Slave Merchant: Derick Walker — 2

Rattle. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.

A harsh, grinding noise hammered against my eardrums in a relentless rhythm, and with it came a vibration just as rough, pounding into my back. The floor beneath me was brutally hard, thudding against my spine with every jolt. Pain bloomed through my sluggish body.

At the same time, a musty scent of earth filled my nose. It was the kind of smell you only found in the countryside, and it stirred a faint, unexpected nostalgia — the same scent I'd catch whenever I visited my grandfather's place for the harvest festival. I'd assumed I'd forgotten it completely after he passed and I stopped going out there, but my body, it seemed, had kept the memory faithfully.

"Crazy bastard. Sleeping like a baby in a wagon like this. Either he's got nerves of steel or he's got no brain at all."

"Leave him. Maybe all that plump fat of his is cushioning the bumps."

"Where are we even going?"

"I overheard the convoy captain yesterday. Said we're headed to some city called Tel… something? Where the hell is that?"

"Fuck, I wish it was break time already. My bladder's about to burst."

Unfamiliar voices tickled at my ears. It was a language I'd never learned, and yet I understood every word. Well — this wasn't my first brush with the inexplicable, so I let it slide. More pressing question: what was I even doing right now? Lying on something hard with my eyes closed, trying to sleep? In that case, I should get up and take stock of the situation.

That was the plan, anyway. I started to push myself upright — and nearly toppled over from the sheer weight of my own body. It felt like some lazy slob who'd spent weeks rolling around in bed was finally dragging himself out of a long vacation.

I managed to sit up and cracked my eyes open. Bright sunlight stabbed straight into them. Like anyone freshly yanked from sleep, I teared up and rubbed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at my face. The blur around me slowly resolved into shapes, and at last I could actually see where I was.

Rattle. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.

That unpleasant noise — and the even more unpleasant shaking — kept right on going. I was on a large wagon. Not the kind of beautiful carriage you'd find in a picture book, though.

What I was riding in was a massive wagon hemmed in on all sides by long wooden bars. It looked a lot like the cages circus troupes used to haul their big cats around. The difference? This one had been thrown together with far less care. Flimsy slats that didn't have a scrap of the maker's affection in them.

"The pig bastard's awake."

Someone said that — about me. Pig bastard? I'd never even grazed the neighborhood of mild obesity, let alone anything porcine. I lifted my head to get a look at the shameless idiot who'd said it.

Nobody around me was Korean. Of course they weren't. I'd jumped worlds; it would have been even weirder if every stranger I laid eyes on turned out to be Korean. Solari World didn't have a Korea to begin with. Every last one of them was a Westerner.

Rattle. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.

"Fuck, my stomach's churning again. No matter how many times I ride this wagon, I never get used to it."

"You puke like last time and you're dead. Break's still a long way off."

"Ah, shit! I really am gonna piss myself!"

The men sharing the wagon with me kept running their mouths in that language I didn't know and yet understood perfectly. I listened with half an ear while I took another look at the wagon itself.

It was big enough to hold ten people comfortably. The number actually packed inside, though, was easily north of fifteen even at a glance. And those wooden bars made it obvious this wasn't something ordinary people would ride. A prisoner transport wagon, then?

"Shut your mouths, you maggots! Keep yapping and I'll whip you to death come break time! The stench from those maggot-holes you call mouths is rotting my nose off!"

A man riding a magnificent steed alongside the wagon raised a black whip high and bellowed. The marketplace din inside the wagon went ice-cold in an instant.

The guy next to me swallowed hard, his pupils shaking. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way his Adam's apple bobbed was grotesque. That near-Pavlovian flinch told me everyone in here had been on the receiving end of that whip more than a few times.

Wait.

Now that I thought about it — this scene was familiar. No, familiar didn't cover it. I already knew this scene. This was the prologue of Solari World, the game I'd played.

Ah. I see.

So this was the starting point of Solari World. I accepted that fast. The game's spawn locations varied, but the opening prologue was always the same: the story began from the perspective of a protagonist being sold into slavery. From ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this situation alone, I could pin down exactly where we were on the game's timeline.

Wait. Then who am I right now?

Had I possessed the protagonist of Solari World? If so, things were about to get very easy. I'd already seen the end of this world. Sure, I'd had a strategy guide to thank for that — but I knew how to reach this game's ending.

I didn't even need to check my own body to realize I wasn't this world's protagonist. The reason was simple. The protagonist himself was sitting directly across from me, quietly keeping his mouth shut and watching the scenery roll by.

Sharp eyes, a seemingly indifferent mouth, and black hair. Hard-featured, but extremely handsome — that was the default character of Solari World, the one you got if you never bothered to customize. That guy right there was this game's hero. I knew it the instant I saw him.

But there was a much bigger problem than the protagonist sitting across from me. Namely, my body. I was not Baek Jaeseong. The balanced physique, the lean and sexy muscle — all of it was gone. In its place was a morbidly obese bastard with a generous belly that couldn't even be gathered in one hand. My social standing had taken a vertical nosedive.

I'd braced myself for something, but I hadn't seen this particular development coming. After the whip-wielding giant — the convoy captain, most likely — delivered his razor-edged threat, the mood in the wagon went frigid. I actually preferred it that way. The quiet gave me room to test a few things without anyone paying attention.

First, I earnestly wished to be sent back out of this world. The power I'd obtained could be operated by thought alone, so it stood to reason that wishing hard enough to return might actually get me there. The answer I received, however, was this:

True to this unhelpful system's nature, that was all I got. Setting a checkpoint, huh. I had no idea how to actually do that. Did I need to satisfy some specific condition? Or maybe there was a mandatory amount of time I had to spend here. Checkpoints in games usually worked that way.

The original game had a save-and-load function. Apparently the world I'd entered didn't set checkpoints by the same logic. The moment I realized I couldn't leave, I pulled up my status.

I studied the status window at a leisurely pace. A few things had changed. My Strength, which had been close to 200, had dropped to 58. Agility was in the thirties. Intelligence and Luck were both in the thirties as well.

That was basically back to pre-enhancement levels — before I'd poured points into anything. And a new field had been added, one that hadn't existed before: Synchronization Rate. I had no trouble guessing that this was the reason my stats had tanked.

I wasn't myself right now. The human being Baek Jaeseong had been stuffed into the body of some nameless fat pig. I'd done that thing that showed up in fantasy novels all the time: possession. Synchronization Rate, then, was probably a measure of compatibility between my possessing spirit and this meat suit. Thirty percent meant the compatibility was abysmal.

My original Strength was 195. My current Strength was 58. Thirty percent of 195 came out to roughly 58, so it wasn't hard to conclude that the Synchronization Rate was the cause of the drop. In other words, a rate of 30% meant I could only use 30% of my real power.

With stats like these, things weren't going to go as smoothly as I'd hoped. I was only a little stronger than an ordinary person. Surviving in this brutal fantasy world of swords and magic? Yeah, that was going to be a problem.

"Hey. Your old man's coming."

"Huh?"

The guy in the next seat jabbed me in the ribs out of nowhere. Behind us, a man on a white horse was riding this way. The convoy captain saw him, cracked his whip, and roared at us.

"Heads down, you vermin! Lord Walker approaches! Lord Walker is a different breed from shit-stains like you slaves! Anyone I catch looking him in the eye gets beaten half to death at the next break!"

The threat landed perfectly. Every gaze dropped to the floor, and I joined the herd. With stats this pathetic, making a scene here would not end well for me. I lowered my eyes — and snuck a glance at the man on the white horse.

The one they called Walker was a fat man buried in a magnificent pile of flesh. Watching that sturdy white horse labor under him, I figured his weight comfortably cleared three digits. How ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fat did you have to be to make a horse struggle like that? Was that horse actually some sickly nag that just looked the part?

I kept my eyes flickering, watching the man on horseback without catching the convoy captain's attention. Ugly didn't even begin to cover it. The kind of face that would make any woman instinctively go, Yeah, that's a physiological no from me. A single glance was enough to grasp the sheer, overwhelming force of his ugliness.

Wait. So the bastard next to me had looked at that hideous flesh golem and called him my dad? You've got to admire a diss that savage. I wanted to put my fist through that guy's face right then and there, but doing so would have gotten me whipped into rags by the convoy captain, so I held it in.

"Sir Daven. How fare the slaves?"

The voice that drifted over was greasy enough to have been slathered with an entire tub of butter. The guy next to me barely held in a burst of laughter.

"Yes, my lord. Thanks to the gracious benevolence of Lord Walker, nationally certified slave merchant, all thirty-six of the slaves are thriving. A few suffered from motion sickness, but I corrected them with physical therapy."

"Buhihit! Sir Daven's physical therapy is always reliable. Do take care, however. Deep scars diminish their market value. Of course, slaves of this caliber are cheap as dirt to me, Walker — but I have never wasted so much as a single copper."

"I shall bear it in mind, and bear it again. But my lord — you look rather slim today. Like a valiant imperial vanguard captain riding through a triumphal arch!"

"Haha. It's nothing, really. I weighed myself yesterday and found I'd lost a whole three hundred grams. All thanks to my diligent breathing exercises, I imagine."

The convoy captain they called Daven sucked Walker's ass until his tongue turned brown. It was so shameless I felt secondhand embarrassment just watching. So this is what they call surviving in society? A bit much for a guy who used to sit in his room serializing smut novels.