Bishop Akenar (1)

“See? I told you. Even if we just keep her with us like this, we can squeeze out a lot of information….”

Azadine said it as if he wanted Jan to hear, speaking to Camilla. Just then, Bernard—walking at the front—pointed at the sky.

“Wait. Look over there.”

“Huh?”

“The sky’s on fire.”

“…Ah.”

Sure enough, far in the distance, the sky glowed red and black smoke rose. A nearby village was being raided.

“Hm. People are in danger.”

“People are in danger? Why?”

At Azadine’s words, Camilla asked with a puzzled expression.

“The Northern Aragasa are working with lizardmen, hobgoblins, and Mezerry’s apostles. Mezerry’s apostles are starving for human flesh, and the lizardmen go crazy for rituals that tear out human hearts.”

As if he couldn’t waste another second, Azadine mounted the Ghost Goat.

“I’ll go ahead and see what’s happening. Follow me.”

“Wait! It could be a trap! Even if it isn’t, we have our own survival to worry about—why would you stick your head into a place guaranteed to turn into trouble? If anything happens to Sir Izmilla, every last bit of what we’ve achieved so far will go up in smoke!”

Macdogal objected.

“Rescuing those who need rescue— isn’t that the duty of the Rescue Knights Order?”

“And what authority do you have to lecture about the Order’s duty? I’m doing this because I’m thinking about the Order’s future.”

“You’re more qualified than you think to talk about the Rescue Knights Order’s duty.”

“What?!”

Azadine had been knighted by Sir Plank the Wise.

Sir Plank was one of only three Virtue Knights of the age within the Rescue Knights Order—a post at the very pinnacle of the Order.

If a man like that had knighted Azadine, didn’t that mean Azadine had more than enough standing to speak on the duty of a Rescue Knight?

‘Well, it was a knighting done after he died, so legally it’s murky—and the only witness was me.’

Even so, from childhood, Azadine had read the Order’s legends and scriptures more devoutly than any other knight, engraving them into his heart.

Even now, after losing all his stars, Azadine still held a lingering object of longing in his heart. In the faith of the Rescue Knights Order, there wasn’t a single shred of falsehood.

“Alright. Enough. I’m going on ahead, so follow me.”

Azadine left those words behind and spurred the Ghost Goat onward. The Ghost Goat charged forward at a truly terrifying speed, and Azadine’s figure vanished into the distance in an instant.

The lizardmen were originally a barbaric tribe that built their own kingdom and lived there as a budding civilization.

As a vassal state of the Naga Empire, and a faction that once held a corner of the Kurt Pantheon, they had once been civilized, intelligent beings who researched all manner of magic.

However, in the war against the Yaegas God tribe, their god—Akun-Kal the Heart-Eater—lost his body and was banished from the mortal realm.

With their god driven out and his protection gone, the lizardmen’s intellect began to deteriorate as well.

Shamans capable of wielding magic became as rare as finding a bean in a drought, and most were born as blood-starved beasts.

Naturally, their kingdom fell. The lizardmen swore revenge upon the Yaegas God tribe and scattered into separate tribes, but their faith only deepened.

The lizardmen hired by the Northern Emperor, Cohen Rioneir, were no different.

Hired as mercenaries, they attacked the pilgrimage band under strict military discipline. But after raiding the pilgrims several times without capturing Izmilla, the command waited for instructions from above and halted here for a time.

With time on their hands, the lizardmen could not contain their religious fervor(?) and raided a nearby civilian village to obtain hearts.

The place they attacked was a farming village near Coxhall.

The village had a militia meant to fend off bandits, and night watchmen hired by local landlords and knights roamed the area, but before an assault by battle-proficient lizardmen, they were no more than paper dolls.

In an instant, the militia was wiped out and the village began to burn.

The lizardmen seized the villagers and piled furniture in the middle of the village square to make a makeshift altar. Using the victims’ blood, they wrote Akun-Kal’s name on the altar and offered prayers.

“O Akun-Kal! We offer fresh hearts—return to us once more!”

“Your warriors walk the path of warriors! We will glorify Akun-Kal’s name and fill your belly with the hearts of countless foes!”

The lizardman priest and warriors roared before the altar, dragging farmers toward it. A farmer already at death’s door from the brutal claws the lizardmen had driven into him was thrown onto the altar.

His face had been gouged by those claws, leaving him blind in one eye, and when he was flung onto the altar—made by snapping and stacking furniture—wooden splinters tore his skin apart.

The lizardman war chief spread both arms wide, as if to emphasize his massive frame.

A huge membrane connecting his arms and torso unfurled, and feathers grown behind that membrane shimmered in brilliant colors in the firelight of the burning farm.

The lizardman swung the massive hook-bladed sword in his hand—a khopesh—and struck the farmer’s neck.

-Thunk!

Blood sprayed, and a heavy lump of flesh dropped.

“Kwaaagh!”

But the one screaming was the lizardman.

A longsword was embedded in the ground. Someone had thrown it, severing the lizardman’s arm.

“Good grief….”

The one who had thrown the blade was a figure astride a huge Ghost Goat. The moment Azadine arrived at the village, he’d hurled his sword in desperation and cut off the lizardman’s arm.

“What do you think you’re doing, you bastards?”

“Grrrrr.”

Furious, the lizardman warrior picked up his arm from the ground—then tried to press it back onto the wound.

It seemed impossible that it would reattach, but when the lizardman shaman chanted a spell, light flared from the wound, and the severed arm actually fused back into place.

“Wow.”

Azadine had already seen the Nagas’ regenerative power, but the lizardmen’s regeneration surpassed even that. A truly potent green magical force could be felt from them.

“This won’t be easy.”

Azadine leapt down from the Ghost Goat and landed.

“That bastard….”

“Kill him!”

The lizardmen, grabbing their khopeshes, roared and charged at Azadine.

Their charge—feathers bristling in rage—had such overwhelming force that it made legs tremble just to watch. But Azadine broke through them lightly.

-Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon—Twilight Step!

Real magic—not the Kazas Grimoire—activated. Azadine vanished, and in the next moment he was behind the lizardmen.

A startled lizardman swung his khopesh to strike behind him, but Azadine seized the lizardman’s arm.

Using the lizardman’s strength against him, Azadine cleanly hurled the heavier opponent aside and snatched away the khopesh.

-Thunk!

The lizardmen lunging at Azadine had their throats cut, feathers scattering through the air. The lizardmen poured on a furious assault without caring what happened to their comrades, but Azadine, infuriatingly, accepted their onslaught with composed ease—absorbing it with astonishing swordsmanship.

Like a reed that let a raging wind flow past, he evaded their strikes and countered; whenever it seemed he might be surrounded, he used the magic of Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon to swap positions.

Azadine recovered the ceramite longsword he’d thrown at the start and wielded it together with the khopesh, cutting down the approaching lizardmen with twin blades. It was like a scene from an old tale.

A hero rushed in at the moment of crisis to save people, driving enemies back one by one with incredible swordsmanship. The villagers—who had nearly been killed by the lizardmen moments ago—were moved.

But then, Azadine suddenly stopped his blades and seemed to make a strange expression.

His mask hid his face, making it hard to read, but he looked like something wasn’t going as he intended.

“Ah!”

“Please!”

The villagers watching felt their hearts drop.

Had he tired out? Had something gone wrong with his weapon?

Whatever it was, if that man fell, every one of them was as good as dead.

It was then—on the eastern side of the village, from the highway toward Coxhall—a horn suddenly sounded.

Behind a rider blowing a horn and carrying the banner of the Rescue Knights Order, armed Rescue Knights came into view.

“Tch.”

Azadine clicked his tongue as he watched them appear.

In truth, the moment that had puzzled the villagers happened because Azadine had sensed their approach through the “Voice of Arael.”

Seeing the Rescue Knights emerge from an unexpected direction, Azadine hesitated over what he should do.

“This is going to be a headache.”

With the Rescue Knights present, the lizardmen bared their teeth in frustration and began to retreat.

A few couldn’t let go and snarled at Azadine with fangs bared, but they too finally fled.

Azadine had cut throats and crushed heads as he fought, but the lizardmen’s regeneration was so astounding that the number he truly killed wasn’t that high. Even with skulls split and brains spilling out, the lizardmen sprang up and withdrew.

Instead, the Rescue Knights rode in and surged into the village. They surrounded Azadine at once.

“Drop your weapon and lie face-down on the ground! Bishop Akenar of Coxhall is passing through!”

“Bishop of Coxhall?”

Azadine discarded the lizardman’s khopesh, sheathed the ceramite longsword, and sat on the ground. Judging by the scene, the bishop himself had come after learning the pilgrimage band had been attacked.

“Lower your head!”

A knight standing on his horse barked, but Azadine refused the order.

“Didn’t you see me fighting the lizardmen? I usually don’t insult people by calling them blind, but you lot—are you blind with your eyes wide open? Instead of wasting time on me, why don’t you chase the lizardmen down and finish them? If you let them go, they’ll hurt people somewhere else.”

Born without eyes and living under the name Azadine of Disgrace, Azadine normally avoided bringing up blindness when belittling others.

But now he was angry enough to ignore that principle. Instead of pursuing the fleeing lizardmen, they were focusing on subduing the man who had been fighting them.

To them, protecting the bishop mattered more than saving villagers or eradicating the lizardmen.

Making Azadine bow his head was simply to ensure he wouldn’t draw and swing his weapon—done for their own convenience in carrying out their escort duty.

“Our duty is to protect the bishop. Where’s the guarantee you aren’t in league with those lizardmen?”

“I already put my sword down, didn’t I? That’s me being considerate.”

“And the sword on your back?”

“This is too important a treasured blade. I can’t let it get even slightly damaged.”

“Hm?”

At that, the Rescue Knights flinched as they stared at the sword strapped to Azadine’s back.

“I-It’s a ceramite longsword!”

“What?!”