest, supplying moisture to the basin, and moss even grew on the tree surfaces.

While the eastern inland region was suffering from drought, they had arrived at a place where the moss was moist. However, the forest was shady and dense, so it wouldn’t be strange if there was an ambush anywhere.

“It’s a good place for an ambush. If we had come without a guide, it would have been tiring.”

“But to insist on buying a slave…”

Midiam and Ismael understood why Azadin had brought the bandits as guides and clicked their tongues.

“Hmm, be quiet. They’re coming.”

Indeed, bandits appeared from the forest. They were aiming bows at them, but with their skills, they couldn’t hit the bandits Azadin had brought and could only target Azadin’s group.

“What are these guys?”

“I heard a woman was captured? I want to buy her.”

“……”

The bandits were taken aback by Azadin’s request. However, the one who seemed to be of higher rank among them stopped everyone and glared at the bandits captured by Azadin’s group.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“T-that’s… what he said.”

“He says he wants to buy a woman.”

“How did they know we captured a woman? Are they also Nagas [a race of serpent-like humanoids]?”

The bandits deliberately rejected Azadin’s group and talked among themselves.

“Hmm. I’d like you to decide whether you’re going to sell her or not. You guys don’t seem to have the basics of welcoming a guest.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you bastard!”

A bandit holding a bow drew his bowstring.

“If you shoot, I’ll kill you.”

“You’re bluffing!”

The bandit shot the arrow. At that moment, Azadin lowered his body. His body explosively pushed off the ground, and the distance between him and his opponent was instantly closed. Azadin grabbed the hair of the bandit who had shot the arrow.

“I said I’d kill you, right? I’m taking that back. I won’t kill you.”

“Huh?!”

-Thwack!

Azadin lowered the bandit’s face and grazed his face with his fist. Blood and flesh fell onto the bushes.

“Huh?!”

“Oh!”

Azadin’s fist flew like a blade, tearing off the bandit’s face. The bandit, with his eye gouged out and his nose gone, screamed.

“Aaaaargh!”

“If you spend the rest of your life in pain, maybe you can atone.”

“……”

“Huh…”

Azadin snatched the quiver from the bandit holding the bow and swung it. The arrows inside spilled out in front of Midiam and Ismael’s feet.

“Kill half of them to break their spirit.”

“Yes.”

“Understood.”

Midiam and Ismael pulled out their crescent bows from their waists and strung them.

“You bastards!”

The bandits tried to attack, but Azadin pushed the bloodied bandit towards them and reached out his hand.

-Crack!

-Crunch!

As if kicked by a horse’s hind leg, two bandits fell, their faces caved in and their chests crushed. Moreover…

-Swish!

Midiam and Ismael’s arrows began to fly. The bandits, who had the numerical advantage, were instantly pushed into a defensive position.

“Cough?!”

“Y-you bastards!”

“N-no! These guys are from the Messenger Clan!”

As Midiam and Ismael began to shoot their arrows, they realized the identity of Azadin’s group.

“T-the Messenger Clan?”

“Oh my god.”

“Too late!”

Ismael shot an arrow at the face of the guy who was leading the negotiations. At that moment, Azadin grabbed the flying arrow mid-air and stopped it from hitting the bandit’s face.

“Huh?!”

“More than half.”

Azadin, who had been counting the number of bandits dying, stopped the killing as he saw the number of bandits drop below half in an instant.

“But it’s okay as long as I don’t kill them.”

Azadin stabbed the bandit’s eye with the arrow he was holding and pulled it out.

“Aaaaargh!”

The bandit screamed and tumbled forward.

“O-oh my god.”

“This is the Messenger Clan!”

The bandits who had guided Azadin’s group here clicked their tongues. The ones who had come out to greet them from the bandit hideout were twelve. They thought they could overwhelm their opponents with their large numbers and surely subdue them.

But in a flash, six of the twelve were dead, and the other two had their faces torn off, either blinded or one-eyed.

“Now, that’s the end of the lesson. Tell your boss that I’ve come to buy a Naga woman.”

“……”

The bandits shuddered at the brutal scene.

To launch a surprise attack against a much larger number of enemies and overwhelm them in an instant, well, that could happen. Most of the bandits were originally farmers, and most were refugees who had become bandits out of necessity due to the drought, so they were bound to be weaker than warriors who had received proper combat training.

But to overwhelm them like this and then call it a ‘lesson’ while slowing down the offensive… how confident were they?

*********

Bandit King Donear couldn’t understand the tragedy before his eyes. He could clearly see it, but his brain couldn’t comprehend the situation.

“What happened here?”

“T-they’re from the Messenger Clan.”

The bandits, completely terrified and overwhelmed, approached Donear, cowering like dogs in the rain.

“The Messenger Clan? What business does the Messenger Clan have here?”

As Donear asked, Azadin took a step forward.

“There should be a Naga woman. I’ve come to buy her.”

“You’ve come to buy her?”

“I don’t usually deal with slave traders, but it seems too cruel to kill all of you refugees. I’ll pay a fair price.”

“……”

It was an extremely arrogant statement. It was a statement that could not be made unless one was confident that they held the lives of all the bandits in the palm of their hand and could play with them.

And yet…

‘They’re completely broken.’

Looking at the bandits’ expressions, it was clear that they didn’t want to fight the Messenger Clan group, even if they were given a fortune.

‘I am a warrior, unlike you farmers. And of course, I have my subordinates.’

Among Donear’s subordinates were operatives placed by Count Rantaric. They were of the warrior class. They possessed martial arts skills that were on a different level from ordinary farmers.

‘They seem to have broken the spirit of the farmers by showing them abilities that they could never dream of, but can they do the same against real warriors?’

It was at that moment that Donear had such a question.