CH 25

“So the people are lazy, but they say they want to go from this place and live on the fertile lands which others worked hard to flourish just because there’s a bit less rain? Would the Lord listen now?”

Tarki didn’t hide his discrimination, prejudice, or hatred toward farmers. Clearly, he didn’t care about hiding them in the first place.

“All poor people are poor for a reason.”

“Hmm.”

Azadine clicked his tongue after hearing those words.

“If you lose the battle of succession and end up going to the King’s Church, there must be a reason for that as well, right?”

“What? Are you going to insult me?”

“Huh. That would be insulting. Why would he do it?”

“Ah, no… but I’m the one who made a petition using a gold coin.”

Tarki didn’t care to fight back against Azadine, knowing he wasn’t a match at all.

“I envy your attitude towards life, where one could look down on others even when they are an illegitimate child. If I had such an underdeveloped brain, would I have lived every moment happily without care? Why are you even acting like you earned the coin with your own efforts?”

“No! I am still a noble! My father is Count Casel, the Margrave of Salasma, and my mother is the daughter of Baron Nort and…”

“My job is to kill nobles. Do you still want to brag about your noble blood if you knew why our clan was called the Heavenly King Slayers?”

“….”

Yes, that’s right. He’s bragging about being of the nobility in front of a man who killed nobles for a living.

“Fortunately, you aren’t fully nobility. If you were a full noble, I would have just burned out the Astra clan members working magic through you.”

“Didn’t you make the kid do it for you?”

“This is why I don’t ignore the poor. Be humble in front of fate. You were lucky enough to be born into a noble family and grow up without suffering from starvation. Thank your circumstances for the situation that allowed you to be lucky enough to stay alive when your head couldn’t even understand why there was a lack of fertile soil.”

Azadine lashed out at Tarki as he picked up a halberd from the corpse of a nearby soldier and examined it. It had belonged to the guard captain and was well made.

Azadine took the weapon and approached the spider mercenary, who was still causing a massacre near the gate.

They didn’t attack just because he got close. They were moving close by using cover before climbing a wall to jump down to strike at the monster.

Puak!

The mercenary’s head was cut off in a single bow.

“Looks like it’ll go fine if the neck is cut off.”

Azadine decapitated the spider mercenary, quickly scattered straw around its corpse, and then threw a torch to set it on fire.

The spider mercenaries could not keep their senses with their captain gone and were preoccupied with filling their appetites.

Thanks to this, the damage wasn’t as great as they had expected. The monsters weren’t killing any new people but were focusing on satisfying their hunger.

However, when the people who were sick of the sight tried to attack them, the monsters would attack back and kill their attackers. This made the rest of the people flee from them.

Azadine killed the spider mercenaries one after another while avoiding the eyes of the populace.

“… the petition has also been resolved, and the number has been moderately reduced, so it is pointless to kill them anymore.”

Ismail gave this advice to Azadine while supporting Mediam. He implied they should let the village be plundered by the monsters, no matter the casualties.

‘This kid is so cold-hearted for his age. Or is it because Mediam is irritating him?’

Azadine answered while keeping Ismail’s advice in mind.

“Sorry, but I think this is what the person who was murdered after they petitioned would have wanted. Even if the petitioner is dead, I don’t want to take the gold coins for free.”

“As if. They probably wanted to live for a long time, like that illegitimate child.”

“I-Illegitimate child? Did you just say that?”

Tarki was angry at Ismail, who had called him an illegitimate child. He was very angry at this child who had spoken so carelessly.

“Enough. That is enough.”

Azadine aimed his halberd at Tarki.

“Say no more. I admit that these children are rude, but it’s enough to call you an illegitimate child.”

“What? No, you should at least call me by name.”

“What? I don’t want to waste memory space in my head with unneeded things. Illegitimate child is enough for you.”

Azadine forced Tarki to shut up as he approached the other spider mercenaries. All of them were busy eating meat, so they were quite spread out.

This made it possible to get rid of them one by one.

“Hmm, let’s get rid of it.”

Azadine approached the spider mercenary, who was busy eating a corpse with his back turned to him.

After reaching a certain distance, the spider mercenary became aware of Azadine. It was as if it was a beast that became wary of a hunter entering its territory.

But even that alertness didn’t matter.

-Twilight!

Azadine’s body blurred, and he closed the gap with the spider mercenary. With a single blow of the halberd, its head was cut off.

Small spiders tried to stem the bleeding by filling its neck, but they couldn’t do anything about the part that had been cut.

“Grrrk!”

Another spider mercenary jumped at Azadine, but a single diagonal swing of the halberd had cut off its spider legs and neck.

“It is difficult to deal with at first, but I am continuing to get used to it. But…”

Azadine felt the rattling of the halberd. Cutting off human neck bones, protruding arm bones, and exo-skeletal spider legs put a lot of strain on the weapon’s hilt.

The wooden hilt was broken and twisted, so Azadine took off the halberd’s top and picked up another sword.

“How long do you need, you bastard?”

When Azadine asked this, Tarki was taken aback.

‘A-amazing! This bastard, is this what is meant by the Messenger Clan?’

Tarki was awed by Azadine’s skills. He didn’t like it when he was called a bastard, but he wouldn’t provoke the man.

Azadine took the time to catch his breath and looked around.

The north became loud.

“King’s Church!”

“The King’s Church has appeared to save the people!”

“We are finally safe now!”

Judging by the cheers, it seemed that a rescue team from the nearby King’s Church had come.

Originally, the King’s Church was a holy knight order that was made to protect the people from the Kurt Gods, monsters and to uphold the King’s Law.

Lords who had their own territory were interested in their own estates. This was why they needed holy knights who didn’t have an estate.

Though they started with such a mission, the King’s Church was now completely secularized. This was because the King’s Church comprised three types of members.

First, criminals.

Those descended from nobility who had violated the royal law could escape punishment by entering the King’s Church.

The second were those pushed out during internal power struggles.

During disputes between those who were not the inheritors of their families, children were often massacred by assassins. However, if they didn’t want to die, they had no choice but to give up their inheritance and enter the King’s Church.

The third type was illegitimate children.

Although they could use white magic due to inheriting noble blood, illegitimate children could not participate in an inheritance battle. They were inevitably bound for the King’s Church.

And so, many people devoted themselves to the King’s Church. Inevitably the church grew in power and became the seed of discord.

A lot of money was necessary to feed the Church’s holy knights. The King’s Church, which had become a powerful armed force, extorted those resources from the King and nobility. They then further strengthened their power by joining the succession wars between the nobles.

For this reason, the Rescue Knights, initially regarded as a heresy, received formal approval from the Eight Kingdoms.

If fallen nobility and illegitimate children were only sent to the King’s Church, power and military strength would inevitably be concentrated on them. Therefore another type of Holy Knight was needed to keep them in check.

For this reason, the King’s Church, which was normally an object of fear, was welcomed in this situation.

“The King’s Church?”

However, they were just an annoyance for Azadine, who was of the Messenger Clan. He had already dealt with a lot of the monsters, but they were only appearing now?

“What?”

“Well, the King’s Church would do well against the Kurt clan. Let’s just leave the rest to them. There is nothing good about meeting them.”

Azadine gave up on killing the spider mercenaries and called over his Kerim Goat.

“Then the petition was granted, petitioner.”

Azadine turned to Tarki and said,

“Ah… uh. T-that.”

“Do you have any additional requests? Please don’t ask for something stupid like requesting to make you count.”

“T… then let’s run away from here.”

Tarki seemed to be frightened of Azadine, so he spoke politely.

“When the King’s Church begins their investigation, they will find out I brought these mercenaries here. Then… there! We should at least try to run away to a place where they’re not at.”

“Alright. In any case, I can’t allow a petitioner who has given me a gold coin to die in the hands of the King’s Church.”

Azadine allowed Tarki to accompany him. He wouldn’t have listened to a request to make him a count, but he couldn’t allow him to be captured, either. If he was tortured, then he would speak right away.

“Then do we escape?”

Azadine’s party escaped from the post village through the western gate and advanced west. It wasn’t only Azadine but everyone else was also exhausted from the continuous battles and forced marches.

“Ah, I just bathed and changed into new clothes.”

Mediam was sweating and irritated. The fact that she had taken a bath and changed into fresh clothes yesterday now seemed like a lie.

That freshness had disappeared just after a day, her new clothes becoming a mess due to sweat and dust.

“That’s fine. The sun is rising. We’ve come this far, so you don’t have to worry about the King’s Church. Let’s get some rest.”

Azadine ordered a break and stopped at the side of the road.

Some buildings could be seen nearby, but hounds guarded the entrance.

Perhaps once the farmers began to work, it would be possible to rent a stable to rest in?

As he thought this, the sun rose slowly from the east, and the world was dyed purple. Azadine leaned against a tree and stared blankly at the sunrise.

“What are you doing?”

Mediam asked.

“Watching the sunrise. The sight of the sun driving away the darkness across the sky is so amazing every time I see it.”

Azadine pondered this as he answered Mediam’s question. He was definitely tired, but his exhaustion wasn’t extreme enough that it would disturb his sleep.

‘I am in surprisingly good shape despite the situation.’