Ch.270270. Flower of the Garbage Pit

At the border of the Human Empire, there exists a small city.

Located deep within a remote mountain range, this city’s geography made it an ideal hiding place. Over time, criminals began to trickle in one by one, gradually transforming it into a hotbed of crime.

As criminals flooded in, slums encroached upon ordinary residential areas, and law enforcement proved powerless against the formidable criminal organizations.

Consequently, ordinary citizens began to leave one after another, until even the mayor fled. The population void left by their departure was filled by newly arriving criminals and organizations.

In fact, the city came to be effectively ruled by a coalition formed from several organizations. They successfully negotiated self-governance rights from the Human Empire in exchange for paying taxes.

Following these events, only criminals remained in the city.

Hence, it earned the name “Garbage Pit.”

A name given because it was infamous for being crawling with society’s trash.

And it was in this Garbage Pit that the boy was born.

His mother, who died giving birth to him, was a low-ranking prostitute at a seedy brothel, and his father, whose face he never knew, was one of his mother’s “customers.”

Naturally, the boy grew up doing odd jobs at the brothel where his mother had worked. Had he continued on this path, he would likely have joined the gang that managed the brothel.

But… amusingly, the boy was somehow different from the other children in this city.

He was like a flower blooming in a sewer—the type of person who dreamed of a better future.

However, the chances of a flower surviving in a sewer were extremely slim, so the boy gradually closed his petals and chose to appear like everyone else.

Now, the boy was no longer treated as a strange kid… but instead, he began to rot from within.

If he had stayed there for just a few more years, he would have either become another cog in the Garbage Pit’s machinery or taken his own life. But one day—

“…?”

While walking down the street, he spotted an old man whom he somehow couldn’t take his eyes off.

An old man with long white hair and a snow-white beard, wrapped in a voluminous black robe that covered his entire body, holding a long wooden staff in his hand.

Despite the hood of his robe casting shadows on his face and his extraordinarily unusual aura, it seemed that no one except the boy could perceive him.

Normally, the boy would have simply ignored him and walked past, but today was different.

“…Grandfather, what are you doing?”

When the boy addressed the old man with rare politeness, the old man replied in a voice the boy would never forget.

“I was watching a fading flower bud.”

His voice carried a power that seemed capable of commanding everyone’s attention, and each syllable struck the boy’s soul with impact.

“…!”

In the Garbage Pit, “flower” was typically slang for prostitutes, but the flower bud this old man was referring to… was him.

“…You mean me?”

The unusually knowledgeable boy recognized the meaning behind the old man’s words and questioned him in return. The old man laughed heartily, then carefully stroked the boy’s dirty hair and said:

“The very fact that you understand proves you are a flower bud. My child, here in this final destination of garbage.”

In that moment, the boy became certain of one thing.

The old man before him harbored not even the slightest trace of fear.

The old man was filled with the power of a prophet, brimming with certainty about the future, and perhaps because of this, he carried no fear of the uncertain future.

“…Why.”

“Hmm?”

“Why aren’t you afraid? Why don’t you pray to God? The future… the future is… nothing but bleak.”

Thus, the boy questioned the old man, pouring out his doubts…

The corners of the old man’s lips curved into a crescent smile as he spoke to the boy.

“Fear… Listen well, fear is the emotion furthest from understanding. When one understands all things, how can one tremble in fear?”

“…Who, who are you?”

The boy could no longer simply observe the old man, and so when he asked this question—the old man didn’t answer directly but said something unexpected.

“Final salvation will come to you. When it does, tell the red ones that ‘the Old Man’ sent you.”

“W-wait—”

The boy reached out toward the old man, whose form seemed about to vanish at any moment, but somehow the old man had already completely disappeared from this world.

Thus, in a dumbfounded state, the boy blankly replayed the day’s experience in his mind as he returned to his home… the gang’s communal dormitory—

The next day, a group of warriors attacked the Garbage Pit.

※ ※ ※

According to what the boy later discovered, those who attacked the Garbage Pit were the Golden Hand Paladins of Jephtal, God of Light, and—the warriors in red armor whom the boy directly encountered—the Avenger Legion.

The two groups had rarely joined forces to clean up this cesspool that was seriously lowering the security of the surrounding areas.

“…Boy, who are you?”

“T-the Old Man sent me! H-he said you’d understand…”

And so the boy spoke to the warriors in red armor as the old man had instructed—

“…Indeed. Come with us, boy.”

Thanks to this, the boy was led by their hands to the Dawn Empire, where he was shocked to learn that the old man he had met might actually be a god.

“T-then that person…”

“Yes, there’s a high probability it was Him—the God of Vengeance himself.”

Feeling something fateful in this encounter, the boy pledged to devote his life to the god and simultaneously expressed his desire to join the Avenger Legion…

This was the moment when the legend of the boy—no, the Empire’s hero “Angel” Mikela—began.

During his training with the Avenger Legion, Mikela was found to have a high aptitude for divine power and chose the path of a military priest, becoming a rare example of someone who became a priest while remaining a member of the Avenger Legion.

And together with others who, like him, were members of the Avenger Legion but not warriors, Mikela was assigned to the Legion’s special mission squad and performed various heroic feats.

The subjugation of an undead warlord planning to attack the Empire, the elimination of a demon cult, the bloodless suppression of an uprising in a free city, and more.

Perhaps it was due to the favor of the God of Vengeance that he received while accomplishing these various military achievements. From the Mark of Avenge to the Red Halo, and various other blessings, he eventually rose to the intermediate level and became a paladin.

Afterward, Mikela’s exploits continued for about 100 years, earning him treatment as a hero throughout the Empire.

He received the blessing of angel wings growing from his back, earning him the epithet “Angel,” and as a devotee of the God of Vengeance, he embarked on a pilgrimage and obtained the Holy Spear after many adventures.

His growth progressed so smoothly, as if someone had laid down rails for him, that opinions began to circulate suggesting he might become an apostle of the god—until one day—

Mikela was attacked by dozens of assassins.

“Where do you think—you’re charging!”

*BOOM*!!

Of course, since the profession of assassin was completely outmatched by a paladin, Mikela was able to easily annihilate them.

“The wounds… won’t heal? …Ugh!”

“—Sir Mikela! There’s trouble!”

But not only would the wounds he received from the assassins not heal, suddenly demons attacked the “Sacred Shrine” that was under Mikela’s charge.

So in the end, Mikela rushed out while injured and after a fierce battle, he staggered from the impact of his wounds. The demons did not miss this opening and succeeded in cutting him down and killing him—

“—!!!”

At that very moment, a holy lightning bolt struck Mikela from the sky.

Mikela was reborn from a being with a physical body into a spiritual and divine servant of the god—an Angel of Vengeance.

Thus, Mikela was reborn into his current form.

A form that truly befitted the title of Angel of Vengeance—descending into reality surrounded by divine radiance to aid those seeking vengeance.

And now—

‘…It begins again.’

He surrendered himself to the will of the summoning, willingly descending to earth in response to someone’s desperate prayer calling for him.