Legend of the Southern
Legend of the Southern
It was only after facing the lord directly that I learned the name of this port city was Irmiz, and that it was a key maritime trade hub where ships from the desert kingdom of Radan across the sea—where slaves were a major trade commodity—came to dock.
Naturally, I hadn't learned it because I wanted to know. The lord of Irmiz, who had been maintaining vigilance for over a month by order of Duke Lesrom under the king's authority, considered me an incredibly honored guest. During a 'brief' tea time, he began boasting about his family, his city, and even his three daughters. Had I not slipped out at an appropriate moment, he probably would have immediately summoned his daughters to join us and imagined an engagement on the spot.
Still, aside from the slight discomfort of him constantly invoking Radan, Radan—which felt like my father's name was being called every time he emphasized the kingdom—it wasn't an entirely unpleasant occasion. Yet it was also an occasion with no reason to linger, so after wrapping up the formal conversation, I quickly took my leave.
"But His Excellency Duke Zwinera..."
"His Excellency likely already knows exactly how I will move. Please do not fret."
The lord, intent on getting me to stay long-term so he could glean even a crumb of benefit, scrambled for every excuse to cling on until the very end. If I'd had my way, I would've pointed out there was nothing to gain and it was merely his delusion, but he wouldn't have believed it anyway, so I cut him off as sharply as possible and left the castle.
After refusing even the money he tried to press into my hand for travel expenses, I stepped out onto the streets and finally felt that I'd truly come home. The western kingdom region used the Continental Common Language no differently, but the distinctive accent was definitely different.
That alone lifted my spirits, so I lightly ignored the gazes pouring down on me as I walked abruptly out of the castle, quickly secured lodgings, and set off to see the sea.
I'd taken a room at an inn far from the sea, not wanting to suffer the night sea breeze, so I had to wear out some shoe leather. But in the process, I bought and ate various street foods and was able to rest for the first time in a very long while, making it a better experience than expected.
What followed, however, was far less pleasant.
Even though it was a city of Itisel, Irmiz's atmosphere was vastly different from the cities I'd been to before. Perhaps because so many slaves came and went through trade with Radan, the people here were extremely accustomed to keeping slaves, and anyone with the means used slaves without exception.
The problem was, unlike Radan where slaves could become free citizens if they met certain conditions, Irmiz hadn't adopted such a system—if anything, a culture of treating slaves as mere livestock was exceptionally strong.
Right now, even as I sat in a decent spot watching the port, I could see countless slaves hauling cargo with the clanking of shackles, and nearly every two minutes, a whip cracked above their heads.
Well, even so, I still didn't feel any urge to burn with righteous fury, shouting 'Slavery bad! Freedom good!' like some novel protagonist. I just found the sound of the whips damn noisy. Maybe the morals of my past life had thinned considerably.
Still, since it wasn't a pretty sight, I moved around for a long while, but no matter where I went, there was no place to leisurely sit and just gaze at the sea.
In the end, with the thought that I should visit another port city when I had the leisure, my port city tour drew to a slightly bitter close along with the setting sun.
◈
I'd received a strangely large amount of attention, but without any commotion from people recognizing me, I slept comfortably and set out on horseback early in the morning, heading for the nearest city with a gate installed.
When I first emerged from the forest, it had felt truly warm compared to the north, but after just one night's sleep, whether I'd already acclimated, the dawn air was bitingly cold. Laughing to myself that it ought to feel warm for at least three days, I rode on for a while until, from the opposite side of the dark plain still thick with the bluish chill of a winter dawn, flickering torches began to approach.
They didn't look like attackers. It was far too early for such bastards to be hunting prey, and their movements were utterly ordinary. Sure enough, as the distance closed, a party who looked like adventurers spotted me, their faces brightening as they called out.
"Excuse me! Are you coming from the city, by any chance?"
The four adventurers, walking while relying on a single torch, were young overall. And they had an extremely typical party composition. A warrior, a mage, a priest, and an archer—a Hero's party, essentially.
Hell, except for the one warrior guy, they were all girls.
"Yes. That's right. If the city you mean is Irmiz, that is."
I couldn't make it out clearly, but judging by their gear, they were probably novice adventurers. Novice adventurers dead tired, at that.
They might even be adventurers returning from hunting down the orc remnants Pimel had mentioned. I made that judgment and observed their reaction; overwhelmed with emotion, they started chattering excitedly among themselves.
"Oh my god! Finally!"
"Seriously, if you'd misread the map again, I was gonna beat you to death!"
"That's why I told you to learn it properly!"
"W-why is it only me who has to learn? You guys didn't learn it properly either, that's why we're in this mess!"
...Seems they hadn't come out to hunt orcs after all. Didn't seem like four brats who couldn't read a map could handle orcs anyway.
I thought they were still kids, so it was understandable, but at the same time, being kids didn't mean they couldn't lose their lives, and their mental state seemed truly lax, so I inadvertently looked at them with a somewhat pitying eye.
"Ah, a-ah. Our apologies. We've been quite lost, you see."
The warrior guy noticed and stammered out his words, and I had to barely suppress the urge to squeeze my eyes shut.
"Is your night vision poor, by any chance?"
"Huh, what?"
"If it's not poor, you'd be better off putting out that torch first. This level of darkness, once you get used to it, is bright enough to see most things. It's because you're halfheartedly relying on the light that you can't even tell where you are right now."
If you just listened a little, you could hear the gentle sound of waves from the left. If you just focused a little, it was a time of day with enough ambient light to identify your surroundings perfectly well without a torch. Judging by the state of them, the anxiety of being lost and the forced night march had them so on edge they couldn't see what was right in front of them.
At my observation, voiced out of sheer frustration, the warrior bumbled and stammered, while the other three girls reacted with blank expressions.
"And if you're lost, don't move at night—wait until morning. Do you think you'll find a path by stumbling around in the dark that you couldn't find in the morning? On top of that, there are orc remnants scattered nearby, enough that mercenary bands are being mobilized. If you'd taken a wrong turn and encountered the orcs even a little bit sooner, you'd all be dead."
"Th-that's none of your business!"
"P-Pinya!"
The little one, clearly a mage by the look of her, shouted back cheekily, and the others freaked out and tried to stop her. It wasn't ridiculous so much as just amusing.
Unbelievable, kids like this actually existed. The perfect incompetent-officer combination, the type to wander into a dungeon and get their skulls bashed in by goblins.
"The very idea that you'd accept an answer to an immediate crisis from a passing stranger, but kick away advice that could save your skin in the future because of your pride—that's flawed from the start. Well, judging by the fact you haven't even caught the strange part in what I just said, I don't know how long you'll live even if you do remember it."
"...What...?"
"If you'd encountered the orcs even a little bit sooner, you'd all be dead."
I gestured at the warrior guy, whose eyes were full of bewilderment, and though he blinked vacantly, he obediently approached me. When I gestured further for the torch, he just looked puzzled and meekly handed it over.
'Obedient or just stupid, honestly.'
"Haa... You guys were really damn lucky."
I shook my head, but as there was nothing more to say, I hurled the torch toward the dark forest way off to the right.
"Wh-what the hell are you doing!"
It wasn't the warrior guy. It was a shout from that incompetent-officer brat named Pinya, right on cue. And the brat didn't stop there—she dashed off to retrieve the torch I'd thrown.
"So it was because of her you were carrying a torch. She's timid and doesn't think things through. Can she even use magic properly?"
"Aaaaagh!!"
Of course, that action didn't last long. Because the reasons I'd thrown the torch there began to reveal themselves in the torchlight.
"S-squeal! Squeal! Squeal!"
"O-orcs! It's orcs!!"
She scrambled back, practically tripping over herself in panic, but still managed to properly grab her hat and staff. Did that mean she wasn't a complete nutcase... or was she? Causing a ruckus and screaming her head off even in this situation—was she the worst kind of incompetent officer?
Whatever the case, despair settled identically onto the faces of the warrior and his party. About ten orcs revealing themselves all at once was more than enough reason for that, from their perspective.
"Squeal! Y-you, human! Drop weapons! Then we kill all of you!"
"Idiot! Only one we let live, he said!"
"Squeal? R-right! One let live, we will!"
The orc bastards were just as fucking ridiculous. When one of them snatched up the torch I'd thrown, five or six of them began crowding around it to warm themselves. Looking closely, they were wearing quite a lot of animal pelts. Seemed they were struggling in various ways because it was colder here than the Great Grassland.
'Was this all of them, though? If mercenaries were being hired on a large scale, there was no way. Maybe there was another group not too far off.'
And that meant even if I slaughtered all of these ones right now, there was a high chance these pathetic brats would die anyway on the road to the city—a road I'd traveled for dozens of minutes on horseback.
They were complete strangers, but I didn't like the idea of orc fuckers benefiting because of them.
My judgment made, I pulled out the axe hanging from my saddle and held it up, figuring it might have some effect, so the approaching bastards could see.
"Anyone itching to follow Kakula to the Heavenly Great Grassland, step the fuck up."
The orcs tilted their heads. The warrior's party, frozen in terror just moments ago, tilted their heads too.
But the reasons were entirely different. The orcs were looking at the axe. The brats were looking at me.
For dozens of seconds, I stood there receiving a reaction of 'Why the hell is that axe here?' and gazes asking 'What the hell kind of nonsense is this human spouting?'
The orcs' eyes, which had been like buttonholes, grew to the size of fists in the torchlight.
"K-kiiiiiiiek! It's Eldmia Ega! Eldmia Ega killed Great Chieftain Kakula and took the axe!"
"N-no, no way! He vanished beyond the gate with Great Chieftain!"
"It's lightning! He rode the lightning that struck yesterday back!"
Stupid bastards. Still at the level of assigning meaning to natural phenomena... or were they? Could it genuinely be possible here?
"Skreeeeeeek!! The human the War God protects! Run!"
Still, maybe because they were the world's biggest fucking cowards, the effect was clear. As the brats watched the orcs—who'd even thrown down the torch they were holding—vanish into the forest with dazed expressions, their gazes shifted to me.
"Remember this well. You died once today because of bad judgment."
I had no idea if those orc bastards would spread rumors among themselves or not... The rest was up to their own luck.
Leaving behind the brats, who were still maintaining their spaced-out state, I headed for the next city.