Seraphs of the Emperor’s Judgment

Chapter 74: Within the Vortex

"You damn vampire! There is no such thing as relief rations!"

The speaker was a man with a stubbled, weather-beaten face, but he was far more robust than the people travelling with him.

Soshyan immediately noticed the badge on the man's collar. Although it was heavily covered in stains, he could still make out that it was an Astra Militarum badge.

The tattered clothes the man wore also faintly resembled Astra Militarum fatigues.

Seeing this man jump out, West's eyebrows arched, and a look of disdain appeared on his face.

"Lieutenant Vetricos, as a retired Astra Militarum officer, you really do the Departmento Munitorum proud."

"Bah!"

The former Astra Militarum lieutenant spat fiercely at West, showing not a sliver of fear on his face.

"Everything you say is bullshit! They might be cowardly, stingy, and cunning, but who made them this way?"

He pointed at West and shouted sharply:"It was you! It was you landlords and grain merchants!"

A near-weeping expression of rage surfaced on the man's pale, ashen face, and he spoke every word through gritted teeth.

"If you can't collect the grain, you burn down houses! You force them into hard labor and servitude, and if they disobey even slightly, you kill them! You even set up underground casinos, tricking those freeholders into gambling, and when they've lost all their money, you offer loans and steal their fields! During natural disasters, you gouge prices and offer predatory loans! You drive up the price of farming tools to dozens of times their original cost!"

While cursing angrily, the man's eyes were wide open, his jaw clamped tight, as if the words were squeezed through the gaps in his teeth.

"What do you expect them to do! What should they do!!"

Saying this, the man slumped to the ground. Hanging his head, he let out suppressed sobs and pounded his fists brutally against the earth, even leaving bloody marks.

"Damn it! Damn it!"

Suddenly, a shadow fell over him. The man looked up to find a giant clad in silver-grey armor standing before him. The armor was covered in thunderclouds, radiating a terrifying aura of destruction.

"Did you say there were no relief rations?"

"My Lord! My Lord! There are, there are! They are all just insatiably greedy."

"Shut up!"

Soshyan's angry voice made West snap his mouth shut instantly, trembling all over from fear.

Then, he turned to the man on the ground.

"Tell me."

"None! I swear on my life! What they handed out was definitely not relief rations, but a mix of a tiny bit of grain and local plants wrapped in ash-mud! My Lord, most of the native plants on this world are somewhat toxic, and eating too much will kill a person! They didn't hand out those things to save people at all! They wanted to kill us!"

The man curled up at Soshyan's feet, tear tracks still wet on his face.

"My wife and daughter... they both died after eating those things!"

"Nonsense! B-bullshit! You're all spouting nonsense! You clearly ate so much grain, yet you claim you had nothing!"

West was still trying to defend himself.

"Don't you dare try to deceive the Angel with your pitiful act! You are rebels! You are insurgents who deserve to die! You attacked the Imperium's tax agencies, and that is a cold, hard fact!"

"I... I..."

The old man who had been leading the group earlier suddenly stood up unsteadily, then violently drew a small knife from his walking stick.

In an instant, the Space Marines all reached for their weapons, and the guards aimed their guns back at him.

But to everyone's surprise, the old man plunged the knife into his own abdomen and yanked it to the right with a roar.

"You—"

Soshyan was also stunned. He saw thick blood spilling from the massive gash in the old man's abdomen, and the strong metallic scent of blood permeated the air and drifted into his helmet.

"M-My Lord!"

The old man's legs trembled, but he gritted his teeth and held on. He reached into his own abdomen and violently yanked out a length of his intestines.

From the bulging veins on his forehead, one could imagine the immense agony he was enduring, yet he suppressed it, cupping his own intestines in blood-soaked hands and offering them toward Soshyan.

"P-please look... there is absolutely no... not a single grain... of food!"

Having said this, the old man collapsed backwards. The people screamed in shock and rushed to catch him.

The old man's eyes were wide open, his wrinkled, dirt-streaked face bearing a profound sorrow. After his chest heaved for the final two times, he lay motionless.

"Why... did he."

Such a harrowing scene deeply shocked Soshyan, even more so than the flying flesh and hailing bullets of a battlefield.

Why would a mortal, someone who in his mind was unimaginably fragile and of little value, go to such lengths?

What drove him to this point?

Soshyan turned his head, looking at the landlord shrinking his head back, an ashen pallor on his face like a corpse's, and the gauntlets slowly clenched tight...

"Gather his body."

Suddenly, Sol, who had not spoken a word the entire time, stepped forward and pointed at the dead old man.

"We now understand your plight and will report all of this to the Sector Governor. The Imperium will give you a fair judgment. Until then... as long as you lay down your weapons, we swear upon our honor to guarantee your safety until the Imperium's judgment arrives."

The retired Astra Militarum lieutenant understood Sol's words. After a silence lasting less than ten seconds, he nodded.

Then Sol turned to West and said:

"Once they lay down their weapons, they are no longer armed militants. If you do not trust them to enter the city, you can settle them outside, providing clean water and food. Even if they are truly guilty, it is for the Departmento Justitiae to pass judgment, not you."

"Of course, of course!"

West nodded hastily.

"But—"

Soshyan wanted to say something else, but Sol's whisper carried through his helmet's communicator into his ears.

"We have no time to struggle within the vortex of morality, Soshyan."

He could only swallow the words back down his throat.

Not long after these rebel groups returned to the jungle carrying the old man's body, hordes of rebelling serfs and peasants emerged from the natural cover, raising their weapons high as they arrived at the designated settlement zone outside the city.

After undergoing brief inspections by the guards, their weapons were confiscated, and they were then allowed to receive food and clean water in temporarily constructed shacks.

While all of this was happening, Soshyan and his party had already left the city. Guided by a butler dispatched by West, they headed toward the abandoned mine.

Before they set off, Soshyan had questioned Sol.

"Why won't you let me punish him."

The 'him', naturally, referred to West.

Soshyan had already confirmed that these landlords were the true instigators of this rebellion.

But facing an infuriated Soshyan, Sol's response was:

"Soshyan, have you ever been to the lower decks of the Starfire."

The young Chapter Master paused. He suddenly realized he had never set foot in other sections of the warship beneath his feet.

"No."

Listening to Soshyan's honesty, Sol wore a smile at the time, a smile akin to an adult watching a child's naive actions.

"You must go see it. That is the true hell."