Sectarian Dispute (4)

‘They are frightening bastards. But it makes sense.’

Azadine was convinced after hearing those words.

“Then you do not need me, do you? I will give you the scroll now. However, please say that the Courage Order found it, not me.”

If it were publicly announced that the actual culprit who stole the scroll was Azadine, the Wisdom Order or the Northern Emperor would come to hate Azadine. It would be fortunate if it ended with simple hatred; they might even send assassins to kill him.

“Sir Azadine, do you intend to act separately like this? You mean you will act independently without joining any of the three great sects? Merely bringing this scroll is a tremendous achievement. Our sect values you highly, so if you join our sect on this path, we will immediately treat you with a high position… but would it not be strange to give a reward to someone who is not a member of our sect?”

Gareth was flustered by Azadine’s words. However, Azadine was firm.

“Yes. Well, there is no need to decide right now, is there? I also have my own thoughts, and I have an organization I lead. For now, I will return, discuss it with my subordinates, and slowly decide where I stand.”

“Mm. Th-then do so.”

Gareth had never imagined that Azadine would reject their offer.

Since he had only seen people who wanted to become members of a giant sect while being absorbed in sectarian disputes within the organization called the Rescue Knights Order, he had never imagined there would be someone who rejected joining a sect itself.

‘Hmm. Being permitted to enter our sect is a tremendous honor in itself. Since the Wisdom Order came out coercively, we offered a conciliatory measure, yet he arrogantly rejected it. But this bastard is calm.’

Azadine had been greatly surprised when he learned that Gareth and the Courage Order had joined hands with Ject, but aside from that, he was composed.

He had likely already predicted that the Courage Order would try to independently acquire command authority over the Celestial Fire Knights. Perhaps he had originally intended to hand the reincarnation scroll over to the Courage Order.

‘He has handed over the scroll, and there is no particular excuse to force or persecute him, so thinking of the future, I have no choice but to end this amicably.’

Gareth was somewhat offended that Azadine had rejected his proposal, but he still chose to think positively and let it pass.

“Then, Sir Gareth. Could you perhaps let us out of the city? It is past gate-closing time, but I want to leave now somehow. If I stay inside the city, it seems the Wisdom Order will bother me again.”

“That is possible.”

“Then please do. I feel that I must hurry.”

By asking Sir Gareth, Azadine was able to leave Saint Mallory safely despite it being past gate-closing time.

“Phew, good. We made it out alive.”

After leaving Saint Mallory, Azadine let out a sigh of relief. Zebec apologized to Azadine.

“I am sorry for being captured helplessly without even resisting.”

“No. Sir Zebec. If they had joined hands with Ject, it was only natural. Rather, it was my mistake for thinking Sir Ject would not be able to exert power here and showing him too many of the cards I had.”

Azadine had thought that even Sir Ject would not be able to exert power in Saint Mallory, so he had shown Ject many of the cards he held.

But he had never imagined that Ject would move the Courage Order and retrieve the scroll.

Of course, since the Courage Order had taken the reincarnation scroll, Ject would not be able to obtain it.

“But boss. Why did you hand the scroll over to the Courage Order? If you were going to do that, you should have handed it over to the Benevolence Order that adores you so deeply instead, right?”

Scott asked curiously.

“Oh? Why do you think that? Instead of simply thinking it was taken from me?”

When Azadine asked, Scott shrugged.

“No, are you questioning my intelligence right now? Since you refused to hand it over to Ject of the King’s Church, and also refused the Benevolence Order, the only side that can use that scroll to pressure the Wisdom Order is the Courage Order, right? Even if you handed it to the Kurt God Clan or the Nagas, they wouldn’t be able to use it.”

Scott focused on the fact that, by process of elimination, there were not many forces that could use the scroll effectively.

‘As expected, he’s no ordinary fellow. Is he smart because he’s an orc? Or is this guy just smart?’

Azadine admired Scott’s sharpness.

“You mean you had it taken on purpose? That?”

Zebec was also flustered.

“No, I did not have it taken on purpose. In truth, even I did not imagine it would be taken at this timing. This time, it really was taken from me.”

Azadine shook his hand.

“Still, if I were to hand the scroll to someone, I was thinking of handing it to the Courage Order. But in my opinion, the Courage Order was the weakest of the three, so I was going to hand it over to them. Now that I see it, that side is not to be underestimated either.”

“Why is that?”

“Well… first, I want the virtues to be revived. But I also cannot whip people and tell them to blindly worship only the virtues and not be captivated by the exploits of the Celestial Fire or the Celestials, can I? Realistically, when people see the Celestials handling sacred power so spectacularly, anyone would be captivated. Even my jaw dropped when Triodana retrieved the Wendigo’s Dagger in one stroke.”

Azadine wanted people to protect the virtues themselves, not worship heroes or angels.

However, he also knew that realistically, this was difficult.

“The problem is that when people are inspired by the exploits of the Celestial Fire like that, it does no good to expose that they were actually the Northern Emperor’s conspiracy, fake angels made by grinding down angel statues. The same goes for the other sects.”

Damaging angel statues was a terrible crime. However, the current Celestials could not be criticized because of that.

If this fact were brought into public debate and responsibility were assigned, some high-ranking priests and Holy Knights of the Wisdom Order would likely be held responsible.

However, if Fimbulbert grew severe and monsters ran rampant, the people might demand that they increase the number of Celestials even if every angel statue had to be ground down.

“Then does that mean it cannot be stopped, grinding down angel statues to create Celestials?”

Zebec said that, sounding slightly disappointed. He had thought that if it were Azadine, he might be able to solve it through some innovative method, but it seemed that not even Azadine had such skill.

“Realistically, one could call it the enormous benefit brought by the existence of the Celestial Fire Knights. They will not be able to give up that advantage.”

“Then will you leave the Celestial Fire Knights to continue their exploits?”

“No. Their actions must be stopped, and the fact that they are grinding down angel statues must be made public… only then, at the very least, can we stop them from grinding down the statues of the Three Archangels.”

Azadine clicked his tongue as he said that.

“…They would even grind down the statues of the Three Archangels?”

“Yes. Sir Zebec. Suppose you became old and sick, with only a few days left before you died, and the temptation came that you could be reincarnated as a Celestial.”

“I would not accept. A natural death is the pride of a descendant who has inherited even a little of the blood of the Yaegas God tribe.”

“No, so not you. Let us say it is a noble who is desperate to live even one more day. What do you think would happen if such people were offered reincarnation in exchange for bringing angel’s blood obtained by grinding down a statue of one of the Three Archangels? Not even an ordinary angel statue.”

“…That would be far too sacrilegious. It is horrifying.”

“No, what I mean is… if they are already bastards who would grind down angel statues anyway, would they not want to grind down a better angel statue, a higher-ranking angel, when it is their turn to reincarnate?”

Azadine suddenly recalled Sir Triodana’s tremendous power.

Judging by his appearance, he was certainly not very different from Sir Karna, but his power alone was several times, even several dozen times, greater than Sir Karna’s.

‘Surely they have not already ground down one of the Three Archangels?’

Azadine frowned, feeling ominous.

‘Of course, that cannot be. If they grind down a statue of one of the Three Archangels, the one reincarnated with it would not be another descendant of the Northern Emperor, but the Northern Emperor Cohen Rioneir himself.’

If a member of the Divine Gods of the Eight Kingdoms, a king, were reincarnated as an archangel, he could achieve a great integration that united both faiths, the King’s Church and the Rescue Knights Order, into one.

A man who did not hesitate to do any dirty deed for his own benefit would reign over the Hubris Continent as a living god.

When that time came, no matter how much truth Azadine brought, he would never be able to stop him.

“Mm. I should have ridden the hippogriff back. That was a mistake.”

When Azadine arrived in Saint Mallory, he had sent the hippogriff back to the Chadra Plateau through another person.

That was because keeping a hippogriff he had no occasion to ride in a large city would waste an enormous amount of feed money.

In a place like the Chadra Plateau, where there were many monsters and beasts, one could simply release the hippogriff at mealtime. Since the hippogriff was an intelligent creature, it would fly around appropriately, hunt Bri, goblins, deer, and the like on its own, fill its belly, and return to the stable, so feed costs could be saved dramatically.

However, Azadine had ridden a hippogriff when he came, and was returning on foot when he left. Unexpectedly, his party had grown as well, and although it had been a choice to reduce feed costs, this had become a fatal mistake.

There was a pursuer attached to their rear. The Courage Order had used their privilege to let Azadine out even after the city gates had been closed. But there was no way such an act would not become known to the other Orders.

No, perhaps they had even used Azadine’s party as bait in order to drain the mental strength of the other Orders while they analyzed the reincarnation scroll.

‘That is probably exactly it. If I had the hippogriff, it would have been easy to shake them off, but at times like this, I do not have the hippogriff.’

Azadine climbed onto an ordinary horse obtained at the horse market and looked behind him.

“Boss. Are you worried about the pursuers?”

“A little.”

“Then! It’s my turn to step up.”

Scott cast a spell toward the rear. Grass grew and blocked the road behind them.

“Is that Entangle magic? Doesn’t this belong to green magic?”

Azadine was startled because Scott, a necromancer, seemed to be using magic that belonged to green magic.

“Ah, if I made living grass grow, then yes. I made dead grass and trees move.”

Scott said that calmly.

“That is like saying it is an earring if you hang it on the ear and a nose ring if you hang it on the nose. This is really useful, but shouldn’t you not use such magic on a public road? I don’t want ordinary carriages or pedestrians to get hurt. I’d rather smash the pursuers instead.”

“Hey, it’s fine. It’s a trap that only catches guys running fast.”

It seemed like it might harass innocent passersby too, but such obstacles were not much of a threat when walking slowly.

They became a serious threat when sprinting at full speed, but if one simply walked, they would not be much of an obstacle, so it would be fine to cast it on a public road.

“Then let us go. Sir Azadine. Let us reach your territory as quickly as possible and come up with countermeasures.”

Zebec hurried along the road. However, for some reason, the pursuers were not impressive. Scott had laid obstructive spells and blocked the road, but even before that, the pursuers had not been very active.

‘What are they thinking?’

Azadine soon learned the reason. Arael’s voice warned him.

[Be careful, Azadine. The Celestial Fire is heading south from the north.]