Chapter 206. Even If I Lose the Light (1)
The signs of life nearby faded away. Like a dying campfire, the heat gradually cooled, and the darkness pressed in with weight and substance.
Within it, Azadin, driven by hunger and exhaustion, slept as if fainting.
Regret and pain ceaselessly surged forth.
His life had been nothing but pain. He had lived unloved, alone.
Even his only blood relative had wounded him, and the beings he had desperately loved had abandoned him.
Should he have turned a blind eye to Hatir’s tyranny?
If he had, then to Kazas, Azadin would still have been a beloved disciple, and to Aldis, he could have remained as a godson-like figure, cherished.
He might have walked a golden road within his clan, basking in wealth and glory.
Of course, the cost would have been massacring the innocent, unleashing evil powers upon the world, and denying all that humanity had built.
But it would not have been particularly worse than his present plight. At least, not being alone would have made it slightly better.
Was that what he should have done? What was his conviction worth, that he had chosen such a foolish path?
Azadin, steeped in regret and anguish, spent his time in the prison.
How much time had passed like that?
“Azadin!”
Someone called his name.
Had he been asleep?
Through a hazy consciousness, that familiar voice reached him.
“Are you alright, Azadin?”
“Don’t raise your voice, Midiam. The area is crawling with monsters.”
“But…”
At that, Azadin finally gathered his focus.
His peculiar eyesight, just now returning, revealed his surroundings. Midiam and Ishmael were straining to force open the prison door.
As if Amun-Zadek had resolved to kill him, the keyhole of the iron bars had been filled with lead, making it impossible to open by lockpicking.
In the end, Midiam was grunting with a crowbar, trying to pry it open.
“Give it here.”
Azadin pushed himself up.
With his left hand gone, he gripped the crowbar with his right and twisted the bars.
The iron bent, but not enough for a person to pass through. Creating an opening large enough for even one person would take considerable time.
“Mm.”
He had been without food and water for so long that when he opened his mouth, his lips cracked and split.
Moving his body after so long was agony. Even the phantom pain he had forgotten while half-conscious came creeping back to torment him.
Did he truly want to leave, even at such cost? Beyond these bars, there was only more pain.
Wouldn’t it be better to simply let go of life now?
With a sigh, Azadin set the crowbar down.
“That’s enough. Go.”
“What are you saying, Azadin?!”
“I’m finished anyway. Look at this.”
Azadin raised his severed left arm, covered in amber resin.
“You know what it means for one of the Aragasa to lose an arm, don’t you?”
For those whose primary weapon was the bow, a bodily loss was a fatal weakness. In the old days, Azadin himself would have retired from being a herald.
But Midiam refused to give up and pressed him.
“And what of it? Are you saying you’ll surrender over a wound like that?”
“I boasted in front of you all, but in the end I’m just a pathetic failure. Hardly worth betraying the clan for—”
Azadin stopped mid-sentence, realizing his mistake.
If they had come here to rescue him, then that meant these children had betrayed the clan.
Abandoning the children who had betrayed their own kin because of him, while he wallowed in despair, would be unbearably irresponsible.
“Ha.”
Ishmael, as if reading Azadin’s thoughts, gave a bitter smile.
“You truly are a kind man.”
Even in despair and hopelessness, his sense of responsibility toward Ishmael and Midiam outweighed everything else.
“…Alright. I must, at least, bear that much responsibility.”
Realizing Ishmael could see right through him, Azadin steadied his heart once more.
Though his spirit was shattered, there were things he had to protect.
‘At the very least, I must be responsible for these children.’
Ishmael handed Azadin a water skin and sugar-soaked fruit.
“First, eat and drink. Regain a bit of strength.”
As water and food entered his body, weakened by blood loss and imprisonment, vitality slowly returned.
With his strength restored, Azadin once again tore at the bars with the crowbar.
Though wounded and emaciated, his brute strength remained. He easily bent the bars wide, emerged, and turned to face Midiam and Ishmael.
“So. What’s the situation?”
“The Nagas have taken over Bruma, and are devouring everything in the area.”
“And Amun-Zadek?”
“The Bruma people have fled to Bel Hoda for now.”
“Scott and Shati?”
“We’re not sure about them…”
“I see. Then how did you know I was here?”
“That was…”
“Scott sent a command spirit to tell us.”
“A spirit?”
“Yes. A corpse suddenly danced in front of us, then drew a map on the ground.”
That was exactly the sort of thing Scott would do.
“Judging by that, he must still be alive. Good. What of the king’s church? And the neighboring countries—what are they doing?”
“Korasar has fallen into the hands of the clan. As for the others….”
At that moment, the emperor’s voice answered Azadin in his stead.
[The king’s church and the other kingdoms all hesitate to intervene directly. From the start, it’s too burdensome a distance for an expedition, and no one wants to waste their own soldiers just to be the first struck down. This is why I had sought to unify Hubris….]
In other words, no one wanted to expend their troops first to resolve this disaster.
When all were locked in rivalry, who would willingly drain their national power first?
[Moreover, as the light of king’s virtue dims, the world’s boundaries weaken. Not only in Bruma, but throughout Hubris the light of king’s virtue wanes, monsters emerge, and corpses rise of their own will, blurring the line between the living and the dead. Hatir, that fatherless wretch…]
“Hearing that from you feels strange.”
As Azadin listened to the emperor’s voice insult Hatir as fatherless, a strange sentiment welled within him.
To begin with, was the emperor’s voice the emperor himself? It was not. It was an artificial spirit, operating from a copy of the emperor’s ego and soul, well aware that it was not the emperor proper.
Perhaps when the 108 fragments that had been scattered were merged into one again through the herald clan’s betrayal, such side effects had been born.
That was all Azadin could surmise.
“In any case, if I’m the only herald left, shouldn’t I be promoted?”
[From now on, all emperor’s voices are yours, Azadin. So long as you fulfill your mission as the emperor’s herald, we will give you every ounce of our strength.]
“Hmph. Even with a hand lost? In the past, such a cripple would have been retired from herald service at once. Seems the post of emperor’s herald has truly lost its prestige.”
Once, it had been the seat everyone longed for, but now it had sunk to worthlessness?
The plummeting dignity of the heralds drew a bitter laugh from him.
Yet as he laughed, a headache crashed down upon him.
Phantom pain, in the end, was the brain’s torment. The brain that had once controlled a now-absent limb generated pain, and with it came crushing headaches.
Could he truly fulfill his mission as the emperor’s herald with a body like this?
Could he really enforce anything, killing others, with such a heart?
Azadin’s body and soul alike were already in tatters.
He was forcing himself forward only out of the wish to give Midiam and Ishmael a better chance at survival.
***
Azadin, Ishmael, and Midiam moved in silence, holding their breath.
With the heralds gone, the emperor’s voice aided only Azadin now.
Thanks to that, the terrain around them was laid out clearly in his mind. The emperor’s voice soared above like a reconnaissance troop, showing him the land and the movements of their enemies.
Astonishingly, fortresses and villages near Bruma crawled with all manner of monsters.
Among the corpses of war lurked spirits, seeking to kill the living and make them part of themselves. Even the war elephants abandoned by Bruma’s army had been infested with nether creatures, their very bodies twisted.
At the place where its forehead should have been, a war elephant bore a huge eye, and from its mouth spewed tentacles like those of an octopus, snatching corpses to devour.
And the royal castle?
Above Bruma’s palace yawned a black hole in the sky.
High above that gaping void, an eye was open, and chaotic shadows drifted along the boundary between reality and illusion, taking form and circling the city.
The air itself overflowed with nether power.
Truthfully, for Midiam and Ishmael to have come this far at all had been near to suicide.
“They’ve committed an outrageous deed. No wonder all despise the Aragasa now.”
“Well, they always hated us from the start. We were hated without reason, so isn’t this balance, in its own way?”
Ishmael sneered. In truth, he cared little what became of the people of Hubris. But leaving Azadin to die had been impossible.
“So, what will you do now, Azadin?”
“First, let’s flee to somewhere safe.”
“Yes. And after that?”
And after that? After reaching safety?
“You must be safe.”
That was all Azadin would say.
Ishmael sighed.
“Because Midiam and I betrayed the clan for your sake, you think putting us in safety fulfills your responsibility to us, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”
“Is that truly the best you can offer?”
“Either reclaim Bruma’s throne, or destroy it—that could be done. But it’s impossible. The emperor’s voice is showing me. This world is dying.”
“If that’s all, Azadin, then I am disappointed. Do you have any idea what we endured to get here? And you mean to call it responsibility fulfilled, simply by sending us off to safety?”
“But I am no savior, nor anything close. I am Azadin, the half-blind.”
Azadin gave a bitter smile, raising his severed arm.
“A body that cannot even draw a bow now. I have failed, and been defeated.”
“Then why send us to safety at all?”
“Because even a defeated man can do at least that much.”
Just then, Midiam asked, out of the blue:
“Azadin. Do the stars, still appear beautiful to you?”
It was a sudden question.
But both the one who asked, and the one who received it, understood well its meaning.
No comments yet. Be the first to leave a review!