Picking Up a Slave (4)
"Thank you for saving us…."
"May the gods bless you, my lord!"
With the key ring in hand, I unlocked every cage and freed the slaves who lay slumped inside, too weak to stand on their own.
As the saying goes, true vengeance means stripping your enemy of everything they own.
I could already picture the expression Bilbeckman would wear when he belatedly figured it out.
Looks like they're fairly satisfied over there, too.
I glanced at Seina, who was smiling faintly beside me. Even with a hood draped over her head, her beautiful features refused to stay hidden.
"So, um… where are we supposed to go now?"
"We have nowhere to go…."
The freed slaves murmured among themselves, blinking in confusion. I answered as though I had been waiting for exactly that question.
"Head down into the city and find a dwarf named Galfrio."
He was a famous weapons merchant in this city—and rumored to be its most well-connected man to boot. Tell him you're homeless, and he'd set you up with work on his own.
"Thank you—!"
"Bless you, my lord!"
And with that, the slaves began climbing the stairs. Part of me wanted to escort them all the way to the village, but we had business of our own.
"Let's head up."
At my words, Seina nodded as if she'd been waiting for that too.
It was a night with an unusually bright moon.
Bilbeckman tossed and turned in his bed. Sleep simply wouldn't come tonight. "Damn it." In the end he sat up and shuffled over to the window. A bit of night air would surely help him rest.
"!"
Then he began rubbing his eyes furiously. And no wonder—outside the window, his precious slaves were streaking away in a fleeing line.
"Son of a bitch! What the hell do you bastards think you're doing instead of working?!"
Without a backward glance, he sprinted for the door. That was a fortune he'd bled to amass—he couldn't just stand by and watch it vanish!
The moment he flung the door open and tried to charge out—
—Thud!
He landed flat on his rear as if he'd slammed into something solid. "Wh-what the hell?!" Slowly, he raised his head and looked up. And there stood someone vaguely familiar.
"You… you're that milord from earlier?"
The sucker who'd bought his slaves today. No mistaking it.
"What are you doing here… ah!"
Only then did Bilbeckman understand everything. That whole string of events earlier—it had all been this bastard's doing, no doubt about it.
Damn it, this dim-looking punk…!
But he couldn't let it show. All he had to do was avoid provoking the man and make it to the cabinet behind him.
"Was there something wrong with the merchandise? What brings you here at this hour? Haha!"
Smiling, Bilbeckman began backing away slowly.
"Someone has business with you."
"Haha, I slept rather poorly tonight. Couldn't this wait until another day?"
He said it while slowly rising to his feet.
"I don't think so."
"Like hell it can't!!"
And he bolted for the cabinet behind him. As long as he had that, he could get out of this mess! So thinking, he ran and ran. Surprisingly, they made no real move to stop him.
The moment he reached the cabinet—
"Khekhek—! You really are a fool!"
He flung it open, pulled something out, and curled his lips into a grin. "Know what this is?"
"What is it?"
"A magic scroll, that's what!"
Bilbeckman declared it with a booming laugh. A magic scroll—a device that stored a spell within parchment and cast it the instant it was unfurled. So expensive that most people would never so much as lay eyes on one in their entire lives.
"…Doesn't faze you, huh?"
But strangely, there was no reaction. Other people would have cowered at the mere mention of a magic scroll, yet the man before him looked utterly calm.
"I hear those things cost a fortune. How does a man like you even have one?"
At Gerard's question, Bilbeckman thrust out his chin.
"Because I paid a fortune for it! That's how shrewd a businessman I am. Kahaha—!"
"So you bought it with the money from selling the children and demi-humans you captured."
"What's wrong with that? If anything, they should be thanking me! I turned their worthless lives into something of value!"
"You're not worth listening to any further."
"The feeling is mutual!"
Bilbeckman frantically tore the cord from the scroll. Roaring flames surged toward Gerard, gaping maws of fire wide open. He stepped back a single pace to shield Seina, then calmly raised his right hand.
"You fool. You think you can block that?"
Bilbeckman's pupils dilated. —Sizzle! The moment the massive fireball touched Gerard's hand, it burned itself out and vanished, as if it had never existed.
"Pathetic."
"Th-that's impossible."
Bilbeckman bent the scroll in disbelief—and a volley of great flames came streaking at Gerard in rapid succession. —Bang-bang-bang-bang!
"Useless."
But they, too, burned away into nothing at a few casual flicks of his hand.
"—!"
Stunned, Bilbeckman began backing away slowly. It couldn't be. That was a magic scroll storing a 3rd-tier Fireball, of all things. And this man had blocked it with his bare body?
"Wh-what trick did you pull?!"
A trick, it had to be. Gerard gave a faint chuckle and answered.
"I used a nuke."
"What?"
"Seina. Handle him as you see fit."
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth— —BOOM! Bilbeckman's face was slammed into the wooden floorboards.
"Gahk—!"
It was faster than the eye could follow.
"Damn it! What did I ever do to deserve this—?!"
Bilbeckman wailed in protest. It had been an ordinary day like any other. All he'd done was honestly sell slaves, the same as always. So why was this happening to him?!
"I told you to lie down, didn't I?"
A slender voice reached his ear. "You… you're…." And then he saw it—the face of the hooded figure pinning him down. It was none other than the demi-human he had tormented until he'd grown sick of it.
"That's your sin."
"Gyaaaaah——!"
That was the end of Bilbeckman. His body was shredded to ribbons beneath Seina's claws, carved beyond all recognition.
"…Brutal."
Beneath the unnervingly bright moon, Gerard watched the scene and swallowed a groan.
Thirty minutes later, Seina and I made our way to an inn.
"Two rooms."
Under normal circumstances I'd have hunted down somewhere a little nicer, but after everything that had happened in a single day, I was too worn out to care and just picked the nearest decent place.
"Here you are, sir."
The innkeeper handed me a room key. "I asked for two rooms."
"There's only the one. Otherwise you can look elsewhere."
Tsk. Clicking my tongue, I snatched the key. I had no intention of moving another step today. Not that I meant for this to happen, but it looks like I'll get to play this hand.
I shot a sidelong glance at Seina. Having spent my university years in a girls'-majority, engineering-dominated cohort, this was my first time in a situation like this—and naturally, I found myself hyper-aware of her.
"Aren't you coming up?"
She, however, didn't seem to be thinking about it at all.
"…Coming."
Feeling my face heat up for no reason, I practically fled up the stairs. Once we'd climbed them all, we stepped into the room we'd been assigned. A single antique-styled bed and one window. It was, quite literally, a place for nothing but sleeping. The one silver lining was that it came with a bath.
"Wash up first."
I said it as I sank onto the edge of the bed. She'd spent years in slavery—she probably hadn't been able to bathe in a very long time.
"Why? Let's wash together."
Seina said it while peeling off her clothes and flinging them aside as if shedding a skin. I whipped my head away.
"H-humans only bathe together with the woman they love."
Even as I said it, doubt crept in. That's right, isn't it…? That's what they said on the forums.
You'd have to have actually dated someone to know for sure. I wasn't confident about what I'd just claimed—but surely it was true, since it came straight from the Dating Lectures for Forever-Alones community.
"Humans certainly make things complicated."
With that, she slipped straight into the bathroom. Left alone, I found myself staring at the clothes Seina had been wearing until moments ago.
"……."
For an instant a strange thought almost took hold, but I quickly shook my head.
I am a noble.
Not in reality, perhaps—but I intended to keep up the act of being a man of high standing from now on. It made life considerably easier that way. And to pull that off, maintaining the performance even where no one could see was essential.
—Shhhhh!
The sound of Seina washing soon drifted out. Before any stranger thoughts could take root, I quickly pivoted my thinking.
Combine that with the gold coins we took off Bilbeckman, and living expenses shouldn't be a problem for a while.
One gold coin supposedly covered a month's living for a family of four. It seemed money wouldn't be constraining my choices anytime soon.
Now then, what's next?
I let out a long sigh and leaned back against the headboard. According to plan, I needed to acquire that—but I still hadn't fully secured Seina's heart. For the journey ahead, top-tier talent like her wasn't a choice but a necessity, and the seams of my fate only deepened.
Damn, I'm getting sleepy.
The moment I leaned back, drowsiness came flooding in. Given how much had happened in a single day, that was hardly surprising. Just a moment. Just a moment's rest. Thinking that, I gently closed my eyes.
"Gerard."
Someone was calling my name. No—was it even my name? Gerard was nothing more than an alias I'd made up for myself.
"Gerard—!"
At the voice sounding a second time, I jolted upright in a panic.
"——!"
And I stared down at the space beneath the bed, eyes gone wide as saucers. And no wonder—
"I swear my fealty to you."
Seina was kneeling beneath the bed, prostrated and utterly naked.