Chapter 106
Chapter 106
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 106
Chapter Title: Orc Must Die 2
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“What?”
“I can overwhelmingly enhance your holy knight’s white magic. And that’s not all?”
Scott looked at Azadin.
“I can also strengthen that strange power you use.”
“…….”
“My employment contract with the nagas has just ended. Choosing you as my new employer doesn’t sound bad.”
“You’ll serve me? Can I interpret it that way?”
“Give and take—just an equal contractual relationship. But yes, the initiative is yours. As long as you don’t do anything too stupid.”
Azadin sighed. In truth, even if half of what Scott Macgreen promised came true, Azadin had no reason to refuse this offer. He absolutely had to accept.
“Got it. Orc necromancer.”
“Scott Macgreen.”
“I’ll accept the contract.”
“Wise choice. Brag about today’s decision to your descendants for generations.”
“Already regretting it a bit?”
Azadin began to wonder if he was doing the right thing.
*********
Azadin hitched his mountain goat to the wheelchair and started pulling Scott along. Ironically, Azadin was the one walking while Scott rode in the wheelchair.
“A prisoner going so comfortably?”
Midiam found that displeasing, but Scott replied.
“Then give me some of those corpses you’re carrying for burial. I’ll cast necromancy on their muscles and bones to push my wheelchair.”
“We can’t tolerate desecrating the dead.”
Zibek objected. Even Azadin, a faithful angel worshiper, opposed it on that point.
“Fine. Just let him ride the wheelchair. He says his muscles atrophy and he’ll die if he overexerts them.”
“It’s not like I’m just going along for free. I’ll share some of my knowledge on the way. Not sure if you lot can even comprehend it, but even a genius born like me has to learn how to live among the mediocre and the fools.”
Scott Macgreen spoke as if bestowing a great favor.
*********
There’s a saying that seeing an orc makes you want to kill it.
Any sane person would want to run from these evil brutes—massive, muscled bodies that inspire fear on sight, now wielding magic to boot. An orc’s forearm is thicker than a man’s thigh. Their bulging muscles everywhere scream violence whether you like it or not.
And yet, the rumor claims that seeing an orc fills you with murderous intent. It was hard to believe until you actually encountered one.
Now that he had, Azadin got it.
“Wow, every word out of your mouth is such a gem, it makes me want to kill you.”
Midiam couldn’t hold back her killing intent.
“Turning petty frustration into murder? How many people have you killed so far? With that intellect, you must have met plenty superior to you, and each time the impulse to kill must have gripped you. Tsk tsk. Your sins must run deeper than mine, a necromancer’s.”
If he could just shut up. Midiam grew furious, but Azadin held her back.
“Keep engaging him, and you’ll hear more. Just let it slide.”
“Huh?”
“More importantly, let’s hear about the New King Codex copies. First off, why did the New King Codex disappear? Where did the copies go, and why are they surfacing now? How do you plan to find the New King Codex? And what does ‘manifesting’ it mean?”
Scott scoffed at Azadin’s questions.
“Greedy one, aren’t you? Asking all that at once. I’ll explain calmly. First, we have to talk about King’s Radiance and the New King Codex. The King’s Radiance that the Yae Gas divine clan uses is a system for circulating white mana under powerful constraints. It’s a massive setup that converts people’s faith and reverence into power. The New King Codex is its blueprint and the essence of those constraints. The New King Codex is another form of King’s Radiance—its very essence. Understand that much?”
Scott doubted Azadin’s intellect. Could he grasp even this?
Azadin sighed as he pulled the wheelchair hitched to his mountain goat with a rope—Scott riding comfortably.
“I get that much. I was a mage’s apprentice, after all. So?”
“When your Herald Clan stole the New King Codex copies, King’s Radiance was already badly damaged. The Yae Gas divine clan—your human kings and nobles—had grown corrupt, weakening King’s Radiance. So your Herald Clan made huge sacrifices to create those copies. But they ended up absorbed into King’s Radiance.”
“What?”
“That’s unacceptable.”
Zibek, who had been listening, bristled with outrage. In truth, as a holy knight, Zibek had found this whole group intolerable from the start—a blasphemous assembly. Traveling with nagas and orcs, retainers of the Kurt divine clan.
Sure, they were Azadin’s prisoners, but Scott insisted on calling Azadin his employer, and Shati was walking freely on her own two feet, unbound.
If another holy knight saw them like this? Zibek’s position would be precarious. It was maddening enough already, and now this insolent orc prisoner was blaspheming holy knights and the king’s church right in front of him.
“Hmm, you think the kings and nobles aren’t corrupt? Holy knight?”
“…They are. The orc’s right.”
Brand backed the orc’s words.
“Oh.”
Zibek knew Brand’s circumstances.
Right. Claiming the kings and nobles weren’t corrupt was just Zibek’s stubbornness. In fact, many kings and nobles had fallen, even Zibek’s own master, Zekt.
“Wait—King’s Radiance absorbed the New King Codex? Not someone scattering them on the wind from world’s end?”
“What? You thought the New King Codex flew around on the breeze, popping up everywhere? I knew humans were stupid, but not this stupid. The foolish imagination never fails to surprise me.”
Azadin was fed up with this orc spouting insults so casually.
‘Is this guy insane? He’s a prisoner—why talk like that? Doesn’t he fear for his neck?’
But if the orc was telling the truth, what Azadin had heard growing up was...?
Azadin was the cursed child born during the New King Codex copy heist. His father was Acle, the traitor who supposedly scattered the New King Codex across the world—a fact drilled into his ears endlessly.
But if it was just King’s Radiance weakening...
‘Father wasn’t at fault? Then...?’
Azadin asked while thinking that.
“So why weren’t they appearing before, and why now?”
“Because King’s Radiance has weakened that much more. The Age of Jupiter approaches, and Yae Gas’s descendants realize their blood is thinning. More nobles and royals betray King’s Radiance and defect, accelerating the corruption in a vicious cycle that weakens it further.”
Scott mentioned the Age of Jupiter too.
“You Kurt divine clan worshipers believe in the Age of Jupiter too?”
Zibek asked, and Scott clicked his tongue.
“You Yae Gas worshipers seem to think the Yae Gas divine clan drove out this world’s darkness and ushered in a new era. That’s originally our Kurt divine clan myth. Yours is a plagiarism and theft of it. We Kurt divine clan fought the Nether evil gods to make this land one of life. When we were weakened from that struggle, the Yae Gas divine clan came and stole the position that was rightfully ours.”
“So you fear the Age of Jupiter too.”
“That’s why everyone’s scrambling around lately, isn’t it?”
Fair point. Azadin had met several Kurt divine clan followers so far. With the apocalyptic prophecy of the Age of Jupiter looming, they were all maneuvering to secure power and influence.
“So how do you find the New King Codex copies?”
“The New King Codex is fused with King’s Radiance. And King’s Radiance is bound by constraints and oaths. When the people face crisis, the New King Codex will manifest.”
“So you torment and slaughter them to force it out?”
“That’s something many Yae Gas divine clan members—your human nobles—already know. Doesn’t it ring a bell for you?”
Was Count Rantarique’s massacres part of that?
Come to think of it, Margrave Salasma had prioritized punishments over relief even as his people suffered drought. Maybe that was to manifest the New King Codex too.
“I take a far more intellectual approach. In places where King’s Radiance has sharply weakened from mass deaths, I can manifest the New King Codex with my magic.”
“So you’re claiming you didn’t participate in civilian massacres? How do I believe that’s not an excuse?”
“I dislike irreversible choices. Why slaughter humans to make it irreversible when I can manifest the New King Codex with my magic?”
“A necromancer?”
“Manipulating corpses efficiently is rational magic. And the world overflows with corpses even without me killing anyone. Necromancy is highly reversible and doesn’t require killing people. But fine—I’ll admit my undead might have killed prisoners held by soldiers. So convincing you I haven’t killed anyone personally is pointless, since even I don’t know.”
Azadin clicked his tongue at that.
‘This guy really had no interest in civilian massacres.’
“So what now? Going to kill me?”
“No.”
Azadin shook his head.
“I won’t kill you. I’ll just keep you as a prisoner until you’ve paid for your crimes.”
“Should’ve called it an employment contract.”
“No. We have a holy knight on our side. Hiring you would put him in a tough spot.”
“Fine. A smart guy like me can accommodate you idiots anytime.”
Everyone was speechless.
This bastard had just danced on death’s doorstep. If Azadin had pressed the civilian murder charge and executed him, no amount of orc muscle could have saved him in that wheelchair.
“Anyway, I’m hungry. My brain requires vast nourishment. You lot wouldn’t understand—intellect blooms from sustenance.”
“Hungry while being pulled along in a wheelchair? Hold it in.”
“No, I’m really hungry. It’s an orc trait.”
Scott Macgreen demanded food, but Azadin looked to his other companions. No one else was particularly hungry.
“We’ll talk after we cross.”
Azadin’s group found a boat hidden far from the encampment. They boarded it, crossed the Cora River to Count Rantarique’s territory, and set up camp.
By then, they’d endured Scott Macgreen’s hunger complaints several more times.
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