Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: Curse of Service 7
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“I’ll do it.”
“No, make me do it.”
“Compensate for what you plundered too. I’ve got your whole family listed. You don’t want to screw around half-assed and end up reuniting with me, do you?”
As Azadin walked along the road, he sought out victims he could find—people who’d had their goods taken, sitting by the roadside sobbing, or those trudging along listlessly—and compensated them as best he could. For those he couldn’t, he gathered testimonies and added them to his list.
He was in a hurry and couldn’t get further involved in reparations, but he did what he could.
*********
“Is... is it all done now?”
When Vüne asked, Azadin smiled.
“No, one thing left.”
“What?”
“Neutralizing your combat abilities for a while.”
“Huh? What? What are you talking about?”
Instead of answering, Azadin pulled a pair of tongs from his luggage. Tongs for making or handling arrowheads.
“Count yourself lucky. Normally, for murder, I’d inflict permanent damage, but since you haven’t gone that far from what I’ve checked, I’ll let it slide with this.”
“Huh? Let it slide with this? What are you—”
“Aaaagh!”
The pain of having one’s nails pulled out raw was enough to make even a grown adult bawl like a child.
After Azadin yanked out the thumbnails and index fingernails of Vüne’s group and sent them packing, Tarky let out a sigh of relief.
“To think they’d try to harm their own blood relative over inheritance rights. People are truly rotten. And Vüne was on good terms with them too, right, bro?”
“Yeah. Inheritance rights don’t mean much anyway.”
Azadin said that to Tarky and wiped down the tongs. Then Midiam spoke to him.
“Looks like you’re feeling a bit better now, at least.”
“Why?”
“Well, you returned the loot to the plundered folks. You seem back to your old self, which is nice to see. Pregnancy does make emotions go haywire, doesn’t it?”
“Oh my god.”
Azadin sighed.
“Giving birth under the Curse of Service isn’t normal pregnancy. That doesn’t happen.”
“Still, you were really nothing like your usual self.”
“I can get angry and emotional too. Anyone would lose control then. For the record, what’s pissing me off right now is you, Midiam.”
“Eek? Me?”
“Yeah.”
Then Ismail asked,
“Didn’t Tarky’s mercenary band just sell off the silver candelabras they plundered? Why go to all this trouble returning stuff this time?”
“There were too many. I couldn’t return them all alone, and there were too many mercenaries back then. Besides, those villagers would’ve had to evacuate anyway.”
“Evacuate...”
“Ogres are coming in greater numbers. They had to flee, and returning household goods like that would’ve just hindered them.”
“But you took that profit for yourself, didn’t you?”
“Had to. I’m the type who bends the rules when needed.”
Azadin was righteous, but not a foolhardy one. As the Emperor’s Herald, grasping harsh realities coldly was essential.
“In contrast, this was easy to return, and there wasn’t much. Why? You got a problem with that?”
“I can’t understand you. You’re like... an alien. Murderers and plunderers steeped in their ways are far easier to comprehend.”
“Is that so? I understand you to a degree.”
“You understand me?”
Ismail felt displeased that Azadin claimed to understand him. It felt like being called simple or predictable, stirring resentment.
Just then, a tsk from Tarky up ahead reached them.
“Everyone quiet. Relief Knights ahead.”
“Huh? Relief Knights?”
Azadin began showing interest.
*********
As they approached Salasma, everywhere was packed with people. Refugees were flooding in from all directions. A month-long drought had dried up the rivers, no aid reached the frontier lands, and ominous events cropped up everywhere.
Yet the count’s bastard children were rampaging in search of the New King Codex, plundering wherever they went, so those who’d lost their livelihoods headed for Salasma, the one place with food and clothes.
In an open field near Salasma, a few merchant guilds and the Relief Knights had rented out an entire inn to run a relief station.
“Oh. The three-winged wheel!”
Azadin cheered at the sight of the Relief Knights’ flag bearing a cartwheel with three wings.
“Relief Knights it is. Hm, splendid.”
“......”
Midiam and Ismail were at a loss for words seeing Azadin delighted by the Relief Knights’ good deeds.
Unlike the King’s Church, the Relief Knights wouldn’t charge at Herald folk to kill on sight, but their members were still Hubris citizens. They too viewed Aragasans as soulless abominations, cursed beings deserving contempt—no different from others.
That relief station was run by strong-arming merchants for ‘donations.’ Moreover, the Relief Knights took in children from refugee parents abandoning them to bolster their numbers.
Rumors said their headquarters on the ‘Inland Peninsula’ owned vast lands needing countless serfs to cultivate.
They gathered orphans and refugees under the guise of relief to develop the Inland Peninsula—that was the dark rumor about the Relief Knights.
“Should I say something? Nah, even if I did, they seem precious to him. Pointless.”
Midiam shut her mouth watching Azadin’s satisfaction with the Knights’ relief efforts.
“Surprising. Never thought you’d hold back for someone else’s sake.”
“Well, yeah?”
Midiam shrugged.
“With a new life possibly inside Azadin, too much stress isn’t good for a pregnant woman.”
“Hey. I can hear you.”
Azadin snorted at Midiam treating him like a pregnant woman.
“Getting fired was probably the higher-ups’ mistake out of fear of Arahel. Talking to them should fix it.”
Having calmed down after some time, Azadin realized he had plenty of leverage to negotiate with Aragas’ upper echelons.
He had two copies of the New King Codex and had amassed gold coins quickly. No Herald had likely processed three gold requests in such a short span—unprecedented.
‘People are making requests freely now because of all the crises. Hubris folk see calling a Herald like selling their soul to a demon.’
Even those hoarding Emperor’s gold saved it for true desperation... not because they liked Herald folk.
So with drought and Kurt divine race stirring over the New King Codex, weren’t other Heralds racking up record gold hauls too?
That thought made him a bit uneasy.
‘The clan all hates me, right? What if they refuse to reinstate me? They might even try to kill me for my Codex copies?’
Azadin shook his head at that. No matter how much they disliked him, such extreme hostility was paranoid delusion.
“Let’s set up camp!”
*********
They prepared camp by the dry riverbed. Tents were too heavy to carry, so camping meant leveling the ground.
“Why do I have to do this grunt work? I’m a noble and a knight.”
Tarky grumbled as he picked stones from the ground.
“Keep working there a sec.”
Azadin assigned the complaining Tarky and looked around. Other refugees were there, but they quietly gave space seeing the knight prepare camp.
At dinnertime, inn workers distributed blankets and bread stamped with the Relief Knights’ mark.
“Those needing blankets can borrow them. Since they’re loans, you must return them.”
“Fail to return, and you’ll fall to hell in the afterlife or reincarnate as Herald folk.”
Midiam chuckled at the words.
“Really motivates you to return ’em.”
“Yeah, blanket return rate’ll be abysmal. Guess all these folks reincarnate as clan members.”
“Probably.”
Midiam said that, glancing at Azadin’s belly.
“What? Why’re you looking at me?”
“Well, if some non-returners become our kin, and the Curse of Service triggers so the child you bear is...”
“Hey. Droopy-eyes. She always like that?”
“Yeah.”
Ismail bowed his head, seeming embarrassed by Midiam’s behavior.
“Her classmates must’ve hated her guts.”
“What’re you saying? My classmates worshipped me.”
Midiam shrugged proudly.
“Oh, but let’s take some of that bread.”
“Huh? We have rations. Thought you wouldn’t touch relief supplies.”
Midiam saw Azadin as someone who kept lines but was good at heart—friendly to Hubris commoners, helping the weak, strict with the strong.
But taking relief goods meant less for refugees, right?
“No, I just want to check what the Relief Knights are handing out.”
Azadin approached the relief cart and spoke to a Knight.
*********
“Why’s he talking to them when they’re busy with people?”
“He really loves Relief Knights’ legends. Probably wants to chat and get friendly with them.”
Soon Azadin returned with a loaf of their bread.
“You actually took bread?”
“Not plundering relief goods. Just made a donation.”
“A Herald donated to Relief Knights? Charity?”
“Yeah.”
“......”
“What? Got a problem?”
“You were there a while for that. What’d you talk about?”
Ismail asked coolly.
“Hm, asked if they’d stamp their blanket mark on my parchment. No dice.”
“......”
“Why want their mark?”
“Wanted the Relief Knights’ emblem. It’s cool.”
“......”
Midiam and Ismail stared at each other.
“Not really. It’s just a cartwheel, not a dragon or anything.”
“Still, it’s Relief Knights. Hm. Aragas lacks cool symbols. Hawk’s ours, but can’t flaunt it.”
Azadin fiddled with the new hawk mask in his bosom. Aragas symbol, but persecution made it unwise to display.
“Storybook Relief Knights might treat all equally as heroes, but real ones’ll try killing us Heralds on sight. Even if you love them, they’ll betray your feelings—aren’t you scared?”
Midiam subtly prodded.
“It’s fine. My faith isn’t like that. Even if they persecute and kill me, it wouldn’t betray my beliefs.”
“......”
Midiam realized Azadin’s fondness wasn’t childish admiration but deeper, firmer conviction.
Would that faith truly never betray him?
Suddenly, she sensed his looming fate would soon test that belief.