Chadra’s Conqueror (7)

“Yeah. If I can raise them successfully, their value is incomparable to horses… and the high-and-mighty want them, don’t they. But who demanded it?”

Selim belched—buurp—and answered.

“My patron.”

“Who?”

“Bishop Sehnat.”

It was a familiar name, but Azadine wasn’t surprised.

Bishop Sehnat was the very one who had appointed Sir Pavel as the investigation leader in order to spirit Izmilla away.

That his name surfaced again now felt inevitable.

As the circumstantial pieces clicked into place, Azadine nodded, understanding the larger picture.

“So it really is Bishop Sehnat.”

“Right. Bishop Sehnat realized that spies planted by evil forces had become rampant within the Order, and he entrusted me with the mission of raising hippogriffs and delivering them to the chosen.”

“What?”

Azadine sensed from Selim’s reaction that Selim had interpreted his remark in a completely different way.

Selim had no doubt that Bishop Sehnat’s true intent was righteous. So when Azadine reacted at the bishop’s name, Selim took it as awe at the bishop’s diligence and upright radiance—a bulwark of goodness standing in the way of Azadine’s evil.

In Selim’s head, the crooked equation—Azadine equals evil, the bishop equals good—had already become an absolute axiom, proven beyond question.

“It pains me too to kill someone who resembles Maribel. But you threaten the Rescue Knights Order, so I can’t let you live.”

“Wait.”

Azadine objected.

“Begging for your life?”

“No. Before that—why do you think I’m the villain?”

“Because the bishop said you are.”

“Or the bishop could be the bad one.”

“That can’t be. The bishop is the one who made me a knight. If he’s bad, then I’m bad too. I don’t want to be bad, so I believe in the bishop.”

“Ah. I see.”

Azadine realized there was no point arguing further. Insulting the bishop in front of Selim was the same as insulting Selim—Selim had gone beyond defending the bishop and become one with him.

Just then, a whistle sounded.

“Huh?”

The moment Selim turned in surprise, an arrow flew in from a direction at a perfect right angle to the whistle’s source and lodged in the back of Selim’s neck.

“Azadine! That bastard is Bishop Sehnat’s assassin! There’s a written contract for the killing!”

Camilla shouted to Azadine as she nocked another arrow onto her shortbow.

“Huh? You lot—so you robbed my office!”

Selim roared, furious, and yanked the arrow from his neck. The wound was deep enough to be fatal for a human, but against a minotaur’s thick hide, it was no more than a scrape.

“Damn it. He’s a monster?!”

Camilla fired again, but once Selim started moving, the arrows slid and drifted away like leaves floating on running water.

It wasn’t some special guard. He was simply moving—and because of that, the arrows didn’t bite, they skated off.

‘Honestly. Camilla’s bow is absurdly weak.’

Azadine found himself irritated at how weak her bow was.

He understood, logically, that it was a bow suited to her strength—small, portable, and fast to shoot. But from the perspective of a Messenger Clan archer who treated every arrow as precious, that kind of bow was a device that wasted arrows.

It was to the point that throwing arrows by hand would hit harder.

But that line of thinking overlapped with the people who had bullied Azadine when he was young.

‘Looks like I’ve become a proper Messenger Clan bastard, too.’

Azadine moved to step in and subdue Selim himself, but Selim didn’t even look his way—he charged straight at Camilla.

If Azadine attacked now, it would mean striking Selim from behind, and Azadine hesitated.

It would be ideal to take him out—yet Selim claimed to be a knight, and Azadine felt reluctant to ambush him.

Then Kuntachi—the one who had blown the whistle—drew his falchion and strode toward Selim. His footsteps thundered as he advanced like he meant to ram him head-on.

“Don’t mess with big sister!

“Hmph! A stupid half-orc!”

“No, you’re stupid too.”

Azadine, listening, added a word.

“I can read and write!”

Selim protested at Azadine’s remark, snatched up an axe that had been set beside the ranch fence, and swung it at Kuntachi.

“What?!”

Kuntachi swung his falchion in surprise—

—KWAANG!

With a deafening crash, Kuntachi’s falchion was knocked away. Selim was stronger.

“Uhh?!”

Startled, Kuntachi reflexively lunged with a headbutt.

“You dare?!”

Selim answered with a headbutt of his own.

It was a force that could have crushed Kuntachi’s skull on Selim’s horns.

But Kuntachi must have been mindful of the horns—he twisted his head at the last instant and managed to collide brow-to-brow.

—BPAK!

A tremendous boom rang out—so loud it was hard to believe it came from two living beings colliding.

It sounded less like an impact and more like thunder.

When the echo of that thunder faded, Kuntachi dropped to one knee.

“T-This can’t be… I lost?!”

From the way he said it, he must have been undefeated in headbutt fights until now.

Even so—headbutting a minotaur and ending with only a kneel. Kuntachi’s skull was no ordinary rock.

“Y-You can read, and you’re this strong?!”

“Hmph. You foolish brat! You thought you could beat me?”

Selim raised his axe toward the kneeling Kuntachi—then suddenly, the axe grew heavy.

“Hm?!”

“My word. Headbutting a minotaur.”

Selim flinched at Azadine’s voice right by his ear and turned.

At some point, Azadine was already beside him—his hand gripping the axe.

Selim tried to shake him off by swinging the axe, but Azadine’s palm filled his vision.

And then—

—SKAK!

Azadine sprang upward. A blue arc of blade-light traced after him.

“KRAAAAGH!”

Azadine’s Azure Steel dagger severed one of Selim’s horns. Blood sprayed—cut at the root.

“Y-You bastard!”

Selim, enraged, whirled the axe like a windmill, but Azadine slipped through the gaps between blows like flowing water and drew Aurelia Dawn.

The ceramite longsword flared, brilliant golden flame blazing. Heat washed across Selim’s face.

Azadine had avoided the axe’s sweep by a hair and stabbed Aurelia Dawn toward Selim’s face—more precisely, toward the horn he had just cut.

—CHIIIIIISS!

Aurelia Dawn’s golden flame seared the severed base, cauterizing it shut.

‘Smells like savory beef….’

As the flesh burned, the scent of beef spread thickly in the air.

“KRAAAGH! You bastard! Fast—like a fly!”

Selim charged, swinging wildly at Azadine. Even a graze would be fatal.

Even if he couldn’t catch so much as a hem, Selim was confident that even weapon-to-weapon contact would let him take control of the exchange afterward.

Selim trusted his brute strength and whipped into a storm—yet Azadine calmly avoided every blow and, instead, urged surrender.

“As Acting Captain of the Fire Guard, I order you. Surrender, Sir Selim.”

“You bastard! Faster than a horsefly! But if I so much as clip you—”

The gale from Selim’s axe-sweeps shredded even the ranch flies into fragments. But Azadine kept evading with steady composure.

‘Damn—this bastard. He’s too calm?!’

Selim faltered at Azadine’s unnervingly calm eyes.

Every opponent Selim had faced—no matter how quick their footwork—would panic once his axe began to howl and call up a windstorm, trip over themselves, and collapse under their own fear.

But Azadine showed no such signs, slipping through the attacks as if it were nothing.

Remarkable nerve.

“This won’t do, Azadine. I’ve thought of you as a brother, so I didn’t want to use this… but aren’t you curious why the cows can roam freely in our ranch?”

“T-That does interest me.”

Even Azadine, who had been dodging with indifference, showed curiosity at Selim’s words.

“It’s because of this! Come on, griffins! Time to eat! Goo-goo-goo-goo-goo!”

In that instant, the presence of the griffins circling above changed.

The griffins that had merely been flying now began to stare down at the ground with unmistakable killing intent.

“They’re griffins I hatched myself from eggs! They think I’m their mother—so they don’t attack cows that look like me!”

From above, a griffin dove, then shifted into a glide and swooped down over Azadine.

Slower than a typical hawk’s hunting method—but with its massive bulk, the sight of a griffin gliding in after a dive was pure, overwhelming force.

Even for Azadine, a griffin’s gliding strike would be dangerous. And if Selim’s ground assault continued at the same time?

A relentless, three-dimensional assault—one brush was enough to kill.

“I wanted to handle you with my own strength alone, but it can’t be helped! This is all for the Order’s safety, Azadine!”

Selim regretted the reality of having to kill Azadine with his own hands—yet he was certain of victory.