Still, the mere fact that Zebeck had begun to feel doubt about the rules meant he had taken his first step.
"Well, that's a relief. So, I spoke with the king."
"You had a direct audience with Ansethus IV?"
"Yes. Right now, Ansethus IV must be desperate enough to grasp at straws. Whether someone is a soulless heretic or not, he'd speak to anyone willing to take his side."
Azadin shared what he had heard from Ansethus IV.
"He said the throne here in Coral Sahar has its roots exposed in part of the underground passage beneath the royal castle. From what the king told me, someone may have accessed it from there and tampered with something. That's what I suspect."
When Azadin asked this, Shati scoffed.
"This king has some nerve. Instead of admitting his own lack of character weakened the king's virtue, he's blaming someone else?"
"That's not the case. At least, it's certain this isn't a matter of character."
Zebeck shook his head with a bitter smile.
"While it's hard to say Ansethus IV runs the kingdom well, most kings are about the same or worse. At the very least, Ansethus IV isn't cruel by nature."
For a holy knight of the King's Church to express any objective evaluation of the king's policy or character was considered blasphemous.
The fact that Zebeck said such things showed that he no longer wished to remain a rigid holy knight and had begun to change.
"Hehe. Sir Holy Knight seems to be undergoing quite the transformation."
Shati snickered at Zebeck's words.
"Well, as Zebeck said, the light of the king's virtue has always activated to some extent, even if the kings haven't ruled all that virtuously. It's just that we've never seen it weaken to the point where a magic storm rages over the royal castle like this."
Azadin took out a bone wand.
"Shati. Use this to trace the Book of the Divine King."
"Okay."
Shati glanced at Zebeck. This bone wand was considered a form of wicked magic from the perspective of a holy knight of the King's Church.
"Do it."
With a simple activation, Shati used the bone wand to track the nearby copies of the Book of the Divine King.
And then—
Multiple ominous flares rose from the bone wand.
"There are a ton of them really close by."
"Right? I figured as much."
Azadin nodded.
"If the copies of the Book of the Divine King are the king's virtue itself, and they fused with it to reinforce its weakening light, then… in other words, if you could pour in and extract the copies at will… like stacking sandbags against a flood… maybe you could deliberately weaken specific sections?"
"It's possible, Captain."
Scott nodded.
"If you return the copies to the king's virtue, the light here will strengthen for a while… and then gradually equalize across the kingdom. If someone extracts the copies at that point, this place alone would become especially weakened. If a summoning of a nether being is performed then, something like this could happen."
"So you think so too?"
"But you'd have to be an incredible mage. Even for me, it's tough to find and extract the copies from the king's virtue. And if it's hard for an orc like me, then for humans—who barely come up to an orc's toes in intelligence—it's basically impossible."
"..."
"Isn't that woman called Arael here?"
Scott let out a sigh.
"She's not going to be easy to deal with. Guess I'll have to use my handsome-man tactic. As a beautiful and noble orc, mixing blood with filthy humans is a hideous insult, but thinking that I might become the captain's brother-in-law makes it slightly less awful."
"Restrain yourself. What handsome-man tactic? That's—"
Azadin tried to stop Scott, whose self-confidence was skyrocketing.
"Well, it's half a joke."
"Half a joke means the other half was serious?"
"It's undeniable that I'm handsome. Anyway, Captain, I think we need to investigate the underground passage. If someone's trying to weaken the light of the king's virtue using copies of the Book of the Divine King, they'd have to approach the throne."
"The problem is the underground passage is flooded, and if we just go in as-is, there's no good outcome. We don't know if it's flooded all the way, or if there's a space where we can come up for air after swimming a certain distance. If we just dive in blindly, we could end up suffocating."
As Azadin said that, Scott glanced around and spotted a pile of garbage, then started rummaging through it.
"What are you doing? Are you so hungry you're going to scavenge food from the trash?"
Ignoring Shati's sarcasm, Scott picked up a fish bone from the heap. It was a gnawed scrap of food waste.
"Hup!"
Scott formed a water seal and infused it with energy. A bluish ghost-fire shimmered over the bone, and it turned into the ghost of a fish and began to move.
"..."
Zebeck's expression soured.
"This is fine, right?"
Having already done the deed, Scott asked Zebeck after the fact.
"U-um… It's, it's fine. Do it. It's necessary for the greater good."
"Still, that's amazing. You can even make food scraps into undead?"
"To be honest, even for a genius like me, this is pretty tough. Mana, concentration, willpower—it takes all of that. Still, with this, we can check the water down there, right?"
Scott sent the ghost fish into the submerged darkness of the underground passage to scout it out.
"There's a space in the middle."
"Really? That's good news. What about monsters?"
"Don't really see anything like that, but there seem to be people. I can hear voices. Oh?"
Scott clicked his tongue.
"A crocodile ate my ghost fish."
"A crocodile, huh."
The fact that the flooded underground passage wasn't entirely submerged and could be swum through was good news, but the presence of crocodiles was a dreadful detail.
"They're not that big. Doesn't seem like there are many of them, either. More importantly, the water is pretty cold, so the crocodiles should be swimming slowly."
"Alright, then. Let's proceed carefully, watching out for crocodiles. Can you use water breathing?"
"Of course."
"If a Naga couldn't use that, it'd be a disgrace—even if you're from the Dryland bloodline."
"I can use underwater breathing magic too."
Scott, Shati, and Zebeck all nodded.
"That's great."
Azadin, unable to use magic himself, felt a slight twinge of envy as he watched his companions treat water breathing like it was no big deal.
***
The water in the flooded underground passage was so dark, its depth couldn't be seen.
And when he touched it, it was as cold as ice. Even with underwater breathing magic, it didn't feel like a place one could just dive into casually.
The surroundings were dark, and with sunken wood and stone scattered throughout, there was no telling what might be inside the water. On top of that, with crocodiles appearing, this wasn't a place someone could enter with ordinary nerves.
"Ugh, just looking at it makes me cold."
"Is everyone a good swimmer?"
"Well, I'm a Naga!"
Shati undid her human transformation and returned to her true Naga form.
"Even if I'm from the Dryland Tribe, I'm still confident in swimming."
"What about you, Scott?"
"Mm, I'm a bit troubled, Captain."
It wasn't so much that he couldn't swim—he just didn't want to, since it might make his muscles swell.
"Shati! Tie a rope around Scott's waist and pull him."
"Eh? What are you saying? This guy's just whining because he doesn't want his muscles to get bigger. Are you really going to indulge him?"
"Considering what Scott's done so far, let's indulge him just this once. And since you're in your Naga form, you're probably stronger, so help out a bit."
"Tch. Fine."
"What about you, Sir Zebeck?"
"I'm somewhat proficient at swimming. Fishing is my hobby, so it came naturally."
"Alright, then let's go. Whoa, this water is freezing!"
Azadin muttered as he stepped into the water.
There were so many impurities in the water that it was impossible to keep one's eyes open. But Azadin, having no eyes, had no need to worry about water getting into them and could see just fine underwater.
'There's a crocodile.'
It wasn't even 10 feet long, but a crocodile was still a deadly enemy to a human. Especially when encountered underwater, it was all the more terrifying.
Was it a small relief that, due to the icy cold water, the crocodile was moving slowly? Still, it seemed the crocodile could endure such cold—it sluggishly swam toward Azadin's group.
It clearly saw them as prey. The intent to hunt was evident in its movement.
'If it comes, I'll kill it.'
Azadin threatened the crocodile mentally, but of course, the creature couldn't understand.
Shati, who was the closest to the crocodile, swam with ease in her Naga form and smoothly avoided it.
In the end, the crocodile made its way toward Azadin, who was the nearest target.
'Damn it.'
Azadin caught the crocodile's snout as it slowly approached, wrapped his arm around it, and bound it so it couldn't open its mouth.
The crocodile thrashed with immense force, but Azadin overpowered it and drove Wendigo's dagger into its spine, twisting it.
With a single strike, the crocodile was killed.
"Pwah! Ugh, it's freezing!"
Shati screamed as she burst above the water's surface.
"There are people here, so be quiet…. Huh?"
Inside the underground passage, there were people shivering from the cold. Judging from the Moon Horn Bows they carried, they were clearly Aragasa.
But instead of reacting with alarm, they all looked startled when they saw Azadin's group.
"A N-Naga?!"
"What? Are they allies?"
Since they had already allied themselves with Nagas, seeing Shati emerge from the water didn't make them think she was an enemy.
Then, Azadin followed Shati to the surface.
"What? Who are you? You're not heralds, are you?"
"We're, uh, with the Korasar Pedders' Guild."
"Servants of the House Aether? You all may know my name, but I am Azadin, 108th Herald of the Emperor."
"You're that…"
"The Eyeless Azadin?!"
Even if they didn't know his face, they had all heard the rumors.
The son of the traitor Akre, a herald born of a curse, one cursed to have no eyes—Azadin.
Not a pleasant reputation, but among the Aragasa, he was a well-known figure.
'Wait a moment. Wasn't Azadin said to be on the side of the elder council?'
'He's Lady Arael's younger brother, but refuses her blessing, right?'
The servants looked at Azadin, visibly flustered.
'Is he an enemy?'
'Then what about that Naga?'
Moreover, Azadin's demeanor was utterly confident.
"So, what happened here? Why do you all look so… Ah. You were posted here on guard duty, but the heavy rain flooded the place, right?"
"Y-Yes. There are crocodiles in the water, and we don't know how deep it goes…"
They answered, but with clear unease. They didn't know how to deal with Azadin.
'What do we do?'
'We were told not to harm him since he's Lady Arael's younger brother…'
'But the Lord actually said to kill him on sight because of that very reason.'
Zion Aether, who ruled the Korasar Pedders' Guild, and Elder Sebali, along with other key figures in the Arael's faction, had plotted to eliminate Azadin in secret, before he could become a problem.
However, those present now couldn't make that decision themselves.
With no one holding the authority, and the target being Arael's younger brother—a complicated figure—they couldn't make a move carelessly.