Chapter 68
Chapter 68
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 68
Chapter Title: Infiltration 1
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But Azadin and his group had already vanished, leaving the knights to come up empty-handed.
“Lady Nort, forgive our many intrusions. We had no choice but to be rude on the count’s orders.”
The knight who had led the soldiers apologized to Lady Nort.
“I see. Understood. It would have been nice if you’d arrived when those cultists kidnapped me, though.”
Lady Nort had no choice but to swallow her anger as she spoke to the knights and soldiers searching her mansion.
“Lady Nort, did you let any suspicious individuals into your home?”
“Suspicious individuals?”
“The ones who rescued you and repelled Mezzeri’s Apostles.”
“Hmm. You call the people who repelled the Kurt heretics suspicious? Not grateful saviors or heroes?”
“A cockroach eating another cockroach doesn’t make it a heroic cockroach.”
That was when the knight said this.
“Huh!?”
“Th-this is bad!”
“What? What’s happening?”
“There’s fire at the castle!”
“What?!”
Startled, they rushed out to the garden and saw flames indeed rising in several places across the count’s castle.
*********
Azadin hadn’t headed to Lady Nort’s mansion to rescue her. Going there would only play right into Derek’s hands. Instead, he turned toward the count’s castle.
“You’re going to infiltrate?”
“That’s right.”
Azadin made use of the castle layout he’d scouted earlier and first slipped into a sentry post watching the perimeter. He easily knocked out the two soldiers and climbed the walls. Had he not taken out the sentries, they would have spotted him scaling the walls.
“Alright. Now, where should I focus?”
Wearing his hawk mask, Azadin took a deep breath. He concentrated his vision to detect the flows of black magic permeating the castle grounds.
“…That way. Matches the info from Lady Nort.”
Azadin pointed to the rear garden where the greenhouse stood. It seemed true that the count had taken a strange witch as his lover in the annex there and kept everyone else away.
“You’re going to approach her right away? We haven’t even gotten our advance payment yet.”
Midiom recalled Azadin negotiating with Lady Nort.
“Well, it’d be nice to get paid, but our mission isn’t about the money, is it?”
“You’re working hard to save Lady Nort.”
“That too. And we always need to improvise based on the situation. Midiom! Ismail!”
“Yes!”
“Yeah.”
“Fire arrows. You know how to use Roses, right?”
Azadin could light arrows from afar too, but even he had a high chance of failure with that technique. For Midiom and Ismail, who knew proper magic, igniting fire arrows was a simple matter.
“Of course.”
“Then light those spots over there and there.”
Azadin pointed to the warehouse, stables, and armory roof. Ismail and Midiom loosed Rose arrows that soared into the sky before diving sharply, igniting on their own.
Sparks scattered like flower petals as the arrows struck the roofs and kindled flames. Perhaps due to the dry materials, the fires spread rapidly, and soon chaos erupted in the castle.
“Impressive. Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon Roses, huh.”
Azadin admired the magic he himself couldn’t use.
“Alright. You two hide nearby and stand by. I’ll infiltrate. Oh, and…”
“Yes?”
“Stick some arrows into that wall over there.”
“R-right.”
As Azadin instructed, Midiom and Ismail fired arrows at the rear garden building’s wall, embedding some while others clattered to the ground nearby.
“Time to go. You can withdraw for safety if you want. Or hide and wait if you’re confident.”
Azadin began his infiltration while everyone was distracted with the fires.
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Soldiers and servants rushed to extinguish the blaze, but when embers rained down from the burning roofs, it became more urgent to salvage valuables than fight the flames.
With everyone frantically carrying items and suppressing the fire, slipping in was easy. Azadin wove through the shadows cast by torches and the blaze itself, effortlessly reaching the rear garden.
The mansion nestled amid the rear garden was built for the count’s daily life. Large pottery lined the garden, surrounded by various ornamental trees.
“…….”
Azadin halted his approach. Amid the orchid scent wafted a thick stench of blood that no floral or herbal aromas could mask. Then lizards appeared.
The lizards had been feasting on the corpses of the count’s guard dogs—now they stirred, massive beasts nearly two meters long resembling giant crocodiles.
-Shwick!
Azadin loosed arrows at the lizards the moment he spotted them.
“Chiiik?!”
“Keeek!”
His arrows pierced the lizards’ heads. But magic linked to the lizards activated.
‘Busted.’
Azadin clicked his tongue as he saw the alert spell trigger. The caster in this garden had replaced the guard dogs with lizards and enchanted them instead.
Azadin kicked off the ground, raced forward, stepped on an ornamental tree, and slipped through a second-floor window. The instant he entered the building, a transparent barrier pricked his skin like needles.
“Ugh.”
An ordinary person would have collapsed on the spot. But Azadin’s strong resistance to magic let him shrug it off.
‘A powerful caster. Covering the whole mansion with this spell. But….’
Azadin recalled Arael’s letter. Compared to that, this mansion’s barrier was nothing.
‘What’s she thinking? Arael? Planning to conquer the world?’
Azadin shook his head, banishing the stray thoughts. No distractions while infiltrating enemy territory.
Azadin swiftly entered the second floor. Movement stirred below. They must have rushed to the garden to intercept the one who’d shot the lizards… but they reeked horribly, like soldiers turned mummies.
‘Mummies.’
Azadin peered through the window at the gutted, drug-treated mummy soldiers wielding bardiches as they searched the garden. He headed deeper into the building, following the blood scent as his guide.
‘Getting stronger the lower I go.’
The blood grew thicker toward the basement, blocked by a heavy door.
‘Opening it will alert them for sure.’
Peering through the crack, he saw a vast operating theater inside. Casters wearing face masks dissected corpses with hooked blades, scooping out entrails to make mummies.
‘Even as descendants of the Yaegas divine race, they’re doing this?’
Azadin grimaced at the mummy surgery unfolding within.
‘Gotta handle this quick.’
Azadin readied his arrows. His quiver was running low.
-Thud!
He kicked the door open and unleashed a rapid volley.
-Shwick!
Two arrows pierced the farthest caster’s head. The other two spun in shock, hooked blades raised, but Azadin charged with bow in one hand, drew his sword with the other, and severed the first’s neck.
The spine snapped, leaving only skin and flesh to hold the head. With one strike, Azadin decapitated the caster, spun, and thrust into the other’s chest.
-Pshuk!
The blade pierced clean through, emerging from the back. Perhaps because he’d brought one of his finest swords for this, it sliced bone and pierced heart without a nick.
Azadin kicked the corpse free, withdrew the blade, swung it to shake off blood, and sheathed it. But then…
“Grrr rumble.”
“Kikiki giggle.”
The casters he’d clearly felled rose slowly. Arrows in skulls, half-necks severed, hearts impaled—they still stood.
“Tch!”
Azadin slung his bow, snatched a fallen hooked blade from the floor, and hurled it at the farthest caster.
-Thunk!
The caster’s body tore open, a scaled hand emerging to catch the thrown blade.
“Not bad, messen…”
But the caster never finished. Azadin gripped the blade two-handed, slashed upward from below, cleaving the head vertically.
“Urk?!”
-Splat!
The other casters’ chests sprouted their own hooked blades.
“W-wait!”
Before the human-form casters could fully transform, Azadin leaped in, severing arms and slashing them down.
-Crack!
“If you have an afterlife, fix that habit of transforming so leisurely there.”
Azadin cut down the casters and pressed deeper past the operating table.
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The thickening blood scent now blurred the line between air and gore filling his nostrils.
Beyond the operating tables lay a vast blood bath pooling from the surgeries. Strangely un-congealing blood filled it knee-deep. Amid this crimson tub, a man and woman—humans with eerie yellow-glowing eyes—writhed entwined.
They must have heard Azadin dispatch the outer casters, yet they twisted like serpents in the blood.
-Whoosh!
Azadin fired his remaining two arrows from the Elyseon Bow to take out the man in one go. But near the man, they hit an invisible force barrier and…
-Boom!
Shattered explosively.
‘Damn. They were blatantly provoking us, alright. Countermeasures for arrows. Colorless magic—even my eyes can’t see it well. Should’ve brought a Black River Arrow.’
Azadin clicked his tongue as his prized Elyseon Bow proved useless.
“Kyaah!”
“Shaa!”
The women flinched, baring sharp fangs like threatening cobras. Yet the count, embracing them, ignored the arrows’ direction—Azadin entirely—and continued ravishing their bodies.
“Pardon the interruption.”
Disgusted by the sight, Azadin knocked on the door he’d entered.
“Count Kazel, by chance?”
“Rude cur, herald kin. Yes, I am Count Kazel.”
The man lounging in the blood bath rose.
“Don’t bother showing off what little you have. Stay lying down.”
Azadin mocked Count Kazel.
“Little? What about you?”
“Enough that your wife would propose to me.”
It sounded like rude provocation, but strangely rang true.