Slave Merchant: Derick Walker-12
A little over a month had passed since I'd arrived in Tellibai. For me, it had been a genuinely delightful stretch of time. Throw yourself into something fun and you lose all sense of the clock. I had fully adapted to a world nothing like the one I'd come from.
If things followed the original story, it was about time to move on to the next chapter. Solari World was a high-freedom RPG, but a grand narrative still ran through it — and I knew that story's flow well.
Of course, even I couldn't know every tale unfolding in this world. I'd played it as a player and read the strategy guide; I wasn't the creator of Solari World. Hell, even the creator couldn't possibly know every last thing happening across a world this vast.
"Time to start making some money."
I'd been living large in Tellibai and burning through coin like it was nothing, but my purse was still heavy. That Derick Walker bastard had left me one hell of an inheritance. There was a reason a thug like Daven had grovelled at his feet.
If I wanted, I could live in comfort for years. But money is the kind of thing you can never have too much of. I'd grown up in a capitalist society — a wallet was only ever better the heavier it got. I would have loved to just print cash out of thin air, but unfortunately I didn't have a cheat like that.
I did, however, have something close. I knew the original story's flow, and I could turn that knowledge into a fortune.
"Time to leave this place."
"Slrrp~! Shlk! Shlk! Suuuck!"
A thick, vulgar wetness sounded from beneath the blanket. The thin cover rippled and jerked this way and that, so much like a haunting that it looked grotesque. A swelling rush of climax hit me, and I came hard, pumping semen with force. I peeled the blanket back. Luna, who'd been giving me my morning blowjob, sucked the load into her mouth and lifted her face.
"Glk...! Are we leaving, then?"
A strand of my pubic hair stuck to the corner of her mouth, making her face look obscenely erotic. I answered while playing with her breasts however I pleased. No matter how I looked at it, those tits were a cheat.
"Yeah. A little war's about to break out around here."
"A war, you say? Come to think of it, I overheard something similar at a restaurant a few days ago."
If the original story held, the war would start soon. And Jean would join it and distinguish himself. A battlefield was full of things worth taking, so I intended to join as well.
"It's a territorial war between Count Ernest and Count Coulomb. Ernest will strike first."
"Did you see the future with the Solar Medal?"
I nodded at Luna's question. The Solar Medal setting really was convenient, no matter how I looked at it.
Tellibai was a city belonging to Coulon County. The man who ruled Coulon County was, naturally, Count Coulomb. Count Ernest was the lord of the neighboring Ernest County, which shared a border with Coulomb's lands.
To sketch the geography of where I was operating: my starting point was the Myles Kingdom, a realm sitting at the western edge of the continent. Coulon County occupied the kingdom's southwestern corner, and between them, Ernest County and Coulon County were the two largest territories in the region.
Tellibai, where I currently was, was the second-largest city in Coulon County. The largest was a city that shared the county's name — Coulon itself, the capital, where the count's castle stood.
In Solari World, most major cities took their names from the nobles who ruled them. Tellibai was called Tellibai because the noble governing it was Baron Tellibai. He was a vassal of House Coulomb — more precisely, House Tellibai itself was a loyal vassal house of House Coulomb.
The family that governed Tellibai was the Tellibai barony, but in practice they administered the land on Count Coulomb's behalf. A slightly upscale tenant farmer, if you wanted to be precise about it. The governing structure of most nations on the continent, the Myles Kingdom included, worked more or less the same way.
A war was about to break out in Coulon County. A territorial war — a conflict between lords who held land. It wasn't on the scale of a war between nations, but a territorial war was still a war in every sense that mattered.
Most of the kingdoms in Solari World, the Myles Kingdom among them, permitted territorial wars. The reason was simple: the centralizing power of most kingdoms in this world was pitifully weak. In the feudal states that made up the majority, local magnates were strong and the king was weak. In some countries, a king's authority amounted to little more than that of a particularly powerful noble.
That being the case, the crown needed a way to keep the nobility in check, and the most convenient tool was the territorial war. By allowing lords to fight, the local magnates who held land were set against one another — competing, feuding, pruning each other's power. The king could thereby stunt the growth of regional factions with remarkable efficiency.
Of course, if every local noble started playing land-grab without restraint, the country would tear itself apart. So a territorial war still required the king's formal permission, if only as a formality.
House Ernest and House Coulomb were counted among the most bitterly hostile families in the entire Myles Kingdom. Their lands butted up against each other, so petty armed clashes along the border were common, and duels between the two houses broke out at the drop of a hat. It had been a powder keg waiting for a spark — and recently, something had come along to light the fuse. The discovery of a mithril mine.
"Is the territorial war happening because of the mine they found between Ernest Territory and Coulon Territory?"
Luna had read the situation perfectly and given the right answer. I went on, kneading her ass like dough.
"That's right. And it's not just any mine. It's a mithril mine. Far too fine a piece of pie to hand over to someone else."
A large vein of mithril had been found in a mine discovered along the border between the two territories. That was why the lore compendium called this conflict the Mithril War. For the record, the winner would be House Ernest.
"There's no better chance to make a killing than a war."
"Do you intend to sell war supplies, then?"
"Buhihit! That's right. But not ordinary supplies. I'm planning to sell something so expensive that weapons don't even compare."
"Something more expensive than weapons... combat slaves, then."
Clever Luna delivered the correct answer as if it were nothing. She was right. I intended to sell slaves. It was possible because I held the status of a slave merchant.
"House Ernest's military strength far exceeds what House Coulomb expects. They don't seem to have realized it yet."
House Ernest had always harbored ambitions of swallowing House Coulomb whole. They had poured a fortune into raising a large territorial army and a mage unit, and they had kept that fact quietly hidden. In truth, the mithril mine coming to light this time had been House Ernest's doing as well.
The mine was one House Ernest had discovered some time ago. But because it sat on the border between Coulon County and Ernest County, any serious development would have meant an inevitable clash with House Coulomb.
So House Ernest had raised sufficient troops first, then deliberately revealed the mine. House Coulomb had reacted exactly as expected, and the clashes between the two houses had exploded to a scale incomparable to anything that had come before.
"House Coulomb will soon realize that Ernest's territorial forces are far stronger than they anticipated. But by then it will already be too late to assemble a proper army. That's why the price of combat slaves is going to shoot through the roof."
It wouldn't stop at combat slaves. Count Coulomb would spend a fortune hiring mercenaries. The reason Jean, the original protagonist knocking around Tellibai as a mercenary, ended up fighting in the Mithril War was precisely this. Of course, for all Count Coulomb's thrashing, the one who ultimately won was still Count Ernest.
"The carriages and the slaves are already prepared. I bought combat slaves in bulk at the Hillis Slave Market. We leave for Coulon tomorrow."
"Yes. I shall make ready."
Leaving Tellibai, a place I'd grown fond of even in so short a time, was a bittersweet affair. I'd rather liked the brothel here, so I'd still dropped by now and then even after taking Luna. Even after I left, I would never forget the Madam's asshole.
Luna and I boarded a carriage bound for Coulon — a luxurious one I'd purchased for five gold coins. The exterior was crude, but the interior was remarkably spacious. I'd installed a plush bed inside so we could have sex on the move. Even with a soft bed, having sex in a carriage rattling over wretched unpaved roads was a high-difficulty proposition. My technique, however, had long since surpassed that kind of limitation.
"Haaah...! Ah! I can see a mountain over there."
After about an hour of sex, we took a rest. Luna pointed at a great mountain visible beyond the window — a peak densely packed with lush forest.
It was a spur of the Ermeres Mountain Range, which cut diagonally through Coulon County. For the record, in Solari World, mountains were the living rooms of bandits and monsters. Cross a mountain and you had roughly a fifty percent chance of running into one or the other.
The monsters that spawned in the mountains were a considerable headache. And the bandits who ate and slept in those monster dens, shaking down anyone who tried to pass through, were an even bigger headache than that.
The bandits who rolled around in the mountains understood monster behavior perfectly and used it. First they'd lure a suitable monster toward a group crossing the mountain and pick a fight. If the monster won, they'd drive it off and loot the corpses. If the people won, they'd spring an ambush.
From the perspective of anyone trying to cross, it was a no-win mix-up. That was why, in this world, hiring high-level mercenaries when you crossed a mountain was simple common sense.
My case, however, was a little different. My merchandise was all combat slaves. Every combat slave received basic combat training at the slave market. The fighting ability they possessed was their value as a product.
Compared to battle-hardened mercenaries who'd seen every kind of fight under the sun, or to properly trained territorial troops and royal soldiers, they were still at the level of newborn infants. Even so, having received systematic training was a considerable advantage in a fight.
I looked out of the carriage. Some three hundred combat slaves, each carrying a spear, were marching in orderly ranks. For them, even walking was training. A shame they were all drab, unremarkable men, but it couldn't be helped. Male combat slaves fetched a far fatter price than female ones.
Leading three hundred slaves was an easy job for me. On the first day, I'd executed two runaways with Fire Arrow in front of everyone. And I'd cut the limbs off a slave who'd tried to ambush me.
Whether it was thanks to Mental Resistance or not, watching a slave scream in agony like a demon crawled up from hell didn't particularly bother me. The one who'd had his limbs severed, crawling across the ground like a turtle, had been kicked to death by his own comrades, his whole body beaten in. I'd declared that if even one more like him turned up, I'd pick someone at random and tear them apart. So they'd better keep a close watch on each other, I'd ordered. After three of them died that way, the slaves followed my word like the word of a god. A profit that more than covered the value of those three dead slaves.
"Halt, all of you! We rest here. That's the end of today's march. We camp here, and tomorrow we climb that mountain."
There were still a few hours of daylight left, but meeting the night in the mountains was a poor choice. Plenty of monsters were nocturnal, and the bandits were old hands at night raids. At my word, the slaves hurried to set up camp.
Watching them, old memories of making camp under Derick Walker came bubbling back, vivid and fresh. I supposed that was what they meant when they said the past becomes memory.
The next day dawned. I rose early and led the slaves up the mountain. Of course, all I actually did was fondle Luna's tits and enjoy the view outside. The mountain path was steep, but the two horses pulling the carriage moved with vigorous strength.
In the real world this would have been utterly impossible. Apparently even the horses in this world were something special. The carriage jolted badly, but not enough to make me sick.
Sex, however, was out of the question. There was too much to watch for in the mountains, so instead of fucking I caressed Luna's body and kept my eyes on the window.
"Monsters ahead! Monsters ahead!"
A slave's urgent voice rang out from the vanguard. We'd encountered monsters earlier than I'd expected. We hadn't even been on the mountain for an hour.
Morning was not a time monsters favored. Nocturnal ones would just be settling in to rest, and diurnal ones would still be heavy, their bodies not yet fully awake. Running into monsters this quickly almost certainly meant someone had arranged it.
"Luna. Can you sense any other humans nearby?"
"No. I cannot. However, my senses only reach about fifty meters. I apologize."
There was nothing to apologize for. In a mountain this densely wooded, even that much scouting ability was plenty useful. The bandits had probably taken one look at our numbers and adjusted their strategy.
Ordinarily, they would lure a monster our way, then wait nearby for us to wear ourselves out. But seeing our numbers, they'd apparently judged that a single attack wouldn't drain our stamina enough. The judgment itself was sound. Bad men really did have good heads on their shoulders.
"Luna. A fine time to get some real combat experience. I can't have my precious merchandise getting scratched."
I said it while giving her ass a sharp smack. Luna rose from the carriage bed and dressed. The outfit was a leather combat suit I'd bought for her — a design that favored mobility over defense.
It clung to her body, and Luna in full kit looked sensual. Not blatantly so — the feeling came through in a subtler register.
"I shall deal with them at once."
Luna slung the two swords I'd bought her across her back in an X. Seen like this, she almost looked like a sleek ninja. Of course, she was an infighter type who fought from the front — about a million light-years removed from anything resembling stealth.
"Buhihit! Good. Off you go."