Chapter 198. Golden King (4)
The Aragasa all recognized Azadin, who was a famous figure.
But Azadin did not know who she was. Judging by her age, however, she was surely someone who had once served as a herald long before Azadin, then been drawn into the fold of Manza-Zadek.
‘She made her entrance acting all proud, but if I say I don’t know her, it’ll sound like I’m picking a fight.’
He suddenly grew curious about how she had lived, and why she served Manza-Zadek.
Did she, too, know the secret of the emperor’s assassination and the true aim of the Aragasa that Manza-Zadek had spoken of, and swear loyalty to the Golden King because of that? What kind of mindset did she have, serving such a broken Golden King?
But Karcen seemed to dislike Azadin.
“As an Aragasa, I am far more senior than you, keep that in mind. Yet, you were directly bestowed with a golden decree from the king….”
Azadin himself did not know how high the office of Golden Decree Envoy in Bruma ranked, but from the reaction of the page and the reaction of Karcen, who was a captain of the guard, he could tell it was a considerable rank.
“So then, who are those with you? Your subordinates?”
“Yes.”
Shati answered at once, taking on a humble posture.
Scott shrugged his shoulders and said,
“You could say we’re the captain’s loyal companions.”
“I see. A Naga with an Orc, quite the strange pairing.”
Both Shati and Scott were using transformation to appear human, but it seemed they had been found out. What was more surprising was that even knowing their true identities, they were allowed to pass near the royal castle.
But perhaps Karcen allowed it only to hold Azadin’s weakness in his hand.
In fact, at this very moment, cold killing intent pierced Azadin from multiple directions. Armed figures beyond the shade of the wall had their sights fixed on him.
“So let me ask, which side do you belong to? The elder council? Or the rebels? Did your sister send you on some mission? What trick did you use to so thoroughly capture the king’s favor?”
“Did I capture the king’s favor?”
“Yes. Otherwise, there would be no way for you to receive the golden decree. That is…”
Karcen began to speak of the greatness of the Golden Decree Envoy, but then closed his mouth. He realized Azadin didn’t know the details of how great the position was in Bruma.
“I could treat you right now as an enemy spy and dispose of you.”
“And the elder council’s heralds will soon infiltrate to assassinate the Golden King. You’d waste your strength fighting innocent me before then?”
When Azadin mentioned other heralds, Karcen’s eyes wavered. Azadin’s words had struck the core.
Those who knew the terror of heralds best were none other than their own kin, the Aragasa. They knew just how harsh the selection process was to become a herald, and how dangerous and grueling the missions afterward were.
And now, heralds would come to strike.
Even if they were Aragasa, those who had become vassals of the Golden King, drawing stipends and living like ordinary people, would have to face heralds in their prime, burning with vigor. To face Azadin, himself an active herald, and waste their strength?
‘As I thought, they are afraid.’
“Anyway, it is I who plans and directs the security operation. So no matter what you are, you will follow my command. Understood? And since we still doubt you, do not come within two hundred paces of the king.”
“How can one protect the king from outside two hundred paces? And if the enemy are Aragasa, they will surely have prepared Black Steel Arrows. Do you have countermeasures for that?”
“We have prepared Black Steel Arrows as well.”
“That is no real answer to the king’s protection….”
“We even made shields out of black steel. Slaves will carry them to protect the king.”
“Shields of black steel? Impressive. Then perhaps you could spare us some Black Steel Arrows?”
“Don’t be absurd. Do you know how hard we obtained them? How could we hand arrows to you, whose identity is uncertain? What law forbids you from turning those arrows against the king?”
“Why did you come to serve Manza-Zadek? Did he truly release you from the curse of service?”
More than their suspicion toward him, Azadin was curious about why they followed Manza-Zadek.
“I am the one talking, and you interrupt with a sudden question… is that truly what you wish to know?”
“Yes.”
“……”
Karcen looked startled, as if Azadin’s response was wholly unexpected.
“You ask if he lifted the curse of service, and yes, he did. That is why I still live. And he told us the one who placed the curse was not the emperor, but the elder council. Better to work under the Golden King, earn money, than live as dogs of the council, slaving for little pay. You too…”
Karcen had been about to argue the righteousness and joy of serving under the Golden King, but then closed his mouth.
The office of Golden Decree Envoy was the king’s representative. Not a position given lightly. Azadin must have truly captured Manza-Zadek’s heart by some means.
If such a man resolved to rise under Manza-Zadek’s service, he would no doubt become Karcen’s rival.
“I don’t trust you. Stay out of the way of the guard, or stay gone. Otherwise, call your sister Arael.”
“You’re counting on Arael, are you.”
“Yes. The elder council has already seized the throne of Korasar. If they seize Bruma as well, it would not be impossible for them to conquer this entire Hubris region. Then Arael will be nothing more than a foolish rebel who achieved nothing.”
“That’s your reason for counting on her?”
“Do you know? They say children born with the curse of service become the finest heralds. Since you’re a halfwit, all hopes of the clan were placed on Arael.”
“Rather than hope, it must be fear. The elder council’s best assassins will come. Facing them is no simple matter.”
“That’s right! We Aragasa never had such good records! That’s why we were drawn to Manza-Zadek. And so we earned money, played, had children, raised them… lived the life ordinary humans should rightfully have. My children did not grow up under the inhuman selection trials of the herald clan. But now, to fight vigorous Aragasa again, what in the world is Arael doing? Sending a half-baked younger brother like you instead!”
Karcen trembled with anger and fear.
The life of an Aragasa was not normal. A clan where everyone could split the first arrow with the second. They were born with innate spatial sense and great strength, but without relentless training, such feats were impossible.
To fulfill the duties of an emperor’s herald, the Aragasa exploited their children, and Karcen only realized that such a life was wrong after hearing it from Manza-Zadek.
But now, facing the prospect of fighting the Aragasa once again, she could not be sure of victory.
To battle monsters who had devoted their entire lives to nothing but fighting and killing.
When she was a herald, no matter how formidable her enemies, she had never been afraid. She had nothing to lose back then. But now, she had far too much to lose.
“I want to see my children grow, I want to see them live whole lives, not as Aragasa. But… damn it, I have to earn the pay Manza-Zadek gave me.”
“Is what Manza-Zadek says true?”
“Yes. If you’re still a herald, you must have the emperor’s voice. Ask him. He won’t lie.”
“……”
***
[It is true.]
The emperor’s voice answered Azadin’s question briefly.
“You acknowledge it far too easily.”
[Because if I told such petty lies, exploiting the heralds’ loyalty, and called myself the emperor’s voice, then the emperor’s honor would be tarnished.]
“Why does he still employ us as heralds, when we assassinated the emperor’s life?”
[It is true that you assassinated the emperor, yet I do not resent the Aragasa for that alone. When we were created, it was at the dawn of the emperor’s reign. At that time, the emperor never doubted his ideals. But many things happened since.]
“What things?”
[That is….]
The emperor’s voice began to tell of events from the past.
***
Emperor Yaeslat grew enraged when even the other royals and the Yaegas Divine Clan devoted themselves only to carnal pleasures, indifferent to the suffering of the people under exploitation.
Even though injustice covered the world, even though people suffered, they said it was still better than bowing before the power of the Nether and the Kurt, and so they indulged in their pleasures.
Unable to endure it, Yaeslat struck down his kin, and became the one and only sovereign, the emperor.
Yet even as such a being, he could not root out the evils of this world. And there came an event that scarred the emperor’s soul deeply….
The emperor created a relief settlement for the outcast lepers, and supported it.
He lessened their suffering, he slowed the progress of their disease, and whenever enough miraculous power gathered, he healed them. The lepers praised the emperor and loved him more dearly than any other.
But in a year when plague spread… while the emperor devoted his miraculous power to halting the plague, children began to vanish near the lepers’ settlement.
Investigators discovered that some of the lepers, who had taken refuge within the emperor’s relief settlement, believed a superstition that children were medicine for their disease, and so abducted and ate them.
A wound that could never be healed began to fester in the emperor’s soul.
Had it been obvious beings of evil, no matter how mighty, he would not have been scarred. But the existence of those who, deceived by superstition and led by ignorance, committed monstrous acts out of what they thought was goodwill, left a deeper scar than any evil.
Not only the lepers, but many foolish ones committed unspeakable deeds without malice, and each time, deep darkness fell upon the emperor’s soul.
In the end, the emperor concluded.
Ignorance itself is evil. From not knowing, evil arises. Thus, he would teach the ignorant.
But in teaching, one inevitably learns.
That human intellect differs from person to person, that some, no matter how much one teaches, lack the inborn capacity to understand….
And that human aging turns even the most brilliant into the dullest and most wicked, this, too, tormented the emperor.
To achieve good and establish justice, blatant evil was no obstacle. But if the weakness within, the soil in which evil takes root, was not eradicated, how could one hope to eradicate evil?
The emperor devised a plan to euthanize all illiterate people.
By painlessly removing all who could not read, who did not know the law, who could not grasp numbers or principles, he sought to create purity in the world.
The emperor’s justice was tainted by madness.
At last, the emperor’s beloved, the one he loved most, and who loved him most, Harconia, chieftain of the herald clan, raised her blade. There was no heroic battle, no shadowy assassination.
The emperor willingly offered his heart to his lover’s blade.
***
[That is why we, the emperor’s voices, do not blame you heralds for your actions.]
The emperor’s voice said.
[What must be preserved is the emperor’s ideal and mission. In the days when we were created, the emperor would have approved of your actions. That was the very role he wanted of you, the Divine King Slayers.]
When the divine kings ran rampant, the emperor accepted the Aragasa as his heralds to serve as the ultimate means of stopping them.
But now, with no emperor, the herald clan had begun to join hands with the evil forces that once threatened humanity, to seize the world for themselves.
If the heralds stopped the emperor when he ran rampant, then when the herald clan runs rampant, who will stop them?
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