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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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Chapter 12 - Relationship Between Platoon Leader and Assistant Platoon Leader (2)
“Did your family give him a hard time because of his status?”
“Not at all.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s about Eres’s abilities. If Eres had continued on the path of a knight, I have no doubt he would have reached the level of a Sword Master by now. He is genius.”
“So… son of a commoner was more talented with the sword than the eldest son, which caused concerns over succession. Because of that, Eres eventually abandoned the path of knighthood to enlist as a regular soldier.”
“You should set up a fortune-telling mat—you’re in the wrong profession.”
“This story’s so cliché it’s almost predictable.”
“After Eres disappeared a year ago, I searched everywhere for him but found no trace. Then, Carpenter, who had come to me for something, recognized his portrait. That’s how I discovered his whereabouts and came rushing here.”
“And why you have to stir up trouble for someone who was quietly minding his own business?”
“…Excuse me?”
“I get that you care about your brother, but what you did is not helping him at all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“As you know, Eres’s identity was revealed today. Do you have any idea how many high-ranking officers have come by to meet him since? If you were going to see him, you should have done so quietly.”
“The military is a strict hierarchy, where orders must be followed without question. From now on, Eres will inevitably receive special treatment. How do you think the other soldiers feel about that? It’s one thing to be oblivious, but this is just excessive.”
Clyden’s words made Azelus visibly uncomfortable.
He cleared his throat repeatedly, unsure of how to respond.
Carpenter finally stepped in.
“Sir Clyden! That was out of line. Lord Azelus is your superior officer.”
“Oh, please. This isn’t a formal setting, and he’s not even my direct superior. If he doesn’t like it, he can have me discharged! It’s not like I don’t have other ways to make a living.”
At that, Azelus quickly composed himself, letting out a hearty laugh.
“Haha, you’re right. I admit it—I messed up. I was just so excited to see Eres again that I didn’t consider the consequences. Here, let’s have a drink!”
As the night went on, Clyden, Azelus, and Carpenter drank together and chatted.
As the alcohol flowed, Azelus and Clyden found themselves laughing like old friends.
Before long, they were calling each other “brother” and “younger brother,” eventually deciding to swear a bond of brotherhood.
A horrified Carpenter tried to stop them, but the two drunken men simply laughed and teased him, treating him as if he were some kind of traitor.
They tried to bring Carpenter in as well.
He strongly refused, saying that he could not become a sworn brother to the one he had already made the master of his heart.
To punish Carpenter, they forced him to drink an entire bottle of strong liquor, making him pass out.
With that settled, Azelus and Clyden threw their arms around each other’s shoulders and staggered toward the temple of Promis, the god of Oaths and Promises.
“Get the priest out here!”
“If you don’t come out, we’re barging in!”
“Boom-chaka! Boom-boom!”
“Kuhehehe!”
The priests guarding the temple stared at Azelus and Clyden in utter disbelief.
They had never imagined that someone would show up drunk and cause a ruckus in a sacred temple.
The noise drew curious onlookers, who began gathering outside to see what was happening.
“What is this disturbance in a holy place?! You will be taken into custody!”
Hearing the commotion, the temple knights arrived in response to the priests’ report and moved to arrest Clyden and Azelus.
But just as they were about to restrain them, one of the knights suddenly shouted.
“Ah! Duke Azelus!”
“What?! Duke Azelus? The same Duke Azelus who arrived in the capital today?”
“No doubt about it! I met him once before when I was stationed in the South!”
The priest hesitated, unsure of how to proceed.
After some awkward deliberation, he decided to grant their request and perform the brotherhood ceremony.
A priest on duty led Clyden and Azelus inside the temple.
“Wait a minute! He’s just a priest! That won’t do—his rank is too low!”
“Our sacred oath deserves someone worthy of the occasion!”
“Ohhh! That’s my brother! You really know your stuff!”
“Of course! What kind of brother would I be otherwise?”
“Kuhehe, little brother!”
“Big brother!”
As Clyden and Azelus continued their drunken antics, refusing to accept a lower-ranking priest for their ceremony, a calm and composed voice cut through the chaos.
“Well, what is all this commotion?”
The priests and temple knights quickly bowed in respect.
It was the Archbishop himself, awakened by the noise, stepping in to see what was going on.
As soon as Clyden and Azelus spotted him, they shouted in unison.
“Ooooh! A moment as sacred as this calls for none other than the Archbishop himself!”
“Hoho, Azelus, my brother, you are very drunk.”
“I drank because I was sad!”
“Sad? Why?”
“Because I only now found my dear younger brother. That is why I drank! Brother!”
“Big brother!”
Clyden and Azelus were making an absolute spectacle of themselves.
The Archbishop gazed at them as if he were observing a pair of peculiar creatures.
Yet, despite his bewilderment, the two men refused to let him go, clinging to him and pleading for the ceremony to be conducted properly.
In the end, the Archbishop had no choice but to officiate the brotherhood ceremony in the middle of the night.
“By the authority granted to me by Promis, the god of Oaths and Promises, I hereby declare Azelus Hugh Iron and Clyden von Rondell to be sworn brothers.”
“Ooooh! Big brother!”
“Little brother!”
“Dear brother!”
Just as the ceremony ended, Lady Lydis arrived in a hurry after receiving word from the temple knights—only to find that it was already over.
The moment the ceremony concluded, both Clyden and Azelus passed out cold.
“Do you even have a shred of common sense?!”
Ignoring Clyden entirely, Lydis unleashed a barrage of scolding at Azelus.
When he didn’t respond, she grabbed him by the ear and began dragging him away.
“Uh… Lady Lydis! What should we do with this one?”
“Hmph! Just throw him away!”
Lydis snapped before vanishing with Azelus in tow.
The temple knights, now left with an unconscious Clyden, looked at each other in discomfort.
They couldn’t just dump him in the streets, so they slung him over their shoulders and carried him to the guard post, where they unceremoniously dropped him off.
By the next morning, gossip had spread like wildfire across the capital.
“Clyden and lord Azelus got drunk, caused a scene, and even swore brotherhood in the middle of the night!”
Clyden, who had been known only in certain circles, found his name echoing not just through the capital but across the entire empire.
Morning came, and despite his miserable hangover, Clyden had no choice but to get up.
Just like the day before, a flood of officers had practically moved into the platoon barracks, paralyzing all operations.
Normally, Clyden would have slept in until noon or lazed around.
But today, groggy and disheveled, he had no choice but to tend to his unwelcome superiors.
The more he gritted his teeth in frustration, the more cold sweat trickled down Eres’s back.
That evening, after the officers finally left, Clyden vented all his bottled-up fury on Eres.
At some point, his late-night drinking escapades with Azelus had earned them a new nickname.
‘The Night Mist of Raisen.’
For two to three days, the cycle repeated.
-Storming into the platoon barracks at dawn, shaking Eres awake.
-Demanding drinks and snacks before passing out.
-Waking up just as the officers arrived, disheveled and miserable.
Finally, unable to take it any longer, Eres applied for a special leave.
His destination - Iron house.
The grand estates within the First Inner Wall of the capital were a symbol of wealth and power, home to the empire’s wealthiest merchants and highest-ranking nobles.
Azelus’s mansion was no exception, boasting extravagant opulence befitting its owner.
Fuming, Eres stormed up to the estate.
Ignoring the startled household members, he marched straight into Azelus’s office.
There, he found the man sprawled on a plush sofa, looking just as haggard as he felt.
Carpenter was handing him a cup of honey water for his hangover.
“Brother, please—do something! I can’t take it anymore!”
Eres glared at Azelus, his voice dripping with frustration.
But instead of looking surprised, Azelus merely let out a long sigh, his expression one of profound disappointment.
“You fool… You should’ve held out for just one more day.”
“…What?”
Eres blinked, momentarily thrown off by the cryptic remark.
Azelus turned to Carpenter and groaned.
“Damn it. Give Clyden 100 mega. I lost the bet, thanks to my useless little brother.”
In that instant, Eres understood everything.
There had been a wager between Azelus and Clyden—one that involved him.
And Clyden had tormented him to the brink of insanity just to win it.
Eres let out a slow, dangerous chuckle.
“So… The reason I suffered under the platoon leader’s tyranny… was because of a bet?”
Azelus cleared his throat and hastily raised his hands.
“Uh? Aha-ha! Now, little brother, calm down! Relax! You’re not usually the hot-tempered type, are you?”
"Have you ever heard this saying before?"
"Hm?"
Eres walked over to a decorative sword hanging on the office wall, pulled it down, and twirled it effortlessly in one hand.
"They say people change after joining the army."
"I… I've heard that before."
"Well… it's true."
Even by his recollection, Eres had never moved so recklessly before.
His usually refined and controlled swordplay—something that once inspired admiration—had now transformed into a wild, chaotic storm.
As Eres brandished the sword, a startled Azelus scrambled to defend himself with all his might.
The once pristine office quickly became a battleground of clashing steel and surging mana.
"Hah… hah… can we stop now?"
Azelus drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, tried to call for a truce.
"Heh… Stop? After all the torment I suffered at the hands of my platoon leader because of you? Stop? On whose orders?"
With a battle cry, he swung his sword at Azelus, forcing him to dodge frantically.
"I never even revealed my identity! So why the hell was I the one getting hazed?!"
BOOM!
Eres slammed his sword down, cracking the floor beneath them.
"That damn ‘Young Master’ nonsense! Do I LOOK like I was pampered my whole life?!"
CRASH!
A single swing erased an entire section of the wall.
"Do you think I don’t know the difference between inside and outside? Huh?! What kind of person does that? Does bullying make you feel good, huh?!"
Eres wasn’t even aiming at Azelus anymore—he was just lashing out at the surroundings, venting every ounce of frustration he had bottled up from dealing with Clyden.
"Unbelievable… I never imagined Eres had this side to him."
Having rushed over after hearing the commotion, Lydis looked at the destruction and turned to Azelus with wide eyes.
"What on earth is going on?"
Azelus, slumped on the floor and fanning himself lazily, responded in an exasperated tone.
"How should I know? He stormed in out of nowhere and started this mess. If he's so mad at Clyden, he should take it up with him, not me! Am I that easy to pick on?!"
At his words, Lydis’s expression darkened as she snapped.
"Does that look like the usual Eres to you?! You're the lord of a grand territory, the head of the Iron Duchy, one of the Empire’s Four Great Ducal Houses! From what I’ve learned, this ‘Clyden’ is nothing more than a lowly baron. Yet you went and swore brotherhood with him—in a temple, no less! What on earth possessed you to do something so absurd? And furthermore—"
Azelus groaned, clearly fed up with Lydis’s scolding.
He slowly got up and approached Eres, who was now standing still, panting heavily after unleashing all his rage.
"Feeling better now?"
"No! This is only the beginning!"
Eres clenched his fists, his voice thick with frustration.
"I endured the platoon leader’s torment, thinking—at the very least—it was because he wanted to toughen me up. But now I find out it was all just a bet!?"
At Eres’s indignant outburst, Azelus simply smiled.
"Clyden and I made a little bet. I said that since you'd left home, there was no way you'd willingly walk back in. But after hearing my complaint, Clyden was confident he could make you return to your family within three days."
Eres stared at him in silence.
"I thought it was impossible, so I accepted his challenge."
"……."
"Tch. I never imagined you'd show up. Was Clyden that relentless?"
Eres involuntarily shuddered, recalling the grueling torment he had endured.
Azelus let out a hearty laugh.
"Well, since you're here, let’s at least have dinner together as a family."
For the first time in a long while, warmth and laughter filled the Iron Ducal House.
Eres, Azelus, and Lydis chatted well into the evening, their conversation centering around one particular topic—Clyden.
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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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