It was a statement far too blasphemous to direct at a king, but sometimes, sincerity could only be conveyed through blunt honesty—not through formality.
King Ansethus IV gave a wry smile at Azadin's brutally pure assessment.
"A frank evaluation, I see. I may not be a wise or virtuous king, but I'm not a tyrant either. Though I suppose I could be called an incompetent one."
"Well, to be honest, with Count Salasma and Count Lantarik running things into the ground like that, you've just been letting them be."
"..."
"I was worried you might get too relaxed."
"You're a cheeky one. Azadin, was it? I'll remember that name. In any case, just allowing someone like you to approach the throne would be enough to send the clergy of the king's church into a frenzy. Officially, I cannot give my approval."
"Officially, you say?"
"Unofficially, I can cooperate. But before that… you'll have to prove your loyalty to me."
"And what does proving my loyalty entail?"
"The Herald Clan has infiltrated the food storage and is poisoning the supplies. Could you deal with that?"
"Hm."
Azadin frowned at that request.
He, too, hated Arael, but that didn't mean he wanted to become a sworn enemy of the Arael's Faction.
If he killed his own kin for the sake of the Korasar Kingdom, the Aragasa would never accept him. Even in the midst of civil war.
That was probably exactly why the king gave him such a condition.
But if he refused here, then the king would have no reason to place any trust in Azadin either.
"Understood. I'll investigate the poisoning incident and try to stop it."
"Good. If you succeed, I'll grant you separate access to investigate the throne."
The king had handed Azadin a difficult assignment.
***
Azadin also wanted to meet members of the Arael's Faction, at least once in this situation.
'I need to make sure my companions are safe. Sir Zebeck, Shati, and Scott… there's no reason for them to be kept alive, which worries me.'
From the perspective of the Herald Clan, there was no reason to keep Zebeck—a holy knight of the king's church—Shati, a Naga, or Scott, an Orc, alive.
No matter how much Azadin was Arael's twin, they wouldn't spare those three just to avoid upsetting him.
'I hope they're unharmed.'
With that thought, Azadin began inspecting the food storage.
"So this is the poisoned stuff?"
"Yes, well, as you can probably tell, rather than poisoned…."
Although it was called poisoning, it would be more accurate to say the food had been contaminated.
Initially, they tried setting fire to the storage, but it was too damp, and the fire wouldn't catch. So they brought in animal corpses and excrement, smeared their blood over the food, and contaminated it.
Then, after seeing that didn't work, they killed a guard, took out his intestines, and spread them over the food as well.
King Ansethus had described this as poisoning.
"This is vague. Isn't this just sabotage? And since they've already hit it once, there's no guarantee they'll come back."
"Right?"
The soldiers agreed.
"But if we call it poisoning, it gives us grounds to investigate who did it. We'll question the soldiers, the residents, and the handmaidens."
"Pardon?"
The soldiers were startled. Was this Herald Clan member saying he would investigate the people inside the royal castle?
"It's the king's command, isn't it? You got a problem with that?"
"Well, it's just…"
The soldiers realized Azadin's true intention.
This Herald Clan member was going to stretch the king's orders and launch an internal investigation in the castle, using it to weed out members of the Arael's Faction.
In other words, he was twisting the royal command to achieve his own ends. The problem was, it was still technically a royal command, so the soldiers had no authority to stop him.
"Relax. I'm not actually going to do the investigation in my Herald Clan form."
Azadin said, then put on his helmet.
"From now on, call me Inspector Efes."
***
Within the castle, the refugees were being mobilized to make arrows, move stones, and carry water.
To fight back against the relentless storm, and because sitting idle would only make them more vulnerable to the madness of the nether, the castle's defense commander had brought in civilians to work. In return, they were given food rations.
Thanks to that, the castle had become more lively, and the madness had less chance to spread—but at the same time, it became an ideal environment for spies to operate.
Azadin began his investigation under the alias of Inspector Efes.
Roughly 20,000 civilians had taken refuge in the royal castle. Investigating them all was impossible.
But Azadin knew that if the Herald Clan members were involved, they'd seek out areas close to the throne, where they could easily infiltrate. So he began narrowing the list to those who had access to the core facilities of the castle.
"Let's investigate the handmaidens."
"The handmaidens, sir?"
"Yes."
"But their identities are verified. Some of them are of noble blood, and they're not people we can easily question."
Royal handmaidens were required to have proven lineage, and the position was often filled by noble daughters who lacked magic talent to become clergy or holy knights of the king's church.
So the soldiers couldn't even imagine a Herald Clan member infiltrating that group.
But Azadin shook his head.
"Is that so? On the contrary, isn't it the easiest group to infiltrate if you're beautiful and seem refined?"
"What do you mean?"
"If a beautiful young woman, knowledgeable in etiquette, showed up with a recommendation from someone trustworthy, who's going to verify her claims of noble blood?"
"Still, you can't possibly investigate the handmaidens yourself…"
"Yes, there are matters of propriety between men and women…"
The soldiers protested, but Azadin tugged down his helmet and puffed up with exaggerated dignity.
"I am Inspector Efes. Ahem."
'The hell is this guy?'
The soldiers were flustered by Azadin's absurd behavior, but they couldn't stop him. The king had told Azadin to investigate the case, even if he was twisting it a bit.
"..."
Azadin took the list of handmaidens from the head of the maids and set off.
"Shall we visit the handmaidens' quarters?"
"The handmaidens' quarters?"
"N-no, absolutely not."
"We're not going inside the quarters. What I mean is, agents will try to approach the handmaidens,"
Azadin said, heading toward the vicinity of their lodging. And then… he spotted a familiar figure.
A burly stonemason wearing a leather cap was repairing a wall near the handmaidens' quarters… and for some reason, he looked familiar.
'That's Kahsan, isn't it?'
It was Kahsan the Bow-Breaker, of the Herald Clan, disguised as a stonemason and working in this area. Most likely, he had taken a job that would let him stay near here to easily communicate with someone who had infiltrated as a handmaiden.
Kahsan, perhaps not recognizing Azadin with his helmet on, was silently focused on his task.
But then, the soldiers trailing behind Azadin spoke up.
"Even if His Majesty gave you an order, we cannot allow any disrespect toward the handmaidens."
"That's right. A Herald Clan member among the handmaidens? That's absurd."
"..."
At that moment, Kahsan casually glanced toward Azadin.
—Thwack!
Kahsan hurled a chisel he had been using to fix the wall straight at Azadin.
"Tch!"
Azadin realized things had gone awry because of the soldiers' reckless remarks, and swatted the chisel flying at his face.
"Eek?!"
"Get down!"
Azadin whipped off his helmet and used it to deflect the stone shards that scattered toward the soldiers.
"Azadin?!"
"Kahsan. If you're here, that means Nefti must be here too, right?"
"Tch!"
Kahsan immediately turned and bolted. For someone with a frame like a bear, he moved astonishingly fast, and was already putting distance between them.
"Stop!"
Azadin gave chase, and Kahsan began hurling anything he could grab behind him. Azadin used his cloak to brush aside the flying debris, closing the gap between them.
"Damn it!"
"Kyah!"
In front of Kahsan, a handmaiden and a maid carrying laundry collided with him.
Kahsan, as if to provoke Azadin, grabbed the maid and threw her down the stairs.
"Ugh!"
Azadin flung himself forward, catching the maid and saving her, and in that moment, Kahsan began chanting a spell.
He enchanted a small stone with Beauty of Nature, Yellow Crane, and fired it—twisting its trajectory violently midair toward Azadin's vital points.
This was a spell typically used on arrows to drastically change their direction, but it also massively increased penetration power. As such, the stone was no different than a spear.
Azadin boosted his magic resistance and kicked the stone away with the sole of his foot, but in that moment, Kahsan widened the distance between them.
"You bastard! Ugh…"
Azadin's leg, which had struck the stone imbued with Yellow Crane, began to go numb, and Kahsan used that opening to disappear.
"That huge bastard... Argh…"
Azadin clicked his tongue in frustration, helped the maid and handmaid back to the hallway, and let out a deep sigh. The soldiers arrived late behind him.
"Huff… huff huff…"
"H-He's unbelievably fast! You!"
"B-But what happened? That Herald Clan member?"
"Seriously… Would you mind shutting your mouths for a bit? What, are you trying to announce to the world that we're hunting Herald Clan members? Thanks to you, he realized and ran."
"Because of us?"
"Yeah. He heard everything while you were blabbering about how there's no way a Herald Clan member could be among the handmaidens, which made my disguise pointless. He got suspicious and fled."
"A-Are you going to report us to command?"
The soldiers turned pale. If things played out as Azadin said, the blame would fall on them—and their superiors might punish them with lashes.
The punishment, known as crucifixion, involved tying the guilty to a wooden post and whipping their backs—an extremely brutal penalty no one wanted to suffer.
"Forget it. I let him get away too, so it's not like I did a great job. I'll report the incident, but I'll leave out your mistakes."
"..."
The soldiers were stunned by Azadin's unexpected words. A Herald Clan member, covering for them?
"Then what will you do? Will you still investigate the handmaidens?"
"No. With that commotion just now, the infiltrator disguised as a handmaiden must have escaped too. Question the stonemasons instead."
***
Kahsan had quickly shaken off Azadin's pursuit, but running through the castle drew attention.
Besides, he was massive. His intimidating figure naturally drew people's curiosity, so he killed someone, threw away the corpse, and used that gap to hide and vanish.
Azadin, accompanied by soldiers, went to see the stonemason team leader.
"…H-He was skilled, really skilled. He said he was a stonemason sent from Lantarik, so I believed him."
The team leader wiped away cold sweat as he spoke.
"Who was he meeting with most often?"
"A handmaiden named Literua. He said it was his former master's household or something, so I didn't question it."
"Literua? How tall is she? What's her hair color? What does she look like? Why was he working near the handmaidens' quarters? Who gave the job assignment?"
Azadin fired off questions in rapid succession, leaving the stonemason team leader completely dazed.