Chapter 234
Chapter 234
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 234
Chapter Title: Bishop Akenar 1
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"So, which way is Coxhall? Does anyone know?"
"Um...."
Camilla shrugged.
"I'm from Coxhall originally, but I've been cooped up in that carriage the whole time, so I have no idea."
"Sis. I know the way."
"Oh. Really?"
"Yeah. Place that smells like Coxhall sea. This way."
"...Absolutely not."
Camilla swung her hand vigorously over her head in denial.
"Last time you said you knew the way, we ended up climbing over who knows how many weird mountain peaks! Going in a straight line doesn't count as knowing the way!"
It didn't look like they could trust Kuntachi to guide them.
"I'm not from around here either. I'm from Chitai."
The blood mage Bernard said as much and shook his head.
In the end, by process of elimination, the only one who knew the way to Coxhall was the herald MacDougal.
'This guy's been openly hostile toward me.'
Azadin smiled at MacDougal and extended his hand.
"That's fine with you, right? Sir MacDougal?"
A squire wasn't yet worthy of being called sir, but Azadin did so deliberately.
"Of course I'll guide you. Just go to the back and deal with that hideous lich or whatever it is. We should be considerate to other travelers on the road, shouldn't we? And don't bring dishonor to our knight order by associating with a necromancer."
"He's at it again with his bullshit."
Camilla started to step forward in anger, but Azadin stopped her.
"No, he's right. We can't scare the travelers on the road."
"Who's wandering around at this hour anyway? Smugglers or bandits, that's who."
Camilla grumbled, but backed off at Azadin's urging.
"We need to get moving. The longer we dawdle, the more prepared the enemy will be when they come to catch us."
Azadin said that and patted his waist.
It was where his moon-horn bow should have been slotted, but he currently had no bow. It had gotten soaked in seawater during the shipwreck and broken.
When facing the Northern Aragas gang, the bow had snapped and shards had flown out—partly a ploy to fool their eyes, but also because the bow had truly reached the end of its lifespan.
'Pushing it with those long-range shots didn't help.'
The ego clash with Aragas's tenth captain, Zan, had forced him into extreme long-range shots that had strained the bow badly.
It was just one bow, but without it, Azadin—who was Aragas-born—felt naked.
Azadin glanced at Zan, who shook his head while fondling his own moon-horn bow.
"Not giving you the bow. This is my only one."
"Tch."
"They'll attack again anyway, so steal one then."
Zan predicted another assault.
"See what I mean? Just by keeping her around, we get all this valuable intel...."
Azadin said it loud enough for Zan to hear.
But at that moment, Bernard, who was walking at the front, pointed to the sky.
"Hold on. Look over there."
"Hm?"
"The sky is burning."
"...Ah."
Sure enough, far off, the sky glowed red and black smoke rose. A nearby village was under attack.
"Hmm. People are in danger. The Northern Aragas I don't care about, but those guys were allied with lizardmen, hobgoblins, and Mezzeri's apostles. Mezzeri's apostles hunger for human flesh, and lizardmen are obsessed with ripping out human hearts for their rituals."
Azadin saw it and mounted his ghost mountain goat.
"I'll go ahead and check it out. Follow me."
"Wait! It could be a trap! Even if not, our necks are on the line right now—why stick our heads into certain trouble? If something happens to Lady Izmira, all our efforts so far go to waste!"
MacDougal objected.
"Isn't rescuing those in need the duty of a rescue knight?"
"What right do you have to speak of the rescue knights' duty? I'm thinking of the order's future."
"I have more right to speak on a rescue knight's duty than you think."
"What?!"
Azadin had been knighted by Sir Plank of Wisdom.
Sir Plank was one of the only three Virtue Knights in the rescue knight order—the pinnacle position.
Since such a man had knighted Azadin, didn't that give him ample qualification to speak on a rescue knight's duty?
'Well, it was a posthumous knighting, so it's legally iffy, and the only witness is me.'
Even so, from childhood, Azadin had read the rescue knight order's legends and scriptures more devoutly than any knight and etched them into his heart.
Even now, with all his stars lost, they remained his aspiration. There was no falsehood in the rescue knight order's faith.
"Ah, whatever. I'll go ahead—follow me."
Azadin left those words and spurred his ghost mountain goat forward.
The ghost mountain goat charged ahead at terrifying speed, and in an instant, Azadin vanished into the distance.
*********
Lizardmen were once a civilized tribe that built their own nation. As a vassal state of the naga empire, they had occupied one corner of the Kurt pantheon and pursued all manner of magic research in the past—civilized, intelligent beings.
But in the war against the Yaegas gods, their deity, the heart-eater Akunkal, lost its body and was banished from the mortal realm.
With their god exiled and blessings gone, the lizardmen's intelligence began to degenerate.
Shamans capable of wielding magic became as rare as beans in a drought, while most were born as bloodthirsty beasts.
Naturally, their nation fell.
Vowing revenge on the Yaegas gods, the lizardmen scattered in tribal bands, but whenever they gathered enough strength, they were seized by religious zeal to offer sacrifices to their god.
These lizardmen, hired by North King Cohen Lionair, were no different.
Employed as mercenaries, they had struck the pilgrimage under strict military discipline. But after failing to capture their target, the pilgrimage knight Lady Izmira, command waited for orders from above and camped here temporarily.
Given time, the lizardmen couldn't contain their religious fervor and raided a civilian village for hearts.
The raided village was a farming hamlet near Coxhall.
The village had a militia to fend off bandits, and night watchmen hired by local lords and knights patrolled, but they were no more than paper dolls against the combat prowess of the lizardmen.
In moments, the militia was slaughtered, and the village began to burn.
The lizardmen captured villagers and piled village furniture in the central square to make a makeshift altar. They wrote Akunkal's name on it with victims' blood and offered prayers.
"Oooh, Akunkal! We offer fresh hearts—return to us once more!"
"Your warriors walk the warrior's path! We shall glorify Akunkal's name and fill your belly with the hearts of countless foes!"
Lizardmen priests and warriors chanted before the altar as they dragged farmers forward. One farmer, already delirious from a lizardman's claw gouged into his face, was thrown atop the altar.
The farmer had lost one eye to the lizardman's claw, and as he hit the furniture-piled altar, wooden splinters tore his skin.
The lizardman warlord spread his massive arms wide, making his bulk seem even larger.
The vast wing membrane connecting his arms to his torso unfurled, and the feathers growing behind it shimmered in every color under the burning farmhouse light.
The lizardman swung the massive hook-sword khopesh in his hand, severing the farmer's neck.
-Splurt!
Blood sprayed, and a heavy chunk of flesh thudded down.
"Graaak!"
But the one screaming was the lizardman.
A longsword was embedded in the ground. Someone had hurled it, severing the lizardman's arm.
"What in the world...."
The one who had thrown the blade was a figure mounted on a massive ghost mountain goat. Azadin had arrived at the village and, in haste, unleashed a sword throw to sever the lizardman's arm.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Grrr...."
The lizardman warrior snarled in rage and picked up his severed arm from the ground. Instead of staunching the wound, he pressed it back on?
It seemed futile, but as a lizardman shaman chanted a spell, light emanated from the wound, and astonishingly, the arm reattached.
"Whoa."
Azadin had seen naga regeneration before, but the lizardmen's ability to reattach a severed arm instantly was on another level. A potent green magical power emanated from them.
"This won't be easy."
Azadin dismounted the ghost mountain goat and landed.
"That one...."
"Kill him!"
Lizardmen seized khopeshes and roared as they charged Azadin.
The fury-bristled charge of the lizardmen had a leg-shaking intensity just to behold. But Azadin slipped through them effortlessly.
-Flower Bird Wind Moon, Twilight!
Not Kazas Hasse, but true magic activated.
Azadin vanished, reappearing behind the lizardmen in an instant.
The startled lizardman swung his khopesh back at Azadin, but Azadin grabbed his arm.
Using the lizardman's strength against him, Azadin hurled the heavier opponent away with ease and snatched the khopesh from his hand.
-Thwack!
Lizardmen lunging at Azadin had their necks sliced, feathers scattering.
Regardless of their comrades falling, the lizardmen pressed their ferocious assault, but Azadin deftly parried, absorbing their onslaught with astonishing swordsmanship.
Like reeds bending to let fierce winds pass, he deflected attacks and counterstruck. When encirclement loomed, he used Flower Bird Wind Moon magic to reposition.
Azadin retrieved his earlier-thrown ceramite longsword from the ground and wielded it dual with the khopesh, slashing at advancing lizardmen.
It was like a scene from an old tale.
A hero racing to save people in crisis, felling foes one by one with miraculous swordplay.
The villagers, moments from death at lizardmen hands, were moved.
But then Azadin suddenly halted his blade, his expression turning strange.
His mask hid his face, making it hard to read, but something seemed amiss.
"Ah!"
"No!"
The watching villagers' hearts sank.
Was he tiring? Or had something gone wrong with his weapons?
Whatever it was, if that man fell, the villagers were done for.
As they all cheered him on with one heart—
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