Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: penny
Chapter: Prologue
Chapter Title: Arch-Nemeses Siblings
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The Yaegas Eight King Gods.
They were revered as saviors who liberated humanity from lands ruled by wicked ancient deities, establishing eight royal thrones across this continent.
‘When the rightful king ascends the throne, the radiant light of King's Transformation safeguards the world.’
The throne's masters, empowered by this great force, were called Divine Kings and received the worship of all.
But then the Emperor appeared.
Emperor Yaeslat.
He conquered the other Divine Kings, his kin-like brethren, and claimed all eight thrones of the Yaegas God Clan for himself. Yet he required servants capable of slaying the Yaegas God Clan at his command...
Those who remembered the Eight Kings' grace refused to sully their hands with the Divine Kings' sacred blood.
It was then that five galleons wrecked upon their distant shores from another continent, carrying a people who called themselves the Aragasa.
The Emperor approached them and took them as his vassals. Without hesitation, they murdered the Divine Kings and stained their hands with that holy blood.
The people dubbed them the Emperor's Heralds, the Herald Clan, despising and loathing them...
When the Emperor perished and the empire splintered back into the Eight Kingdoms,
the Herald Clan fell as well.
*********
After the empire's collapse, the Herald Clan lost all power and faced persecution. Even within the clan, one pair of siblings endured the harshest scorn...
These siblings were the children of a clan traitor.
The girl's name was Arael.
The boy's name was Azadin.
They bore the names of protagonists from the myths the Herald Clan believed before arriving on these shores.
The Angel of Justice Arael and the Blind Evil Dragon Azadin—Arch-Nemeses locked in battle from the world's dawn to its dusk.
Naming the siblings after these Arch-Nemeses hinted at the clan's deep hatred.
Yet the girl named Arael possessed striking beauty, exceptional talent, potent magic, and an arrogant temperament, growing into a force none could ignore.
The boy named Azadin, by contrast, had been blind from birth and utterly powerless.
*********
A martial spirit could become a merciless whip lashing the weak, and the environment proved unbearably cruel to the clan's frailest boy.
As the boy groaned under wounds of body and soul, one figure approached.
"Fools, rolling a jewel through the mud. No one recognizes this brat's true worth. Tsk."
He extended a hand to the boy.
"Rejoice, whelp. You've been chosen as the disciple of the great Kazas. I'll forge you into the strongest Herald there is."
"Huh?"
"What's with the 'huh'? This is the moment to shed tears of gratitude. Taking a disciple isn't something I do every day."
"The strongest Herald—even stronger than Arael?"
"Exactly. To claim the title of strongest, you'll have to surpass your sister, won't you?"
"She's not my sister—she's my younger sister."
"Look at this cheeky brat. Do I need the details? Whatever. Will you be my disciple or not?"
"Could I maybe become a Salvation Knight too?"
Remarkably, this Herald Clan boy held faith in the Salvation Knights.
Their creed—that through courage, wisdom, and mercy, anyone, regardless of birth, could wield the mighty power of white magic—had been his spiritual anchor amid the brutal persecution, especially for one unable to cast spells.
"Salvation Knights? Those fools? Sure, you could. I just wouldn't recommend it."
*********
Rumors briefly swirled through the holy domain that the enigmatic elder Kazas—known only by name among the Herald Clan—had taken Azadin, the very emblem of blindness, incompetence, and weakness, as his disciple.
The other Heralds grew intensely curious about the truth, but no further word came, and years dragged on.
Then, on the tenth year,
Elder Kazas invoked his authority to forcibly appoint Azadin as the 108th Herald, bypassing all standard procedures.
The Emperor's Heralds—limited to just 108 per generation—were both a curse and an honored rank among the Herald Clan.
Countless strove and competed to become one, often barely succeeding, so the clan's outrage boiled over this outrageous act of elevating the incompetent Azadin by force.
Yet Azadin was already the 108th Herald, departing for the southeastern frontier.
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Devil of the Gold Coin 1
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The girl received a gift from her fiancé.
It was a gold coin stamped with the face of a man she didn't recognize.
"What's this?"
Her fiancé glanced warily around. Nothing but rocky hills and flocks of sheep nearby, yet he whispered in fear someone might overhear.
"It's an Emperor's gold coin."
"An Emperor's gold coin?"
"Yeah. Ever heard of the Herald Clan?"
"Oh, the soulless ones?"
The Herald Clan were the legendary race known as Divine King slayers, soulless wretches, harbingers of doom—vile names aplenty.
Even an unlearned girl like her had heard the name in tales used to frighten children.
"Yeah. They say this coin can summon those soulless ones. But be careful. Just possessing one gets you executed by the King's Church inquisitors."
"Ek?"
She nearly dropped the coin in shock.
"You're giving me something that dangerous as a gift?"
"Haha. Just in case, you know? If something happens to us... Draw a triangle on the ground and place the coin in the center. A Herald will come to help."
He smiled as he said it.
"Hope we never need it."
*********
That spring brought a brutal drought.
Not a drop of rain until sowing season. Wells ran dry, and terrified folk began fleeing.
But Margrave Kazel, their lord, deemed desertion a grave crime and dispatched soldiers to quell them.
The soldiers' leader was the margrave's son, Young Lord Kozel—a powerful mage, or so they said, with Divine King blood in his veins.
He strung up fleeing villagers on trees and seized their possessions. He requisitioned the village hall as his camp and summoned local maidens to "assist" him there.
Women dragged off and ravaged by the margrave's bandit-like troops returned in wretched states, striking even greater fear into the people.
The girl resolved to flee with her fiancé's family. But Young Lord Kozel—truly a mage, it seemed—blocked their escape route.
"That's the problem with you lot."
Kozel mimed shaving his beard with his longsword's edge, gazing at the terrified farmers with contempt.
"Even beasts know gratitude, so why are you worse than beasts? You live by our grace—Divine bloodline. A little drought and you panic and run? Such ingratitude!"
"Th-that's not it."
"Please, at least the children..."
The girl and her fiancé's elders pleaded, but the soldiers cackled and lunged, skewering the children on spears in an instant.
"Enough!"
Young Lord Kozel halted them.
"You idiots, so utterly lacking in imagination."
"Y-yes, young lord."
"We're too ignorant to know. How do we make it fun?"
The soldiers snickered like mischievous boys, kicking the impaled children's corpses to free their spears.
"First, hoist them onto a fairly high tree. Have the children bear their parents' weight, and wives support their husbands."
"Ah!"
The soldiers admired the idea's cruel cleverness. Soon they looped nooses with expert skill over a massive zelkova at the village edge.
The branches weren't that sturdy—how many had they hanged here before to manage it so easily? Certainly more than one or two.
"Ah... no. Sapia! Run!"
Her fiancé panicked as soldiers closed in, trying to shove her to safety—but in that instant, a sharp blade whistled through flesh.
Kozel had split her fiancé's back open.
"Ah, damn—too deep. He'll die too quick now... my mistake."
Young Lord Kozel giggled, approaching with his bloodied sword in hand.
"No problem. Tie a rope around his waist. He'll last as long as the others."
The snickering soldiers looped a rope around her still-living fiancé's waist, tied sandbags to his ankles, and hoisted him up.
Nooses around the girl's neck and her fiancé's family's, with young children crushed beneath like stepping stones, gasping.
"Now, farm girl. Support your man. Hanging like that, their vessels will burst and kill them."
They positioned her directly under her fiancé.
To ease his burden, she couldn't so much as twitch.
"Good. Hold him up. No moving. Got it?"
"Kekekeke..."
From amid the soldiers, one knight with a stony face muttered.
"Don't spill the Divine King's blood so carelessly."
"Hm?"
Kozel halted mid-sneer.
The man had silver-gray hair and a dour expression that aged him beyond his early thirties, marking him as a northerner. His silver locks bespoke thick Yaegas God Clan blood—but these seemed more premature gray than anything.
His grayish-blue eyes stared not at those before him but off into the distance, exuding weariness and ennui from every fiber. Yet he concealed an uncommon sharpness, like an ancient sword still sheathed.
"Well, if it isn't Sir Zivek. My old swordmaster."
"Must you go this far to punish them? As a noble of Divine blood, at least maintain some decorum."
"Decorum? That's rich coming from you. As long as word doesn't leak, my decorum's intact, isn't it? Or what—you planning to gossip, Sir Zivek? You, a holy knight, undermining the dignity of a noble bloodline recognized by the King's Church?"
"Truth can't be hidden forever. Is decorum truly that difficult?"
"I've got hot blood to spare. I prefer venting it when I please and silencing mouths after. Which is why..."
"Shall we finish him?"
The armed soldiers began encircling the man called Sir Zivek.
"No, don't. Listen, teacher—for old times' sake from my youth, I'm sparing you. Understand?"
"......"
Humiliation, dismay, and pain flickered across the knight's face.
"Whip."
At Young Lord Kozel's shout, a soldier fetched a whip.
He lashed it across the girl.
-Snap!
Agony tore through her as flesh split, and she staggered. Yet she didn't fall, summoning every ounce of strength to bear her fiancé's weight.
"There, happy now? Lighten up, teacher. Let's enjoy life."
"......"
"Now then—endure as long as you can, farm girl."
*********
Young Lord Kozel and his soldiers left the girl's family dangling from the tree, their possessions looted.
The girl stood there, enduring excruciating pain, the crushing weight, all the torment and humiliation.
"Sapia, I was wrong... Run."
"Ipan."
She shook her head, calling her fiancé's name.
Blood dripped steadily from beneath her feet. The wound's pain intensified.
Even if she abandoned him and fled, she felt she wouldn't survive much longer.
"......"
Suddenly, she remembered she still had the Emperor's gold coin, tucked into a sewn inner pocket.
"Will an Emperor's Herald really come? The Herald Clan?"
Curious despite everything, she traced a triangle on the ground with her feeble toes.
Just drawing a triangle on parched earth, and blood drops fell upon it.
Laboriously finishing the triangle while bracing the sandbag, she carefully drew the gold coin from her inner pocket and let it fall into the center.
Light emanated from the coin, softly flowing along the etched triangle.
"Ah!"
The tales were true. Astonished, she called to her fiancé.
"Ipan, did you see?"
"......"
But her fiancé made no reply.
The coin melted away, sinking into the earth. Moments later...
A rare owl swooped in from nowhere and perched beside the zelkova.
[Petitioner who craves the Emperor's justice.]
A voice emanated from the owl.
[The nearest Herald will arrive in about two days. Endure until then.]
"Tw-two days?"
She recoiled in horror.
In her state—and her fiancé's—they couldn't possibly hold out that long.
"What if we can't?"
[The petition is voided, and the coin becomes the Herald's retainer fee.]
"Th-that's..."
No time to rejoice at the magic's reality—she realized she must now survive the harshest two days of her life.
*********
Amid blistering winds that parched the earth and cracked stones, the girl endured a torment worse than death.
Unable to sleep, her wounded body clutching the sandbag, she stood resolute. As the sun set, a human shadow approached her.
Whether from the encroaching dark or her blurring vision, she couldn't see clearly—but cold liquid wet her lips.
Water.
"Wh-who..."
"Shh."
The stranger bid her silence and propped a pole beneath to lighten the load. Her shoulders eased suddenly, and she collapsed in a heap.
"Can you eat?"
"......"
"Pity your husband won't last. Wound's too deep. But you might pull through with treatment."
"Who are you?"
"Just sneaking around like you. If the young lord catches me, it'll cost me a reprimand."
"......"
She realized it was one of the soldiers—Sir Zivek, the only one who had resisted Young Lord Kozel.
"Eat."
The man fed her dried fruit and slumped down himself.
"May I treat your wound?"
"......"
She was bewildered. Her mind, fogged and delirious, couldn't grasp why an enemy would show mercy now.
But one thing was clear: she had to hold out until the Herald arrived.
"Please."
"Very well."
He poured water to clean the gash with bandages, then spread ointment over it.
"Wrapping it will show. Rest a bit. I'll stand watch here until sunrise."
She didn't fully trust the man, but her eyes closed of their own accord, and she fell asleep.