Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Demon of the Gold Coin 2
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As dawn approached, the knight woke her.
“Get up. I’m leaving, so support him again. But….”
The knight looked at his fiancée hanging from the rope.
“I don’t think you need to support him anymore.”
The fiancée was already dead.
But the girl stubbornly wedged her body underneath his with a frame that had no business recovering yet.
“Ha.”
The knight shook his head and turned away.
“You?”
“I’m too ashamed to give my name.”
“Still, I need to know your name. The Herald Clan will come soon, and you’ll beg them to spare you.”
“Hm. Herald Clan?”
The knight clicked his tongue at the name.
“The God-King Slayers, the soulless blasphemers? You petitioned them? I don’t even know if they’re still around, but even if they do show up here, Young Lord Kozel commands twenty well-armed soldiers, and I’m here too, and besides, the young lord… has blue blood.”
Blue blood wasn’t sarcasm or metaphor.
Nobles and royals who wielded magic truly had divine blood—the blood of the Yaegas deities—running through their veins. No ordinary human could stand against those who commanded powers beyond mortal grasp.
But the girl only let out a feeble hee-hee laugh.
“Even a mage—the Herald Clan can kill them. Because they’re mages too.”
The girl had seen the gold coin vanish and the bird speak in human tongue. What else proved the Heralds were mages?
Of course, they were called God-King Slayers precisely because they’d killed kings with divine blood, earning that infamous title.
The Herald Clan would come and deliver vengeance. Until then, she just had to hold on somehow.
“Hm. You’re not right in the head. Then again, too much has happened. More than any one person could bear.”
The knight pitied her clearly abnormal state.
“I’ll come again tonight. My name is Zibek. I’m a holy knight of the King’s Church. I’m not telling you this so you can beg the God-King Slayer for your life. If he shows, I’ll fight him with everything I have.”
“…….”
Having revealed his own name, the knight hunched low as the sun rose and slipped away into the morning haze.
*********
It was a day when the sunlight stung especially harsh.
Knight Zibek fretted whether the girl could possibly endure another one like this, but… he couldn’t let that worry show on his face beside Kozel, son of the margrave.
“Hey, teacher, smile. Not enjoying yourself?”
Kozel scooped water from the drying well and splashed it over his body.
“You can’t collect taxes if you kill off the people.”
“Dissatisfied wanderers roaming free will just breed more bandits.”
“The margrave has other fertile lands. Evacuate the people there, and they can weather the drought.”
“Why should children born in fertile lands bear the burden for these wretched fools? Just give this land to those born in bountiful places. They’ve earned merit; these ones committed faults.”
“Farming isn’t decided by personal talent. It’s the soil, the climate, and the heavens.”
“And the King’s Radiance. Isn’t that the King’s Church teaching?”
“…….”
“They’re suffering this drought because they showed disloyalty to the King’s Church. That’s the doctrine, right?”
“That’s taking it too far.”
Zibek stated it firmly, but… as a lowborn holy knight of the King’s Church, even he couldn’t defy Kozel—who bore divine blood—any further.
The margraviate’s population outstripped its farmland.
Better to slaughter them here, seize their property, and resettle the land later than let them flee as vagrant rabble sowing chaos.
Kozel had come to carry out the margrave’s will on that front.
The villagers knew none of this. They believed that staying meek and unresisting would spare them, that those already slain had simply paid the price for defying a great noble.
“I’m doing this to save the people, teacher. If you’re so keen to save them in defiance of my orders, then you go ahead and try.”
“Wahahahaha.”
The soldiers roared with laughter.
They were divvying up the spoils, tearing into meat and booze, reveling in it all. To them, Kozel—son of the margrave—was the ideal employer. He led the plundering himself and handed out generous shares of the loot, so their loyalty ran deep.
For Zibek, though—a holy knight—it was utterly revolting. Yet duty as a holy knight held him fast.
*********
That night, Zibek headed to the village outskirts once more to aid the girl.
Soon, he frowned. Despite last night’s treatment and help, she hadn’t made it through the day.
The girl lay dead on the ground, her spouse dangling in the breeze, swaying to the eerie whistle of wind.
“Couldn’t hold out in the end. Even if the Herald Clan came now, it’d be pointless.”
Zibek muttered to himself, then realized he felt regret.
Regret over what?
As a holy knight sworn to the King’s Church, was he truly hoping those soulless blasphemers would show up and punish the margrave’s son? The very thought was profane.
“Foolish.”
Zibek sighed and approached the fallen girl. That was when it happened.
-Shing.
A keen blue blade was suddenly at his throat.
“Stop. Move, and I cut. Don’t even turn this way.”
A young man’s voice issued the warning. Zibek jolted in shock at the blade now pressed to his vital point.
There’d been no one there before—just a barren stretch with a few trees—and now this, a knife at his neck out of nowhere? Ghostly skill.
“Herald Clan? For real?”
“Yeah, but you don’t strike me as the petitioner. A knight? One of the Knights of Courage, maybe?”
“Zibek of the King’s Church.”
“…Ah.”
Disappointment colored the young man’s voice.
“Just checking—you’re not the petitioner, right? Though a holy knight from the King’s Church making a petition would be pretty amusing.”
“You trying to insult me!”
Zibek bristled with anger.
“So the petitioner’s dead. Got the gold coin for free, at least… Mind filling me in on the situation?”
“Pull that blade from my throat and give me some distance, and I’ll tell you everything on my honor.”
“Hm. Sounds like you’re confident you wouldn’t have fallen so easily without the ambush. Fine, then. A holy knight of the King’s Church ought to have that much backbone.”
In an instant, the young man’s form blurred, and he was suddenly a full spear’s length away.
“Impressive.”
Zibek marveled at the movement.
A ghost? Magic?
“You a mage?”
“All Heralds are mages. Except me, that is….”
“Not magic?”
“Superhuman physical prowess is tough to tell from magic.”
“No idea what you’re on about. What’s your name? Your rank as a Herald?”
“…….”
“I already gave you mine. Zibek of the King’s Church.”
“Oh, right? My apologies. I’m a Herald of the Emperor, 108th Herald Azadin. In the eastern dialects, they call me Asahdin.”
With that, the young man bowed gracefully. He was tall, wearing a hat adorned with a pheasant feather and folded at the edges, a bird-shaped mask concealing his eyes and nose.
“The 108th Herald…”
The Emperor’s Heralds numbered 108 at most. Meaning the one before him was the lowest rank. Yet that withdrawal just now marked him as no ordinary soul.
“Now then, as promised—tell me what happened.”
“Well…”
Zibek recounted everything he knew about the tragedy that had befallen the girl and her family.
*********
“Ah, so that’s how it is…”
Azadin of the Herald Clan clicked his tongue once the tale was done. At that moment, an owl swooped in and alighted before him.
[The contract is already fulfilled. The gold coin is yours, 108th Herald Azadin. Proceed to your other duties.]
Zibek started at the sound of the bird’s voice. A talking bird was startling enough, but the message itself left him even more unsettled.
“The petitioner’s dead, so you just take the pay and bail?”
“Oh? So the holy knight of the King’s Church hopes the petition succeeds? Not great for your lord’s son, the margrave’s boy.”
“Ugh.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Zibek realized his blunder and drew his sword.
“That won’t happen, soulless blasphemer. I’ll cut you down myself.”
“Come off it?”
Azadin gave a wry smile at the knight leveling his blade.
“You stayed silent before injustice, and now you’d stain your sword with my blood? Doesn’t that make you sad?”
“…….”
“Angry? At me? Or at yourself, for that silence in the face of wrong?”
“What would you know….”
“I may be ignorant, but I know more than you think.”
Azadin pointed to the sky.
“Do you know the constellations up there? The names of the stars, and the myths entwined with them?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What are you getting at?”
Zibek faltered at Azadin’s sudden bizarre turn.
What was this blasphemer prattling on about?
“Whether a man possesses an eye for beauty or not—same sight, different feelings. To one, protagonists of myth; to another, just pale flickers in the dark, insignificant specks that might as well not exist.”
Azadin gestured toward the corpses.
“The soldiers saw their violation differently than you did.”
“No difference. I couldn’t do a thing.”
“No, that’s not true. You healed the petitioner. You waited for me.”
“But I’m a knight of the King’s Church. I must revere those who inherit the God-King’s blood!”
“I don’t want to fight you, holy knight. If you pitied that girl, then your sword isn’t my enemy.”
“…….”
Zibek fell silent, and Azadin turned his back. It was the perfect moment to strike, but Zibek felt no urge to swing at this Herald.
Then Azadin’s hand moved. Sword light flashed, slicing the arborvitae ropes. The suspended corpses tumbled down.
Azadin caught one adult male corpse midair with a single hand, extended a foot to cradle another as it fell, and gently set them both on the ground.
“…….”
Stunning body control. Stunning swordsmanship.
Zibek prided himself on his own skill, but even he could tell this man was like a monster—several cuts above.
So this was the power of the Herald Clan.
With strength like that, cutting him down would be child’s play…?