Chapter 58 - The Darkness Of Salasma (5)

Azadine, even with his back to the building’s entrance, was remarkably in control of his surroundings. Despite being trapped on three sides, he had managed to secure a clear exit route. Azadine, perhaps aware of the wererats’ frustration, smiled mockingly at them.

“As the superior in this situation, you should lead by example, Kirven. Go ahead and attack.”

“Ugh!”

Kirven was clearly not keen on grappling with Azadine again. In spite of a wererat’s regenerative powers, the ankle and arms that Azadine had broken were not yet recovered.

In fact, a single blow of Azadine’s ‘Blue Sun Farewell’ would’ve killed a normal wererat. Since he was superior among the wererats, he was at least still alive.

“Urghk!”

Unable to bear the tension any longer, a wererat shoved one of his comrades towards Azadine. The messenger’s sword lashed out like lightning and slashed the wererat’s throat.

This attack, however, caused the sword in Azadine’s hand to become damaged beyond repair. While the wrought iron was still intact, the blade was now bent at a 90-degree angle.

“Great! Now’s our chance!”

“Aack!”

The wererats seized the opening and charged at Azadine. It was a heartless choice to sacrifice one of their own! However, this was a decision that wererats took pride in. They called it their own wisdom that humans would not replicate.

However, they could only call it wisdom if they succeeded. If they failed, then it was nothing but a disgusting act. Azadine responded by unleashing a knife-like hand chop at a wererat charging at him.

-Pow!

Azadine’s strike snapped the wererat’s cervical spine in an instant. He then used this wererat, with his broken spine, as a stiff unconscious shield to block the attacks from the other wererats.

“Urgh….”

“Ack!”

“No way!! We are the hunters! With Mezerry’s blessing, we should be the ones hunting others…”

“What a joke.”

Azadine nullified all their attacks. As their eyes widened in disbelief, Azadine blitzed another wererat with a kick to their torso. Azadine’s boot plunged into his target’s liver like it was being sucked in.

The wererat staggered back two steps as blood gushed from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

“Aacck!”

The brutal kick ruptured the wererat’s liver and left him in agony. Unfortunately, his strong regenerative powers made his suffering last even longer.

Their regenerative powers couldn’t completely heal vital organs, like the liver, back to their original state. The regeneration simply did a sloppy job of prolonging their life. It only made them suffer this painful torment just a little longer.

They had trapped Azadine from three sides, yet the wererats were shocked at the speed at which Azadine was countering their attacks.

He was at a different level. Having him surrounded from the front and sides didn’t benefit them. In fact, they were the ones suffering damage.

‘What is this guy?’

‘Is this really the guy Kirven is always talking about?’

Kirven always blamed and criticized the Messenger Clan for his decision to follow Mezerry.

Politics among the Elders allowed the clan’s biggest fool to become a messenger. Because of him, a diligent worker for the Korasar Peddlers’ Guild like Kervin couldn’t become a messenger. Certainly, the organization was at fault.

He whined about it all the time. However, looking at it now, were Kervin’s skills even a match for Azadine’s?

In the split second that the wererats were left dazed, Azadine retrieved his cane from the ground and backtracked his way out of there through the exit behind him.

“N-no! Chase him!”

Struck with the realization of what Azadine was about to do, Kervin ordered his subordinates. However, they wavered.

“He’s outside.”

“If we go out, the other humans…”

The onlookers might see them if they ran out into the middle of the street in broad daylight while in the form of a wererat. They had let Azadine escape, but that was a mistake.

Azadine rushed outside the building. Once far enough, he removed the Moon Horn Bow from around his waist and fastened double bowstrings on it that was used for shooting. Around him were countless stones along the riverside. He loaded them onto the bow and released the strings.

-Swoosh!

The stones zoomed past the building’s entrance at terrifying speed and battered the wererats inside.

“Aack!”

“Th-that bastard!”

The hail of rocks came with an astonishingly short interval. If they didn’t witness it personally, anyone would mistake this as a cascade of rocks launched by a monstrous army.

Outside the building, Azadine picked up each stone on his own and launched it using his shooting bow. Inside, however, these rocks were being vacuumed through the entrance and attacked the wererats.

“Get away from the door! Damn it! That bastard!”

Just as Kirven began to panic, Azadine reached into his clothes and pulled out a stash of arrows. He broke off the arrowheads and fastened them on another bowstring. Whatever Azadine was doing, Kirven couldn’t predict it.

‘What is he planning to do?’

At that moment, Azadine pulled the tipless arrows onto the two-string, no, the three-stringed bow. The three arrows perfectly brushed against a shingle on the outer wall, one after another.

The shingle began to ignite as the friction between the arrow shafts and the wooden tile caused it to heat up.

Regardless of the dry weather or the mastery of the two-stringed bow by someone from the messenger clan, it was impossible to ignite a fire unless the arrows continuously hit the same point.

Even then, a direct hit wouldn’t ignite the fire. Azadine had to hit it to cause as much friction as possible… Was it even possible for a human to do this?

As the building started to go up in flames, everyone inside panicked. Dry as it was, the fire spread even faster.

“Oi! Do you realize there are other humans here?”

Kirven shouted in frustration at the top of his lungs while Azadine simply shrugged.

“Really? My bad. Well, then you can put out the fire. I won’t get in your way.”

“Urgh!”

“Or maybe you just let yourself roast. After all, the refugees were roasting rats to eat out here. Also, you guys were saying something interesting, weren’t you? What was it? That with the blessings of Mezerry, you’re the hunters now? Seriously? You fucking rats? Maybe if you were werewolves or weretigers, it was possible. But rats? Doesn’t have quite the impact, does it? To be honest…”

“…n-no!”

“Do you think we wanted to become wererats? We also think weretigers are way cooler…”

“Oi, stop it!”

The sudden criticism of Mezerry’s blessings by some wererats also took their own kind by surprise.

Anyways, the fire spreading on the bone-dry wooden building was a grave issue.

“Damn it! Are you sure he won’t attack us?”

Kirven commanded his men to put out the fire. While the shingles, dry to the bone, were instantly set ablaze, the embers also fell inside and spread the flames. However, once the wererats resolved to extinguish the fire, it wasn’t that difficult.

They put a stop to the fire by throwing away the shingles that were engulfed by the embers.

“Whew. It’s out.”

“But… where did he go?”

Had Azadine ambushed them during their attempt to douse the fire, they would’ve been trapped. However, Azadine chose to not mess with them while they quenched the fire.

That was a good thing, but… they couldn’t see him anymore.

“Do-don’t tell me?”

“Is he already inside?”

Right at that moment, the wererats were flustered and checked inside the entrance.

“Hm. The fire’s out now, right? Should we start over?”

At some point, Azadine had appeared behind them.

“Ugh!”

“You-?”

In his hands was the head of a halberd. He held the head of the pike, which was detached from its staff, like a tonfa.

“Hup!”

With a swing of the pike head, he destroyed a wererat’s chin.

The wererats used their claws and aimed to at least scratch him. Just a scratch for their ghastly claws would rip apart human flesh and taint it with poisons and viruses, leading to his death. Even worse, an attack from their claws could fill them with Mezerry’s blessings and transform the afflicted into a wererat.

But just a swing of the weapon in Azadine’s hand sent chunks of fingers into the air.

“Kiiiik!”

The wererat who had impersonated a Holy Knight drew his sword and lunged at Azadine. The messenger parried the blade with the pike head, slid the blade off, and closed the distance between him and the wererat before kicking him. It was another kick to the liver.

“Urghk-!”

While the wererat flailed around, Azadine seized his sword and hurled it at the other wererats. Limbs were slashed, necks were chopped, and it became a scene of carnage.

‘He-he’s too strong! What is this? Is this really Azadine? But he doesn’t seem like a 108th-rank messenger?’

The skills being shown did not belong to a low-ranked messenger. The brute force being exerted from his body was something that exclusively belonged to the highest grade of messengers. Azadine’s wererat massacre sent blood falling like autumn leaves and shook him to the core.

“Ugh. Wai-wait! Azadine!”

“Why? You got a last wish?”

“I-I’ll run away. Let me go!”

“Why should I listen to you? You said it. You’re the kith and kin, a dependent of the Kurt Gods. You must know then that I have no incentive to let you live?”

“Uh uh… there’s such a thing as childhood affection, isn’t there?”

For a moment, Azadine laughed in disbelief.

‘Has he lost his mind? Childhood affection?’

But Kirven interpreted Azadine’s smile differently.

“We lived in the same neighborhood and ate from the same kitchen! We even trained together! We’re almost old childhood friends! Right?”

“Don’t you recall bullying me?”

“Th-those were just childish antics gone wrong. And you know, too, don’t you? Everyone bullied you. If I didn’t join them, they’d bully me too! I didn’t have a choice. I had to survive. You have to understand me here!”

“So what? In order to survive, you became a wererat, is that it?”

“It’s that bastard district head! He sent me to investigate the missing people, the wererats pounced on me, and I turned into one of them. I didn’t want to become one. So help me run away! Please?”

“Ha.”

Listening to Kervin’s increasingly self-centered rant filled Azadine with bewilderment. He always had been an asshole, but after becoming a wererat, he was especially unbearable.

‘Is he, perhaps, less intelligent than his human form after transforming into a wererat?’

Azadine nodded.

“Okay, then. Run away.”

“Oh, you’re for real, right? Thanks. Hehe.”

“But before you run, give me some intel. Is Baroness Nort inside? She must’ve gone missing yesterday.”

“Ah ah, that noble woman? Of course, she is.”

“What do you intend to do with her?”

“I know a copy of the Heavenly Kings’ Book is around here… but it wouldn’t manifest. Being a magical book, the Heavenly Kings’ Book has a self-protection mechanism, so it won’t just fall into our hands. And apparently, the book manifests itself when people are tormented, and pain is inflicted upon them. In the middle of discovering all this, we also needed nobles as sacrifices because of the blood of Yaegas that flows through them.”

Did the Magical Book respond to people’s desperate calls and wishes just like the Heavenly Kings?

“This is high-class information, you know? Only the highest-ranking mages of the Kurt Clan are aware of this. Okay then, I’ll get going.”

Kirven moved back to make some distance from Azadine before breaking out into a full-on sprint.