Chapter 56 - The Darkness Of Salasma (3)

The arrow had flown right past his head.

“Why an arrow in this cramped space!?”

“Come on, it’s okay! Don’t you trust my skills?”

“My trust in your skills isn’t the problem here…Ack!”

Tarki shrieked mid-sentence as the wererat’s claws scraped his breastplate. He dodged the ax the wererat had thrown at him, but escaping its claws was impossible.

Tarki wasn’t hurt, but the dreadful screech of the wererat’s claws on his breastplate petrified him with its feral barbarity and caused him to yelp.

“Hehehe! Humans are weak creatures! We, endowed with the blessings of Mezerry, are the rulers of this era!”

The wererat charged at Tarki and launched countless bloodthirsty attacks.

“Aaack!”

Tarki let out a scream that was somewhere between a battle cry and a squeal as he repeatedly staggered while withdrawing.

Wererats had faster reflexes than humans. On top of this, the sight of the wererat attacking Tarki with both fists while drooling like a rabid dog was horrifying beyond anything else.

The relentless attack pushed Tarki back further and further. He fended off the wererat’s attacks with his longsword but could not help but be pushed back by the sheer speed of the attack. Every contact of the wererat’s mace and claws against Tarki’s longsword caused blood to splatter.

The wererat was attacking him barehanded, hitting and pounding at Tarki like a mad dog, and was unaffected by the fear of being cut or hurting his own fingers.

“He-help me!”

Tarki screamed for help, but the tight space left no room for the others to even attempt to help him.

-Bang!

However, Tarki wasn’t just a knight in name as he managed to parry the wererat’s attacks and launched a successful counter stab into the wererat’s neck.

“Hrrrk!”

The crazed wererat collapsed as he clutched onto his impaled throat. The wererat’s quick regeneration meant that any scratch or minor injury would heal in no time. However, fatal wounds would cause him excruciating pain during the regeneration.

The wererat gasped, drowning alive as his blood rushed into his lungs.

“Great! I won!”

While Tarki was celebrating his victory, he didn’t realize that wererats didn’t die even with such wounds. The wererat that had been struck by Mediam’s arrow had finally yanked it out and rose to his feet.

“Amazing indeed! I guess we need to finish them off immediately, huh?”

Tarki then thrust his longsword into the back of the head of the wererat, who was still choking after being stabbed in the throat to finish him off. The longsword penetrated through the spine and pierced through the front. Still, the wererat immediately clasped the blade with his hands instead.

“Ugh?”

It was heavy.

The flustered Tarki, whose sword had been seized by his opponent in an instant, became the target of the other wererat, who had recovered after removing the arrow. There was no escape.

At that moment.

“Get out of my way.”

Azadine dragged Tarki out and hurled him to the back as he took the front position and threw an ax.

-thud!

The ax caused the wererat’s head to burst through the crown of his head, destroying the brain as he charged toward Azadine. Wererats were undeniably resilient but could not withstand an attack like this. The death was both sudden and final.

“How…”

The wererat that had held onto the sword Tarki pierced through his body could not believe the scene in front of him. A single blow from that ax had overwhelming force behind it. Taking Tarki’s place, Azadine clutched the hilt of the longsword and…

The wererat that had been gripping the longsword fell to his knees, unable to withstand Azadine’s strength.

‘Urgh… h-he’s overwhelmingly strong! How is this possible?’

The wererat broke out in cold sweat.

“Okay. Now… let’s have a little chat. What are you doing to the people you kidnapped? Where did you take the noblewoman you kidnapped from this place?”

Azadine interrogated the wererat, who still held onto Tarki’s blade.

“We ate all of them. Hihihi. You wanna find someone? Go look in our shit. Maybe you’ll find them.”

“What a load of crap.”

Azadine had no more to say. With his hands on the hilt, he rammed Tarki’s longsword upwards, slicing out the persistent wererat’s throat while also hacking off his fingers.

“Sloshing.”

With a grotesque sound, the half-mutilated throat collapsed. The wererat’s regeneration was worthless in the face of this lethal attack, and he died instantly.

“D-Did you kill them off? But what about asking my mother’s whereabouts…”

“They didn’t have anything useful to tell us anyway. They’re just pawns in all of this.”

Azadine scouted ahead only to discover an exit that was blocked with steel bars. He then returned the longsword to Tarki.

As he leaned on the steel bars, he noticed the dried-up river bed ahead of them. A tiny stream of water seeped from the ground and merged into the river. There was a refugee camp nearby.

“The end of the world is near! The nearing Jupiter will unearth Netherstrom! The ancient Demonic Gods, from a bygone era where even the Demonic Gods of the Kurt Clan did not yet exist, will awaken! The line between life and death will blur that day, and judgment will begin! Repent for your sins! Those who have, give to the poor and ready yourselves for the day of judgment!”

Turning on his heel, Azadine moved to examine the corpses of the wererats. He found a few coins inside their inner pockets and a shabby leather crest with the engraving of Mezerry, the King of Rats, and some keys.

“Is this…human skin?”

Among the wererats’ belongings was a crest engraved upon human skin. This silenced Azadine as he grabbed the keys and opened the steel bars wordlessly.

“Your mother went missing last night, right?”

“We need to be quick. She’s probably still alive, but we can’t guarantee that once the sun sets. If only we had more time, we could take a detour instead of passing through this steel gate…”

Leaving through this gate would leave them open to the enemy’s gaze while the enemy would be able to hide within the crowd. Going by their training, they would have retraced their path and approached from a different path to investigate.

However, they risked losing the Baroness Nort if they did it that way. Azadine prioritized speed and used the exit.

They exited under a bridge near the edge of the river. Under normal weather conditions, this would be a floodplain, as the land here could not support buildings. However, in the middle of this rainless drought, the river had dried up to the point of completely parching the land.

The refugees were scattered around the area with their blankets as they butchered and ate rats, moles, and other animals. The place reeked of animal blood as they were skinning and preparing the rats with their hands.

“There are so many people. It’ll be hard to find them.”

Tarki was a knight. As the crowd noted his presence, they looked at Azadine’s party with fear and hostility.

‘We’re completely screwed.’

Every refugee there had their guard up and openly displayed their fear and hostility. There was no way to identify the organization’s members involved with the kidnapping. At that moment, Mediam raised a question.

“The Rescue Knights Order is providing aid to the refugees here, right?”

“They probably are. I can see a blanket with their crest on it.”

“You said they took children for volunteer positions, right?”

“Yeah, they probably do. Just like our clan needs people as messenger’s servants, merchants, or servants.”

The Holy Knight Orders also needed assistants for their operation.

“Then that means the Rescue Knights Order probably controls the system that carries people in and out of here, right?”

As she said this, Mediam pointed to a building that housed the Rescue Knights Order’s church. It was close to the river banks and looked like a relief shelter for the lower-class residents made when the area was prone to flooding. It was a decent wooden building with a roof and a wall. There were some people camped near it, but few had blankets.

“…”

After kidnapping Baroness Nort, the Church building would likely be the perfect place to hide her away or a temporary place before moving her elsewhere. It was so perfect, in fact, that it didn’t make sense if it were otherwise.

After all, unless every refugee there was a wererat or a follower of the Kurt Clan, it would be the only place they could avoid unwanted attention.

“Wait, you mean to say that a branch under the Rescue Knights Order is actually a group of Kurt Clan followers? Um… I don’t think so…”

“…?”

Azadine’s response was shocking to Mediam and Ismail.

“Are you in your right mind?”

“I mean, your explanation makes sense given the situation. Hm, how do I put it? I guess… it’s a little hard for me to believe it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a messenger, not a Rescue Knight.”

“I know, I know. I sound ridiculous right now.”

With a sigh and a step, Azadine walked toward the doomsday preacher, who was holding a board in his hands.

“Excuse me.”

“Oh, oh! Repent for your sins. Young man! The age of Jupiter is close.”

“Um, have you had your meal by any chance?”

Taking biscuits from his backpack, Azadine’s gesture stunned the preacher.

“Is-is that-?”

“The Three Archangels sacrificed for us, yet humanity has strayed from their virtues. Misery and misfortune descend upon us endlessly. In times of such tribulations, your vigilant voice of conscience is here to enlighten people. Naturally, I hope you would allow me to earn merit by making this small offering.”

Azadine was perfect in his mimicry of a worshiper of the Archangels. To be exact, this wasn’t acting since he was indeed a worshiper.

The doomsday preacher was actually ashamed of himself for Azadine’s sincere, convincing demeanor.

“Wh-what a remarkable young man you are. Faithful, devoted indeed! I’m quite abashed, I must say!”

Azadine handed a pack of biscuits to him. The drought and disorder of recent times meant food was expensive. Yet for Azadine to say he could ‘earn’ merit by sharing food with him touched the preacher’s heart with gratitude.

“May the Three Archangels look over you. A good afterlife awaits you.”

The people of Hubris looked down upon the Messenger Clan since they had sinned by killing the Yaegas Gods, who were the Heavenly Kings. They were said to not have souls and would perish forever upon death. However, unaware of Azadine’s true identity, this preacher praised him and blessed him with a good afterlife.

“By the way, is that relief shelter… still operating?”

“Oh, the building was run down, so they shut it down. That’s why volunteers from the parish of the warehouse district had come to help with aid and rescue.”

“I see. Have you ever visited the place?”

“I went there a long time ago. Not recently, though. It may look like a shack from the outside, but it was actually made by renovating a wine cellar. It even has underground tunnels leading inside. Apparently, poisonous energy seeped out, and they stopped using it.”

“Oh. I see. Thank you.”

The preacher’s reply made Azadine sigh.