CH 37

The distance was quite far away, yet the power was extraordinary.

‘It doesn’t look like he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s a member of the Messenger Clan.’

‘But it seems Azadine uses a stronger Moon Horn Bow than other messengers, doesn’t it?’

Mediam and Ismail clicked their tongues while watching Azadine’s performance.

‘Messengers, without a doubt, study battle tactics and strategy, along with cases about sorcery. However, most of the time, because they tend to skip it as if barely licking their food, that study isn’t enough with practical experience.’

So, after completing their basic training, young messenger candidates would work under a messenger, completing missions while gaining and learning from practical experience.

‘But it’s only been three months since Azadine became a messenger. He has no experience in the field. Yet what’s with this adroitness and dexterity in his skills? I heard he couldn’t even keep up with basic training, so how did Elder Kazas train him?’

Mediam was curious about exactly what type of training Azadine had gone through.

“Oh?”

Maya was frightened by the power with which Azadine shot the arrows. Azadine set up another arrow and fired another shot.

-Thud!

This time too, the undead collapsed with a loud sound. Like a pile of trash that rolled on the ground as it was blown by the wind, those undead hit by the arrows rolled on the soil, sweeping it in the process.

[Damn it. What is this?]

The spell caster, who was observing the whole thing, was shocked.

“You said the strongest would take it all, didn’t you? I’ll show you who’s the strongest.”

[Stop kidding yourself, you archer! Bragging after shooting just a few arrows! How about this, then?]

The undead then started going on a rampage.

“Grrr.”

“Gaaah!”

The undead began approaching them at terrifying speed. No matter who saw this, they would agree that it was frightening. However, Azadine wasn’t scared in the slightest.

“Try all you want!”

Azadine adapted to the Aragasa sorcery and maximized the power of his arrows as he shot out one after another.

-Whoosh!

The arrows flew true with the sound of the wind cutting through the air. Every time this happened, an undead rushing in would tumble into the ground. Additionally, the fallen undead hindered those coming behind them and further bogged down the enemy’s line of attack.

As a result, by the time any undead reached the defensive formation made up of Maya, Tarki, and the rest, their numbers weren’t much. Even when the undead that had collapsed got up and approached them again, they had less strength, making it more straightforward for those in the formation to handle them.

“Ugh, oh oh, God, they look so…”

Tarki stood at the forefront with his longsword. In contrast, Kaka and Chico stood diagonally to support him from the rear with their short spears.

As Tarki swung his longsword in large, wild attacks, any gaps left by his swings were covered by Kaka and Chico through the windows.

Even so, the Holy Knight, Maya, blocked and got rid of any undead still charging at them after getting through the barrier using a short sword and shield that Azadine had given her from his own stash.

Maintaining this systematic formation, they were able to considerably overpower the undead while fighting. Not to mention…

-Swing!

-Thud!

Besides the arrows that Azadine was shooting, another significantly powerful arrow landed on an undead. Mediam could no longer bear using the hunting bow and had taken out her Moon Horn Bow.

“Hey.”

“I just have to avoid being caught by that Holy Knight, don’t I?”

The Holy Knight, it seemed, was barely keeping her senses while engaging in close combat. Of course, she didn’t have a single opportunity to look behind, either.

Taking advantage of that, Ismail also secretly switched his bow to his Moon Horn Bow and shot his arrows using that.

“Alright. But the moment I tell you, change up your bows.”

Azadine allowed Mediam and Ismail to use their Moon Horn Bows as he continued to shoot.

The undead began to lose strength as soon as Azadine, Medium, and Ismail began shooting their arrows. Those undead who managed to avoid the shower of arrows barely reached Tarki’s group and were typically already injured enough that the slightest hint from a melee weapon would stop them. However, because the corpses continued to pile up, Tarki’s group inevitably had to start withdrawing.

[Th-These bastards….]

The spell caster was in extreme shock.

She hadn’t placed much importance on this group because it had young children. Yet, they were performing much better compared to the merchants and mercenaries.

Moreover, their defensive formation was quite tricky.

Because they made barricades using light wooden benches, zombies that typically have low mobility would attempt to cross these knee-high boundaries and inevitably trip and fall.

In the end, as they played the role of infantry, the undead was inevitably exposed to a shower of arrows. Also, as the wyvern was useful due to its ability to fly, losing it here would be a waste for the spell caster.

When compared to chess, it would be as if she lost her queen at the beginning of a match.

‘I tried to use it sparingly but ended up wasting it. It would’ve been better to use the wyvern from the start.’

Finally, now that she had nothing to spare, the spell caster decided to use all her cards.

-Grrrng.

A bear appeared to join the fray.

It wasn’t undead, but instead, it had a form of black spore that was attached to its body. It proved much more tenacious and quicker in movement than the zombies.

Its mobility was no different than a living bear. Actually, it was indeed still a live bear.

And…

-Oo wong?!

The wyverns also began to move. A multi-pronged attack had begun with the bear on land and the wyverns in the skies.

“Whoa!”

When the bears began to rush in, the battle formation collapsed instantly. Tarki, who had held his ground against the human-form zombies, could not help but hesitate as the bears charged in on him.

Also, Azadine had handled the zombies without hindrances, but his arrows didn’t work as well against the bears.

-bang!

Like a javelin, the arrows pierced the bear’s body until only its tail feathers were visible. If this had been a normal bear, the pain and shock would have killed it.

However, this bear was completely unaffected and dashed toward them with the arrow still stuck in its body. Despite the muscles that were tearing apart and the wound that was caused by the arrow, the bear seemed to not care about it at all.

“Gasp!”

Tarki tried to dodge the bear that was charging at him by going to the side with his sword and shield, but the bear swung its front paw first. The attack caught the shield, and Tarki was sent flying away like a toy.

Like Aladdin falling from his flying carpet, Tarki crashed onto the ground.

“Gaaah!”

“Urgh!”

Kaka and Chico followed soon after. They tried to block the windows with their best efforts but met the same fate as Tarki. The window was smashed open and swept away as the bear rushed in, dropping bits and pieces of itself on the ground.

“Oh!?”

Maya, the Holy Knight captain, was startled and cast as pell.

- Strike of Divine Punishment!

A shining hammer appeared before her and hit the bear before exploding. Along with a roar, the bear’s front paws were snapped clean. With Azadine’s arrows stuck in it, its shoulders and torso were ripped apart, causing it to collapse.

As a Holy Knight of the King’s Church, and even among those, you could say that the power of her spell was worthy of the title of Captain, but… she was too close to the explosion.

“Aaaaah!”

Maya was swept away by the explosion caused by her own spell.

‘Is she an idiot?!’

She mentioned that she could have used magic to break the warehouse door down, but she would have been swept alongside it. The reason for that was quite clear now. She could probably use that magic only once.

Still, at least it managed to knock out the bear.

[Damn it. As expected, it was pretty impressive! But….]

After the bear’s charge, what followed was a stampede of undead forest beasts streaming in.

[I’ve got plenty of the undead left! Also!]

As the bear’s charge had caused a distraction, the wyverns flew down and landed on the warehouse roof.

[Hahaha. How about now! You people of Hubris! This is the power of the Messenger Clan that you loathed! How does it feel to face retaliation from the one you ridiculed and despised?]

She was smugly bragging about her impending victory.

However, just then…

“I’m sorry to say this, but you’re completely unaware of the power of our clan.”

[What?]

“If you’re talking about the true power of the clan… it’d be something like this.”

At that moment, the wyverns erupted into screams and collapsed.

The wyverns raised their tails with their poisonous stingers high toward the sky. Then they struck through the warehouse roof, piercing holes and pushing the poisonous stingers inside.

Azadine, Mediam, and Ismail were shooting their arrows from both the warehouse’s eaves or from inside the warehouse towards the outside. The wyverns aimed for them by sticking their poisonous stingers in and swinging them wildly.

However, Azadine managed to penetrate his shots through the warehouse’s roof and shot his arrows into their stomachs.

The bow was, after all, strong enough to launch an arrow through a bear’s body until only its tail feathers were left visible. Considering that it was now fired from such a close range, it was only obvious that the arrow would pierce through the wyvern and tear apart its internal organs.

[What is all this…]

The force and accuracy of the arrows from under the roof ripped through the wyverns without them being even visible. Just like that, Azadine, who had instantly shot the wyverns to death, jumped out of the warehouse.

“Look closely.”

Azadine pulled the arrow in his bow and shot it at the flying wyvern.

“Our bows have the power to even drop the stars in the skies…”

The arrow hit its mark, the flying wyvern, and hit the bone, breaking it and piercing through straight to the other side.

A young wyvern in its adolescent stage was the size of a giant calf. This wyvern now let out a shriek and fell on its face.

“Let’s assemble the arrows!”

Azadine pulled his two-stringed bow.

Two arrows hit the wyvern at the same time and cut off both its wings.

“We are the people of Aragasa, who even killed the Heavenly King upon the Emperor’s orders. The Messenger Clan is a name we are called by the people on the outside. If you belong to our clan, it is only right for you to call yourself by the name ‘Aragasa’.”

Azadine said this and shrugged his shoulders.

[Then that means you are…]

“My name is Azadine. I’m the 108th of the Emperor’s messengers.”

[Are you a messenger? The Emperor’s messenger?]

“Yes, I am.”

[Ha…hahahaha]

The dying wyvern, possessed by the spell caster, burst into laughter.

Medium had told Azadine that she would respect him even more if he had been able to persuade this spell caster, who had suffered due to being enslaved for so long just after being a member of the Messenger Clan.

However, she had made that bet simply because it would be virtually impossible to persuade the spell caster. Firstly, all those who came into contact with black magic never would return to who they once were.

Those who practiced black magic and dabbled in the power over death would always be able to sense the smell of death and become conscious of it at all times.

Opposite to other life forms who, in their lifetimes, only had their own lives on their minds, those who have touched the strength of black magic inevitably made their uses fall into melancholy. It kept them on their guard and made them conscious of the line between life and death.

Besides that, how would you even control the resentment and deep-seated grudge of someone mistreated as a slave?

Regardless of that, Azadine felt there was a little hope.

That little ray of hope was none other than ‘Pride’.

A person who had been abused by the people of Hubris for being part of the Messenger Clan had made mention of the power of said clan while exacting her revenge. Even if they hated being discriminated against, they could not help but feel an even stronger connection to their identity because of that.

After suffering such discrimination for being of the Messenger Clan, she must have inevitably become more fixated on the clan’s strengths. That was her way of protecting herself.

If so, in order to persuade this spell caster, Azadine would need to present the image of a member of the Messenger Clan that was proud of himself.

But was it possible?

It had been so long since the Messenger Clan lost its pride. Azadine was also someone despised among the members of said clan. This role didn’t suit someone incapable of feeling pride after being scorned by so many.

But most importantly, the problem was the spell caster’s heart.

How could you persuade a soul that had been twisted after enduring so much pain and suffering?