Always Beware of Explosions
KWA-AAAAAANG—!!
"Shall we head up now?"
"...Wh-wh-wha... what was that?"
"The sound of an Explosion Potion going off."
"An Explosion Potion? That fifteen-second one...? Why did it go off?"
"I tied the backpack strap to the potion's lid. So that if anyone carelessly opened it, it would detonate."
Sera freaked out and pinched my backside.
"Then the backpack blew up too, didn't it?!"
"I left the potion on the outside. And it's a sturdy enough pack to withstand external impacts just fine. It can take an Explosion Potion."
"Really? Then thank goodn— wait. Hold on. What if I had opened it?"
"I tied it on the way to find you. If you'd been kidnapped, of course they'd take your belongings."
Sera let out a sigh of relief and rubbed her cheek against my backside.
"Sniff... Lulu, you really are my precious friend."
"My backside is not capable of expressing itself."
I promptly dismantled the ceiling and made an exit hole. Acrid smoke immediately billowed in through the opening. Sera and I held our breath tight and crawled up through the hole.
"Hic... what is this?"
"A corpse."
The moment we emerged, we found a body whose entire upper half had been blown clean off. By contrast, the backpack sprawled at its feet was, as expected, perfectly intact. Back when Aaron first gave it to me I had run all sorts of durability tests on it, so I already knew it could survive an Explosion Potion.
"Boss!! What happene—"
"A moment later we came face-to-face with the bald man."
"...What was that all of a sudden? Doesn't seem like something you say out loud?"
"I just felt like trying it."
"Y-you two, what the hell are you... how did you even get out of th—"
What came to mind was the shape of the restraints that had bound our arms and legs. The instant I pictured them, the transmutation took hold. Kwaddeudeuk! Restraints erupted from the ground and locked the bald man's limbs in place.
"What is this?!"
"Sera."
Piiing! The twang of a bowstring, and the bald man's head snapped backward.
"Ghk..."
An arrow had sprouted from the bald man's skull. He was no longer bald.
"As expected, Sera, you shoot very well. But where did the arrow come from?"
"This thing makes them on its own."
Sure enough, a quiver that hadn't been there before now hung across Sera's back.
"I don't even shoot the arrows myself—it fires them on its own. I just have to draw the string."
"Then what exactly is Sera good at?"
"I-I'm originally a mage, okay?!"
"Ah, right. Come to think of it, what kind of magic do you mainly use, Sera?"
"Summoning magic."
"Summoning?"
Are summoned creatures treated as monsters? If so, could I dispose of a summon and harvest the mana residue from it?
"Why are you looking at me and licking your lips?"
"I did no such thing. For now, let's just grab what we need and get out of here."
"Huh? Just what we need? Don't we need to grab their money too?"
"Money also counts as something we need."
"That's my Lulu!"
Sera beamed and started ransacking the room at high speed. I pulled the potion-launching golem parts from my backpack, assembled them, and loaded a Corrosion Potion inside. It was the kind of potion that would rot an entire arm off if it so much as touched a fingertip. Getting doused head to toe didn't bear thinking about. If any of the thugs' companions showed up, all we'd have to do was pull the golem's lever.
With that reassuring little turret set up, I followed Sera and searched every corner of the room. Above my head, the aftereffects of the Explosion Potion had blasted and burned everything clean away, so there was no point looking up there. I kept my gaze down and moved around looking only at the floor.
That was when I spotted a bundle of admission tickets on the desk, along with cards that looked a little different from the tickets. Black and gold intertwined in an elegant design. The material itself was high-grade too. The taste on my tongue was unmistakably obsidian. An entire card carved from solid obsidian. There was no writing to prove what the card actually was—only numbers engraved in gold.
Numbers 37, 38, and 39. Three cards in total.
"Sera, what are these?"
"Aren't those the admission tickets that were over there? I already checked them earlier."
"And the ones next to them? Black cards made of obsidian."
"Next to them? Obsidian? Black cards?"
The moment Sera saw the cards she shrieked and came running.
"Those are the special admission tickets they only give to VIPs! What the—?! Why are these just sitting here?"
"Are they good?"
"Fee waivers on every purchase and sale!"
"Nice. And?"
"I heard they even lend you free escorts while you're walking around the black market?"
"Is that all?"
"No—this is the really important part. You can enter the secret auction with these!"
A secret auction. The image that came to mind was some dim, shadowy place where people dragged in everything too troublesome to handle through normal channels, put it on display, and sold it off. Perhaps the reason they had kidnapped us was to sell us as slaves at that very auction.
"Then I should be able to sell all the potions I have on me."
"Of course! The biggest advantage of a secret auction is that they hide the seller's identity!"
They were things I could have sold off gradually anyway, so I didn't feel the same giddy thrill Sera did. I even wondered for a moment whether we really needed to take them. VIP tickets almost certainly came with risks of their own.
"There's bound to be tons of stuff you can use as alchemy materials too! Just buy them with the money from selling potions! And that heart fragment you've got? If you have it appraised, you might find out whose heart it belonged to. Auction houses always have appraisers on staff."
I promptly scooped up all three special admission tickets. One of them would be useless as a ticket, but obsidian made an excellent material for golem cores.
Only after night had fallen did we finally slip out of the thugs' hideout.
"They're not going to come chasing after us right away, are they?"
As we walked the capital streets swallowed by night, Sera kept glancing nervously over her shoulder.
"Once we're inside the black market, we should be fine."
According to Sera, the use of force was forbidden inside the black market. If we could just get in, there wouldn't be a problem.
"And once we're back outside...?"
"If they still come after us, we can just run to Count Marsh."
"Ah!"
Sera, who had been drooping, perked right back up.
"That's right! Count Marsh swore an oath!"
"Yes. So stop fretting so much and let's hurry."
Without further ado, Sera and I headed straight for the black market. The ban on armed conflict there was one reason, but we had also stirred up quite a ruckus, and lingering long in the capital didn't seem wise. We decided to wait until the black market closed for the night, then hop a suitable carriage and leave the city behind.
"I wonder how much we can make. Eheheheh..."
"But is the anonymity there really guaranteed?"
"Yep. There was a dragon's claw that went up for sale once, and only recently did the rumor start going around that the Second Calamity herself had come in person thirty years ago to put it up. That recent."
If a Calamity the entire continent was hunting could walk in, consign an item, and only be found out decades later, that said everything.
"Sounds reliable enough."
"Right? So you don't have to worry about that part!"
"When Sera guarantees something that confidently, I start to feel a little uneasy."
"You don't trust me?!"
"It's complicated."
"What do you mean, complicated."
Sera huffed and crossed her arms—then immediately beamed and linked her arm through mine instead.
"Still... thank you. Really, really thank you. If it hadn't been for you, I honestly don't know what would've... snff..."
"Would you like to repay me for the rescue?"
"Do friends need to repay each other?"
I turned my head and looked at her.
"...I-I was kidding. Why are you looking at me like that."
"I wasn't making any expression at all."
"Not your face—your eyes. You were looking at me the same way you look at ingredients when you're about to make a potion. A-anyway, I was kidding. Of course I want to repay you."
"Then show me your summoning magic sometime."
"Huh? That's all you want?"
"Yes."
Asking whether I was allowed to kill the summon could wait until after she'd shown me the magic. If I asked now, a frightened Sera would almost certainly refuse to demonstrate it at all.
"That much is easy! I'll show you in the next city."
"Wonderful. So the road we're on right now is the correct one?"
"Yep, absolutely certain."
This was the certainty of a woman who had gone to buy a black-market ticket, gotten kidnapped, and nearly been sold. Reassuring.
"See the Windy Plains Inn over there? If you go into the back alley, there's supposed to be a guide."
"And how do we find this guide?"
"I heard you can just tell at a glance."
As if the Empire would leave people you can identify at a glance alone. Holding that thought, I stepped into the dark, gloomy alley running behind the Windy Plains Inn.
And I found the black-market guide immediately. Sera had not been wrong. You really could tell at a single glance that this was a black-market guide. The robe was pulled low over the face, but the signboard in their hands was so spectacular there was simply no missing it.
No matter how you looked at it, the sign inspired zero confidence—and every single guide was holding one just like it.
"You really can tell at a glance!"
"Indeed. At this level, the Empire must be deliberately looking the other way."
"Come on, let's go!"
"Yes."
As I followed Sera toward the guides, it suddenly struck me that the Empire might have far more corrupt people than I'd thought. After all, one of the Calamities the entire continent was hunting had consigned goods at a black market operating this openly, and nobody had reported it. Honestly, at this point, something as minor as an alchemist's potions would almost certainly get a free pass with a smile. My steps going forward felt a little lighter.
"Hello."
As we drew near, one of the guides—the one holding the relatively most subdued sign—approached us first and spoke. There were about ten guides in total, and she was one of only two women among them. They had probably assigned her because both of us were women and on the small side. Considerate staffing.
"If you are headed for the black market, please present your admission tickets."
Sera held out a special admission ticket with an extremely smug expression. I hung back and watched for a moment, just in case they tried to seize her—so I could plan the next move.
"Ah, you are a VIP guest."
But nothing of the sort happened. I quickly held out my own ticket before Sera could turn around.
"Hello."
"My, this one is a VIP as well."
The instant she realized that mine was also a special admission ticket, the other guides' gazes all swung toward us. Looking wasn't enough—I could feel the remaining female guide starting to walk this way. But before she could arrive, the guide who had greeted us first spoke up.
"Would it be all right if I guided the two of you?"
The sharp glance she flicked past my shoulder suggested that simply escorting VIPs came with some kind of benefit.
"What do you want to do?"
Sera whispered.
I studied the guide for a moment, then asked,
"We have nothing we can give you in return. Is that still all right?"
"Goodness, the honor of attending VIPs is more than enough for me."
"Then we'll leave it to you."
"And so politely spoken, too... It seems today is going to be a lucky day."
The guide smiled gently, then slipped the name tag from around her neck, shrugged off her robe, and revealed her face.
"I am Apte, your guide. Ah—of course, VIP guests need not introduce themselves."
Softly falling silver hair and luminous crimson eyes. The fangs visible between her smile made it clear she was a vampire.
"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Apte."
"Ah—h-hello, Apte...ssi? Nim?"
At Sera's awkward attempt at formal speech, Apte shook her head.
"There's no need for that at all. Please speak as comfortably as you like."
"Uh, then... okay? Nice to meet you, Apte!"
"No. One should still show proper courtesy."
Sera stared at me with a look of utter betrayal, as if to say, If you say that, where does that leave me? Apte, however, simply continued smiling kindly, as though it were of no concern.
"My role is to ensure that VIP guests can enjoy the night streets at their ease, so please do whatever makes you most comfortable."
"Ah... yeah, then... n-nice to meet you. Looking forward to it."
"We look forward to working with you."
And so Sera and I trailed after Apte toward the black market.
"...So you're telling me the brat you kidnapped threw this unholy tantrum and left? Huh?"
"Th-that's correct."
Around the time Lulu and Sera were heading for the black market, a man named Tullan arrived at the warehouse the two had escaped from. He stared blankly around the wrecked interior, soul half gone from his body. The corpse that was nothing but a lower half, the corpse with an arrow buried in its skull—none of it registered. Tullan looked at the thoroughly demolished walls and ceiling and worked his lips soundlessly for a long time.
Did a high-ranking mage come through here?
Otherwise it made no sense. This was a warehouse for storing "merchandise" destined for the black market's fifth auction. Concealment and durability had been locked down tight. It was built from materials that wouldn't show up on detection magic and wouldn't break unless a high-circle mage got involved. It had even passed three separate cartel safety inspections. The building's reliability shouldn't have needed a second look.
And yet it had been utterly destroyed.
"You said you put the mana-blocking restraints on them."
"Yes..."
"Don't tell me you bought your own. Did you sell the ones headquarters issued and use something else?"
"No, sir! We used the restraints supplied by the cartel exactly as delivered! H-here, look at this!"
Tullan looked at the half-piece of restraint his subordinate held out and let out a hollow laugh. A knight stripped of weapons at Level 4 or below couldn't get free of these. Even a 5th-Circle mage would need to struggle for half a day just to unlock them—and if concentration broke even once during that time, the whole process had to start over from scratch. A thoroughly annoying device.
And it had been sliced cleanly in two.
True, the restraints couldn't block mana flowing in from outside. But the captives were brought in already wearing them—so how were they supposed to cast magic? The same went for knights. A Level 5 high knight couldn't be kidnapped in the first place, so they would have been dealing with Level 4 at most. Without weapons, those people couldn't use any power at all. Even a Level 6 would struggle to get free. Tullan himself was Level 6 and had worn a set once, so he could say so with confidence.
"Damn it all."
Tullan confirmed that the restraint circuits themselves were still intact and heaved a deep sigh.
"...What the hell did you people kidnap? Huh? Did you snatch a Calamity? No—if it was a Calamity, they wouldn't have been kidnapped. They just paid a visit."
Tullan snickered. The subordinate beside him laughed along—then immediately froze the moment he met Tullan's razor-sharp stare.
"You're laughing? It's funny? You think this is funny?"
"I apologize...!"
"The stolen special tickets were numbers 37 through 39, correct? What's our operative's number?"
"...Yes. The operative who'll move out in the open holds ticket number 18."
"And ticket number 40? Can we get one? No—even if we can't, find a way. Get it."
"W-we can arrange it. We'll do whatever it takes."
"Bring it immediately. If a noble has it, kill them if you have to—just get it as fast as possible. Hm? As fast as possible. Fast. Faster."
"Understood!"
"And you've already confirmed that Ecology of Metals is among this auction's lots?"
"Yes! Confirmed multiple times. It's listed as the first item of the second auction!"
"...Good. We've already lost a Level 7 knight's soul to the Pantheon. If we lose that book on top of it... I'll have nothing to say to the higher-ups. They might take my head. So listen up, you miserable bastards. Bring me ticket number 40 as soon as humanly possible. Hm? Hurry the hell up, you sons of bitches!!!"
"Yes, sir! Right away!"
Once his subordinates had gone, Tullan drew deeply on his pipe and forced down the anxiety and the rising madness.