Banreung Expedition (1)

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠“Then may fortune be with you. Azadine.”

Dimia exchanged an elegant farewell with Azadine and tried to leave. But then Indim briefly got off the boat and approached Azadine.

“Ah, and, well, I will be your p-partner. I am busy with work right now, so I was thinking I would visit in about a month. You said Vermilion on the Chadra Plateau, right?”

“…….”

“What? Why?”

“It was a joke.”

“A j-joke?! You bastard. Do you know how much resolve it took for me to permit it?!”

“I thought I said it in a way that would normally make it impossible not to know it was a joke. Don’t you just want to do it with me?”

“Kuh! Y-you bastard. Do not say such things with Lady Arael’s appearance! There are things you can say even as a joke, and things you cannot!”

Indim became embarrassed, then quickly threw himself back onto the small boat.

Azadine chuckled as he watched him.

“Farewell, Indim. Stay safe.”

“E-enough!”

Indim blushed, took the pole from Dimia, then rowed the boat vigorously and disappeared far away.

“Boss. You will get into big trouble if you make jokes like that. Whether human or orc, one must be careful with words and deeds.”

“Hmm. Hearing a warning about words and deeds from you certainly gives me a sense of crisis that I made a serious mistake.”

Azadine came to his senses when he heard Scott’s comment to him.

“The Aragasa also seem to be treating Fimbulbert as an established fact. Sir Azadine. Then what will you do now? Even if you go to the Chadra Plateau, I do not think the Northern Emperor will simply leave you alone….”

“No. If the Courage Order does well, they will not have the leisure to pay attention to me right now. I should lie low for a while and build up my strength.”

“Strength, you say?”

“Yes.”

Azadine said that and rubbed his fingers together. With a crackle, electric sparks flew between his fingers.

“There are still many magic books inside me that I have not fully digested. You saw how those members of Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon handled a small boat with a single pole and moved quickly, right? That is something Arael could easily do too, but I had no idea at all until I actually tried it.”

The many talents and magical powers he had received through his fusion with Arael—Azadine had not yet digested them. He needed sufficient time.

But it was doubtful whether he would be given that time.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠When Azadine returned to Fireglyph, Prince Kalintz, the Chapter Master of Fireglyph, set everything aside and ran out to welcome Azadine.

“Sir Azadine! You returned safely! What a relief!”

He welcomed him so enthusiastically that Azadine was flustered.

“Is there some urgent matter? You almost ran out barefoot.”

“No. It is not that. Those Celestial Fire bastards came and requisitioned grain, and their attitude was unbelievably arrogant.”

“They acted arrogantly even though they are your blood relatives?”

“In truth, the ones who cut off the most heads of the Divine Gods of the Eight Kingdoms are probably not the Messenger Clan, who are criticized as god-killers, but the Divine Gods of the Eight Kingdoms themselves. There is no such thing as getting along just because we are blood relatives. If anything, we torment each other even more.”

He was not someone who usually said such things. Seeing him speak this far, it seemed he had truly suffered a great deal because of the Celestial Fire Knights.

“Those bastards seem to think this place is a warehouse where grain comes out if they stab it! They are making a fuss, saying Fimbulbert is approaching and that we should hurry and farm as much as possible before then and offer up the food. What should I do? Sir Azadine, you could harvest that bastard’s neck, right?”

“…Listen without taking offense first. No matter what, I think farming is the right thing to do. When I was in Saint Mallory, there was even an accident there where the sea froze over.”

Of course, that had been a catastrophe that occurred when the Wendigo’s Dagger returned. But several factions were already treating Fimbulbert’s approach as an established fact. There was nothing bad about preparing.

Regardless of whether he liked Celestial Fire or not, if Fimbulbert was approaching, they had to stockpile as much food as possible before then.

“That is true, but in a situation like this, even if we farm, it looks like it will all be taken away. Look at the quota those bastards gave me.”

When Prince Kalintz gestured with his chin, Jan coughed and entered, then handed over the documents.

When Azadine examined the documents, sure enough, they were demanding an enormous amount of grain again, enough to be called plunder.

“If someone heard you, they would think you were the one doing the farming. The ones being robbed are the tenant farmers, after all.”

“You should not say that when you are a knight too. Anyway, those bastards came empty-handed, and they even requisitioned ships. How can such lawless bastards exist?”

“Did you give them ships?”

Azadine asked despite already knowing the outcome. The Grain Transport Ships he had seen on the way had probably been ships requisitioned from Fireglyph.

He already knew the conclusion, but he wanted to hear what Kalintz would complain about.

“What else could I do but give them? Those people had gathered all the high-ranking people and were using them as backing. They said all the Knights of Virtue were supporting Celestial Fire. On top of that, they subjugated monsters on their way here, so perhaps because of that, their reputation is no joke. Since all of them are handsome men and beautiful women, even the residents are making a fuss about how great they are while having their food taken away. Even though they will curse me once food prices rise in Fireglyph starting tomorrow.”

“Hahaha.”

“This is not something to laugh about. So, Sir Azadine. What is the atmosphere like in Saint Mallory?”

“It was true that the Wisdom Order is trying to unify the entire knight order around Celestial Fire. To stop that, the Benevolence Order and Courage Order were also moving, and by assisting them appropriately, I found out the secret of the Celestials.”

“The secret of the Celestials? That sounds too grand. O-of course, it is not that I do not trust your abilities, Sir Azadine, but you accomplished such difficult things in that short time?”

It seemed that even though he had written Azadine a pass to travel to and from Saint Mallory, he had not expected much.

Well, even Azadine himself had not dared to expect that he would discover such an important secret in such a short time.

“To be honest, it was not my ability alone. In fact, the Benevolence Order contacted me first. They had also been thinking that it would be troublesome if the Wisdom Order seized the initiative, so they needed a suitable piece to make use of.”

“The Benevolence Order, you say.”

Prince Kalintz was startled when Azadine said he had made a deal with the Benevolence Order.

“Those people are assassins. You somehow managed to make a deal with people like that.”

“And I handed the facts and physical evidence I discovered that way over to the Courage Order.”

“You received them from the Benevolence Order and gave them to the Courage Order? Would that not put assassins after you? That seems like something you could not do unless your liver was hanging outside your body, yet you went and did it.”

Prince Kalintz clicked his tongue in astonishment as he listened to Azadine’s heroic tale. Certainly, when he heard it put that way, even Azadine realized that he had done something incredibly dangerous.

“Well, that level of threat was worth enduring. In public activity, the Courage Order is far more influential than the Benevolence Order. And in truth, with the Tercio Brigade aiming their gun barrels at me, I could not exactly refuse to give it to them.”

“So what is the secret of the Celestials?”

Azadine suddenly looked at Prince Kalintz, who was watching him. This prince with lion’s-mane hair had the appearance of a northerner, but he was different from the Celestials.

Unlike Karna or Triodana, who were androgynous and beautiful youths, his rough northern appearance asserted that he came from a different line than them.

But even so, this guy was also a child of the Northern Emperor Cohen Rioneir. Was it all right to tell him?

Reincarnating as a Celestial was like a kind of privilege granted to the Northern Emperor’s children.

If he learned that fact, would Prince Kalintz not return once more as a loyal child of the Northern Emperor?

But conversely, there was also no reason not to tell him. Even if Azadine did not tell him, the fact would be revealed through the Northern Emperor’s communication network anyway.

Azadine told Prince Kalintz the secret of the Celestials that he had discovered.

“My goodness. Is that true? No, then why did they not make me a Celestial?”

“Do you want to become a Celestial?”

“To be honest, I do want to. They are all handsome men and beautiful women, and they have angel wings too. It is impressive, is it not?”

“You are one of the Divine Gods of the Eight Kingdoms too, are you not? Hearing a noble Yaegas God tribe member say that makes it sound insincere.”

“The Divine Gods of the Eight Kingdoms are nothing special. We do not have wings either. In appearance, we are no different from humans now.”

A member of the Yaegas God tribe himself, no one else, was saying something that would make the King’s Church have a fit if they heard it. Azadine suddenly envied that.

Because he, as a prince, said it, it was a joke. If someone like Azadine, an untouchable under the order of the King’s Church, said something like that, would it not sound to anyone who heard it as if he were being jealous?

“But to become a Celestial, you have to die.”

“Ah, then I dislike it again, that part. In any case, you have really discovered something tremendous. Will you be all right? Might the knight order excommunicate you?”

“I will think about that when the time comes. They probably will not be able to excommunicate me. Even if they do, I have countermeasures.”

Azadine already had a loyal comrade named Selim. Selim could establish himself on the Chadra Plateau while Azadine held the actual power and moved behind him.

Rather, it would be better if the knight order excommunicated Azadine. Azadine was the Chosen Guide, someone who could prove miracles at any time. If they excommunicated someone chosen by the angels, he could inflict a tremendous political blow on the side that excommunicated him.

“First, you have worked hard traveling such a long road, Sir Azadine. Take some rest. If anything happens, I will contact you again.”

Prince Kalintz praised Azadine for his efforts. Though he was the Northern Emperor’s son, his attitude was amiable and friendly, so Azadine could understand why his subordinates willingly served him.

Azadine seized a Fireglyph safe house that Chashan, one of the Chadra Five Ogres, had used and made it his own base.

His official territory was Vermilion Fortress, but now that he had subdued the Chadra Five Ogres and grown into a warlord, handling business there was far too inconvenient.

“Whoa. Boss. You succeeded!”

Scott was surprised as he looked at Azadine’s Fireglyph base.

“You were definitely wandering around without a home or even a temple, but now you own a proper mansion in a city like this.”

“It is a bit much to call it a proper mansion, but it certainly is large.”

Zebec was also surprised as he looked at Azadine’s hideout.

In the large building, troops with training that was clearly extraordinary at a glance saluted when they saw Azadine.

“You have arrived! Boss!”

“We heard the news. The other executives are also hurrying here.”

“Good. Everyone has worked hard. I would like to receive reports on what has happened so far.”

Azadine received his subordinates’ salutes and decided to read the reports.