The Slave Trader of Tetra Mountain (1)
Tetra Mountain.
Raul sat before a lit campfire, chewing on preserved meat with an expression of benign approval, and looked up at the sky.
Even with his head tilted high, all he could see was the mountain’s massive, imposing silhouette.
I finally hit a place I know.
Unlike the villages and cities he had passed so far, like Zern or Latina Village, Tetra Mountain was famous even in Exeria.
That was because this sacred mountain functioned as a kind of border, separating the western human kingdoms from the elves’ territory, the Great Forest.
If Raul crossed Tetra Mountain by walking west, he would end up stepping straight into elven territory.
Of course, in that case, arrows would rain down on his head without so much as a warning.
The elves’ hatred and suspicion toward humans is one of the worst in all of Exeria.
Walking into their domain unprepared was one of the most efficient ways to kill yourself in this world.
Raul picked up a twig and wrote several words in the dirt.
Tetra Mountain
West - Elves, South - Valentia.
Valentia was the name of a commercial city with the Great Forest to the west and the open sea to the south.
If he crossed Tetra Mountain not to the west but to the southwest, the city Raul would reach would be none other than Valentia.
“Yeah. This is it.”
Once the geography clicked into place, it felt as if his eyes had snapped fully open.
Unlike the eastern side, where the majority of characters in Exeria operated, Raul’s knowledge of the west had been weak enough that just traveling through unfamiliar villages and cities had been a constant strain.
But with Tetra Mountain in front of him, he could finally put his game knowledge to use.
How should he put it?
It felt like he’d started breathing again after being suffocated.
Like he’d knocked back an ice-cold beer on an empty stomach.
He wasn’t sure how else to describe it, but for Raul, it was a tremendous rush.
He drew more marks and lines in the dirt with the twig, adding notes to the words he had written.
Commercial city, Valentia.
Its real reputation, however, was as a slave market that had grown rich by kidnapping and selling western elves and southern merfolk.
Raul’s original plan had been to rescue as many elves as possible who had been funneled into that slave market.
Even the most temperamental and rough-edged elves would not be able to shoot arrows at someone who showed up dragging a line of kidnapped kin behind them.
That was why he had been trying to gather money.
Valentia’s slave market charged an entrance fee that was beyond imagination.
But the item he had obtained in Latina Village last time had changed Raul’s plan.
Sealsoul Stone That Swallowed the Abyss and Abundance
The item was a problem if he intended to sneak into Valentia while pretending to be an ordinary upstart with money.
It held both “abundance” and “abyss,” in other words divinity and demonic energy, at the same time.
Left alone, it would eventually become a mass of pure energy, but it would take a very long time for those two powers to fully neutralize each other.
So long as Raul carried it, demons would see him as a bearer of holiness, while secluded clergy would see him as a human tainted by demonic energy.
Which meant...
It would have me running around blasting indiscriminate holy hell at every demon contractor and hidden priest I ran into.
In a plan where secrecy was the most important thing, carrying an item that automatically screamed divinity and demonic corruption at the same time?
The premise was wrong from the start.
Of course, now that Raul could draw on his game knowledge, he already had a solution.
It’ll take a little detour...
Eventually, the line Raul scratched out with the twig pointed neither west nor south.
North - “Lake of the Sacred Mountain.”
Why was Tetra Mountain called a sacred mountain?
The answer to that question lay in the north.
At a radius of thirty kilometers, comparable to Mount Baekdu, this enormous mountain’s summit tilted slightly to the north.
And at that summit was a massive lake, a feature unique to sacred mountains.
Raul intended to use that lake’s secret to convert all of the immense energy stored in the Sealsoul Stone into his own experience points.
As it was, he was painfully aware of how badly he lacked in raw stats.
Raul planned to make full use of the Sealsoul Stone that the dark mage Tod had gifted him and scratch an itch that had been bothering him for a while.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The western side of Tetra Mountain was, at a glance, filled with lush green forest.
On the eastern side, by contrast, a well-maintained road ran broad and clear rather than grass and trees, because a human village sat halfway up the mountain.
It had no proper name in the game, either.
People simply called it the Mountain Village.
No one knew who had built it first, but the prevailing belief was that it had once served as an outpost during the conflicts with the elves, and later become a village in its own right.
As dawn broke behind him and cast a long shadow over the ground, Raul climbed the mountain with steady steps.
Before long, the Mountain Village came into view, no larger than a grain of millet.
Messiah Scenario - First Holy Land.
Distance to the Church of Origin: 85.6 km
Now that he had reached this place and checked again, the number of his epic quests had indeed fallen a great deal.
So this really was going down.
Thinking that it had started in the four digits made the two-digit number in front of him feel all the more unreal.
He was close.
This time, it wasn’t an attempt to soothe his troubled heart. He meant it in the literal sense.
“Hoo.”
After a brief rest, Raul walked again, leaving the well-kept road and taking the path that led into the forest.
No matter how impressive humans were, there were limits to the kind of terrain they could turn into roads.
That was why moving between forest and road in Tetra Mountain was normal.
He was pushing through a thick forest where the green growth was dense and deep when—
Crude-rattle!
A loud noise broke out straight ahead.
Hm?
Wondering what it was, Raul let his holy power scatter toward the direction of the sound, and before long he sensed a fairly large number of people not far away.
Bandits?
Since the commercial city of Valentia lay just south of the mountain, travelers passing through this place generally had money to spare.
So it was nothing unusual for banditry to flourish here as a result.
And since the elven territory was right beside it, dangerous monsters rarely wandered around either.
“Oh? It’s people.”
But the figures that emerged through the brush did not look at all like the kind Raul had been preparing to fight.
“People in a place like this?”
“Travelers?”
“Hey! You there, young man!”
Every person who appeared had bundles piled high on their backs, unmistakably peddlers.
Raul loosened the dagger he had been holding in his breast pocket and answered them.
“What is it?”
While keeping his guard up, Raul adopted a fairly cooperative attitude toward the approaching traders.
There was no need to seize the initiative if the other side had no intention of fighting.
At Raul’s response, four people with blades at their waists and backs, along with a dozen or so burdened peddlers, came closer.
“Never thought I’d run into someone in a place like this. The heavens must be smiling on us!”
“Young man, sorry to ask, but could you help us out a bit? We’ll pay you properly, I promise. See this? We’re merchants of GoldenCord.”
Raul looked at the peddler holding out what seemed to be some gaudy metal badge with a strange expression.
GoldenCord? For some reason, the name sounded familiar.
“GoldenCord... I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere.”
A moment later, he remembered.
The pot-bellied peddler who had once owned the cracked Moonlit Blade Raul now used all the time had been a member of that very merchant guild.
“You’ve heard of us, haven’t you?”
“Of course you have! Is there another merchant guild around here as famous as us?”
As far as Raul knew, there were quite a few.
He swallowed the retort that had risen to his throat, watching the peddler puff out his chest with complete self-assurance.
“So, what is it?”
“Ah, nothing major. One of our wagon carts broke down while coming down from the rocks over there. We’re sorting out the load, and we thought maybe you could help.”
Unlike the peddlers, who grinned and chatted with easy familiarity, the four men who looked like mercenaries kept their distance from Raul on their own.
The unarmed approached, the armed kept away.
They certainly had manners, at least.
“If there’s pay.”
Raul nodded, thinking the timing was perfect, and held out his hand.
No matter how friendly the other side seemed, this world did not run on the principle of happily accepting orders for free.
At that, the peddlers brightened even more.
“Ha! We thought you were young because of your face, but you’re a sharp one, aren’t you?”
“See? A fellow who can travel this kind of backcountry alone already knows how the world works.”
“Of course we’ll pay you, young man. But make sure you do the work properly, all right?”
Chatting noisily, the peddlers tossed Raul a money pouch.
Hah.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Raul’s mouth.
He couldn’t help it.
The number of silver and copper coins inside was more than he had expected.
“For spending a day in this backcountry and moving on our schedule. Ten silver, thirty copper. That works, right?”
“Works for me.”
Led deeper into the forest by their guidance, Raul had no choice but to narrow his brow.
“That’s the wagon cart that broke down?”
Because the wheeled wooden cart they had called a wagon had massive iron bars layered over it.
“Ah, right. Right. But, young man, are you any good at lifting?”
“No, actually, it doesn’t matter if you’re not. Just hold onto this leash properly.”
Claaank!
What the man who seemed to be the leader of the caravan had handed Raul was a long iron chain.
And what that chain was linked to, one after another, was the “load” they had been talking about...
They were people.
A lot of them.
So you’re slave traders.
Raul’s body stiffened for a moment at the reflexive surge of disgust, but he did not show it.
In this world, no. In this western kingdom, slave trading was not illegal.
In fact, talking about ethics or morality here would make him sound like a presumptuous busybody.
“You said one day?”
“That’s right. Now, now! Mercenaries, let’s hurry it up. At this rate, the sun we got up for will go right back down on us!”
Raul confirmed the duration of the arrangement once more.
He looked for a while at the slaves who were dragged along helplessly with even the slightest tug of the chains.
Most were boys and girls, and there was no life in their eyes.
As expected, it wasn’t a very pleasant sight.
Then something caught Raul’s eye.
Among the slaves, a few still retained the will to live.
Their clothes were ragged, but their bodies were fairly well muscled.
They were, by any reasonable measure, not ordinary slaves.
And strangely enough, each of them had a peculiar mark stamped on their necks.
That’s...
It was a sigil Raul knew well from sorcery.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“So, where are you coming from?”
In the early night, the leader of the peddlers, who sat with Raul before the campfire and shared food, asked him that.
“The east.”
“Then you’re from Zern? An adventurer?”
“Something like that.”
“Right. The sword at your waist and that robe you’re wearing aren’t ordinary, either. Am I right?”
“You’ve got a good eye.”
“I’m a merchant. If we don’t have good eyes, we’re dead meat, you know? Ha. Ha.”
Still chattering away, the peddler poured Raul another cup of the liquor he had said he would give “especially” to him and handed it over.
“Ah, don’t feel burdened, just drink. Whatever happens, we’re one team until noon tomorrow, aren’t we?”
Raul lifted the cup without changing his expression at all.
Glug, glug.
Warm heat and a fierce drunkenness rose up Raul’s throat.
“Hah. Expensive stuff really is different.”
A subtle smile rose at the corner of his mouth.
And yet, strangely enough, the more he drank, the more rigid the expressions of the traders around him became.
They had spent all day joking around and acting friendly, but after he finished his first cup, they had fallen deathly silent.
Watching the merchants grow stiffer and stiffer, Raul finally lost patience and decided to speak first.
“No matter how long you wait, I won’t fall asleep. I’m naturally immune to poison and curses.”
At that, the merchant’s eyes went wide as saucers.
“...Since when did you know?”
“Does that matter?”
Shik-!
Instead of the cracked Moonlit Blade, Raul drew the dagger from his breast.
At the same time, the bastard who seemed to be the deputy shouted, “Don’t kill him! Take him alive! I don’t know which church they’re from, but they pay a fortune for a cleric’s spinal fluid!”
Hah.
Was it the holiness in the Sealsoul Stone that he couldn’t fully suppress after all?
The bastard had apparently grasped Raul’s identity, at least dimly.
But Raul only smiled, and it was a refreshingly cold one.
“If there’s no need to hide it, that’s better.”
Light bloomed in the dark night at that moment.
Raul’s whole body was wrapped in pure white sanctity, sometimes surging like flame, sometimes flowing like a tide.
After confirming the authority that covered his body, Raul said, “This is a pain, so come at me all at once.”