Night of the Soulless Heathens – 146



#146. Reader Route 5

It was an extremely disrespectful thing to say to a king but there are some truths that can never be conveyed through polite speech.

King Ancestus IV smiled bitterly at Azadin’s assessment which was so pure as to be almost rude.

“That’s an honest assessment. I may not be a saintly king but I’m not a tyrant either. I think I’m a bad king.”

“Actually Count Salasma and Count Lantaric were such a mess but they just left it alone.”

“….”

“I’m afraid you might let your guard down too much.”

“You are an insolent man. You said Azadin right? Remember that. In any case allowing someone like you access to the throne would cause the clergy of the King’s Church to have fits. I cannot give you official permission.”

“Officially?”

“We can cooperate unofficially. But before that… I think you will have to prove your loyalty to me as well.”

“What do you mean by proof of loyalty?”

“The messenger clan has broken into the food storage and is poisoning it. Will you catch him?”

“hmm.”

Azadin was embarrassed when he heard that.

Azadin also hated Arael but he did not want to become a mortal enemy of the Arael tribe.

The Aragats will never tolerate Azadin killing his own people for the sake of the Kingdom of Korasa even if they are in the midst of a civil war.

Perhaps the King knew that and that is why he made such a condition to Azadin.

But if he refuses to do so here the King will have no reason to trust Azadin this time.

“Okay I’ll look into the poisoning and stop it.”

“Good. If you can do that I’ll let you investigate the throne separately.”

The king gave Azadin a difficult task.

*********

Azadin also wanted to meet the people of the Arael tribe at least once in this situation.

‘I need to check on my comrades. I’m scared because there’s no reason to keep Sir Jebeck or Shati Scott alive.’

From the perspective of the Heralds there is no reason to keep Scott the Shati Orc and the Knight of the King’s Church Zibek Nagain.

Even though Azadin is Arael’s twin it is unlikely that they would make a ‘concession’ to keep them alive so as not to upset Azadin’s feelings.

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‘I hope you’re okay.’

Azadin thought so and searched the food storage.

“Is this what it means to be poisoned?”

“Yes. As you can see it’s not like I was poisoned…”

They say it was poisoned but it would be better to think of it as contaminating food.

At first they tried to set fire to the warehouse but it was so humid that the fire didn’t catch on easily so they brought in animal carcasses and excrement and sprinkled the blood on the food to contaminate it.

After seeing this he killed the guard took out his entrails and then spread them over the food contaminating it.

This is what King Ancestus described as being poisoned.

“It’s ambiguous. Isn’t this just sabotage? Since they’ve already struck once there’s no guarantee they’ll come back here again.”

“Isn’t that so?”

The soldiers agreed.

“But if you say you were poisoned we will have a reason to investigate who poisoned you. We will investigate the soldiers the residents and the maids.”

“yes?”

The soldiers were confused. Wasn’t this the messenger Azadin saying that he would investigate the people inside the castle?

“Isn’t this His Majesty the King’s royal decree? Are you dissatisfied?”

“No over there…..”

The soldiers heard Azadin’s words and understood his intentions.

This spirit clan is trying to expand the king’s command to investigate those within the castle and weed out those belonging to the Arael tribe.

In other words he was trying to achieve his own goal by misinterpreting the king’s order. The problem was that it was true that there was a king’s order so the soldiers had no right to stop Azadin.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t be investigating under the guise of a messenger.”

Azadin said so and put his helmet back on.

“From now on call me Inspector Ephesus.”

*********

Refugees in the castle were mobilized to make arrows move stones and carry water.

To combat the constant pouring rain and wind and to prevent the madness of the Nether from taking hold if they remained still the castle’s defense chief called in civilians to work and provided them with food in return.

Thanks to this the castle became more lively and less madness spread but it was also a good environment for spies to operate.

Azadin began investigating civilians under the name of Inspector Ephesus.

There were about 20000 civilians who had taken refuge in the castle and it was impossible to investigate all of them.

However Azadin knew that the Heralds would be in an environment where they could enter the throne room at any time so he began to narrow down those who could access key facilities within the castle.

“Let’s examine the maids.”

“Huh? The maids?”

“okay.”

“The maids’ status is certain. And some of them are of noble blood so they are not people we can easily investigate.”

Being a royal maid was a job that required certain status and it was a good position for noble children who did not have magical talent to become priests or paladins of the king’s church.

So the soldiers could not have imagined that a herald clan would infiltrate the maids.

But Azadin shook his head.

“Is that so? On the other hand if you look pretty and classy ​​isn’t it a place that’s easy to invade?”

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“What is that?”

“If a beautiful woman who knows the difficult etiquette shows up with a letter of recommendation from a trustworthy person saying she is of noble birth how can anyone verify it?”

“But you can supervise the maids…”

“Yes. How is it that men and women are different?”

Even though the soldiers said so Azadin pulled down his helmet and smirked.

“I am now the Inspector General of Ephesus. Ahem.”

‘This kid?’

The soldiers were shocked by Azadin’s absurd behavior but they could not stop him. It was true although somewhat distorted that the king had ordered Azadin to investigate the incident.

“….”

Azadin received a list of maids from the head maid and started moving.

“Shall we go to the maids’ quarters?”

“Are you talking about the maids’ quarters?”

“I absolutely cannot.”

“You shouldn’t go inside the quarters. There will be agents approaching the maids.”

Azadin said that and headed towards the area near the inn. And then… he found a familiar figure.

A large stonemason wearing a leather cap was repairing a wall near the maids’ quarters…. His appearance looked familiar.

‘Isn’t it Kahsan?’

The messenger clan’s bow-breaker Kahsan is working here disguised as a stonemason. Perhaps he chose a job that would be easy to come by in order to share information closely with the person who infiltrated as a maid.

Kahsan was silently working seemingly unaware of Azadin who was wearing a helmet.

But the soldiers following Azadin said

“No matter how much His Majesty the King has ordered you to do so I cannot tolerate your disrespect for the maids.”

“Yes. It’s ridiculous to say there’s a messenger clan among the maids.”

“….”

At that moment Kahsan looked at Azadin absentmindedly.

-Throw!

Kahsan threw the chisel he was using to fix the wall at Azadin.

“Tch!”

Azadin felt that things had gone wrong because of the soldiers’ reckless remarks and swatted away the chisel flying at his face.

“Hic?!”

“Get out of the way!”

Azadin took off his helmet and swung it catching the flying rocks that were flying at the soldiers.

“Azadin?!”

“Kahsan. Since you’re here I guess Nephthys is here too?”

“Tch!”

Kahsan turned around and started to run away. The bear-sized creature moved so quickly that it disappeared in an instant.

“west!”

As Azadin pursued Kahsan ran and threw behind him whatever he could grab. Azadin released his cloak to ward off the flying objects and closed the distance between them as he pursued Kahsan.

“What the hell!”

“Whoa!”

A maid and a servant girl carrying laundry in front of Kahsan ended up bumping into each other.

Kassan grabbed the maid as if he was Azadin Bora and threw her down the stairs.

“Ugh!”

As Azadin flew forward to grab the maid and save her Kahsan cast a spell.

When you cast ‘Hwajopungwol Hwanghak’ on a small rock and shoot it it makes a sharp turn and flies towards a vital point.

It was usually a magic that greatly changed the horizontal direction of an arrow but since it also greatly increased the penetrative power this stone was literally like a spear.

Azadin drew up his own magical power and kicked the stone with the sole of his foot but Kahsan used the gap to further distance himself.

“Hey! This kid! Ugh….”

While Azadin was kicking his leg feeling it go numb from the stone that had caught the yellow crane Kahsan ran away.

“No that guy is huge. Ugh…..”

Azadin sighed and dragged his maids and servants into the hallway annoyed. The soldiers followed Azadin late.

“Huk…huk huk huk…”

“Wow you’re so damn fast!”

“But what happened to that messenger clan?”

“Oh really… Excuse me but could you shut your mouth a little? Are you going to advertise that you’re looking for the Herald Clan? The other person already found out because of you guys?”

“Because of us?”

“Yeah. I heard everything but I was looking for the messenger clan so I kept talking like that and it was useless to hide my face because the other person noticed and ran away.”

“Then will you report it to your superiors?”

The soldiers were terrified. If Azadin was right then it was their fault for failing in this mission and they could be beaten by their superiors.

The punishment for soldiers was flogging which involved tying them to a wooden pole and whipping their backs. It was such a cruel punishment that no one wanted to experience it.

“Okay. I missed it so I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll tell my superiors but I’ll cover up your mistakes.”

“….”

The soldiers were taken aback by Azadin’s unexpected words. The messenger clan was taking care of them.

“Then what are you going to do? Are you going to investigate the maids?”

“No. The maid who sneaked in just now would have noticed the commotion and run away. Instead go and ask the stonemasons.”

*********

Kahsan ran quickly and shook off Azadin’s pursuit but his sudden running within the castle was enough to attract the attention of those around him.

Moreover he was already a giant. He had such a strong impression that he attracted people’s curiosity. He killed people dumped their bodies and hid in the gaps to disappear.

Azadin went with his soldiers to meet the stonemason foreman.

“…He was very talented. I believed him when he said he was a stonemason from Lantaric.”

The stonemason foreman said that and broke out in a cold sweat.

“Who did he usually meet?”

“I am the maid Literua. I thought it was because it was said to be the old master’s house.”

“Literua? How tall is he? What color is his hair? What does he look like? Why was he working near the maids’ quarters? Who gave the orders to do his work?”

When Azadin asked quickly the stonemason foreman was taken aback.