Chapter 91
Chapter 91
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 91
Chapter Title: Chapter 18 Birth of the Dragon Sword (6)
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At least during the Dragon Emperor War, he could understand why such humans existed. Back then, it was common for people to betray humanity and crawl under the Dragon Demon King’s army just to survive, and there were even those who sincerely believed the Dragon Demon King was a living god.
But why were such humans appearing now? Azel found that point hard to comprehend.
Enora said,
“You really sound like someone who lived through that era.”
“Wasn’t that the assumption we were going with?”
“It was. Hmm. But then doesn’t that make Sir Azel over two hundred years old? Should I start calling you ‘sir’ from now on?”
“I’d appreciate that in about forty years or so.”
Azel gave a wry smile.
9
Durang, the Black Swordsman—a human granted permission to dwell in the Dark Frozen Wastes despite being human, as a worshipper of the Dragon Demon King—remembered the day he had come to possess his great faith.
Humans are determined to be noble or base from birth. It doesn’t matter what their personality is like or how exceptional their abilities are. Those born base can never escape the shackles of their origin, no matter how capable they become, and must serve under the trash born to nobility.
Durang had been a slave at the very bottom of that unjust structure.
Of the seven kingdoms dominating the continent, only two had slavery. And in those places, the perception of slaves was little more than sewer filth.
From a young age, Durang had been praised for his sturdy frame and great strength. He towered a full head above his peers, and no one could match him in tasks requiring brute force.
As he grew, all the dirtiest jobs naturally fell to him. Whenever fists were needed, they called for him, and eventually, they even taught him a bit of martial arts to make better use of him.
Even so, Durang didn’t get arrogant. He knew that no matter how strong he became, he was nothing compared to knights who had mastered Spirit Order.
At the same time, he didn’t truly see them as great beings.
‘They’re just scared of us getting strong.’
That perception had formed as he learned martial arts. The moment he began learning the systematized techniques they had monopolized, a new world opened up.
Durang had a natural genius for martial arts. Even with the scraps they taught him grudgingly amid their abuse, he surpassed those who had trained properly by leaps and bounds.
That was when Durang realized.
‘Those bastards just inherited a lot.’
It was the same for martial arts and Spirit Order. They only seemed great because they monopolized knowledge. If that secret art were given equally to everyone, could they maintain their superiority?
His mistake had probably stemmed from that mindset.
‘Thank you. What was your name again?’
He had thrown himself into danger to save the master’s daughter from a monster attack during an outing. With her escorting knights dying pathetically, if Durang hadn’t fought on despite his grievous wounds, she would have lost her life too.
But instead of a reward, Durang found himself facing punishment.
‘A slave daring to touch a sword! Unforgivable!’
It was because he had used a dead knight’s sword to slay the monster.
Slaves were not permitted to hold weapons. Their masters allowed them sticks at most.
Especially a sword—even touching one by accident could get you killed, and everyone would see it as justified. To knights who viewed swords as symbols of honor, a lowly slave touching one was an unforgivable insult.
It sounded absurd, but in the place Durang lived, it was common sense. Those of noble birth never saw slaves as fellow humans. To them, slaves were less than cheap goods.
Durang despaired. At that time, he truly had no choices. He couldn’t win bare-handed, couldn’t break free unarmed, and if he had fled alone, he would have been executed for surviving while a noble perished.
‘You vile wretch! I pitied you enough to teach you martial arts, and you forget your place to steal swordsmanship?’
He was wronged. He had never learned swordsmanship. He had merely memorized a move or two from watching during martial arts lessons. And with that, he had slain the monster using a sword he had never held before.
Even after saving her life, seeing them red-faced as if he had committed some heaven-defying atrocity, Durang harbored an unforgivable thought in his heart.
‘Fucking idiots.’
The so-called knights were inferior to him, a complete novice with a sword—retards. And they called it a crime for doing what they couldn’t?
The one who saved such a Durang was the master’s daughter he had rescued.
“Please forgive him.”
She pleaded with her father, and his punishment was waived. Though he wasn’t simply released—he was stripped naked, bound head to toe in iron chains, and locked in an underground solitary cell without water for five days.
Afterward, she took an interest in Durang.
‘Durang? No matter how I look at it, that doesn’t sound like a slave’s name.’
She made him her personal servant and kept him by her side.
But she wasn’t a particularly kind master. She threw tantrums over trifles and vented her anger on her inferiors as if it were natural.
Durang was the target countless times. Then one day, as she was beating him with a switch in a fit of rage, she did something utterly unexpected.
‘Hmph. Compared to that scrawny bastard, you’re better off.’
After breaking up with her boyfriend, she dragged Durang to bed to vent her frustration.
Durang was nineteen then. But it wasn’t his first time. By then, he was already a two-meter-tall hunk of solid muscle, with a handsome, rugged face that had drawn lustful gazes from women countless times.
After that intense night, she began craving his body whenever the mood struck.
Her fierce possessiveness forced him to cut ties with the female slaves he had been involved with before. One who couldn’t let go and secretly seduced him was caught in her sight and suffered horribly.
But otherwise, nothing changed. She still beat him with switches to vent and hurled insults without hesitation.
Durang accepted the relationship stoically. Not because it was good. Because he had no choice.
The problem was… even if a slave was the victim, they became the greater sinner than the perpetrator.
‘You dare touch my daughter! I forgave your great sin, and you repay kindness by laying hands on her?’
She had gotten pregnant with Durang’s child.
It was only natural. After mixing bodies day and night without end, it would have been stranger if she hadn’t.
When the truth came out, the whole household was turned upside down. Durang was doing his morning chores as a servant when he was beaten bloody for no reason and dragged into the courtyard.
She was there too. The words from her tear-streaked face shattered the heart of Durang, who had long since stopped expecting anything.
“I-I only kept him by my side out of pity for saving my life by throwing himself in harm’s way, but he… he forced himself on me when no one was looking… Sob. I was too scared to tell anyone…….”
Durang wasn’t the only one stunned by her words. Though she had made her underlings keep quiet from her parents’ ears, they all knew the truth. Her family probably suspected too.
But they didn’t care about the truth. A lowly slave bedding their daughter was reason enough for Durang to die.
They said he didn’t deserve a clean death for such a grave sin. They beat him until he was a bloody mess, rubbed salt in his wounds, chained him, and threw him in the underground dungeon. They would repeat it daily until he died.
By the third day, Durang cursed his own foolishness for not killing himself early. His body was bound, gag in mouth—he couldn’t even end it himself.
But on the fourth day, a miracle occurred.
No one came to him even after morning. Instead, explosions and screams echoed from outside.
What was happening? Curious, but Durang could do nothing but await his encroaching death.
Then, a Dragon Demon man appeared before him.
“What vicious bastards. Treating an innocent like this—I killed them too mercifully.”
The man who slaughtered the master’s family and rescued Durang was Saibain, son of the great Dragon Demon King Atein.
The reason Saibain knew Durang’s situation was simple. There had been Dragon Demon worshippers in the household.
Durang hadn’t known, but the faith in the Dragon Demon King had quietly spread among the slaves. The emotions he had felt in life were the perfect soil for accepting that faith. The world condemned the Dragon Demon King faith as unforgivable evil, but weren’t those shouting it down the true embodiment of injustice and malice?
‘Humans are equal. Birth status is merely a deception by the wicked and cannot be a true measure of worth. Only the Dragon Demons, born superior to humans, standing above them to show the right path—that is the true form the world should take.’
At the end of his unjust life, Durang resolved to dedicate his existence to the Dragon Demon King faith that had saved him.
Over forty years passed since then.
Durang desperately built his strength, becoming one of the rare human Dragon Demon worshippers permitted to dwell in the Dark Frozen Wastes. Even the Dragon Demons of noble blood and the Dragon Demon Hybrids respected his prowess and achievements, treating him with courtesy.
He had fought in countless battles. Each time, he had taken innumerable lives.
No regrets stained his blood-soaked life. For the right world, for the day the great savior would return—he would give everything.
That was why Durang could not forgive those who defended this unjust world and denied the great truth.
10
To the world, the Dragon Demon worshippers were no different from devil worshippers—an organization of fanatics. They deified the Dragon Demon King and unyieldingly believed the already dead and gone one would return to right this flawed world.
But not everyone in the Dragon Demon worshipper organization shared that ideal. Just as they hid their true faces to blend into the world, there were those among them with other motives.
Naturally, the Dragon Demon worshippers did not forgive such people. They rooted them out thoroughly and ended them cruelly.
Durang had executed countless betrayers. So even seeing a traitor in such a pitiable state that death seemed preferable, he felt no emotion.
Grabbing the traitor by the collar and hoisting him up, Durang demanded in a rage-filled voice,
“Yuren—where is that vile traitor who chose such a sinful name?”