Those More Wicked Than Demons (4)

Having entered the slave traders' stronghold using the route Leon had described to me, I slowed my steps and advanced with care.

What greeted me in this unfamiliar place was a darkness so complete that not a single ray of light could pierce it.

First, I needed a plan for how to rescue them.

Even if I marched in and demanded their freedom right now, I couldn't actually save them all in this instant.

My power had limits, and since I wasn't sharing their circumstances, forcing my way into their confidence would only breed resentment.

Think. Think. Isn't there a good way to lead these people out of here...?

Then a thought struck my mind like a bolt of lightning.

With my current status, I could win neither their sympathy nor their cooperation.

So I just needed someone who shared their station in life.

Someone who was a slave, yet refused to bow to anyone.

That would be difficult for anyone else to find — but for me, it would be relatively simple.

According to the game, she had been imprisoned in this place for roughly ten years, after all.

This was the site before it became the game's 'Slave Den,' so the odds of her being here were fairly high.

My only worry was that I had arrived absurdly early.

Since I'd come before the 'Slave Den' had even formed, if that woman wasn't here, I would have to find another way — and fast.

Even now, my ears were filled with countless screams.

When I'd fought the ten mana-wielding men in that small forest, it hadn't mattered, because I had used a Domain Proclamation and let moonlight serve as my eyes.

But I couldn't use it now — they couldn't be allowed to know I had entered.

That left one option.

I decided to ask Crescent right away.

"Crescent, could you make it so I can see clearly even in the dark?"

Crescent seemed startled by my sudden request, but after a moment's thought, she answered.

"Um...? I suppose I could try...?"

"Darkness holds authority over shadow, but since I also have a small hand in it, I think I can manage something."

At last, Crescent's answer came: she could do it.

"Then I'll leave it to you."

"Okay! I'll grant it right away! Close your eyes, and when you open them, you'll be able to see clearly."

I shut my eyes and opened them again, and the pitch-black space became as bright and legible as a sunlit room.

As I walked forward, one step at a time, into the void smothered in jet-black darkness, what I found was an endless field of shattered glass.

There was no way an operation dedicated to slave trading had installed glass shards as a trap.

Those shards were most likely the remnants of a kind of signal — the residue left behind when the abducted had fought back.

Which meant that beyond the glass, countless traps lay in wait.

If this place truly was the past form of the 'Slave Den,' an army of traps would be waiting for me.

And just as I predicted, the real traps began only after I crossed the sea of glass.

It was the moment that proved this was indeed the past incarnation of the 'Slave Den' — the place that had once driven countless players into horrified disbelief.

But that changed nothing about what I had to do. Even now, in this very moment, so many people were suffering.

I moved fast, smashing through, leaping over, and weaving past the traps.

There were pressure-plate traps in the floor that I somehow felt I wasn't meant to see, spears dropping from above, and arrow traps with shafts long enough to skewer both of a man's sides at once — physical mechanisms, and plenty of them.

I cut the traps down with my sword and batted the projectiles out of the air, dismantling them one by one as I pushed forward.

Because if I only avoided them, the slaves would still have to pass through this corridor — which would mean coming back through here with a large group of people.

There was probably a release switch somewhere, but the easiest solution was destruction.

So I changed tactics: for every trap I broke through, I destroyed it completely, advancing one ruin at a time.

At last, I slipped slowly into an area cordoned off with red cloth — and froze in shock.

An enormous number of slaves were bound in shackles, cowering under the threat of whips and blades.

Children weeping and begging for their lives. Men clutching at their captors' trouser legs, screaming to be let out — just this once, please let them go.

Even parents pleading to spare their child, if nothing else.

Every instinct screamed at me to charge out right now—

But if I were discovered, there was no telling what they would do to the slaves.

Cornered, they might well turn the very blades in their hands on the people I'd come to save.

So I forced my rage to cool and gathered information.

What I could learn with my own eyes: the slave traders wore something over their heads.

Some kind of magic tool, probably, so they could see even in this jet-black darkness.

What concerned me came next.

The slaves.

They were trained with fear as a tool — beaten with whips, struck with fists — yet unable to resist.

"You damn bitch! How many times have I told you they hate it when you spread your legs like that for the higher-ups?! You want to die for real?!"

"I'm sorry! Please, spare me! Next time I'll be prettier for you...!"

It was an unending parade of scenes that made my brows knit on their own.

The sex slaves were even forced into degrading positions.

And not one of them could resist.

Anguished moans and cries for mercy filled the air.

The chains shackled to their bodies dragged across the floor with a grinding rattle, and that ceaseless noise kept scrambling my thoughts.

I passed through that place quickly, praying with everything I had that she would be there.

Praying that the woman from the game had not lied to the player.

Please, be there...!

The place I arrived at was where the sex slaves were kept.

What I saw there was a woman with red hair, wearing nothing at all, being whipped.

"Two years now! Open up already, you—!"

"You bastard...! I'd rather be beaten to death than spread my legs for a piece of shit like you!"

Found her.

The woman famous in the game under the epithet The One Who Resists.

Hwa Yeon.

She wasn't a native of the Holy Empire, but of another country entirely.

The East — 'Dong' — the homeland of the Sword Saint, a Sword Master among Sword Masters. That was where she was born.

That was the extent of what I knew for certain.

In the game she'd been a intensely secretive character who rarely revealed anything personal, so even I possessed very little information about her.

But given her fiery temper and her refusal to kneel before anyone—

She was more than qualified to lead these people.

Killing my footsteps entirely, I waited for the moment the man raised his whip to strike her — and took his head along with the lash.

Shwik!

Given no time even to notice, his headless body crumpled in an instant.

Perhaps, when the whipping that should have landed never came, she sensed something was wrong.

"Huh? Did the whipping just stop? Tch... stings like hell, you bastard... Scars show up so nicely on pale skin, you know..."

I heard her muttering to herself.

In the game, when I'd met her, she'd been about thirty.

The player awoke roughly five years after the Cumul Territory had already fallen in the game's timeline, after all.

So the age I could estimate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for her now would be her early-to-mid twenties.

First, I spoke quietly so as not to startle her.

"I've come to save you."

"Wh... who the hell are you?! Who told you to—!"

"Quiet. If you shout now, escaping gets much harder."

"And what exactly are you, that I should quiet down for you?!"

She grumbled and fussed, yet she lowered her own voice all the same.

"Save the introductions for outside. Can you persuade the people here so we can escape this place?"

"What? Don't talk nonsense. When I was dragged in here, the sheer number of traps made escape impossible...!"

"I've destroyed every one of them."

"...You... what are you?"

People were still screaming in agony all around us, and she wanted to know who I was?

My voice came out edged with anger.

"I don't know anything about you. I'm seeing you for the first time right now. But I came here to save you — and everyone trapped in the same place you are."

"And even so, is knowing who I am more important to you than your chance — and theirs — to escape?"

"..."

"Get your head straight. There's exactly one reason I chose you. When every person dragged in here broke before the slave traders and knelt in the dirt—"

"You alone, and no one else, refused to yield to their brutal whips and held on to your own will. That's what brought me here. I thought, if anyone could save these people, it would be you."

"But if this is the way you're going to act, then I'll simply leave this place myself. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I have more than enough power to escape alone. So — what will it be?"

"Follow me and see the light of the world one more time. Or spend the rest of your life as some old pig's broodmare, crushed beneath him until you die."

It was harsh. I knew it was harsh.

But for all my words, I desperately wanted her to listen.

Her greatest strength was her refusal to submit — her drive to break through her circumstances rather than surrender to them.

And beyond that, she possessed martial strength that neither Ellie nor I could ever bring to heel.

The reason she'd been captured was simple enough.

She didn't know how the Holy Empire operated, and when she'd set out following a group of children, a sleep spell had caught her squarely, and she'd been taken like this.

A woman like her would become not only the leader of these slaves, but the sword that would point at the lord's throat at our backs.

Everything rested on her choice.

Before long, she opened her mouth.

"Fine. I'll persuade the slaves. But don't count on getting everyone out. They've been beaten and broken for so long that some of them can't think straight anymore."

"That's more than enough."

"And."

"What now."

"Once we're out, you tell me exactly who you are."

What on earth was so fascinating that she kept demanding my identity...

Still, with her on board things would go smoothly, and the rank of Successor of the Four Divine Beasts wasn't the kind of secret that had to be buried forever. I decided it didn't matter.

"Fine. I'll tell you, so get moving."

With those words, I stepped up to her and severed the shackles binding her ankles and wrists.

Clang! Clang!

Feeling steel sheared clean through by my sword, her face registered open astonishment.

"Move. You can't see, so I'll deal with the slave traders myself."

"...Fine."

At a pace she could follow, I began sweeping through the traders' stronghold, guiding her by the hand.

As we went, I cut the slave traders down, one after another.

I had only killed a portion of them so far, and it seemed they hadn't yet discovered their comrades' bodies.

Even so, a tail dragged too long always gets caught eventually.

"Wh... what the hell?! Why is this guy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dead?!"

"Hey, what's wrong with him?! Intruder! An intruder's slipped into the compound!"

Before long, the slave traders were running back and forth in a frenzy, hunting for whoever had killed their own.

Anxious at the commotion, she urged me on, asking for nothing more than a single sword for herself.

"Hey, got a spare blade?"

"Sorry. This is the only sword I have."

Strictly speaking, I could have conjured one — but if a genuinely skilled fighter was mixed in among them, he might feel the wind's power gathering and come running straight for us.

Before long, a handful of traders spotted the two of us and charged, daggers in hand.

"There they are! Kill them!"

"I'll take them, so persuade the slaves and head for that room where you were held."

"And do what, exactly?! Can't you see how many of them there are?!"

I could see them just fine.

Twenty or so, give or take.

But what could I do about it?

Come this far, the only answer was to drop every last one of them and run.

"The moment I give the signal, you run."

"...Fine. But you come back alive. You have to."

"Stop worrying and... RUN!"

At my word, Yeon bolted back down the passage she'd come through at full sprint.

The traders lunged forward to seize her—

"Not a chance."

Shwik!

Shwik!

"Wh... what the hell IS this guy?!"

"None of you are leaving this place alive."

A torrent of wind gathered and poured itself into my blade.

Ever since I'd used Full Moon — Scattered Blossoms that day, it felt as though I could judge far more easily how to make the most efficient use of my skills.

When I swung, one of the traders reflexively threw himself into blocking my blade's path—

Clang!

Shwik!

The compressed blade of wind and the Sword of the Azure Sky sheared through even his guard like it was nothing.

Watching a comrade die without so much as a response, the rest changed tactics and began concentrating their assault entirely on me.

Right — when you've got numbers, ganging up on one target is the correct call.

But.

"That only holds when the gap in strength isn't too wide."

When the disparity was this extreme, even a swarm was nothing but a wall of meat.

I dropped the man circling behind me for the back of my skull with a rising diagonal cut.

Then, crouching low, I swept my blade at the traders' ankles and walked them down, tripping them one after another.

The result was a spectacle: the packed-together traders toppled like dominoes, each one dragging the next down with him.

Worse, the impact knocked the sight-granting gear from their heads, and a blindness blacker than anything they'd known rose up to meet them.

The few who'd kept their equipment properly fitted had already met their fate to a single stroke of my blade.

"Quickly! Fetch the boss! NOW! This thing is a monster — there's no predicting it!!"

I hurled the Sword of the Azure Sky at the panicked man to keep their boss from ever arriving.

The blade buried itself in his back, and he slumped forward without a sound.

Those who hadn't seen it — those who couldn't run—

only wept, demanding to know why there was no sound anymore.

By now, Yeon would be moving through the corridors, persuading the slaves and being forged into their leader with every word.

In this place, with the sound of men being cut down echoing through the dark and eyes adjusted to blackness that could not quite make out what was dying — even without seeing it, they would know.

Cries for mercy. Screams to be let go.

And over it all, the shriek of iron bars and the scrape of dragging chains — sounds that would make the traders themselves feel, for the first time, what it was to be enslaved.

For they were the ones on whom fear had been planted in turn.

To the ones crawling toward me, begging — please, spare me, I don't want to die like this—

I said only this.

"When the slaves said those words to you. Did any of you spare them?"

Naturally, they had nothing to say. They had no right to say anything at all.

And yet.

"Please, spare me! He hit people more than I did! He's the one who whipped that woman earlier!"

"You rat bastard! You think that makes YOU clean?!"

Yes. Show me the very bottom of human filth like that, and I should almost thank you.

Thanks to you, I can punish you without a shred of guilt.

Three remained.

My last sweep had also cut down three.

And so, every slave trader who had come swarming at us was dead.

Now I had to find Yeon.

BOOM!

A thunderous crash tore through the compound.

BOOM! CRASH! BOOM!

The sounds kept coming, and they were driving toward the one place they should never have reached.

The place where Yeon and I had agreed to meet.

I summoned Jeongryeong in an instant and sprinted toward it.

There, a hulking man stood clutching someone by the hair, a massive iron club in his other hand.

The woman hanging from his fist was the one I had sent ahead to persuade the slaves — the one my misjudgment had left soaked in blood.

And around the spot where Yeon had been bound, an enormous crowd of slaves had gathered, all of them frozen in terror, staring at the man with the club.

The club-wielder was the boss who had wiped out entire parties during the game's playthrough, a mid-boss who wore his prestige like armor — and the master of these slave traders.

Giant.

"Who are you. You. You're the one who turned my 'sales floor' into this mess?"

"..."

"Damn it, I swear kids these days don't listen to a word you say. That bitch, and now you. I told you — spread your legs once, and I'll let it slide."

"..."

"Fine, don't answer. I'll sell you as a set with her. Special price."

And so, the instant the iron club came swinging down toward my head—

"You asked who I am."

Those words were for Giant, yes.

But they were also for her — the woman who had held to her word to the very end and thrown herself at these monsters for the slaves' sake.

"I am Lee Hyeon. Seventh Successor of the Azure Dragon."

"Gather, wolves."

The maximum number of wolves I could summon was four.

Yet the wolves crowding around me now numbered seven.

Setting aside the ones I'd left behind to guard Jeongryeong and Leon, my capacity had grown to the point of summoning ten wolves in total.

But what did specs matter?

They'd knelt and groveled like they knew everything — and the one person who actually obeyed my command had ended up beaten half to death because of me.

The gale snapped upward, and the club Giant was bringing down on my head was shoved aside by the sheer force of the wind, forcing him stumbling backward.

That instant was the last moment his club ever held its shape.

CRACK! SNAP-SPLINTER! CRACK!

The blades of wind sheared the great club into nothing.

Seeing it, Giant's nerve broke, and fear of me took root in him naturally, the way fear does.

I ordered the two wolves summoned behind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me to guard the slaves—

and gave the five at my front and flanks not an order to attack, but to bind.

"Take him. Tie him down. Make sure he can't move."

At my word, the wind wolves darted out and had their master — the boss — pinned in moments.

Giant thrashed and swung, trying to beat them back — but there was no way bare hands could catch spirits that had no physical form.

In the end, the wind wolves clamped their jaws onto his limbs and right shoulder, and Giant was bound completely.

It would have ended with a single stroke of his neck.

I had no intention of granting that mercy.

I was going to let him die slowly. Painfully.

As I stood there, entertaining that thought—

I felt something unpleasant crawl up through my entire body, coiling around me from the inside.

Paying it no mind, I planted one foot, then another, walking toward Giant.

And when at last I leveled my sword at him—

the one who barred my way was none other than Hwa Yeon.

"Hwey you... mnngh..! You... you said you were my rescuer...!"

Had he struck her across the face?

Watching her fail to form even a single proper syllable, I—

"Sorry. Let me fix that right now. Hold still."

I raised my hand and invoked the Authority of Life at once.

It was an authority that maximized the healing power all living things carried within them — and true to that nature, the power I unleashed flowed across her whole body, and before long she was healed, spotless and whole.

"Wh... huh? What is this?"

"Wait here. I'll finish this and be back."

"Hey! Seriously?!"

"I know exactly what you're thinking right now, but is that really your goal? Killing the boss? You came here to save the slaves, didn't you? Don't you think your goal just changed somewhere along the way?"

"..."

"Those are YOUR words, thrown right back at you! So listen to them!"

The moment she screamed it, something snapped into focus inside me.

Only then did the unpleasant power coiling through my body dissolve and fade away.

Right. Rescuing these people came first.

"It pains me to kill you this easily, but right now, cleaning up the victims you created matters more than you do. So please — when you get to hell, do me the favor of burning to ash in those eternal flames."

Shwik!

I cut Giant down in a single stroke, and with Yeon and the slaves in tow, we made our escape.

The glass shards and every trap had already been cleared away by the Authority of Wind and the Authority of Purification, and so the slaves were able to see the light of the world once more.

Those who beheld the sun again fell into one another's arms and wept for joy.

That message meant the 'Slave Den' would never come to exist.

And so, as I finally let my tension go and turned my head to check on her condition—

she was wearing absolutely nothing.

Which is to say, she had been stripped entirely bare from the start, meaning I had seen every last inch of her.

"Uh?"

"Ah.....!! Hey! Eyes away!! You little—!"

"Sorry."

I pulled off the cape I was wearing and draped it over her shoulders.

With the difference in our builds, the cape hung down to mid-thigh on her.

Well — the important parts are covered, at least.

In the darkness, between freeing the slaves and fighting for my life, I simply hadn't had the focus to see anything.

One wrong move and I'd have died on the spot — where in that chaos would I have found the time to stare at a woman's bare body?

The faster I swung my sword, even once more, the better my odds of living.

Besides, once we were out, the adrenaline had drained away — and she'd spent so long as a sex slave that being unclothed had become second nature to her. That was how this absurd situation had come to pass.

A truly deranged collaboration of circumstances.

All my life, I'd assumed the only woman's bare body I would ever see was Ellie's...

Ha... how on earth do I explain this one.

For now, I resolved to take the slaves and Yeon and head for Ellie.

Yes. Regroup first. Everything else after.

I mobilized all ten of my wolves to carry the slaves, and readied us for departure in short order.

It won't be easy. I'm counting on you.

Future me...

And so, hurrying along with Ritz, the slaves, and that woman Hwa Yeon in tow, my heart felt strange — like wind passing through an open window.

Throughout the journey, only a single thought filled my mind.

"Ellie... I'm sorry..."

Of course, when I breathed those words, I never noticed the look she was giving me from behind.

I ran at the head of the column, leading my wind wolves onward, racing to reunite with the others.