Chapter 202
Chapter 202
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 202
Chapter Title: The Clan's Betrayer
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As Azadin stepped out of the audience chamber, his comrades were waiting.
He shared an emotional reunion with Jis, the Daoist of the Azure Banner Hall, their eyes brimming with tears.
"Glory upon glory. Azadin. Even the Heavenly Lord rejoices."
Was it because he had felt the Golden King Manja-Zadek's profound favor? Jis went on endlessly praising Azadin, extolling how exceptional a hero he was and what a glorious position had been promised to him, his mouth never running dry.
"So the Golden King Manja-Zadek is a pig like that."
Midiam was appalled by Manja-Zadek's outrageous appearance. Scott, on the other hand, was moved.
"So incredibly sensual!"
"...What?"
Sensual? A word that shouldn't have popped up suddenly did.
"Did you see that thick layer of flesh hiding those abs? It's ideal."
From the perspective of orcs whose muscles bulged even with a breath, Manja-Zadek's body, packed full of fat, was precisely the ideal form they dreamed of.
Scott caressed his own rock-hard abdomen with regret.
"Sigh. If only I could be half as good as the Golden King. Look at this ugly body of mine. In contrast, Manja-Zadek truly lives up to being the Golden King. I'm falling for him."
"......"
Orc aesthetics are so different from human ones. He realized that anew.
"Anyway, what he's offering is truly outrageous. With rewards like that, the clan can be preserved intact. Starting the fight with King Brtuma's amnesty— from the clan's perspective, win or lose, it's fine... they won't face extermination, right? And afterward, all the power will be in your hands."
Ismail knew Azadin wasn't thrilled about the reward and said it to tease him, but even as he spoke, it sounded like pretty good terms.
"That comes after winning. From now on, they won't let their guard down. Plus, if my master is leading, he'll know more about me than anyone."
It was then that Azadin said this. Sure enough, the Silarp crow cawed once more. It was the voice of the blood sorcerer Joan.
"Disaster, Gold Lion Herald. An incredible figure is attacking the prison!"
"An incredible figure?"
"Kazas! It's Kazas!"
"......"
Azadin's master, Elder Kazas, was personally attacking the prison.
He had been told that Kazas was the one directing the assault right now, but for him to join the attack himself...
'He's calling for me.'
*********
On a moonless night, the storm had paused for a moment, but the air was still as heavy and humid as water itself.
Despite that, it held heat, so sweat didn't evaporate at all—an unpleasant night air mingled with the scent of blood.
By the time Azadin's group arrived at the prison, a festival of blood was already underway. Halldun's gang, freed from the prison, along with Elder Kazas and Sion Etar, were piling up corpses.
Many sorcerers and Brtuma soldiers had already fallen as corpses, and even the war elephants were moving under Kazas's control, their heads marked with blood-red runes.
Kazas had orchestrated that situation yet hadn't left; he was waiting for someone.
"Gold Lion Herald."
The soldiers had cornered Kazas and the herald clansmen in front of the prison building and were at a loss.
Any closer, and they'd die without fail.
No matter how many they threw in, they couldn't subdue those herald clansmen.
"I'll handle him."
Azadin pulled back the soldiers and stepped forward himself to face Kazas.
"You're finally here, Azadin."
"Master."
Azadin gazed at his master.
-Rumble.
The sky, which had quieted for a moment, boiled once more, and with a roar from the sea, the wind and rain began surging in.
*********
In Azadin's powerless childhood, he was scorned and despised by the entire clan.
Even his blood sister wounded him, and while Aldis, the only one who cared for him, was too busy with duties to look after him well, the one who gladly took him in was Kazas.
'You help with my research, and I'll give you the power to become a herald. We give and take what's ours, so don't make it too heavy.'
Kazas had drawn a line and said that to Azadin.
But the society of the herald clan Aragasa was one where you couldn't survive without power. In that world, Kazas had essentially given Azadin the strength to live.
That grace was too immense to compare to anything.
"Yes. So you were the betrayer, Azadin."
Kazas greeted Azadin alongside the herald clansmen he had brought. The humid air stifled their breaths.
"Master."
"I told you, didn't I? You and I are just giving and taking what we owe each other. So if that's your will, I want nothing from you. I've never done you any special favors, after all."
"......"
In the past, when Kazas taught Azadin the Kazas Manual and said that, Azadin had actually been glad to hear it.
Anyone could say they didn't expect repayment for a favor. But when the one who bestowed it said it, the weight was worth a thousand gold.
Now, meeting again like this, Kazas was still drawing a line with Azadin. But it no longer carried the same meaning as before.
"I'm here now to deal with the clan's betrayer. Azadin. Not as master and disciple, but as you yourself—answer me. Why did you betray the clan?"
"Wasn't it the council of elders who betrayed the clan first? The curse of servitude was placed on us by the council, not the emperor..."
"Aren't all the clansmen standing here right now? You're the only one opposing the clan, yet you call the council betrayers? Ah, not alone, are you?"
Kazas glanced at Midiam and Ismail beside Azadin.
"Isn't the reason the clansmen are doing this for profit? Teaming up with nagas, using Nether sorcery to slaughter the Hybris folk and seize what they have."
"Yes. That's right."
"I can't accept that."
"Are you going to punish the entire clan? Who gave you that right?"
"Then who gave the clan the authority to harm the Hybris folk? At least I'm acting on my mission as the emperor's herald, my conscience, and my aesthetics."
"Ha."
Kazas gave a wry smile as he watched Azadin stand his ground without yielding an inch.
"Aldis made a foolish mistake."
Was he referring to appointing Azadin as the 2nd Herald?
Or to raising him while passing on his own aesthetics and dreams?
"Does Aldis know about this?"
"That siding with the nagas means sacrificing the Hybris folk? Of course she knows. Aldis isn't a fool. It'd be a lie if she didn't know what results her choices would bring."
"Why? The Aldis I knew wouldn't make that choice."
"Azadin. You know one thing about Aldis and not the other two. Aldis is Hatir's daughter."
"I knew that much."
No one had spoken of it, but everyone in the clan knew Aldis was the 2nd Herald's daughter.
"She's the sentimental type. That's why she has no choice but to prioritize blood and clan. The clan has endured persecution from the Hybris folk for so long—how could she refuse her revered father's request?"
Aldis never outright rebelled against the clan's decisions. She just tried to minimize unnecessary bloodshed within them, going along with the greater flow.
"Then why do you heed Hatir's words?"
"Because I promised."
"Promised?"
"Yes. I promised Harkonia I would protect her son. A very long time ago..."
The moment Kazas uttered Harkonia's name, his voice carried an unmistakable longing that let Azadin grasp the situation immediately.
What bound the non-Aragasa Kazas to the herald clan was an old promise.
For the promise to the woman he loved, who belonged not to him but to the emperor, this man had upheld a mission no one forced upon him for centuries.
"Aldis is the same, Azadin. I want you to be happy, but if that goes against Hatir's will, I'll have no choice but to exclude you. Is that what you want? Do you really have to go that far?"
"......"
Elder Kazas pitied Azadin.
He had said no with his words, that it wasn't a favor but mutual gain, but he clearly pitied him.
But it couldn't compare to Hatir.
The same went for Aldis.
They pitied and felt sorry for Azadin, but if he opposed their most precious being, the 2nd Herald Hatir, they would cut him off.
'I see. I'm... such an idiot. To them, it was cheap pity.'
Kazas and Aldis had been Azadin's soul's very haven.
Yet what they gave him was cheap pity—something light they could offer anyone, like a morning greeting.
If it had been anyone else in such a plight, they would have extended that same kindness.
But Azadin had made that fleeting kindness his soul's haven and lived by it.
Because he had never been loved.
So even small pity he cherished within himself as love.
And now, betraying the clan would cost him even that haven.
Do you really have to?
Are you prepared for that?
That's what Kazas was asking.
*********
"Ha... hahaha."
Laughter suddenly burst out.
'Good thing I have no eyes. Tears would have been pathetic. Damn. This drains my strength. Maybe I should just give up.'
The thought crossed his mind.
If he gave up here, if Azadin, holder of the Gold Lion Herald title, sided with the clan, Brtuma would fall in an instant.
The resistors would be massacred, the royal guard purged, but surrendering the throne easily might be the way to resolve this with less blood.
But.
He loved the stars.
And he loved the tales of the Three Great Archangels who descended from the world of stars to protect humanity, and the Salvation Knights who fought at their side.
He might never have been loved...
But everything he loved was sincere.
So even if it meant being abandoned by the clan and left alone, he couldn't deny that sincerity.
Azadin drew his ultra steel longsword.
"So that's your answer."
Seeing Azadin's response, Kazas placed his hand on his sword hilt as well.
He didn't demand words from Azadin. Opening his mouth now would surely let a trembling voice betray a pathetic sight.
Azadin silently raised his sword.
But right then—
Lightning struck the Brtuma palace.
"!?"
And the air began to change. Rain clouds surged from the sea, and atop those clouds, a colossal shadow loomed over the world.
The King's Radiance rapidly weakened, and the boundary between this world and the present realm crumbled.