Rookie Holy Knight Azadine (5)

Azadine redirected the workers outside in exchange for halting cinnabar mining.

“From now on, we reclaim the surroundings. Repair the abandoned houses and restore the ruined fields.”

“Excuse me, but… what about the cinnabar?”

“Farming brings in far less money than cinnabar.”

That cinnabar mining was toxic enough to cause deadly illness was known among educated circles, but the laborers didn’t know that.

Cinnabar’s toxicity didn’t manifest immediately—it had to accumulate over a long period before illness appeared. But mine laborers didn’t live that long. In other words, the laborers didn’t truly understand cinnabar’s danger.

Meanwhile, with the platoon leader absent for half a year, the soldiers and workers of Vermilion Fortress had embezzled money made from mined cinnabar.

Most of it went to the soldiers with spears and swords, but the workers got a taste too.

Because mining translated directly into cash, the workers grew greedy for the money rather than fearing the danger.

“Don’t worry. We’ll mine cinnabar. Just not with you…”

Azadine clapped, and with a creaking sound, something began to walk in.

“Huh?!”

A formation of skeletons marched in, orderly, holding pickaxes.

“Skeletons?”

“U-undead?!”

The workers panicked at the sight of Azadine controlling undead through necromancy.

“From now on, these undead will handle cinnabar mining.”

Macdogal turned pale.

“Have you lost your mind? What do you think the Rescue Knights Order is? Using undead?! Necromancy is evil magic!”

“So it’s fine for people to be poisoned and die from toxic materials? Forcing humans to extract cinnabar is far more evil, isn’t it?”

“So that’s why you ordered a household registry survey and told me to confirm the unclaimed graveyard—so you could use necromancy!”

Azadine had ordered Macdogal to identify the unclaimed graves—those with no living family or descendants.

As instructed, the undead here were made from the bodies of people without descendants or family ties. Necromancy provoked disgust, and no one enjoyed seeing a relative’s corpse used for labor.

“To be honest, I thought about it a lot. I even considered using bodies that did have family—paying corpse-usage fees to the families every week. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that wasn’t right.”

But at that, people’s eyes lit up.

“That sounds great!”

“Yeah—how much would you pay?”

“……?”

It seemed the villagers would tolerate even their relatives’ corpses being put to work mining cinnabar, as long as they received fair compensation.

“No matter how much I ignore the code, I’m still a Holy Knight—doesn’t that go too far?”

“Not too far at all!”

“Exactly!”

“Doesn’t that go too far?”

Azadine repeated the words like something in him had broken.

And so, to prevent residents from dying of cinnabar poisoning, Azadine gathered whatever bodies he could, created undead, and had them mine cinnabar—then began expanding lodging and farmland.

Unlike cinnabar mining, which could be handled with a simple set of instructions, construction required constant improvisation—work that couldn’t be done without living people.

It was also meant to provide wages to those who had no farmland of their own.

If income from the cinnabar mine stopped, many laborers would starve immediately. By giving them jobs to sustain their livelihoods while also improving Vermilion Fortress’s conditions, it benefited everyone.

While restoring Vermilion Fortress, Azadine also prepared for the Shade Hag’s curse.

He briefly considered searching for the Shade Hags’ location directly, but wandering around to find their lair so soon after assignment would have been foolish.

Either way, the Shade Hags would soon come to kill Azadine.

Azadine was sitting in his room on the top floor of Vermilion Fortress.

Even “top floor” meant a tower only three stories tall. But since it stood on a peak, the view from the window was dizzyingly high—an excellent vantage point to see anyone approaching the fortress.

Azadine had already finished all the paperwork.

Half a year of neglect had piled up tasks, but it was still a small fortress. Once the backlog was cleared, only time remained.

Azadine spent that time meditating, organizing the Arael grimoires inside him.

Even the necromancy used to create the mining undead had been found within Arael’s grimoires.

‘Arael is truly incredible.’

They were spells Azadine hadn’t known at all, yet by contemplating the grimoires growing within his inner self, knowledge and memory surfaced as if he had always known them.

Had Arael understood and mastered all these grimoires?

Azadine trembled at the immense legacy she had left him.

Her talent, her will—and the weight of the burden that had pressed on her shoulders—could be felt.

‘What a shame. If my body had been whole….’

As he organized Arael’s vast magic, Azadine felt regret.

Then, while he was meditating, Arael’s voice suddenly warned him.

Darkness was surging like a flood toward Vermilion Fortress.

From the perspective of a bird flying high, he could see the Shade Hag’s power swallowing the fortress.

Startled, Azadine ended his meditation and stood. Approaching the tower terrace and looking down over the village, he saw it clearly—darkness rolling in fast, devouring the mountain valley.

“It begins.”

Azadine took up the ceramite longsword, the Crescent-Horn Bow, and a quiver of arrows.

“Platoon Leader!”

The soldiers shouted from below the tower.

“I’m coming down!”

Azadine leapt from Vermilion Tower. He landed on the roof of the adjacent barracks, rolled lightly, and dropped to the ground.

“The wind feels wrong! The Shade Hags will appear!”

“I know. Rijen, Kallan—only you stay. Everyone else, get inside the barracks!”

“Yes!”

“What about the workers and regular soldiers?”

“We tied them to posts!”

Shade Hags used illusion magic—especially illusions tied to desire and lust that worked well on men. Ordinary soldiers, no matter how many, would only become liabilities.

Rijen and Kallan had apparently tied the soldiers to posts in advance to prevent casualties when the hags appeared.

Meaning: those two could keep their senses even under the hags’ illusions.

So Azadine kept only the dwarf Kallan—highly resistant to illusion—the half-elf Rijen, and the blood mage Bernard on standby, while binding everyone else indoors.

“I’m worried about what happens when we untie them later.”

Then, from the night’s darkness, beautiful music began to drift in.

“It begins.”

A sweet, floral scent surged in with the music. A young woman’s lovely voice started to sing.

“Hey. Stop wasting time and talk!”

Azadine shouted, rejecting the hags’ attempt to bewitch him.

But perhaps they still hadn’t grasped the situation—because they kept singing, luring with honeyed voices.

“Come play with us. We are nymphs of passion—petals ready to be soaked in the desires of vigorous men.”

At the beautiful voice and sweet scent, the soldiers began to writhe in enchantment.

“Ah….”

“I want to go out!”

But they were bound tightly to posts with rope, so it held.

However—

“Aaagh!”

“Ah! No, Kuntachi!”

Kuntachi was the problem.

He tore the ropes apart with brute force and burst outside.

“No! Kuntachi! Listen to me—those are hags!”

Camilla panicked and tried to stop him, but Kuntachi ignored her, charging toward the singing hags.

Unable to hold back, Camilla drew a blackjack.

A thief’s weapon meant to knock someone out—a club with a sandbag attached, like a flail.

She swung it with full force into her brother’s temple, but it didn’t even knock Kuntachi out. If anything, he grew more excited and violent.

“Grrr!”

“Aaah! Azadine, help!”

“This… can’t be helped. Rijen!”

“Yes?!”

“You handle it.”

“Understood! A chance to prove my loyalty, Platoon Leader!”

Rijen, delighted, sprinted like a beast, transformed into a werewolf, and pounced on Kuntachi.

Kuntachi was monstrously strong, but transformed Rijen was stronger still—he pinned Kuntachi down in an instant.

But trying to subdue without killing was difficult—even for a werewolf.

“Damn it, you half-orc—why are you so strong?!”

“Whoa. Nymphs. Nymphs! Soft… It’s a chest.”

Kuntachi rubbed his face into Rijen’s coarse fur, shouting that it was soft, and then started kissing wildly.

“Ugh—stop it, you idiot. That’s not a nymph’s chest, it’s my—”

“…….”

Azadine pressed his temples as a headache crashed over him.

Kuntachi, flailing, was kissing Rijen’s most private area as if it were a nymph’s chest.

“Kekekekek!”

“Aah… we’re burning up now. Cool our bodies, husband.”

“Wrapped in our petals, anyone will taste ecstasy in no time.”

The hags, mimicking nymphs, provoked and mocked the scuffle between Rijen and Kuntachi.

“Even for hags, impersonating nymphs crosses the line. That won’t do.”

Deciding words wouldn’t work, Azadine raised his bow toward where the voice came from.

“Don’t get hit.”

Azadine said it, then loosed an arrow at the source of the voice.

-SHRAAAK!

The arrow tore through the wind, and far away, a commotion erupted.

“Kgh?!”

The hags finally realized Azadine wasn’t falling for their bewitchment.

“Stop wasting time and talk. I am Azadine—First Messenger of the Emperor, the Golden King Manza-Jadek’s Golden Decree Envoy, and Hospitaller-Errant of the Rescue Knights Order.”

“What?!”

“The Emperor’s Messenger and a Holy Knight?”

The hags seemed startled by his shocking introduction.

“Hmph. I heard the Shade Hags of the Chadra Plateau are beings near unto gods, granting any wish. But it seems you didn’t even know who I was? Of course—you were never truly omniscient.”