Slave Merchant: Derick Walker-13
The combat slaves at the vanguard gripped their spears, faces drawn tight with tension, bodies locked rigid. This was likely the first time they had ever felt a monster's killing intent from so close.
What blocked our wagon was a pack of Blood Seekers — quadrupedal mountain monsters, among the most commonly encountered in these ranges. As monsters went, they were roughly trash mobs.
Goblins and gnolls showed up even more often, of course, but the point stood: despite the vicious name, Blood Seekers were treated as fodder in Solari World. That did not mean they were weak. A Blood Seeker's combat power sat a full notch above a goblin or a gnoll, and because they hunted in packs, anyone who got cocky on level alone was going to get themselves killed. That warning, however, applied to beginners. For Luna, whose stats already exceeded two hundred, it was irrelevant.
"Stand aside."
Luna, dual blades in both hands, spoke a single word to the combat slaves holding the front, and the formation parted like the Red Sea before Moses. They wore the faces of men who had just beheld the Messiah, overflowing with gratitude — delighted, apparently, that they would not have to fight. These were the ones I had bought to sell as combat slaves, and that kind of limp fighting spirit was a disappointment. I was going to have to educate them a little.
Ten Blood Seekers blocked the wagon. In the game, you usually drew five to seven; this was a considerable number by comparison. Despite that, the pack tucked their necks and edged back the moment Luna stepped forward. Sharp-sensed monsters that they were, they recognized a stronger being. Her unhurried, confident stride would be pressing down on them without a word.
Luna kicked off the ground and shot forward. Just as in the game, one of her greatest strengths was a first strike without a shred of hesitation. Her type was an aggressive in-fighter — the strongest in-fighter in Solari World, in fact. Unless you deliberately built the protagonist Jin along the in-fighter line, you could not surpass what Luna could do.
Most monsters were in-fighters as well, and Blood Seekers were no exception. Same-type matchups came down to raw stats, and the Blood Seekers could not keep up with Luna's closing speed at all.
Slash!
Luna's right hand moved. The motion was too swift for even me to properly see; I only pieced it together from the Blood Seeker's head dropping to the dirt on her right.
"Hah! Incredible…!"
"That movement…! Is she a Mana User?"
"A Mana User…! Then she heard all those dirty jokes we made about her, didn't she?"
The combat slaves could not hide their shock. Mana Users were common enough in a large city like Tellibai, but in the backwaters they were a rare sight — unless there was a mercenary guild nearby, and any place with a mercenary guild was not called a backwater to begin with.
Most of these combat slaves were criminals purchased from rural districts. Those slaves came cheaper, which was why I had deliberately bought from there. True to their origins, they had sturdy bodies and nothing else in the way of talent, but their role was to serve as meat shields on a battlefield, so that was plenty.
Well, I should still put them through basic training. They supposedly received fundamental drills at the slave exchange, but with fighting spirit this weak, it'll be hard to mark up the price. Next time we run into monsters, I'll put these guys out front. And that bastard who was making dirty jokes about Luna goes in the vanguard.
Luna slaughtered all ten Blood Seekers in an instant. Amazingly, not a single drop of blood stained her clothes. How fast would you have to cut them down for that to happen? It was not merely a matter of stats — it was her innate combat sense. That sense was faithfully reflected in the game as well: the weapons she used lost durability more slowly than any other character's.
"Monster corpses fetch good money. Drain the blood and load them onto the wagon! Buhihit!"
Just as in the real world, monster carcasses were worth money in Solari World. Blood Seekers in particular — not only the hide and the meat, but the sharp claws and teeth could be sold as well. Unfortunately we had no craftsman, so we could not butcher them on the spot, but even selling the bodies whole would net a tidy sum. Two of these would buy one of those scrawny slaves. Raking in this kind of side income was a pleasure in itself.
The combat slaves bustled into motion. Having witnessed Luna's blade work, their movements had a sharp military snap to them. They drained the Blood Seekers' blood, loaded the bodies into the wagon's cargo hold, and we pressed on.
The wagon started rattling down the unpaved road again. We had to stop in less than an hour. Monsters, once more.
"Tch. Goblins this time?"
I did not like goblins. Unlike Blood Seekers, their byproducts did not sell. The complete opposite of a Blood Seeker, which had no waste on it at all — these things had nothing worth selling. In the game, goblins were things you killed for experience. The more you hunted them, the more you lost on potion costs and equipment repairs, so once your level was high enough you went around them rather than fight.
I would have preferred to go around them now, but they had blocked the road thoroughly, and they clearly intended to attack. Roughly thirty of them — triple the Blood Seekers we had just met — but their combat power was at best a third of a Blood Seeker's, so the situation was comparable.
"This is a good chance to train the combat slaves. I order you! All hands, battle stations!"
Unlike when we had met the Blood Seekers, the slaves' expressions changed the moment I ordered them into combat. Had they assumed Luna would handle this one too? Lazy bastards. Sit around waiting out of habit for someone else to do the work and you become an incompetent adult who cannot do a thing. Whether they became incompetent adults was none of my business, but I did not think my customers would buy that kind of merchandise. So as a slave merchant, I had to educate them.
"The ones I name, step to the front. You learned basic tactics at the exchange, didn't you?"
I named five, including the one I had been watching earlier. They looked scrawny. Honestly, I did not expect them to hold the goblins without taking damage. There might even be fatalities. In that case, putting the least marketable ones in front was the right call — more profitable than dumping them at a discount.
The named ones hesitated. I glanced at Luna. She drew her dual blades, and in a stern voice she said:
"W-we're going! We're going!"
Nothing worked like the stick. The five slaves took position at the front, clutching their spears. The ones who had not been picked looked relieved — but they were in no position to relax either.
"Don't tense up! We've got the numbers!"
A slave with striking tall blond hair rallied them in a booming voice. Good build, diligent — one I had been keeping an eye on, and probably the one who would sell for the highest price among my stock. He took on a captain's role and commanded the combat slaves.
"Spread out wide! We overwhelm them in numbers!"
The combat slaves formed up in a crane-wing formation with the vanguard out front. The mountain path was narrow, so a few had to drop down onto the slope, but it was a formation well suited for a larger force to envelop a smaller one.
The brainless goblin pack, faced with an overwhelming number of enemies, merely shrieked their grotesque cries and showed no intention of fleeing. I wondered how things that stupid had survived this long. Then again, a goblin's specialty was not superior physical ability — it was their insane reproductive rate. According to the lore, it took about a year and a half for a goblin to reach adulthood, and fertile females produced five or more offspring every year. Cockroach-level breeding, basically.
"Kiiik! Kiik!"
The largest goblin pointed at us with a bony finger. Probably the pack's leader. Despite their terrifying fertility, goblins had never achieved continental hegemony, and this idiotic intelligence was why.
The goblins charged the vastly outnumbering combat slaves. Their only weapons were the sharp rocks in their hands — threatening enough, I would give them that.
"Vanguard! Thrust! Rear ranks, hold!"
The blond slave commanded the group with practiced skill. The combat slaves thrust their long spears forward to meet the charging goblins, and the long-reach weapons punched straight through goblin chests. Goblins stood around five feet — shorter than the spears themselves.
Amazingly, the goblins' reckless charge ended without inflicting a single real casualty. One slave was hit by a thrown rock, but it was just a light bruise. I had known goblins were weak from the game, but I had not known they were this weak. I had at least expected one or two deaths or injuries.
Of course, holding them without any real damage was not simply because they were weak. If that blond slave had not commanded the group, the casualties would have been worse. What he did was only a few words, but in group combat what mattered was not flashy individual technique — it was unified action. With his command as the focal point, every slave performed admirably. Looking at how naturally he took charge, he had probably rolled with a village militia.
"Excellent! Report casualties and clear the corpses! These green pieces of trash aren't worth a single coin. Finish up quickly and we leave."
Scavengers that caught the scent of goblin blood could show up at any moment. Casualties were negligible, so we incinerated the goblin corpses and moved on.
The gnoll pack was, quite literally, carved apart. Unlike goblins, gnolls had byproducts that sold reasonably well — not as much as Blood Seekers, but they made decent money. Blood Seekers were exceptionally generous among low-level monsters; it was not that gnolls had poor cost-effectiveness.
About twenty gnolls attacked our wagon this time. Fewer than the goblins, but a gnoll's combat power was more than double a goblin's, so in practical terms it was a larger-scale assault. This was already the third ambush, and remarkably, we still had not even crossed halfway through the mountains.
Even for a mountain crawling with monsters, this was excessive. Monsters might not match humans, but they were cunning in their own way. Except for the brain-dead goblins, they gauged an opponent's skill and numbers when they hunted — because for them, a hunt was both an opportunity to feed and a moment of possible death.
Every pack we had met so far, however, had forgotten a monster's basic nature and attacked us blindly. Goblins were morons, so perhaps that was expected — but cunning Blood Seekers and gnolls doing the same was strange. I had a rough idea of the cause. We had probably been marked by bandits.
Every time we encountered monsters I asked Luna to check whether there were humans nearby, but her search range was too narrow to yield results. In the late game she could easily scan several kilometers around her; right now it was only a few dozen meters. Whether the bandits were being cautious or not, they had not shown up on Luna's radar yet.
"We've lost a lot of time. Looks like we'll be camping on this mountain tonight."
"If the bandits have their eyes on us… they will likely strike tonight."
A sound assessment. Night raids were a bandit's specialty, and they remained a headache even in the late game — threatening enough to overcome considerable stat differences. That said, a night raid was not invincible. If you were mentally prepared, as we were now, its effectiveness dropped significantly. The whole strength of a night raid was striking an unguarded enemy first.
"We'll need extra sentries tonight. Unfortunately, it looks like we won't be having sex."
"I… is that so?"
Luna seemed quite disappointed she would not get to have sex. It was extremely satisfying, watching her be trained so diligently into a woman who matched my tastes. We could not have sex — but I would still give her breasts and pussy a thorough groping.