Chapter 41 – The Curse Of Service (2)

Calypso was quite sure that if the other messengers challenged Azadine, they’d end up crushed to their bones.

“Oh my, now I have a headache from the headache. It’s almost as if I just returned from the dead. Huh?”

At that moment, Calypso’s feet stopped at a standstill. He could sense a strange sensation in the air before him from a forest that had dried up from the drought.

[Are you well, the 106th messenger, Calypso?]

The artificial spirit had started talking to him.

“Who are you?”

[I am the voice of Arael.]

“Yo-You’re the voice of Arael?!”

[Yes. As you can see.]

“…”

Calypso was astonished. The Emperor’s Voice was an extremely powerful magic. The 108 artificial spirits spread across the continent had an integrated consciousness that allowed them to manage petitions and convey relevant information.

Only the Emperor and his divine powers could use such powerful magic. That was, at least, until now.

Yet Arael managed to make a copy of it to this level of similarity? Was this really possible regardless of how much of a genius she was rumored to be?

“What business do you have with me?”

[I thought of making you a proposal you couldn’t refuse.]

A crow appeared from the shadows of the withered forest.

Was she talking through the crow by possessing it?

This aspect was also identical to the Emperor’s Voice as it would often appear to convey messages to people not of the Aragasa in the form of a bird.

However, there was something strange about this crow. Calypso immediately noted the discrepancy. A large gaping wound was visible on the crow’s chest, inside of which was an eyeball pumping like a heart.

Azadine tried to call the Emperor’s Voice through his mind later on as well but received no response.

As a sense of frustration and anxiety engulfed him, the party came across a dried-up stream on the road to Salasma.

“It is a drought after all, huh. Usually, around this time, rainfall is expected.”

All of the farms Azadine had visited struggled to draw water from their wells. Originally, the eastern lands were divided into two parts: a western region that enjoyed abundant water and an eastern region with scarce water sources.

Yet recently, with the eastern region having received no rainfall for a month, even the western region was beginning to dry up.

“It wasn’t this bad when I traveled towards the eastern region.”

Tarki checked on his horse’s condition after saying this. Even his breathing was becoming hoarse due to how parched his throat was.

“Um… the water’s all murky.”

Azadine stopped and waited for the mountain goats to drink water. He clicked his tongue after noticing that most of the streambed was visible. The fish was even flapping about because the stream had almost fully become a bed of muddy water.

In streams where the flow of water was completely cut off, and the rapids had stagnated, a tremendous number of fish were dying. The farmers from the surrounding areas had flocked there to scoop up the unexpected boon of crawfish.

“Scooping up the fish like that will probably mess with their life cycle.”

“Well, letting them be won’t be much help either because they’ll just rot, so it’s probably better to gather and eat them. But after this, a huge problem will arrive.”

Mediam sensed that the drought was no laughing matter and could spiral further.

The mountain goats were panting. The Messenger Clan preferred using Kerim mountain goats over horses. The goats had better endurance than horses and a remarkable ability to jump and maneuver through rough terrain. They could climb steep mountain cliffs, and the wax ester released along its long fur was widely used as an oil to prevent rust on swords. It was also used for the upkeep of bows, arrows, short spears, and so on.

However, the longer fur of the Kerim goats also made them vulnerable to heat. In hotter regions, they would need to constantly drink water, making it more difficult to bring them any further into this drought-stricken region.

“Drinking that water will make them sick.”

“Then what about a well? If the riverbed isn’t completely exposed yet, then the wells still might not have dried.”

Azadine clicked his tongue at Ismail’s words.

“We need to get the villagers’ permission to use the well water.”

They were people of the Messenger Clan, loathed by the people of Hubris. They had originally been discriminated against because of their dark brown skin tone. Still, as more of their blood began to mix, they typically looked similar to the native races but with a slightly mixed undertone. Even Mediam, who came from one of the Aragasa’s founding families, looked closer to a person from the northern regions of Hubris.

“Ah, haha. Don’t worry about that. Remember, I’m a knight, aren’t I?”

Tarki moved forward.

“Oi! You lowly farmers!”

“…”

As soon as Tarki began his offensive actions against the villagers, Azadine removed his headpiece and took a cane from his saddle.

“Ah, what’s with this again?”

Ismail grimaced.

Azadine’s costume of a blind pilgrim.

“Tarki’s going off like that. If I look completely fine while I’m with him, won’t they think I’m on his side? Let’s just pretend to be pilgrims accompanying him.”

“Okay.”

A while later, Tarki returned with a huge smile on his face.

“What do you think? A word from a knight is enough to kill these farmers. They’d even give up their wives if I said so.”

“Isn’t that too cruel of you, Sir?”

“Huh?”

“… I’m thankful to you for protecting us pilgrims, but treating people harshly like that will only get you bad karma. Kindly practice the virtue of compassion.”

“Huh, what are you…”

“I’ll try talking to them once more. Excuse me.”

Azadine put on an appearance as a blind person who was resting his body on a cane and approached the farmers who were crowding the stream to fish.

“Oh, what? Huh?”

“Ar-are you blind?”

“We’re pilgrims on a journey. We’d be extremely grateful if you could allow us to use the water from the well. You already gave permission to the knight protecting us, but he can sometimes be very disrespectful with his words. I was concerned you may have been troubled because of us.”

“Ah, well, it is how it is.”

“That Sir Knight’s is him, isn’t it? The Count’s son?”

“Well, it’s kind of unavoidable when they’re young like that. I didn’t exactly like it but… what can I do?”

“Anyhow, you came at just the right time. We’re boiling some crawfish.”

The farmers welcomed Azadine with kindness.

‘From now on, I’ll send Tarki forward whenever a disrespectful provocation is needed. Or otherwise, if we meet the Holy Knights of the King’s Church.’

Azadine resolved to do this and followed the farmers going in the direction of the village.

The village by the stream was quite large, with over 700 households. In the northern region, where the population was sparse, this could be considered a fortress city or a city of moderate size. Yet, this was merely a village in the highly populated central inlands or the south.

Still, with so many people living here, the central village square had a permanent store and even a trade post that made loading and unloading goods from a horse or carriage easier.

There were also facilities that used to draw water from the dried-up stream back when it still flowed.

“By the way, you’re blind, so why are you on the move?”

“I’m a pilgrim in search of a miracle. I’m walking around hoping for protection from the three Great Archangels.”

“You seem so young though, oh my Lord.”

“You’re a handsome man. Did you hurt your eyes in the war?”

While Azadine spoke face-to-face with the people of the village, his servants, Mediam and Ismail, fed their goats with water and hay. At the same time, the villagers were cooking crawfish.

Fresh fish could be smoked to make smoked meat that could be stored, but smoking crawfish was too cumbersome, meaning they were being eaten right there. Since they would all need to be eaten anyway, the villagers were quite generous.

“Okay, okay, please have this.”

The farmers served Azadine’s party boiled crawfish sprinkled with wild garlic and eastern pepper.

“Oh my, thank you. Are these crawfish?”

“Yeah. Recently the water in the stream nearby has all dried up.”

“They’ll die and rot anyways, so we smoked some fresh fish and boiled the crawfish to eat here.”

“So, it’s a crawfish festival, you see, festival. Everyone, go ahead and enjoy it.”

“Thank you, You’ll be blessed with great fortune for warm-heartedly welcoming travelers.”

Azadine politely accepted their goodwill.

“Umm.”

Mediam and Ismail very awkwardly sat beside Azadine.

“It feels like I’m a swindler.”

“I know, right. This is how it was last time too…”

Ismail didn’t like this situation.

When Azadine masqueraded as a blind pilgrim, the people became very nice to him. Additionally, Azadine would owe them a mental debt.

Azadine’s ways were different from that of the Messenger Clan. He didn’t hesitate to meet the people of Hubris face to face and even become involved with them.

Since the people of the Messenger Clan were persecuted by the people of Hubris, a great sense of contempt was fostered for them. However, Azadine was already persecuted by his own people, so, to him, there was little difference between the Aragasa and those of Hubris.

The problem was, Mediam was also charmed by this aspect of Azadine. Ismail was well aware that Azadine was increasing his estimation in Mediam’s eyes by just looking at her from the side.

Was she trying to maintain her worth by raising the value of the man she lost a duel to?

No, that wasn’t it.

This man’s ways and unique mentality were something the Aragasa simply could not have, and it captivated her.

‘This man is an ‘exotic being’. But the issue here is Mediam’s nature to get fascinated with new things.’

Ismail steeled his heart while he watched Azadine partake in the crawfish with the people of Hubris.

Azadine’s party, with the help of the villagers, fed their goats with water and ate crawfish.

“Have this for when you get hungry on the journey later.”

“Be careful so it doesn’t get spoiled!”

The people even packed some boiled crawfish to give to Azadine.

“Okay, then…”

After receiving the crawfish and a warm welcome, Azadine’s party descended the hill road that passed from the village near the stream. However, Azadine suddenly stopped after seeing what was unfolding in front of his eyes.

“What is it?”

“No, stop. Wait.”

Azadine removed a wooden box he had put in his inner pocket. It was the box that contained the umbilical cords of the children of the woman who had surrendered to him after the black magic chaos, the children he had promised to rescue.

Aside from the records written inside, the Korasar Peddlers Guild had also given them other information. Reading this, a frown appeared on his face.

“So this is ‘that’ village, huh?”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t realize it because the village’s size got bigger. See this.”

This village was actually two villages that had merged as they expanded. Between the older buildings, they had built newer buildings and connected both villages.

“This is …quite close, huh?”

“Exactly. After all, they wouldn’t need to take slaves that far. Let’s start finding them.”

Azadine sped up his walking pace.

They wouldn’t necessarily be slaves, as trading children under the guise of adoption was widespread around Hubris.

It was common for these adoptive children to be thrown into farm work or factory work at a young age to raise profits for the family.

Nevertheless, the adoptive children were in a clearly different position than slaves as they received a right to inherit. They were, at least, not abused by the people who acted as their parents.

Though it couldn’t be said that such abuse was completely absent, anyone getting caught abusing an ‘adoptive child’ was punished as a felon by all authorities, whether it was the King’s Church or the Rescue Knights.

Regardless, these adoptive children were easily exploited in environments for child labor. Still, at least more elements in the law and institutions protected them than slaves.

On the other end of the scale, those who became slaves were completely defenseless and exposed.

“We can’t let children suffer in such a way just because of the name of Aragasa.”