CH 4

“Is there a shovel?”

“Shovel? Are you going to bury them?”

Sir Zebec was puzzled. This messenger had already accepted the gold coin and could ignore the request now that the petitioner was dead. There was no obligation on his side to take care of them anymore. Now he was going to bury them?

“There is nothing I shouldn’t do.”

Azadine looked at Sir Zebec and began to dig.

“…”

Was he really going to bury the bodies? This act itself was already a challenge to Lord Kozel’s position.

Corpses hung from trees all over the village entrance. Evil magic would also turn them into something close to undead until they scream themselves to death.

Lord Kozel would try to confirm his power through the undead that was still hanging from the tree. If someone attempted a funeral now, it would displease him. Doubly so if it were someone of the Messenger Clan.

As Sir Zebec began to panic, the young man had finished digging a hole for one person and buried a body in it.

“Ah.”

Seeing this, Sir Zebec could not help but point his sword at the young man. How could he point his sword at the hanging corpses which had been left to rot? Those who hadn’t been treated as humans and had been hung on trees to satisfy the sadistic tyrants who ruled the land? Those same corpses that were being lowered and buried now?

As he thought about it, he suddenly felt like a coward. Wasn’t he in a position where he had pledged his allegiance to a tyrant who did such terrible deeds?

Sir Zebec sheathed his sword, approached Azadine, and began to dig with his hands.

A Knight of the King’s Church and a young man of the Messenger Clan dug at the ground together to bury the victims of tyranny. Azadine then placed his palms together to pray for the victims.

Sir Zebec was startled for a moment. He held some doubts that this young man might have been burying people to cast a strange form of magic.

Until just a moment ago, those confident words might have been a trick to make him play along. Wouldn’t this follower of the Emperor, one of the Messenger Clan, one who was unmatched by anything?

But then the young man said something unexpected.

“Archangel of Wisdom, Courage, and Mercy. Please have pity on this poor sinner.”

Surprisingly, the young man started reciting a prayer used by the Rescue Knights.

“Rescue Knights?”

“I was born in the Messenger Clan, but my ideals are that of the Rescue Knights….”

“What a frivolous person you are. You are trying to abandon the fate of the clan you were born into to serve your own beliefs?”

“If I don’t stick to what I consider right, then being born is meaningless.”

“….”

He was a strange young man. He didn’t want to lose a single fight using words, but his heart was as brittle as an aged man’s.

What was the story behind this young man?

While Sir Zebec watched, Azadine finished sending off the dead with his prayers.

“It is a clumsy informal funeral, but it could prevent them from becoming undead.”

Those who died an unjust death without receiving even a funeral were likely to transform into the undead. But, will this funeral that this young man held in the style of the Rescue Knights, even if he was a member of the Messenger Clan, have any effect? Would his beliefs really help?

The Rescue Knights were a church order that served the three great archangels who protected Virtue. It was a church that claimed to hold white magic by maintaining the ideals of wisdom, courage, and mercy despite the status of birth.

Since the King’s Church defined itself as the only sect that ruled within its ideology, the Rescue Knights were initially regarded as heresy, and many tried to punish them.

However, when demons appeared from the sea, the Rescue Knights defended against them with their bodies. They carried out various relief activities for the sake of the poor. In addition, many sons of the nobility would also enter their order, further mixing the bloodlines. Now, King’s Church and the Rescue Knights members shared many similar characteristics, making it difficult to refer to them as heretics.

The Rescue Knights respected the Heavenly King, whom the King’s Church considered sacred. The two churches then agreed to respect each other by not interfering with the other’s beliefs.

“Do you really have the faith of one of the Rescue Knights? Enough so that you could stop them from becoming undead?”

“Aren’t you suspecting me too much?”

“What do you like about them?”

“I like that a person of a noble status does not really need it and is judged not by their birth but rather by their beliefs and actions. A man who rapes and massacres people simply because he inherited the Blood of God cannot be called noble.”

“… You.”

Zebec was sure that Azadine was simply mocking the man he served. Still, he was unsure about drawing his swords after they had buried two people together.

At that moment, Azadine took something from his waist. At a closer look, it seemed to be a bow. He had wrapped it around his waist because the bowstring could snap back.

With skillful lands, he drew the bowstring instantly and took something out of his back. He untied a leather strap holding the arrow and tied it around his waist.

“Are you preparing to fight? Good.”

A member of the Messenger Clan who was kind. However, this was a difficult situation. For a knight, this man was an enemy to be punished. It would be better if he was clearly hostile.

However, he wasn’t the enemy that Azadine was getting ready for. A light was approaching them from the village.

“What, teacher? Could it be that you liked her? We could have talked if that was the case.”

Kozel was speaking while leading his men.

“Well, being in such a place was a waste.”

“Hehe.”

Kozel’s men pulled out their spears.

“But who is that one?”

The soldiers approached while joking among themselves. Their numbers weren’t small. Indeed, all of Kozel’s subordinates had come fully armed.

Seeing that they had come here fully armed at this late hour, it meant that Zebec’s care toward the girl had been noticed.

‘This is bad.’

Sir Zebec clicked his tongue. Kozel’s men were heavily armed, even more than what a knight would wear.

While Sir Zebec was confident in his skills, twenty heavily armed men being in front of him meant that he had little hope of doing much. What would help even the odds? Wasn’t there a member of the Messenger Clan here?

Azadine began to move.

-swish!

Arrows flew through the air in an instant toward the soldiers in the lead. The shot flew quick and true, easily killing any normal soldier.

Kozel’s soldiers were closer to knights. They had prepared shields, and these soldiers were used to murder and plunder.

Swish!

Azadine’s arrows pushed through the wind and flew past the shields as if they were living snakes.

Puak!

Surprisingly, the arrow managed to hit the spearmen standing behind the shields.

“Ack!”

The spearman’s face was torn apart. The arrow clawed at the helmet, tearing it apart and bringing the nose and eyes below with it.

“WHAT!?!”

Despite the shocking way the arrows twisted in the air, they still contained enough force to kill. Just how strong would someone need to be to do this.

Sir Zebec was shocked. Azadine again drew his bowstring and readied an arrow. One was shot into the sky while another flew towards a shield-holding soldier.

The soldier raised his shield again but was stunned as numbness filled his hand as the arrow clashed with his shield.

He had just blocked an arrow, but it tore through the shield and pierced him through the lower abdomen and crotch. This, too, was shocking.

Puak!

An arrow then fell from the sky and hit his collarbone.

Two arrows had hit the same target at the same moment.

“Kwaak!”

The soldier rolled on the ground as pain tore through his crotch and shoulders.

“N-no way!”

“What is that bow! It is making armor look like paper…”

“Stop him, so he doesn’t use that bow!”

The soldiers rushed toward Azadine, but he simply backed away and launched another arrow. His speed was so quick that the soldiers couldn’t approach and were simply trampled down.

Puak!

The eyes.

Puak!

Then the knees.

“….”

The soldiers noticed this. The man wasn’t trying to kill them but aimed to cripple them forever instead.

‘Is he insane?’

‘Even if he tried to kill us, he would lose fewer arrows.’

The soldiers were relieved that their opponent was wasting arrows but also felt fear and anger.

What would happen if they were hit and lost an eye?

They would become more helpless than the farmers they’ve killed.

Would they be able to survive?

“It is fine! He is out of arrows!”

Kozel encouraged his frightened soldiers. Azadine’s arrow pouch was visible so that anyone could see inside. Indeed, he had run out of arrows.

“Nice!”

The soldiers moved in with renewed confidence.

“What will you do? You are out of arrows…”

“So what?”

Azadine struck the face of the soldiers rushing towards him with his fists.

“Kuak!?”

The blow of his fist caved in the helmet, and the fragments shattered into the man’s eyes. Everyone was shocked when they saw the soldier collapse to the ground, bleeding.

“I reduced the number enough with arrows… Come at me if you have courage.”

Azadine loosened the bowstring once more, placed the bow into the circle belt around his waist, and then picked up the sword of a fallen soldier.

“Ah, I almost forgot.”

He casually thrust the sword toward the blinded soldier’s crotch. It looked like a casual blow, but it was precise.

‘Why is that man obsessed with castrating?’

‘H-he is crazy.’

The soldiers were shocked at this sight.

“As expected of the Messenger Clan!”

Sir Zebek, who had followed along, shouted this.

“W-what?? M-Messenger Clan?”

“Those soulless ones?!”

Some soldiers knew about them because they had heard the many evil rumors surrounding the clan. Yet this man was one of them?

“Do not be afraid, you bastards! If you try to escape, I will fucking kill you with my own hands! If you are going to die, try and make sure to defeat him and live…”

Lord Kozel threatened his soldiers, but Azadine was moving forward while swinging his sword.

“C-cover your eyes!”

Those soldiers who had injured their eyes would get their groin damaged, kicked, and their knees were broken. While the face contorted in pain, the sword would pick out their eyes.

This kind of attack was much more complex and difficult than killing with a single movement. Delaying the final blow by inflicting multiple wounds should reveal a gap… but no one could even touch him.

“What? Where is the spear?”

“That….”

Azadine’s pace meant that the spearman couldn’t ready the spears properly. In addition, Azadine’s arrows had hit those soldiers who held the spears, and most were eliminated.

‘This bastard, he was aiming for this from the start.’