Chapter 42 – The Curse Of Service (3)

Azadine stopped and asked the villagers.

“By any chance, have you seen a girl about 8 years old? She has black hair and a darker skin tone. The child was brought here by the Talvarine Guild. She’s rumored to be a descendant of the Messenger Clan…”

The villagers were surprised and frightened at the freakish accuracy of Azadine’s question.

“We-We don’t really know about…”

“Shut up with that bullshit and come out with it!”

Tarki, who was usually completely useless, turned out to be a great help in this situation. Nobody could even squeak an excuse when Tarki, a knight, told them off and forced an answer from them.

“Well, the Talvarine Guild mainly does business with our village’s baker.”

“You see that chimney over there, right? That’s his house,”

Their explanation was precise, and perhaps because of Tarki’s intimidation, the exact location they needed didn’t take that long to find.

“So, what will you do now?”

Ismail asked.

“We’ll go to the bakery and peacefully negotiate with him. Fortunately, the child’s only 8 years old.”

The child would likely have been made to do basic household chores at that age. The situation shouldn’t be one where she would have suffered mental trauma or abuse.

That’s what he thought.

“What’s happening?”

A person was exiting a large warehouse with a whip in his hand.

“Oh? Sir Tarki?”

The owner hid his whip behind his back the moment Tarki stormed inside. There were many young children inside the building. Still, their eyes were sunken due to malnutrition, and their gazes made it clear that they were being exploited and overworked.

“For what business are you here?”

“Hey, we’re looking for this person.”

As Tarki turned around, Azadine gave the man the description of the child, including their physical appearance, age, and so forth.

“For what reason are you looking for that child?”

“Oh, ho! What does that matter to you?”

“Ah, actually, that child is dead.”

“What? Then what about those children?”

Tarki pointed at the other children.

“They’re all orphans. They don’t have anywhere to go, so as a public figure here, I gather, raise, and even give them work.”

“Is that so?”

Tarki was left speechless and stared at Azadine, who was behind him. Azadine then looked at the children’s appearance and frowned.

“How did you arrange the child’s funeral?”

Azadine’s voice was filled with rage.

“Um, the funeral? Um, why exactly are you asking me all this?”

“Tarki.”

“Yes.”

Tarki immediately sunk his knee into the owner’s stomach.

“Urghk-!”

“A high-ranking person made a promise with that child’s parents, so we’re here to search for her. At the very least, she needs to know where she was buried. If you’d organized a funeral for her, you can easily tell us about it, so enough of your lies and confess.”

“Uh… I, to be honest, just threw her in the river.”

“The river? Are you out of your mind?”

In a world where the dead could revive themselves if they forgot their death, throwing a child’s body into a river without even a funeral was the perfect way to mass-produce cursed spirits.

But it didn’t seem like he was lying. Seeing that this man took the children away, abused them, and made them work, he probably threw any kids who died into the river when the flow was strong, or the rainfall was frequent.

“Hm… What do you plan to do now?”

Ismail looked like he was enjoying the flow of events and found it amusing. What would happen when Azadine’s generosity, compassion, sympathy, or sense of justice clashed against the bitter reality? Ismail wanted to see Azadine defeated.

“Has he always been like this?”

Azadine asked Mediam.

“Umm, not really? I don’t think he’s acted like this before.”

Mediam spoke while she was glued to Azadine’s side. That favoritism and affection frustrated Ismail even more, almost pushing him to sneer openly at Azadine.

“If you kill this man, what’ll happen to all the kids here? They’re not even our people, so there’s no way you’ll rescue them, will you? Not to mention, regardless of what happened, he’s a regular customer of the Talvarine Guild. Suppose you entrust these children to the care of the Korasar Peddlers Guild. In that case, I don’t think the Guild will agree to it in fear of an inevitable conflict with the Talvarine Guild.”

Ismail may have been young, but he was quite smart in matters like these. If he hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t have been able to leave the Sanctuary with Mediam to become a servant to a messenger.

A trainee could only become a messenger if they passed through the selection process with sufficient grades. He was only allowed to leave due to his high evaluation scores in martial arts, academics, general knowledge, and wits compared to his peers. That same Ismail was judging this situation with a cool head right now.

Killing the owner without rescuing the children could, in fact, end up catastrophic for these children. Yet if he’d let the man leave without any consequences for his actions, he would only continue to bring in and mistreat children.

“This problem can’t be solved with simple-minded sympathy or a sense of justice. Azadine, kindly share your excellent opinion and enlighten a child like me with your wisdom.”

Tarki came forward when Ismail tried to pass this sarcastic remark. Once again, he began beating the owner.

“This bastard. My brother swore to protect that child, and you dare take this all so lightly, huh? You just beat the shit out of her because she was a child, didn’t you? Today, you’ll have your senses knocked out of you.”

Tarki went wild and began beating up the owner.

“Uh, Ack! Ack! Sa-Save me, please!”

“Tell me, when did I become your brother, huh?”

At some point, Azadine felt the desire to reject Tarki, who was suddenly acting all close to him.

“Don’t worry, Brother. You can send these children to my Mother’s house. We always need more servants. At least, the environment will be much better than this place.”

“Huh, no, by what authority are you, people…”

The owner was saying this, but Tarki kicked his jaw.

“Eck!”

“…”

Surprisingly, Tarki was proving his worth.

“How could this be? So this is what they mean when they say even horse shit can be useful.”

Mediam was deeply shaken by Tarki’s refreshing show of his worth.

Azadine’s party hounded and beat up the bakery owner to get his signature on a statement regarding his trade of children with the Talvarine Guild. After that, they took the children with them to the closest group under the Korasar Peddlers Guild.

They aimed to send the children to Tarki’s mother’s residence, the Baroness Nort, via the Guild’s distribution network.

“But what about your promise with Calypso? You even made him take an oath.”

“Um, well, we ended up finding children who weren’t on the list, so it’s enough as long as they take the Aragasa children to Sanctuary.”

“That’s too bad. We could’ve spread the news of the duel and snatched the 106th rank.”

“I don’t care about stuff like rank. It’s not like it’ll earn me more money.”

“Regardless, it’ll give you an advantage when you get married later.”

Among the Aragasa, a messenger from a humble background with a higher position in the hierarchy was sure to receive advantageous marriage proposals from renowned families.

It was a ladder that allowed people of the Messenger Clan to climb the social hierarchy quickly, so everyone would typically put in their best effort. However, Azadine’s attitude reflected his indifference.

“Hm, marriage? I don’t have plans for that yet.”

“Huh? Really?”

Azadine and Mediam walked together as they had this conversation. For Ismail, their warm and harmonious relations left a bitter, poison-like aftertaste.

But then they ran into some people in the village square fixing the wheels of a carriage in the caravan belonging to the Guild. They immediately stood up upon seeing Azadine.

“Azadine?!”

“Um?”

Azadine was suspicious of the merchants who seemed to recognize him.

“Ah, you see…”

“Calibri.”

“It’s me, Adan. Huh, now you don’t even recognize your Seniors? When we used to adore you so much?”

Mediam, who watched the whole scene, smirked at that.

“You call yourself my seniors when you’re not a messenger or even a servant.”

“Ha. It seems you haven’t found out yet.”

Adan snorted and glared at Azadine.

“What’s this about, Calibri? Adan?”

“What is this about, huh?”

“There’s an order for your arrest and to escort you back.”

“Huh? From the higher authorities?”

Azadine shrugged and looked at them.

“Are you drunk in broad daylight? Or perhaps, are you on drugs?”

“No, Azadine. This isn’t a prank. Your position as a messenger has been suspended.”

“Ugh. Just let it be. No need to explain it. Let’s just take him away.”

“Yeah. We’ll take you and become messengers.”

“…”

Azadine was perplexed at his so-called seniors pulling out weapons in the middle of the road.

It was true that he’d stopped hearing the Emperor’s Voice. But they say that was because of a suspension? And they were escorting him back?

‘Exactly what is happening? Well, I’ll know once I hear it from them.’

They seemed to be in quite a bit of a hurry considering they took out weapons not just in the street but inside a village.

“So what you’re saying is, you’re pulling out your weapons in the center of the village like this because you’ll become messengers if you take me away, is that it?”

“Exactly, you bastard!”

“We don’t know what trick someone incompetent like you used to become a messenger, but…”

“You’re no longer a messenger now. We’ll remove you from the position of messenger.”

“We’ll catch you, take you away, and once again, we…”

“…”

Azadine was standing there blankly when he unintentionally turned his gaze.

“I guess I’ll have to get the details from you guys, huh?”

“Hahaha. Azadine, did you forget?”

“It looks like you don’t remember being beaten up by us almost every day?”

“What, can’t recall how you used to bawl your eyes out after we knocked you out?”

“Of course, yeah. I remember all of it. You guys would cover the upper part of my face, saying the rest looked like Arael, and would forcibly kiss me. I recall all of it. What a disgusting memory!”

Azadine, being Arael’s twin brother, seemed to look like Arael with his jaw exposed when he wore a hawk mask. Now, they had both gone through puberty, so obviously, the differences in their appearance were quite visible. However, during his childhood, except for the fact that he didn’t have eyes, Azadine resembled Arael a lot.

He suffered a lot of torment because of that as well…

“Ah, damn it. Saying it myself is making me feel nauseated. I feel sick to the stomach, as if I’ll die. You really do need to pay for that.”

Azadine was infuriated by his ‘seniors’ bragging about bullying him. But it seemed like they saw him as the same pushover he was when young.

“It looks like the coward’s forgotten his place!”

“Someone like you who only got the position of messenger because of Elder Kazas!”

“Come on!”

Calibri and Adan both rushed in to attack Azadine with their swords simultaneously.

Calibri and Adan’s attack wasn’t quite that simple to handle.

Everyone in the Messenger Clan received basic training from the day they turned eight until they became or failed to become a messenger. This basic training instilled in them the strength and wisdom befitting the messenger Clan.

From those, ones with remarkable and distinguished performance would then compete for the 108 positions of messengers. There were plenty who, despite being skilled, was unluckily unable to even become servants because of a lack of vacant positions.

Calibri and Adan were definitely skilled. But…

Unfortunately for them, their attacks were absolutely useless against Azadine. He simply grabbed the sharp blades with his gloved hand.

-shuffle!

The swords were now interlocked in Azadine’s hand as if they always belonged.

“Ugh?!”

The blade wouldn’t move.

“This punk!”

“Damn it.”

Calibri and Adan gave each other a signal and then focused their minds. At that moment, Azadine’s hand began to shake.