Ankoku Kishi Monogatari (WN)

◆Dark Knight; Kuroki

「I see… so that's what happened, huh.」

「Yes… Your Excellency, Diehart. I definitely never thought about betraying Nargol.」

I, in the form of the Dark Knight received such a report from Zeal. He knew about me despite never having met me face to face. It seems that I was rather famous.

Zeal kneeled in front of me.

Zeal was a black-type Satyr. Otherwise known as a ‘Dark Satyr.’A Dark Satyr’s appearance was closer to a goat compared to the normal Satyr. They also had black hair.

They were Loughas’ familiars, the trusted subordinate of the Demon King, Modes, and the majority of them live in Nargol.

Though Loughas often appeared as an old man with horns growing on his head, his true figure was that of a goat with wings growing from his back.

A Dark Satyr’s strength was below only the Daemon race– the strongest race in Nargol– and more powerful in terms of mana and physical strength compared to the brown and white Satyrs. For that reason, they’re regarding as lesser daemons along with the high-lizardman race and the Kale race, whose power was equal to theirs.

Majority of them were the former subordinates of Ulbard. He was dispatched in this region to monitor the Evil God Labrys’ movements.

Ulbard has told me a little about Zeal before I came to this region. Additionally, he’d also told me that at some point, Zeal had ceased all communication with Nargol and his whereabouts at the time were unknown.

The reason was simply because Zeal was colluding with Atlankua, the Evil God Labrys’ comrade.

Though Zeal was quite powerful amongst Ulbard’s subordinates, his stealth ability was low, thus he was found out by Atlankua. Atlankua, who’d discovered Zeal’s existence, then approached the latter to strike a deal.

Zeal had no idea that Atlankua was Labrys’ comrade. It seems that he divulged Nargol’s inside information to Atlankua. Thanks to that, Labrys had managed to escape Modes’ scope of observation and built his own puppet country on the surface.

It seems that Zeal only realized this face later and thus went into hiding in fear of Ulbard’s wrath when the latter discovered his involvement in the matter. Thus, Zeal went into hiding at Atlankua’s place.

Naturally, Modes sent his search party, but they’d yet to find Zeal.

In addition, Nargol couldn’t continue the search since the battle with Rena intensified. Thus, Zeal’s whereabouts had remained unknown.

Until I finally discovered Zeal’s whereabouts from Atlankua.

Ulbard was really pissed off upon hearing of Zeal’s betrayal. There was no doubt about it; it was only a matter of time until Ulbard’s subordinates would come to arrest Zeal.

Well, whatever the case, it was fine with me.

Because despite the both of us being from Nargol, I couldn’t stand his way of double-crossing Nargol.

Maybe it was simply because I knew only a little about Zeal.

The problem was the fact that Zeal was the mastermind behind the Karkinos incident. He’d also participated in assisting Atlankua in letting loose the monsters in the area.

It seems that he knows the method to manipulating the Karkinos.

Nevertheless, I’m lucky since he has yet to leave this place.

Though I found out about this place from Atlankua, I’ve considered the possibilities of Zeal abandoning this place after I’d caught Atlankua. That’s why I'd left Kuna behind and come to investigate this place.

The reason I’d come by myself was because Zeal’s base was in this basement located below a shady store.

I don’t want Kuna to approach this kind of store as much as possible.

The matter of coming all the way down to the underground floor was the biggest news for me. All I’d heard from Atlankua was the location of the store. She’d never told me about the inner workings and the structure of the store itself.

I’d tried to infiltrate the building with invisible magic before, but it failed.

When I tried to see the inside of the store with x-ray vision, I found out that the male and female employees were being paired together as a team and there were several pairs on top of that.

Though I was fine with seeing the women, I couldn’t help but feel intense nausea when seeing the burly uncles working as male prostitutes.

Thus, I’d left the store to calm myself, only to be called again by a man named Marchas when I was pondering over whether to try again or not. It was thanks to him that I could arrive at the underground floor without a hitch.

I thanked the man called Marchas inside for saving me from experiencing that nauseating experience for the second time.

「Uhm, Your Excellency… please don't take me to Ulbard-sama.」

Zeal bowed desperately to me.

Well, I knew that Zeal had no intentions of betraying Nargol from the very beginning. He was just tricked by Atlankua. It was only because he hid his whereabouts that Ulbard considered Zeal as betraying Nargol.

Though Modes might be kind enough to forgive him, Ulbard won’t be as kind to do so.

「My bad, that's impossible. But, I'll overlook you this time.」

That was the only thing I could do for him.

Zeal was definitely going to be killed by Ulbard once the former’s whereabouts were found out by the latter.

「… I see.」

Zeal replied with a sorrowful voice.

「I really can't help you in this matter… I think it's better if you leave this place as soon as possible. I mean, after the Karkinos incident from before, I'm sure that it's only matter of time before the hero finds your whereabouts.」

As I said those words, I looked at Marchas, the witches, and Alnoe, who were standing quietly behind Zeal. They were bowing their heads, trembling like a newborn calf.

It seems that they were still under the influence of the fear magic that I’d used on them a while ago.

The reason behind today’s incident was Ainoe’s jealousy towards Sienna. She wasn’t targeting Reiji and co.

Ainoe was Zeal’s mistress.

Regardless of the difference in their racial traits, it didn’t change the fact that all Satyr loved women.

I’d heard that the majority of Dark Satyrs who’d been dispatched outside of Nargol had secretly built their own harems of human women. And in exchange, those women who became their mistresses received a bit of the Satyr’s power and became a witch.

This act of giving power was similar to the blessings given by angels of gods to the humans.

Elios’ gods wanted the humans, their dependents, to prosper. In addition, the angels were currently suffering from a lack of manpower since they had to take on many jobs, starting from misc jobs, management of their sky territories, and protecting Elios. Due to that, only a small number of them could come down to the human realm.

Thus, the humans were left to their own vices.

But humans were weak. Thus, they had to receive various blessings to help them survive in this harsh world.

In that regard, some of the humans were chosen as familiar, otherwise known as an apostle. The matter of this method taking a lot of time aside, it would be troublesome if those humans didn’t increase the number of their descendents. As a result, they were looking for ways to strengthen the humans without wasting too much time.

Due to this, a method called ‘blessing’ was born.

The contents of this blessing differed in accordance to the God who the angels served under.

Take Rena’s valkyries for example. The blessed followers of Rena’s faith used magic to enhance a special combat art.

It seems that this magic was modified for humans to use. The increase in the human ability was a far cry from that of a normal angel’s, but the effect was long lasting.

But, the magic of the angels looked powerful only from a human perspective. Such magic might be even considered as the lowest tier magic for the angels, but it was still a big grace for the powerless humans.

Additionally, the blessings that were unrelated to battle were also given to the humans. For example, the blessing that was given by the angels who served under the Goddess of Marriage and Childbirth, Faeria, was a blessing of easy delivery of children for the women.

That kind of blessing was another form of magic.

In the case of Zeal, he gave power to Ainoe just like the angels gave their blessings.

Ainoe, who was nothing more than a nameless dancer back then, accepted the power and became Zeal’s mistress.

I have no idea what kind of blessing that Zeal bestowed on Ainoe. Well, it might be something related to the increase in her mana sensory organ or a blessing that raised her charm.

Thus, Ainoe, who’d received Zeal’s blessing, had become the best actress in the Republic of Ariadya.

There were numerous men lining up to become Ainoe’s lover and the number of gifts she received could form a mountain. Being invited to attend a banquet of nobility was an everyday occurrence for her. She was the hottest topic amongst the groups of young men and women.

Ainoe was standing at the peak of her career. She, a formerly nameless dancer from the slums had risen to prominence and become the greatest actress in the Republic of Ariadya.

But then, an existence that threatened her position had finally appeared. Her name was Sienna.

At first, Ainoe treated her kindly as a senior and mentor. But, she came to hate Sienna more and more as the latter started to gain popularity.

Though she tried to use all kinds of methods to eliminate Sienna from the limelight, Sienna miraculously dodged all of Ainoe’s attempts.

In the end, Ainoe had used Marchas to instigate the Karkinos to raid the banquet.

That was the true reason behind the attack during the banquet.

It seems that the flute was something she’d received from Zeal. It seems that Zeal readily gave her that flute after Ainor asked him with an adorable look on her face.

I ended up face palming myself at hearing that ridiculous story. Seriously, this Dark Satyr is too gu– let’s stop that.

「Please, Your Excellency.」

When I was racking my brain to try to think up a solution for the current situation, Tarabos, who was standing quietly behind Zeal, suddenly spoke to me.

I looked at Tarabos.

Tarabos was a slightly plump middle-aged man. Though he looked like a nice guy at a glance, I got this feeling that he might be much more dangerous than his appearance suggested.

「… Is something the matter?」

「May I have this girl? She destroyed my precious Draugr after all.」

Tarabos asked as he looked at Sienna who was lying down by my side.

Just as he spoke, the Draugr, the people who were wearing black robes and covering their faces with white masks, stood behind Tarabos.

They were some sort of zombies. But unlike zombies, Draugr became even more powerful compared to when they were still alive. Despite their low intelligence, a Draugr’s movements and the ability to assess a situation was faster than when they were alive. In short, they’d retained their combat experience along with physical boosts.

For that reason, they were more popular than your average soldier in the times of war and were dubbed as corpse soldiers.

Even the Abyss Demon General of Nargol, Guede, integrated them as part of his army.

The downside of them was the fact that they couldn’t be easily mass produced like zombies.

The tall requirement for a necromancer who wanted to create them side, the materials to create Draugrs were also exceedingly rare.

「Zombie Powder(Powder)」 is required to make zombies but, in the case of Draugrs, the most vital material is a 「Meteor Fragment」.

It seems that he had gained quite a bit of it.

Though it wasn’t rare material in Nargol, the same couldn’t be said for the area outside of Nargol. In fact, Tarabos collected the meteor fragments from the Draugr itself.

The reason for that was for the sake of recycling.

「What are you going to do to this girl?」

It seems that I won’t know his goals unless I ask.

「To turn her into Draugr of course. She was skillful enough to survive the fight against more superior draugrs while still a living being herself after all. I'm sure that she'll become a powerful draugr.」

Tarabos replied with an eerie smile on his face.

As I thought, this man is a necromancer after all.

===

TN : What will happen to Sienna, find out next week in 68.2 [Art of Bribery]