Chapter 50
Chapter 50
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 50
Chapter Title: Aldis 5
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“Azadin, I’m always on your side.”
“Yes?”
“It’s funny coming from me, but I’m practically like Azadin’s mom, aren’t I?”
“Uh, Mom?”
Azadin and Aldis were twelve years apart in age. It was a bit of a stretch to call her his mom.
“But if you hate yourself, doesn’t that mean you resent me too for forcing you to keep living? It makes me a little sad.”
“Ah, no. That’s not it…”
Azadin averted his gaze. There wasn’t so much as a fingernail’s worth of anything likable about him, so even Aldis’s request was asking too much.
*********
Once the solstice festival ended, the number of dropouts from basic training started to rise. The kids still in training were too busy and exhausted to mess with Azadin, but the ones who had flunked out now had free time on their hands.
Of course, they had to start training to become merchants or craftsmen, but it hadn’t been long since the festival wrapped up, and the lingering excitement still hung in the air. With time to kill, the kids naturally turned their sights on Azadin.
But with Aldis around, no one dared touch him. She deliberately stuck close to her post, trying to cheer him up by reading books together, teaching him fairy tongue, going fishing, or mending his clothes—anything to spend time with him.
But as a herald, she inevitably had to leave eventually.
*********
“Hey, they say Aldis left.”
“Yeah? So it’s finally… today?”
“Ah, you little traitor bastard—clinging to Aldis all this time and living it up, huh?”
“I’m gonna kill that punk today.”
Everyone was gunning for Azadin. The dropouts from the herald selection process were especially eager. They couldn’t stand the idea of Azadin being a dropout just like them.
They wanted to confirm the ‘difference’ between them and Azadin somehow. By crushing someone beneath them, they hoped to console themselves for washing out of herald selection.
That urge was what drove the kids.
“Sigh, kids these days, honestly. Aldis dotes on him so much—don’t you think she’d let it slide if something happened? Your parents would get dragged in too, you know. Short-sighted brats.”
One shadow watched the kids from afar.
*********
In the end, the kids couldn’t lay a hand on Azadin. Before they got the chance, Arael beat them to it and inflicted a grievous wound on him. In a heated argument, she slashed a massive scar across his face.
A long, horizontal gash right where his eye should have been.
The elders’ punishment for Arael’s brazen act was laughably biased: three days in solitary.
Azadin and Arael were both children of traitors, but no one could help treating the pretty, cute Arael differently from the repulsive, loathsome Azadin just by looking at them. More than anything, the Aragasa had never dealt with powerless children before.
Children were fragile and immature by nature, yet the Aragasa lacked the leeway in their hearts to tolerate that.
*********
“Ugh… Ahh…”
Azadin writhed in agony from the pain of his wound. He was applying a poultice made from disinfectant herbs to prevent infection. Even so, his surroundings were visible thanks to his special sight…
It hurt.
The physical pain was bad enough, but Arael’s barrage of verbal abuse and violence was unbearable.
“Arael!!!”
Azadin screamed his only blood kin’s name, laden with rage and hatred. He had endured abuse and scorn from the rest of the clan without once feeling this level of hatred… until his own flesh and blood, Arael, bestowed it upon him.
“I’ll kill you! I swear to all the gods, I’ll kill you!”
The wounded Azadin wailed like the Mythic Dragon of Woe from legend, thrashing in the throes of hatred.
*********
The day Aldis left, Arael came looking for Azadin.
“You’re disgusting, Azadin. Hogging all of Aldis’s attention by pretending to be a weak little kid.”
“Arael…”
“During this solstice festival, I barely got to talk to her at all. She’s the one who named me too—why do you get to monopolize her?”
“It’s because of basic training…”
“Oh yeah? Not because you were sniveling and clinging to her?”
She held up the book from the Salvation Knights Order that Azadin cherished. It was a gift from Aldis.
“Ah! That’s…”
“Why do you have a book from heretics like this?”
“We’re in no position to call them heretics, are we? It doesn’t hurt to know about it.”
“Oh? The edges are worn to nothing. You must’ve treasured it and read it obsessively.”
Right in front of Azadin, Arael grabbed the book and ripped it apart left and right. The interior was paper, but the cover was hardcover—and with terrifying strength, she tore it clean in two and flung the pieces at Azadin’s feet.
“Arael! What the hell!”
Enraged, Azadin lunged at Arael.
He was no match for her, of course. Arael simply seized his arm, twisted it, and hurled him to the ground. Then she stomped down on his groin.
“Argh!”
“Poor Azadin. Aldis seems to think of you as her son…”
“What?”
“But you actually like Aldis, don’t you? Not as a mom, but as a woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re too young for it yet. It hasn’t ripened, so you don’t quite get it. But she’s only twelve years older than you. Plus, Aldis has the emperor’s blood running strong in her veins. You know Harconia was the emperor’s lover, right?”
Harconia, the legendary Second Herald of the herald clan, had been Emperor Yaeslat’s lover and bore him a child.
It was already accepted as fact among the herald clan, and Aldis clearly bore the emperor’s signature silver hair.
“She’s practically one of the Yaegas divine race, so she’ll live forever. She’ll still be beautiful even when you’re grown. You think you’ll still see her as a mother then? You don’t really now, do you?”
“Stop…”
Azadin was more wounded by Arael’s whispered words than her violence.
Her words might even ring true. Beautiful Aldis—Aldis was Azadin’s standard of beauty, his everything.
Before learning from her, Azadin hadn’t known the world held anything beautiful. Wind was just wind, the night sky was empty, and stars were meager specks of light.
Aldis had given meaning to those things, instilled longing and yearning.
It would be a lie to say he felt no admiration or desire for her.
But even if he felt carnal lust for her, he saw it as a creature’s fated curse. He planned to bury it deep, never letting it surface. He had even transcended it into love, unwilling to let such desire taint that love.
Since it was an unattainable yearning anyway, he had sworn to hide it deep in his heart and live on.
But Arael delighted in dragging the secret Azadin meant to embrace alone forever to the surface, shattering it to wound him. She mocked his vow and toyed with his heart.
“Arael!”
“Yeah, get angry, Azadin. Lose your temper. Since Aldis carries the emperor’s blood, if you want to hold her, you’ll have to become the strongest in all of Aragasa! You’ve got that much guts, right?”
Arael beat Azadin, defiled him with insults, and finally slashed his face.
“Gaaah!”
Azadin thrashed in pain, splattering blood. For a moment, even Arael sensed her mistake and clicked her tongue…
But then she licked the blood from her hand and laughed.
“A chunk of flesh where an eye should be doesn’t suit you. A scar’s much better. You ought to thank me, Azadin.”
*********
Azadin languished with a fever. The wound itself wasn’t serious, but Arael had beaten him soundly—and worse, her venomous words had ravaged his soul.
The other kids’ insults and curses merely skimmed the surface.
Traitor’s son.
Cursed wretch.
Ugly, horrific monster.
Incompetent weakling.
Those barbs hurt and wore him down, of course, but they only clawed at Azadin’s surface. Arael, however, attacked his feelings for Aldis.
That was more precious to him than his life, leaving deeper wounds than any physical blows or slashes.
Azadin endured in the servants’ hut, groaning. Then the door creaked open.
“So this is the famous Azadin, the Dragon of Woe?”
“Ugh…”
“Interesting. But that scar over your eye. Can’t see anymore, huh?”
It was a young man’s voice. Azadin focused his fading vision on him. A golden-haired, blue-eyed elf.
“Huh? An elf… Ack!”
Azadin recoiled in shock.
“D-don’t eat me.”
Azadin loved elven books and tales. But did he like elves? No—he feared them. Not just him; everyone did.
Beautiful and long-lived, they were hedonists who craved human flesh. Despite their pure, lovely appearances, they were infamous for all manner of gruesome, cruel, perverted acts.
*********
Before the Yaegas divine race arrived, nagas ruled at the pinnacle of Whubris’s races.
The Nagasura Empire.
Elves had served as its bureaucrats. The Nagasura Empire bred humans like livestock, slaughtering them daily to dye their temples red—and elves joined in the work.
In the mad festivals of killing and devouring humans, elves reveled as fiercely as the nagas, or so the tales went.
“Ahh, so you know about the Nagasura era. They say you love reading and are smart—impressive.”
The elf who entered the hut said this with a laugh.
“Relax. I quit eating human flesh a while back. I had some this morning, so I’m good for a bit.”
“Ugh… Who are you?”
“Elder Kazas.”
“Kazas? An elder? But…”
“Yeah. Weird for someone not Aragasa to be an elder, right? And the council probably hasn’t seen me. Well, I’m a secret elder.”
The elf who called himself Kazas flashed a grin.
“Rejoice, kid. You’ve been chosen as disciple to the great Kazas. I’ll pass on to you the Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon, the Kazas Secret Arts.”
“Huh?”
“What’s with the ‘huh’? Now’s the time to shed tears of gratitude. Oh, wait—can’t cry without eyes?”
Kazas grumbled when Azadin didn’t seem especially thankful.
“You’re not Aragasa. And Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon…”
“Means nothing at all!”
“But the Kazas Secret Arts…?”
“Hahaha. Want me to let you in on mages’ secrets, little one?”
“W-what?”
“Mages die if you cut their heads off.”
“…”
“Pierce their hearts, they die.”
“…”
“Snap their spines, they die too.”
“R-right.”
“And that’s what the Kazas Secret Arts are all about.”