The Order’s Secret Weapon (7)

“Then let’s go. Since your doppelgangers died right in the middle of the city streets, you’d better watch yourselves. Ah, Delia. I almost forgot.”

Azadine stepped up to Delia and suddenly reached out toward her. Startled, Delia reflexively got pulled into Azadine’s arms.

“Y-you bastard! With Lord Arael’s face, what do you think you’re doing…?!”

“That’s Blue Sun Farewell, right? I’m taking some.”

Azadine pulled the azure-steel arrows—Blue Sun Farewell—from the quiver slung across Delia’s back, pocketed them, and left the Van Dyke Trading Company with his subordinates.

“Last thing—if you’ve got anyone who wants to farm or work as laborers, recommend them to Vermilion Fortress. I want the population to shoot up. Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of economic power. All right, I’m really leaving.”

“Ugh! Y-you traitor of the clan!”

Delia, face blazing red, fumed without knowing what to do with herself. Watching her, Azadine gave a small snort of laughter and left with his subordinates.

“That’s the traitor Azadine.”

“…Mm.”

The doppelgangers, an evil shapeshifter race, finally breathed out in relief once Azadine was gone.

They felt toyed with in every possible way, but right now, they were almost grateful simply because Azadine had vanished from their sight.

“Is it really fine to let them live? Doppelgangers are evil by nature. They’re monsters obsessed with killing others and consuming their forms.”

Camilla asked Azadine seriously.

“They’ve got a base—the trading company. I’m only a trainee knight, so I can’t touch them carelessly. What matters more is rescuing Sir Izmilla.”

Azadine spoke while heading toward Fireglyph’s north gate.

“And they’ll be useful later, too.”

Arael’s voice flew like a bird through the sky, pursuing the Northern Aragasa who had kidnapped Izmilla. The Northern Aragasa regrouped with their comrades at a watermill outside the Fireglyph gate—and among them was a mage.

This mage wore a robe carved all over with bizarre magical script; the robe alone looked suspicious enough that if he passed through any proper castle or gate, he would be arrested on sight.

Then he extended a finger out from beneath the robe.

A bent finger with sharp claws—clearly not human. With it, he pointed to the sky.

“Oh, good grief. There’s a surveillance spell overhead!”

“What?”

“A scout-diviner?”

“Something like that, but stronger—and more wicked.”

“Damn it! Then it’s Azadine.”

Jan realized why Azadine was not chasing them directly.

Azadine had attached a pursuer and was waiting—so he could track where they went.

It was lucky they had a mage who noticed, but the mage snapped in irritation.

“You idiots. I thought you’d be more competent since you’re ‘like’ that Messenger Clan—and you let yourselves be tailed?”

“What? Are you mocking us right now?”

“Watch your mouth, mage. Unless you want to experience Aragasa strength….”

The Northern Aragasa threatened the mage, but he did not seem to take them seriously at all.

Whether he trusted his own power, or had other intentions from the start, he was not someone to take lightly.

Ignoring their threats and intimidation, the mage spoke on.

“Who’s talking about strength? I’m talking about the gray tofu you carry around inside your skulls.”

“You….”

The Aragasa flared with murderous intent, but the mage met that killing aura with a scoff of his own.

A sharp, inhuman voice—and the sound of teeth grinding—rang out.

In the hair-trigger tension where it felt like they might kill each other at any moment, Izmilla—whom they had taken prisoner—stirred awake.

“Ugh… mmph?!”

Ropes already bound Izmilla’s body, and a gag had been forced into her mouth so she could not chant spells.

But once Izmilla grasped the situation, she focused her mind.

From her arms—her whole body—sacred flames rose, beginning to burn the ropes away.

“Damn it!”

“Stop her!”

The Northern Aragasa rushed in, but the golden flames surging from Izmilla looked ready to scorch anyone who came close.

“Hot—!”

“Damn it!”

The gag that blocked Izmilla’s mouth burned through and fell away.

At that desperate moment, the mage stepped in.

“Don’t blame me if you die!”

The lightning the mage cast struck Izmilla squarely between the brows.

-BZZZZT!

It was a horrific sight.

Izmilla’s eyes—burning with golden flame and fury—lost their light, and her body toppled sideways.

“Remarkable. As expected of a Celestial. I fired with enough output to kill a bear, and it ended with a mere knockout. Something should have burned somewhere….”

Only a brief trace of current remained on Izmilla’s face.

A faint, lightning-shaped burn reddened her skin, but even as she lay collapsed, the wound healed rapidly and soon vanished.

She truly looked like the Rescue Knights Order’s secret weapon.

“Is she going to be okay…?”

“Bind her with these chains. This is a Shadowsteel chain. No matter how much of an angel she is, once she’s bound with this, she won’t be able to move. No need for a gag. Anyone bound by it can’t use magic or abilities.”

The mage produced chains made of Shadowsteel.

The Aragasa flinched at the sight of chains forged from Shadowsteel.

To them, Shadowsteel was the supreme treasure—metal believed to originate from the scales of Azadine the Disgraced Black Dragon.

A treasure, and also a cursed abomination. And he had this much of it.

“How did you get something this precious….”

“You can prepare anything. So… what now? Are you going to trot off to your master, the Northern Emperor, with a pursuer still on your tail?”

“Is there another way?”

“Do this.”

At the mage’s gesture, two goblin soldiers who had been hiding inside the watermill stepped out.

The mage reached out with clawed hands and seized both goblins by the head.

“Kiiieeek!”

His claws pierced their skulls with horrifying ease, and the goblins screamed miserably.

As they writhed, their bellies split, and wings began to sprout from inside. A left wing grew from the left goblin, and a right wing from the right goblin.

“Hmm….”

The Northern Aragasa ground their teeth as they watched.

This mage was no ordinary figure. A moment ago, he had been furious after comparing the Messenger Clan to the Northern Aragasa—but that anger vanished, replaced by an unpleasant fear.

‘It’s not that we’re cowards.’

‘We just don’t know much about magic.’

The mage sent current through the goblins’ heads with both hands, killing them—then fused the corpses into one.

-CRK-

After a moment, with a sickening sound, a bizarre goblin corpse sprouted wings in their place.

The mage wrapped it in a blanket until it looked about the same size as Izmilla.

“Hmm. Two isn’t enough. The wings are pretty big. One more?”

At that, the other goblins flinched, then dropped to the floor trembling. They did not even dare think of running, which made it clear what sort of standing the mage held over them. Even if they fled, with that lightning magic, they would be rats in a jar.

“I’m joking. If we wrap it in a blanket, it’ll do.”

The mage puffed the blanket up to make it look convincing, then handed it to the Northern Aragasa.

“Here. You’ll carry this and move west, to confuse the pursuer. We’ll take the angel and deliver her to your master.”

“No. That won’t do.”

Jan objected.

“There’s nothing stopping you from carrying that angel off somewhere else on the way. Do you have any idea how long we invested in uncovering the Rescue Knights Order’s secret? We can’t hand her over to your Kurt Pantheon now, of all times.”

“You’re the ones who brought the tail. That’s your responsibility.”

The mage bristled at Jan’s words. On the surface, it sounded reasonable—but Jan shook his head.

“If you did it, do you really think you wouldn’t have been tailed? You monsters can’t even enter the city, so we had to do it in the first place. We took on the work, so responsibility came with it. If you try to blame us for that, people will fear responsibility and no one will want to work with you. So here we split it fairly—half and half.”

“What?”

“Half of us goes with the angel, half of us draws the enemy away. Same for you—half of you goes with the angel, the other half draws the enemy away. How about it? Fair, isn’t it?”

“So you’re saying you don’t trust us.”

“Would you, honestly?”

“Haha. True enough.”

The mage tapped his own head with a sharp, hook-like hand and laughed loudly.

“Fine. We’ll do it that way.”

The mage accepted Jan’s proposal.

The Northern Aragasa burst out of the watermill.

As soon as they emerged, they shot arrows into the sky, as if they had noticed Arael’s voice—but no matter how deadly an Aragasa arrow was, it still could not surpass the limits of the bow itself.

It was impossible to hit Arael’s voice flying high overhead with an arrow.

Perhaps they changed plans, because they fled on fast horses along the northwestern road.

‘Hmm. Something’s off.’

Azadine, who had been controlling Arael’s voice, felt their behavior was strange.

First of all, Izmilla’s “body” was strange. She had been fine until just now, yet they had covered her with a bloodstained blanket.

Had they injured her—or killed her—in the meantime?

‘Did Izmilla have some magical treasure inside her body, and they extracted it? No—if the treasure was the goal, why bother taking the body? Wasn’t her body—the angel herself—the objective?’

The enemies had clearly kidnapped Izmilla alive. If they meant to extract something from her or kill her, they would have killed her from the start.

When they knocked her out with an arrow bearing a lightning talisman, it would have been easy to finish her off and steal whatever they wanted.

‘Given all the circumstances, it’s bait—almost certainly!’

Azadine wanted to drop Arael’s voice lower and investigate the hut. But the enemy was firing arrows—if he descended to low altitude and got hit…?

Arael’s voice might disappear. He could not lose his sister’s legacy so easily.

But while he hesitated, the enemies continued riding farther and farther away.

“What do we do about that?!”

Camilla asked.

“We search that building and pursue them! Searching the building comes first!”

“Is that okay?”

“I’m monitoring them separately. Prioritize the building! But don’t rush in first!”

Sure enough, as Azadine said it, arrows flew out from inside the building.

Those who had been waiting inside the watermill had fired—since Camilla and Kuntachi were out front, they were the ones exposed to the attack.

Normally, Azadine would have caught the arrows or knocked them aside with the back of his hand, but since he knew exactly what Izmilla had been hit with, he hurriedly hurled coins to collide with the incoming arrows and threw his body aside.

“Sister!”