A Lingering Concern

The troll made an accomplice of the coachman, and the coachman had willingly chosen to become one.

The answer had been solved, yet the tale was far from over.

"Then allow me to tell you what happened next."

Destroyer cast his mind back.

He remembered the chilling cunning of a monster that had grasped the human heart, and the twisted, merciless resolve of a human who had thrown in his lot with a beast.

Watching the carriage veer toward the shortcut once more, Destroyer spoke up.

"Is that not the road where the troll appeared last time?"

"It cannot be helped, honored guest. Over the past ten years, the main highway leading to the Northern Territory was sealed off by a landslide. No matter how many times it was cleared, the slides kept coming, until the local lord finally threw up his hands in defeat."

Nature's wrath, was it? Or the lord's own moral failing?

The coachman rattled off excuse after excuse, but Destroyer saw right through the transparent facade.

"Tell me, guest... Are you familiar with the law of scarcity?"

The coachman continued with a smug grin.

"Suppose you're peddling axes at a logging camp of a hundred lumberjacks. If you have ten thousand axes in stock, those woodcutters will think, 'There are so many, why should I pay full price? Shouldn't I get a discount?'"

"Now, flip the board. What if there are a hundred lumberjacks, but only ten axes? What if whoever buys an axe is guaranteed to fell far more timber than anyone else and sell it at a premium? People will trip over themselves, paying out the nose with a hefty markup just to get their hands on one."

"Taking this shortcut means precisely that to me."

The carriage had been heavily modified; its freight compartment stretched far longer than the passenger cabin, packed to the brim with crates of cargo. There was no way a humble coachman could have scraped together the capital to expand and refit such a carriage in just ten years on passenger fares alone. He had been turning an enormous profit by running inter-village trade.

"Even with that troll lurking out there?"

"Which is precisely why I only take it when other travelers are ahead of me."

"Do you feel no guilt?"

"This is merely a transaction. The troll conveniently tenderizes the meat, and I artificially drive up the scarcity of my goods. It is a convenient trade route that belongs to me alone in this vast world."

The coachman turned his head, casting a sidelong glance.

"Besides, why did you board this carriage again, customer? You also knew this shortcut was faster. You knew the detour would take months, and so you compromised out of sheer convenience, did you not?"

We are accomplices.

Do not dare blame me.

Following that thinly veiled warning, a heavy silence descended over the carriage. Not a single word passed between them until they reached the fork where the troll lay in wait—until they arrived at the roadside where people had been bound just like before.

One person tied along the cliff path.

Five tied across the main road.

The troll had prepared the exact same trial as before.

Looking upon that scene, Destroyer made his choice.

He would sever the monster's head.

Having long outgrown the naivety of a novice, the veteran hero's blade carried neither hesitation nor mercy.

The monster's neck was cleaved clean through. Taking the reins in hand, Destroyer brought the carriage to a halt.

The coachman's headless corpse tumbled under the wheels into the dirt.

"Do you understand now? Why the veteran hero Destroyer struck down the coachman?"

"Because the coachman used human lives as collateral, meaning his character was no different from a monster's... right?"

"Is that all?"

The spare wheels. The ruined road abandoned even by the territory's lord. The absolute certainty that no other coachman would ever dare travel such a path.

The clues were all laid bare. There was no need for further leading questions.

"The law of scarcity was merely an excuse."

"And why is that?"

"Because the return was far too massive compared to the risk."

To Orknodi's gamer mind, the equation was glaringly obvious.

"The coachman claimed he always let other travelers go first to act as sacrifices while he trailed behind. But how could six sacrifices be captured by the troll so conveniently every single time?"

"What if the troll devoured one by mistake? What if a hired mercenary slipped away into the woods? What if someone tumbled off the cliff during the struggle?"

"There was zero guarantee the coachman wouldn't end up among the six victims himself. Nor was there any guarantee the count would land precisely on six every time. Yet the coachman was utterly certain."

He was certain this road would make money.

He was certain it was an exploit waiting to be milked.

And indeed, he had milked it repeatedly, amassing a fortune.

"Sure, maybe he was extraordinarily lucky at first. But hmm... even if he only made the trip once a year, that's ten successful runs. Can anyone realistically chalk that up to dumb luck?"

Destroyer was a retired Hero.

A man who had watched countless human specimens reveal their true colors. Distrusting easily and harboring chronic suspicion was an essential survival skill for any adventurer hoping to die of old age rather than a dagger in the dark.

Distrust toward humanity.

Faith placed solely in that distrust.

Her deduction was more than enough to satisfy the old thief.

"Naturally, luck had nothing to do with it."

"The coachman's true identity was a monster tamer working in league with the troll. The 'world's smartest troll' was nothing more than a staged act, trained and conditioned by a tamer who supplied it with regular meals once a year."

"A theatrical deception designed to carve a single warning into the minds of all who passed: 'This place is lethal. Abandon all thoughts of subjugation.'"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The Troll's Dilemma.

The real subject of the dilemma was never the monstrous troll itself; it was the human troll who betrayed his own kind.

Honestly, whether it's an online MOBA or real life, griefing trolls really are the absolute worst!

"Did you glean a proper lesson from this tale?"

"Beware of trolls giving riddles?"

"Never blindly trust a stranger in an unfamiliar land. Especially if they offer you unprompted kindness."

"Okey-dokey!"

"Don't you 'okey-dokey' me. The same applies to the academy. If some strange professor tries to bribe you with snacks or rare elixirs, you mustn't go along with it like a fool."

After all, one never knew when they might cross paths with a troll who took pleasure in tossing their fellow kin under the carriage wheels.

After Orknodi skipped out of the room, Destroyer returned to his private quarters.

A cured sheepskin pelt. A double-barreled shotgun. An antique tobacco pipe.

Amid the hunting trophies and curios hung across his wall like museum exhibits, his gaze settled heavily upon the pipe.

On that fateful day, the cargo the coachman had packed into his retrofitted carriage consisted of mass quantities of tobacco and smoking pipes.

'Taming a monster using narcotic tobacco... He was one twisted bastard.'

God only knew what was ground into that narcotic, but when the coachman's beheaded body suddenly sprang upright and jammed its severed head back onto its bloody stump, even a hardened veteran hero like Destroyer had been left utterly flabbergasted.

'Who could have guessed that place was the birthplace of the Narcotic of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Undead—the very drug that sent the entire continent into an uproar?'

A cursed narcotic that, when smoked over long periods, knit together any wound. Even if one's heart seized or brain was shattered, it revived the user, turning them into a literal immortal.

Naturally, such a blasphemous miracle demanded a catastrophic price.

The brain rotted away, intelligence plummeted, and the flesh mutated into a sickly green hue, expanding without restraint.

In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the end, cellular division went completely berserk in an endless frenzy of regeneration. The body would balloon out of control into a grotesque mountain of living flesh ten times the size of a man—neither living nor dead.

It was the foul substance used to cultivate the Sacrificial Human, a favored ingredient for black magicians performing dark offerings and summoning rituals.

'Well, they burn up and die easily enough if you incinerate every scrap of flesh.'

If he hadn't subsequently analyzed the tobacco's chemical properties, he might have carelessly handed the cargo over to the local garrison, flooding the surrounding province with the Narcotic of the Undead. Even now, thinking back on it made cold sweat trace down his spine.

At the same time, an old question resurfaced.

Just how much had Hero Nyarlathotep known back then?

Had he foreseen that the troll was turning travelers into accomplices?

Had he already deduced that the coachman was a monster tamer?

Did he know the tobacco the troll smoked was the Narcotic of the Undead, side effects and all?

Had he already calculated the grim future where black magicians would distribute that tainted weed to impoverished villagers, manufacturing massive sacrificial offerings for their unholy rituals?

Whatever the truth was, Nyarlathotep was gone. Left behind in this quiet world, Destroyer had no way of asking.

From that perspective, Orknodi was fortunate. Had this still been the era of unending warfare, the curriculum at Gift Academy would have been far bloodier and far more practical.

Fifteen years ago.

And five years ago.

The brutal trials he had endured during his days as a fledgling novice and a seasoned hero would have been forced upon Orknodi and her classmates as well.

'Still... that dream weighs heavily on my mind.'

After their first lecture had concluded, he had paid a visit to the alchemy professor, requesting a specialized draught designed for sleep-training. It was meant to induce a lucid dream, allowing him to observe Orknodi's combat instincts, pinpoint her weaknesses, and tailor a curriculum to patch her deficiencies.

Instead, she had warped her dream avatar into a towering giant standing two meters and thirty centimeters tall, swinging muscles that clearly did not belong to her petite frame to literally shred and pulverize monsters into paste.

Watching her erupt into a berserk frenzy, channeling blood magic using gore as a medium... what that child lacked wasn't combat experience. It was the discipline not to let her guard down.

'Where did she see such a person? A colossal giant of that build...'

It gnawed at him.

Her kinematic control was far too precise. It wasn't the absurd, physics-defying whimsy typical of an ordinary lucid dream. Her form demonstrated an unmistakable, bone-deep understanding of skeletal leverage, weight distribution, and the sheer explosive output a body of that caliber could unleash.

It was as though she had spent years observing and analyzing that very anatomy from arm's length.

'If that wasn't her own body... it must have been an instructor.'

The instructor who trained Orknodi before she entered the academy gates.

Destroyer placed his calloused palm against the communication magic circle inscribed upon his desk.

Destroyer recited the physical specifications and combat parameters of the juggernaut he had witnessed in Orknodi's dream.

"The strength of the individual who mentored Orknodi is far beyond ordinary. Investigate their true identity with the utmost discretion."

"It matters not," Destroyer replied coldly. "I am a retired Hero. There is no reason for me to tiptoe around the whims of some shady foundation chairman."

To the operative's request, Destroyer gave his final order without a flicker of doubt.

"Evade combat under normal conditions. Eliminate threats immediately if cover is compromised. Once your identity is exposed, dispose of them without leaving a trace. So long as it is not Orknodi's mentor, you have permission to kill them all."