Northern Aragasa (1)

“How rude!”

Archivist Macdogal could not hold back and glared at the female thief, but not only the thief—Bernard the blood mage, too—failed to hide the laughter on his leaden face.

What made them all burst out laughing was the part about “the Order’s lofty honor.”

There were likely not many people who truly believed the Rescue Knights Order was honorable—even within the Order itself. And yet this trainee-knight young lady, ignorant of how the world worked, seemed to think that gossip about her birth would stain the Order’s honor.

“No wonder your gear was far too good for a trainee knight.”

“This lowly one wouldn’t have been surprised even if she were the Northern Emperor’s daughter.”

“Northern Emperor? What’s a Northern Emperor?”

Azadine, startled by Bernard’s mention of an emperor, asked at once.

“Ah, surely you don’t know the Northern Emperor? Cohen Rioneir, King of Ausander, founded the Northern Alliance and proclaimed himself emperor. People call him the Emperor of the North—‘the Northern Emperor.’”

“Cohen Rioneir.”

Hearing that name, Azadine gave a bitter smile.

It seemed that Cohen, King of Ausander—the disciple of Sir Plank whom he had killed, the “slayer of the wise Sir Plank”—had now reached the point of styling himself an emperor.

“Then a fair amount of time must have passed since Sir Plank’s death. I should add time elapsed to what he told me. From the look of it, Sir Plank must have lost his sense of time after becoming a death knight.”

The Aragasa appointed as Emperor’s messengers studied their assigned regions in detail—investigating materials and learning the terrain and politics thoroughly before they began their missions.

So while they knew the geography and circumstances of their own regions well, they were inevitably weaker on information about other regions.

In Azadine’s case, his original assignment had been the Korasar region, so he lacked knowledge about Arangi and the Ausander region.

“Where is the nearest place we can seek reinforcements?”

“If you mean the nearest place, it would be the coastal city of Coxhall. It is a diocesan city, so heroes of the Order will be gathered there like clouds. If we can reach Coxhall, then no matter how mighty those wicked ones are, they will retreat at once like darkness before sunrise!”

The Rescue Knights Order had originally been a purely knightly order, but as its power grew, it needed administration and political capacity—so a priestly class emerged.

A city with a diocese would likely be quite large, almost like a royal capital.

“Then we’ll head that way. I don’t know this area’s geography well—may I ask you to guide us?”

“V-Very well. But remember: the pilgrimage band also intended to retreat to Coxhall in the first place. The enemy’s attacks were fierce, and we only lost our way because of the bewitched fog they wielded.”

“Then the enemy also knows we’ll flee to Coxhall.”

“Indeed. Our heading to Coxhall is surely something they expected, so their wicked assault will continue without fail. I do not fear this body being harmed, but I fear that the bright future of a holy knight like Sir Izmilla will be cut short.”

“Hm. Even so, we can’t move blindly without supplies. We’ll head to Coxhall.”

Azadine entrusted the route to the archivist.

Among the group, only Izmilla and Macdogal had horses, and the ghost mountain goat Azadine had ridden could not be summoned while the sun was up. In other words, they had no choice but to travel at a walking pace.

“Hey. You.”

While they walked in silence, the female thief approached Azadine.

“You might fool the others, but you won’t fool me. You know who the enemy is, don’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

Azadine played dumb, but Camilla did not fall for that kind of act—she sounded quite certain.

“You showed up from behind the guys attacking from beyond the fog, so you must have actually seen them. But even though you showed up killing them, you didn’t bother searching the bodies hard. Isn’t that because you already knew who they were?”

“I told you—were-rats.”

“A simple bunch of cultists can’t attack a Rescue Knights Order pilgrimage band this effectively. If you truly didn’t know, you would’ve investigated thoroughly. But you didn’t.”

Camilla believed Azadine had already identified the enemy and was hiding it.

“I don’t know them either. They’ll attack again on the way to Coxhall, so we’ll find out then. But…”

“But what?”

“There are Northern Aragasa mixed in with the raiders.”

“Northern Aragasa?”

“Yeah. You could call them a distant branch of my own kin.”

Azadine said that and frowned.

The messenger bloodline began when the five Aragasa houses—who had arrived in this land on five ships—were taken in by Emperor Yaeslat, who valued their talents, and became the Emperor’s messengers.

But even after the emperor fell, there were those who came from outside to the Hubris Continent. These people drew a line between themselves and the existing Aragasa bound by the Contract of Servitude, found separate places to live, and—because they appeared mostly in the north—were called the Northern Aragasa.

Unbound by the Contract of Servitude, the Northern Aragasa did not possess the emperor’s gifted magic book, Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon, but they were superb archers and also powerful assassins.

As Azadine had expected, the ones who attacked the pilgrimage band were Northern Aragasa.

More precisely, it was a mixed unit that included Northern Aragasa trackers, Mezerry’s were-rats, and lizardmen and hobgoblins.

“You fools—after finally getting close to the target, you pulled back? What are you doing?”

A young Aragasa who commanded the trackers snapped irritably. He was a man in his early twenties, with brown skin and narrow, sharp eyes.

“Well… the target summoned an Emperor’s messenger.”

The Northern Aragasa trackers—still looking youthful—waved their hands, flustered as they explained.

To them, the Emperor’s messengers—kin bound by the Curse of Servitude—were objects of curiosity.

“An Emperor’s messenger?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange. Did they come that fast when called?”

“I don’t know if it was coincidence, but he arrived extremely quickly.”

“Hm. I heard Hathir’s faction was shattered in Korasar and Vthuma. Are you saying an Emperor’s messenger truly appeared?”

It was not widely known, but rumors about their kin—the Emperor’s messengers—had already spread swiftly among the Northern Aragasa.

They already knew that the Emperor’s messengers had been torn apart by Arael’s betrayal, internal strife, and the invasion of Vthuma.

“How intriguing. So the Curse of Servitude really is that strong. Even if they tear each other apart and the organization is barely standing, they still have to carry out the emperor’s missions. Pitiful wretches.”

“Yes. That’s why it seems things will get interesting.”

“Isn’t this a good chance to learn about Hathir’s faction’s situation?”

“Idiots. The mission comes first. Curiosity is for later. They’re already an arrogant bunch—if you retreat here, won’t they climb higher without knowing how high the sky is?”

As the squad leader complained, he glanced to the side—and saw the were-rat shaman and the lizardmen showing their displeasure.

“If your members hadn’t fled midway, we would have completed the mission already.”

“How do you intend to compensate for these losses, ‘messenger bloodline’?”

The were-rat shaman and the lizardmen gleamed with sly eyes.

It wasn’t true anger so much as an attempt to find fault and squeeze something out of them. They were the kind of base breeds that pounced the moment they saw weakness—so even a small opening made them swagger.

“That’s why I hate working with them.”

The squad leader sighed and moved. His finger stopped right in front of the were-rat shaman’s eyeball.

-Slice!

The were-rat shaman’s whiskers were caught and cleanly cut by the squad leader’s fingertips.

Cutting fur barehanded—so cleanly that even a blade would struggle to do it.

“H-Hk?!”

He had stopped at the point where one more inch would have “popped the were-rat’s lid.” The squad leader spoke.

“Abandoning the mission midway was a judgment made on site. And we value on-site judgment. The field changes constantly—if you don’t respect that judgment, dead manuals end up harming living troops. Is that what you want?”

“N-No…”

“And don’t call us ‘messenger bloodline.’ Consider that a warning.”

When the squad leader glared and threatened him, the were-rat shaman immediately tucked his tail and withdrew.

“I-I wasn’t trying to anger you. I just meant it costs money to keep staying here. My subordinates are starving.”

“There are plenty of corpses to fill your bellies, aren’t there?”

“Eating loosens discipline.”

“…Fine. I’ll divide the area. Raid, tear up corpses, rest—do what you want. We will handle the Emperor’s messenger.”

The Aragasa squad leader split the sector and placed Mezerry’s group and the lizardmen to the rear.

“Deputy. Then does that mean we have to face that Emperor’s messenger with only us?”

“Not ‘face.’ We’ll talk first. He might be someone we can reason with.”

The Aragasa squad leader brushed off his hands.

“Then shall we go meet the Emperor’s messenger? Activate the farsight magic.”

In the middle of a crossroads, a prisoner transport wagon was stopped.

The horses’ harnesses had been cut—perhaps stolen by thieves—and corpses of peasants and prisoners were strewn around.

“This place…”

“It’s where we were attacked.”

Camilla frowned.

They had walked for quite a while, yet they had only just reached the site of the first attack. Moving at a walking pace had clearly been the problem.

“Hiiiing.”

The horses, too, sounded distressed.

“We should water them.”

Izmilla dismounted and looked around. Where the road had sunk, muddy water had pooled. Mosquitoes hovered nearby, and the water was thick with larvae—it didn’t look like water fit for a horse.

“Sir Izmilla. You must not give horses water like that. It may quench their thirst for the moment, but before long they’ll suffer stomach sickness and die.”

Macdogal tried to stop her, but Izmilla cast a spell.

-Purifying Spear!

When a blue spear struck the water’s surface, the larvae and mosquitoes burst apart, and the muddy water instantly sank, separating into clean water and filthy sludge.

“Using holy magic just to water a horse?”

Watching that, Azadine was dumbfounded. They were being pursued and would be short on stamina—how could she spend magic so casually? What would she do if they met the enemy after wasting strength here?

But Izmilla remained calm. It didn’t seem to cost her much to use a spell like this.

“She has remarkable capacity. That’s not the level of a mere trainee knight.”

Azadine sensed that Izmilla had been born with exceptionally noble blood.