Episode 88 The Iliad (4)
“This Iliad?”
Aheman’s expression hardened.
The ‘Iliad’ is a battle between warriors. It refers to a final life-and-death fight to protect honor in a situation where neither side can withdraw.
Chieftain Aquila asked Ahheman with a gentle smile.
“Ahheman, the great sorcerer of Balak. You are a being who has maintained a long tradition with high pride and shining honor, just like I said before. Can such pride and honor tradition be damaged like this?”
At those words, Ahheman had no choice but to gnashing his teeth.
The chieftain, who always thought of himself as a thorn in the eye, was somehow giving himself up.
In the end, it was the basic work to lay the board so that the Iliad could not be rejected.
It seems that the seasoned chief Aquila intends to take this opportunity to get rid of the power of the shaman who tries to take advantage of the chieftain’s power.
In the meantime, he was a politician who had kept the power of the shaman in check by using his daughter, Iyan, to incite the younger generation to break down superstition and old customs.
His grandson, Ahhun, also did not take sides.
“Grandfather. You always said you should value tradition. The Iliad is our Balak tradition.”
“Shut up that muzzle! I know!”
Ahhemman gritted his teeth and turned his head.
In front of him stood Bikir with a grave expression.
A prisoner of war who was held as a slave quickly became a hero of the flood.
The position that Ahheman had been longing for all his life was occupied by an outsider who came from somewhere and took it in just two years.
Ahhemman felt his clothes turn inside out.
His anger towards Bikir gushed out like a pillar of fire in the realm of the realm.
“Okay! Got it! I ask you to play the Iliad!”
Hearing Ahheman’s proclamation, Bikir nodded without any reaction.
It means to accept.
Chieftain Aquila spoke in a low voice that only Vikir could hear.
“…Can you do it?”
“If you tell me to do it, I will do it.”
Together, before and after returning, he lived as the Baskerville family’s hunting dog for more than 50 years.
He was accustomed to being someone else’s knife and being swung around.
Upon hearing Bikir’s answer, Aquila smiled with a satisfied expression.
It feels like a sharp knife in the palm of your hand.
“Okay. I believe you, son-in-law.”
“……?”
At the moment of beating, I thought Aquila looked like Morgue Adolph.
Eventually, all the warriors, young and old, came together and opened the game.
The place where two warriors will have a duel of souls.
All the warriors watch this with sweat on their hands.
Ahheman thought to himself.
‘okay. it was better I will take this opportunity to shake off all feelings of embarrassment and regain my place.’
He raised his burning eyes and glared at Bikir.
As if everything would return to normal if that thing in front of me disappeared.
Ahhemman shouted like magma bubbling up from the depths of an active volcano.
“The date is the night of the full moon in three days! The location is here! I’m officially requesting you for the Iliad!”
For a moment, the warriors are startled by Ahheman’s fierce momentum.
However, Bikir, who was the target of the killing, was so indifferent.
just.
“What about three days? Let’s do it right now.”
It was an attitude as if he was trying to get rid of a trivial chore.
The warriors exclaim again at Bikir’s relaxed attitude.
On the other hand, Ahheman broke out in a cold sweat.
All the ground work that I was trying to prepare secretly for three days became invalid.
Bikir is well aware of this, so Ahheman did not give him time to think.
‘Most of the guys called shamans are like that.’
It seemed that he was secretly trying to slow down the time of the Iliad by emitting an unresponsive spirit, but it was not going to happen.
Bikir, too, a worn-out old man who has gone through all the battles of childbirth, never gets pushed by Ahheman’s heart.
Rather, since he was a warrior who had passed through the age of destruction, he was superior to the old shaman Ahheman when it came to plotting tricks.
“The Iliad gives the challenger the right to choose the date and place. Traditionally, isn’t it?”
At Bikir’s words, Ahheman only makes a sound of pain.
Ahheman himself always raised his voice saying that tradition should be respected, so there is nothing to say if tradition is mentioned in this situation.
Jaseungjabak (自繩自縛) Your usual words and actions are trapping you.
Iyen, who saw that, giggled.
“As expected, Ahhemman’s enemy is Ahhemman.”
Iyen, who muttered as if accusing him, soon turned his head to the side.
The wolf Vakira, a loyal subordinate, trusty ally, and close friend, is seen sitting gallantly beside Iyen.
Ayen played with Vakira’s soft ear and whispered softly near it.
“Tell them to go to the village and prepare to greet the winner of the Iliad.”
It was an instruction to those who remained in the village to prepare a reception for Bikir.
but.
“Don’t do that.”
Bikir bruised Iyen.
As Iyen widened her eyes, Bikir turned her head and answered.
“If you hit your heart like that, the exact opposite result will come out.”
It’s hard to prepare for variables if you’re too confident.
Bikir watched Ahhemman grit his teeth from a distance.
As he is a shaman, he has a lot of surprises in battle.
Vikir had the opportunity to compete with countless shamans, warlocks, and alchemists as he passed through the age of destruction, but most of them had an unexpected counterattack every time.
As a result, the winner was always Bikir, but they always had at least one hand they hid right before they died, and Bikir was used to such things.
‘Even 1% of carelessness is not allowed.’
Hounds do their best when catching rabbits.
Not to mention, when the prey is an old raccoon dog.
Bikir reviewed all the information before the regression and checked the unexpected variables that would unfold in the future one by one.
Seeing Vikir become more cautious, Iyen also became more cautious.
She told Bikir everything she knew about Ahheman, in order to be of the utmost help.
While listening to this and that, there was a section where Bikir’s ears instantly pricked up.
“Wait. Just say that part again.”
When Vikir showed interest, Iyen opened her mouth excitedly.
“What part are you talking about? Ahheman’s preference for underwear color? According to the child in charge of the laundry, he usually wears leopard-patterned leather…” “…Not that. Before that.
”
“Oh, you mean his birth background?”
Ayen whispered to Vikir exactly what he had heard from Aquila.
At this point, it was secret information that no one knew except for Aquila, Iyen, and Ahheman himself.
“Ahheman is not a native of Balak. He was originally a member of another tribe, but was kidnapped as a child. He was probably about the same age as you, Bikir.”
Bikir was a little surprised to hear that.
I thought he was a native of Balak for several generations because of his traditions, but he was actually from a foreign country.
Iyen’s next words were even more surprising.
“He went around saying he was captured for son-in-law hunting…but he was actually taken as a slave. To a sodomy-loving shaman at the time.”
It seems that Ahheman projected himself to Bikir, perhaps because he was from a foreign country who was taken as a slave at the age of a teenager.
……So-called homophobia?
Since Bikir, who had been like that, followed all the ideal routes and became a hero respected by everyone, Ahheman’s stomach was bound to get even worse.
“Anyway. While living as a sex slave, Ahheman was looking for an opportunity. One day, he killed a sorcerer and stole his sorcery.”
Ayen then recited Ahheman’s bloody efforts to adapt to Balak’s society.
“Ahheman had no place in the society of Balak, where physical strength was highly valued. And he was despised for killing the shaman who raised him. So Ahhemman did anything to be recognized by his tribemates. ”
Starting from cleaning up the dung and urine of people and wolves, he took on all kinds of chores in the village, and sometimes took on dangerous prey or served as bait.
It was common to wake up at dawn, hold the shoes of the previous chieftain in one’s arms, and warm them up with one’s body temperature.
At that time, to impress Aquila, who was still a child, he put her on his back and crawled on the floor on all fours, imitating a dog.
And time passed… By the time he was recognized as a member of the tribal society, his gray hair had already turned gray.
As I became an old man, I couldn’t help but turn my eyes to the privileges of my youth that I hadn’t been able to enjoy.
At the height of his age, his blood and violent impulses, which had been suppressed without being able to fully express themselves, raised their heads along with the psychology of compensation.
That’s why he tried to devour the entire jungle by advancing Balak, even overstepping the authority of the chieftain, Aquila.
Even holding hands with the ‘Leviathan family’ belonging to the empire outside the flood!
Meanwhile, Bikir suddenly had a question.
“…Then what tribe was Ahheman originally from?”
“Hmm. I’m not sure about that either.”
Vikir nodded at Iyen’s answer.
Actually, it doesn’t matter that much now.
Meanwhile, Ahheman had been restless with a nervous expression on his face.
It only got worse when Vikir entered the battlefield for the Iliad.
Like a seasoned hunting dog, Bikir slowly and gradually tightens the prey’s leash from step by step.
After preparing for all the variables, Bikir heads to the battlefield.
However, before the events of the Iliad, a fatal unexpected variable occurred that even the world’s Vikir did not expect.
…widely!
The sound of one light spur of the ground with a foot from behind.
And then someone grabbed Bikir’s wrist and pulled her back.
The moment Bikir turns his head.
“……!”
One of the lips touches Bikir’s.
Iyen, whose head had grown smaller over the past two years, was looking up at Bikir with her tiptoe raised.
“Win and come back. I’ll do something better for you.”
She grinned and pushed Bikir’s chest.
Bikir was about to say something, but soon decided not to.
The most important thing right now is not this (?).
yet.
…Chang!
The demonic sword, Baalzebub, pierces through the arteries in the wrist, revealing its dark red teeth.
It was the moment when the leash of the iron-blooded swordsman was released.
