Chadra’s Conqueror (8)

“Oh, yeah?”

But after hearing Selim, Azadine subtly shifted his position and walked over to the black dairy cow, Maribel.

“Huh?!”

Selim panicked at the sight.

The griffins’ gliding attacks were now unusable because of Maribel. If they swept through Azadine, they would inevitably collide with her.

The griffins circled and adjusted their approach angles, apparently unwilling to attack a cow—but each time, Azadine rotated around Maribel, petting her neck and keeping her between them.

“The griffins are well-trained, Selim. Looks like you raised them with affection?”

“Ghk! Cowardly! Azadine! Get away from Maribel! Maribel! That guy is a bad man!”

But when Azadine stroked her neck, Maribel simply wagged her tail happily, almost smiling.

“Oh my. Cute. Selim, you’re right. She’s pretty.”

“You bastard! My Maribel!”

At that moment the griffins landed in the ranch. Since gliding strikes weren’t working, they’d come down to fight up close. One after another, enormous griffins—each the size of a giant black bear—hit the ground and surrounded Azadine.

“A-Azadine?!”

“Boss!”

Camilla and Kuntachi blanched when they saw the griffins come down. There was no way to break through.

No—if these monsters turned hostile, even Camilla and Kuntachi had no guarantee of surviving.

‘Damn it. Do I have to use it here?’

Camilla was just about to slip a hand under her clothes—

“Selim. Final warning. Surrender.”

“What? You must’ve misspoken—you mean you surrender.”

Selim snorted. But in that instant, Azadine vanished from Selim’s sight.

—Flower-Birds, Wind-Moon: Duskfall!

The power of the grimoire that made the Messenger Clan the bane of magicians activated.

Selim jerked in shock and tried to swing his axe, but Azadine had already brought Aurelia Dawn down onto Selim’s head.

—CRACK!

With a gruesome sound, Selim’s horn snapped and blood sprayed. Azadine pressed the burning Aurelia Dawn to the cut surface, cauterizing it shut.

“KRAAAAGH! M-Me… I lost both horns?!”

Again, that savory beef smell spread everywhere. The griffins, their appetites stirred by the scent, drooled as they crept closer.

“Ugh…”

“Selim—looks like you trained them since childhood so they won’t attack you or cows. But what happens when a smell this delicious hits them? They look like they can’t resist their instincts.”

Azadine held an Azure Steel dagger to Selim’s throat, while keeping Aurelia Dawn searing the wound.

Forced down by the flaming blade, Selim’s head was pinned to the ground. He couldn’t even rise. It was only because it was a horn that he could endure Aurelia Dawn’s flames at all—if that edge touched skin directly, it would be a severe burn.

His instinct to avoid the fire drove Selim face-first into the dirt, and the smell of scorched flesh thickened. The griffins wavered in confusion.

The delicious scent… and the crisis of the one who raised them—torn between the two, they didn’t know what to do.

“O-Okay! I lost! I surrender!”

“Then call the griffins off.”

Selim whistled.

“K-Kids… go hunt outside. Daddy’s fine.”

At Selim’s words, the griffins prowled around him, still wary, staring between Azadine and Selim.

Azadine lifted Aurelia Dawn slightly and made a small threatening motion—one step back. But they didn’t flee any farther. They kept watching him.

It seemed they wouldn’t withdraw until Selim was completely safe.

“Get up.”

At Azadine’s command, Selim rose.

“Ghk… I’m sorry, Bishop. I wasn’t strong enough, so I ended up… at the mercy of a man like this….”

Selim still believed in Bishop Sehnat. Azadine bound Selim with rope and fully restrained him.

“Sir Selim got subdued?!”

As Azadine restrained Selim, Selim’s men and the village soldiers swarmed in.

“Everyone, calm down! This guy is dangerous! He’s not ordinary, so don’t recklessly try to save—”

Selim tried to stop them, afraid they’d rush Azadine to rescue him.

“We’re saved!”

“Hurrah!”

“Sir Azadine! Thank you!”

But the soldiers cheered, celebrating Azadine’s victory.

“We’re finally free of those cursed griffins!”

“Hey, you cow-headed bastard! Serves you right!”

“…Huh?”

Selim looked genuinely stunned—like he hadn’t even known he was hated.

“How can you people do this….”

“How can we?!”

“To you, griffins might be cute animals—but to us, they’re terrifying monsters!”

“You and your monsters fooling around! Do you know my kid’s arm broke because a horse carcass your griffins dropped landed on him? It healed twisted and left him disabled—and you’re laughing about it! When I think of my son, I’d happily roast you over charcoal—only we were too scared to do anything until now!”

“Our roofs are stained white with griffin droppings and stink to high heaven—how are we supposed to climb up and clean when we’re terrified of griffins?!”

People screamed out years of pent-up resentment until their throats were raw. Without Azadine here, they looked ready to skewer Selim and roast him on a spear.

“Then will you kill him? Shall we set up a gallows?”

“He’s a minotaur, so the gallows would have to be huge. He’s heavy.”

The soldiers were getting excited, already preparing to hang Selim—but Azadine didn’t indulge them.

“Hold it. Who said anything about killing him?”

“Huh?”

“I-I mean, we assumed you’d execute him…”

“Y-You have to kill him. You know what we suffered.”

If Selim wasn’t killed, it would look like they were openly harboring resentment—inviting retaliation.

“If you don’t execute him, we’ll die.”

“And if you execute him? Can you handle the griffins? The griffins hatched from eggs think he’s their parent. And the reason they don’t attack cows in the first place—Selim’s a minotaur, right? Isn’t it because they won’t attack anything with a cow’s head?”

“……”

Azadine’s question left everyone speechless.

The griffins hatched and raised by Selim were controllable because they regarded him as their parent.

If Selim died, the griffins would become uncontrollable monsters and spread. The thought of them multiplying while devouring the wildlife of the Chadra Springlands made everyone’s vision swim.

“Now then, Selim.”

“Ugh… ghk… h-huuuuu….”

Amazingly, Selim burst into tears, sniffling and wailing.

“To think everyone hated me! Ghk… waaah… I just wanted to become a holy knight!”

“……”

A full-grown adult—no, a minotaur—bawling his eyes out left everyone awkward.

“If you hated it, you should’ve said you hated it!”

“W-We did— we said we were scared because of the griffins!”

Selim cried even harder.

“I said I was scared too because I’m a minotaur! I thought you’d get used to it!”

“Alright, alright. Calm down.”

Azadine soothed Selim and held out his hand to Camilla. She passed him the documents she’d taken from Selim’s office.

“It’s the bishop’s orders. Your wanted notice, Azadine—there’s even a portrait.”

“Let’s see….”

Azadine unfolded the papers.

Sure enough, there were portraits of the administrators overseeing fortresses and villages across the Chadra Plateau—and among them was Azadine.

“It doesn’t explicitly say to kill them. Figures.”

If Bishop Sehnat wasn’t an idiot, he wouldn’t leave physical evidence like an outright kill order. He must have delivered the killing instruction verbally.

“T-The bishop told me the people listed here were cult spies who infiltrated the Order. He said it was unavoidable, to protect the Rescue Knights from the cultists.”

“Can you testify?”

“T-Testify? I can. But the intermediaries will deny everything, and… I’m a minotaur, so the church won’t believe me. The bishop’s my patron—that’s the only reason I even got a footing in the Order….”

Selim sobbed, wiping his nose and tears.

His patron—the bishop who’d placed him inside the Order. Selim had believed unquestioningly in the bishop’s innocence.

But learning that the subordinates he thought were loyal—and the villagers he thought got along with him—actually hated him enough to kill him… it shook all his convictions.

“Even if those people really are spies, killing them without a proper trial is nonsense. And if they truly are cultists, shouldn’t it be more important to extract information about the cult network that infiltrated them? Did you never think of that?”

“I didn’t. The bishop led me into the Rescue Knights. I never even considered doubting him.”

“Then that was profoundly foolish. If you are a Hospitaller, only virtue should be your lantern to light the path ahead. Loyalty to a single individual is merely blind devotion that numbs you to virtue. So tell me, Selim—why did you want to become a knight?”

Azadine asked abruptly.

Selim rummaged through his clothes and pulled something out: a shard of pottery depicting a knight flying on a hippogriff. The shard had been fitted into a brass locket to keep it from breaking.

“When I was little, I found this by chance. It was pretty, so I kept it… and whenever it crossed my mind, I’d look at it….”

“Huh? For such a reason?”

The soldiers mocked him for what sounded absurdly trivial. But Azadine could tell Selim was sincere.

“No—he’s serious. I understand you suffered under Selim’s tyranny, but I don’t think it’s right to mock him over this.”

“Ah… yes.”

“We’re sorry, Sir Azadine.”

The soldiers apologized to Azadine in unison.

“You’re not the one they should be apologizing to. But I understand.”

They didn’t want to apologize to Selim. The damage from the griffins, and all the harm caused during the hatching, was too great—too much bitterness had built up.

Realizing only now that what he had believed might have been wrong, Selim collapsed and slammed his forehead into the ground.