The Slave Trade of West Wall Village

"......"

Without a word, she looked down at me and Sarah, then quietly lowered herself to sit at my side.

"...What happened?"

"......"

I had nothing to offer her. Telling the truth wouldn't do either of us any good.

Which left one option.

Wait.

I had already started rolling the phrase into Skip when I stopped, eyes shifting, and hesitated.

This situation. Palace elites groaning under the trees, the carriage and its supplies overturned in the grass — a small, ugly doubt asked whether all of it hadn't happened because of me. A divine beast dropping out of nowhere in front of a mere extra, simply because I and this elf had survived when the story said we shouldn't, was far too unnatural.

Does Skip have side effects?

A little while ago, because the conversation had become a problem, I had pictured the moment it ended and written that into Skip. The result flung me out of the Boundary Forest, that hazard of a place, and into a stretch of green meadow with the carriage already running.

The trouble was that the result hadn't belonged to me alone. I had skipped the story itself. As if I had torn the pages and forced them over, the process vanished whole and only the outcome remained — the bare fact that the conversation was finished, compelled into being.

...

Every event that should have occurred on the way out of the Boundary Forest had evaporated in a single Skip. If the world had wedged a dragon into that torn blank to fill it, then this impossible situation started to make a kind of sense. A structure in which the world forcibly packed causality back in, to the exact measure of the pages I had thrown away. And among those patches, Ivelia's survival had been the worst card of all — the one that could change the worldline.

Only a guess, of course.

"Hah—"

I let out a long breath where I lay.

...I should hold back on Skips that drag everyone else in with them.

Ivelia seemed to take the sigh for something else. She rose and spoke quietly.

"Sorry."

"Huh?"

"You must have been startled too. Rest a little."

Then she walked, unhurried, toward Clid.

Considerate to the point of excess, but...

"...Hmm."

I glanced at Sarah, who at some point had stretched out beside me, staring up at the sky. If her condition showed in my system window, then it was fair to treat her as one of my skills. Even with the penalties, I supposed I ought to be grateful she was at least human-shaped. I could take her with me, for now.

"Nnnh—"

I stretched, closed my eyes, and decided I was done being dragged into difficult questions.

Well. It'll work out somehow.

By the time the sun had gone down completely, we were inside the rattling carriage the relief unit had brought. I spent a long while running through a suffocating silence, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠doing my best to ignore Ivelia's eyes. Only late into the night did the walls of Arcadia, capital of the Kingdom of Rivelin, finally enter view.

"The walls are lower than I expected."

"......"

Ivelia's look stung. My brief review was the only thing that quietly echoed, and the carriage drew up before a massive gate.

"We welcome Her Highness the Princess home."

Before the gate carved as the Southern Elton Gate, guards stepped out of a small stone post to announce the princess's return and run a light inspection.

"I'll report the wounded separately."

One of the knights spoke low to a guard.

"Near the Boundary Forest... something unforeseen..."

"Ah, yes, yes. The formal report will go up tomorrow."

"Through the Central Guild as well..."

Listening to the guard and the soldier, I broke the quiet and asked Ivelia.

"Even royalty gets inspected?"

She looked at me a moment, then turned her gaze out the window toward the gate.

"...Yes. As a formality."

A short answer. Ever since Sarah had appeared, her voice had gone strangely stiff. Jealousy was impossible toward someone she'd only just met — it was more a look packed with wariness. She still didn't even know who I was, and yet another person had shown up out of nowhere. Caution, in the season of the Imperial Selection, was only natural.

"Even palace personnel have every nighttime entry logged. Returns from outside, especially."

"What a pain."

"A pain, but necessary."

As she said it, a soldier came up alongside the carriage.

"Your Highness, we will escort you in."

"And the wounded?"

"They will be moved separately to the palace treatment wing and the central hospital."

"...All right."

Ivelia nodded to the guard visible through the gap in the door, and with a clatter the carriage started again. I gave myself over to the steady shake of the stone road. The awkward silence had only just settled back in when Ivelia lightly tapped the window toward the driver's seat, and the carriage stopped.

"Lady Ivelia. Is something the matter?"

Clid's voice, from outside.

A short creak. Ivelia flicked a glance at me, opened the door, and stepped down.

"Clid, a moment. Would you go on to the palace ahead of me?"

"...Pardon?"

"That person... there's something I want to discuss with Ellen."

Clid hesitated, then nodded.

"Understood. If it is Arcadia, it should be all right."

"Thank you."

"Even so, the hour is very late..."

He turned his gaze and beckoned a mid-rank knight mounted at the rear of the formation.

"A minimum escort."

"I said it was fine."

"If we do not do even this much, we will have nothing to say to His Majesty afterward. Please consider it for our sake."

Through the gap in the door I saw Ivelia give a small nod.

"All right. And the divine beast — what do you intend to do about that?"

"I have considered it. A divine beast is a being that can affect the entire continent, so we cannot avoid reporting it to the Empire."

"I suppose not..."

"However, given the timing, we intend to reduce the matter of having been attacked by the divine beast, and report a diminished account to the Empire on our own authority."

"...All right. I'm counting on you. I'll speak to His Majesty myself."

"Yes. Understood."

I propped my chin on the carriage window and thought of Clid, wetting himself as he fainted.

They're doing their best, in their own way.

"Then please return before sunrise."

"It won't take that long."

At Ivelia's answer Clid gave a short bow. A moment later the carriage left me, Ivelia, and Sarah where we stood and went on ahead to the palace.

"Hoo—"

The instant she was down from the carriage, Ivelia drew a deep breath. Like someone coming home after a very long time.

"Follow me."

I followed her toward the market, where the lights were going out one by one.

It was nearly midnight. There didn't seem to be any set curfew. Merchants were only now slowly folding their awnings, and from a few places that looked like taverns, voices still drifted, small and late.

"Oh my! Lady Ivelia! Come and look at this!"

"Your Highness, at this hour, in a humble place like this."

Merchants who had been closing up saw Ivelia and greeted her gladly. Less surprise that a princess should be here, and closer to simple welcome. The faces of people running into someone they often saw around the neighborhood.

Ivelia waved as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Humble? Please. The fruit here is the sweetest."

"Aigoo, there you go again."

The merchant laughed, flipped the cloth he'd been closing, and in a hurry piled this and that into a basket and held it out. Ivelia looked troubled, managed a smile anyway, and offered a single coin with a light laugh.

"Ahaha... will one silver do?"

"How could I accept this! Please, just take it!"

Used to it, she dipped her head, passed the basket to me, and walked on.

"You don't offer twice to make them take the money."

"Why? You think I'm doing it because I begrudge the coin?"

"No. Just saying."

Prickly.

"Those people wouldn't take my money if I offered a hundred times."

...Mm. The setting of the princess closest to her people didn't seem to have changed much. At least inside this country, she was loved with real sincerity.

Her steps stopped. Ivelia turned her head and asked, quietly.

"So. What really happened? And who is the person beside you?"

Here we go again. Not asking until now had been its own kind of consideration, I supposed.

"...Mm. Is there such a thing as a Hero in this world?"

I turned the subject with a question.

"Hm? A Hero?"

"Yeah. A Hero."

Ivelia thought for a moment, then nodded.

"Yes. There's probably one in the Empire of Cladei. I heard that a few months ago, Cladei's high mages and the elders of the academies gathered and summoned one, in the name of destroying the demons and protecting the world."

So this was the Imperial Selection, and also the moment the Hero had already been summoned.

"Then have you ever seen a demon?"

"No. I never have. Honestly, I'm not even sure they truly exist... But if a demon did appear, wouldn't the Hero destroy it? The Hero is revered as the greatest magic swordsman on the continent."

"Ohh. Is that so?"

Watching her believe so firmly in a Hero she had never once seen, I figured the protagonist was the protagonist after all.

Ivelia glanced at Sarah, who was craning this way and that just behind me.

"So you're not going to answer? Who is that person?"

"......"

Planning to ask until she gets an answer.

What a headache.

I clamped my mouth shut like a man who had swallowed his tongue and turned my head.

"..."

"..."

"Haah—"

After a long sigh, Ivelia shook her head and spoke.

"All right. I truly don't want to put the person who saved my life in a difficult spot... I'll let it go, for now."

At the princess's continued consideration, I only nodded a few times.

You're letting this go?

"Even so, after this incident the kingdom plans to strengthen security further. A dragon may be a divine beast, but it's also a creature that could destroy a kingdom."

"...Yeah. That would be best."

Ivelia turned her body toward the palace.

"I don't know what Clid will think, but I will make certain this is repaid."

"No. Don't worry about it."

She smiled faintly at my answer, and with her escort slowly receded from view.

Somehow, she seemed to have been more curious about Sarah than about me.

I looked at Sarah, who was staring into nothing. The reason I hadn't told Ivelia was simple: as I remembered it, she didn't have particularly kind feelings toward divine beasts.

Then there's no need to reveal it here.

I wrapped the talk up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠roughly and peered down the dark lanes, looking first for a place to spend the night.

"First I need to know where we even are..."

A tap. Then a patter.

And then the rain came down in a sheet.

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

"...Rain?"

I broke into a run and ducked under the awning of a closed stall at the edge of the market.

"Inn first."

"..."

The next day, in front of the bulletin at Rivelin's Central Guild, I was looking over a spread of requests when Sarah cocked her head at me. I'd learned it last night: she could talk. She only tossed out one-word answers, and she didn't seem to like conversation much, but being able to communicate at all was something.

"Yeah. Looking for a request. I need money before I can do anything."

Staying at an inn near the palace last night, without a second thought, had been my mistake. I'd assumed sleeping and eating would be simple enough. I hadn't expected the cost of living to be this real. Regional prices. How people saw an F-Rank. Even the weeds pushing up between the stones under my feet. In my memory, this world had not been built to this degree of precision.

Hah. No use picking it apart now...

Turning it over, I slowly took in the guild and the board.

This was a fantasy world. To be more exact, a slightly urban-feeling fantasy in which demons, whether anyone admitted it or not, gnawed at the lives of the people ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the continent. The existence of Demonology shifted that texture, of course... Still, as I understood it, this wasn't a world that wore its gloom and darkness on the surface. It was a world in which individuals, each with their own circumstances, needed saving.

You would think there would be dungeons. There weren't. I could have scoured the board until my eyes were raw and still found nothing of the kind, because this world had no dungeons. No dungeons, so no dungeon requests. No concept of levels, either. The guild was a guild in name only — a neutral thing, closer to a city hall or a state office — and an adventurer was basically a combat profession that made a living by clearing the requests that came in. The capable ones picked up a B-Rank or a C-Rank and peeled off into the palace or some public post. If you had an elemental attribute, you entered a magic tower, which existed only in Inserium, Northrem, and the Empire, and were guaranteed into old age as a mage. The guild's neutrality was still an important device in this world, granted.

"Hmm—"

More than that... there aren't even requests an F-Rank can take.

It didn't seem to be only F-Ranks failing to find work. Other adventurers' complaints drifted over.

"Why are there only requests like these this week?"

"A dragon showed up near the palace yesterday afternoon, remember? Word is the palace is sweeping up everyone C-Rank and above, calling it an investigation."

"I'm gonna lose it. Busting my ass all day on the eastern outskirts catching nothing but goblins, just to scrape up five silvers..."

I listened with my ears and ran my eyes over the board.

...No point even looking at a B-Rank request.

Nothing worth taking.

"Mm..."

Hearing me groan, Sarah quietly extended a finger and tapped a quest sheet written in red.

I turned my head before I could even finish reading it. Catch that thing and I'd spend eternity in its belly, looping pain and regeneration. And the Golden Restaurant was where nobles gathered. They wouldn't accept someone like me in the first place.

Muttering, I kept looking, until a torn request sheet in the corner caught my eye.

A disappearance?

I tapped the board lightly with a finger and thought. A disappearance... had there been an episode like this?

...No. Not in my memory. At least, it was a request that should have been impossible in the Kingdom of Rivelin, the very symbol of peace. Then this, too, was something branched off outside the main story.

Was there anything else...

Repair work. No matter how I looked at it, it was grunt labor. It was also the only thing on the board that looked like something I could actually do. Well, Sarah was here. It would be fine.

"This one."

I tore the sheet free at once and stood before the old three-story guild building with its wooden sign.

"How is this even possible!!"

"You're telling me! There's definitely someone behind this!"

What a mess.

Listening to the noise from inside, I carefully opened the door.

It creaked.

I pushed it open and stepped in. In front of what looked like the reception counter, adventurers in clothes as shabby as mine stood in line, sighing. Off to the right, people in gleaming armor came and went freely, tending to guild business. Past them, beyond the piles of documents stacked on the shelves inside the counter, old books nobody used and ink bottles were jammed in thick. An old man in an appraiser's clothes was nodding off where I could see him... Peaceful enough, more or less.

The central hall had a large fireplace, several tables, and a worn leather sofa where adventurers — no, self-proclaimed adventurers — had gathered to spill their grievances. Less a gap with the original work, and more the feeling that this was as far as you could dress the place up in reality. Even so, it was a guild in which the peculiar air of fantasy was still alive.

"Why is an Arachne popping up around Arcadia!"

"That's what I'm saying! There's something to this, I'm telling you."

"And a few days ago some illegal peddler was out here selling hallucinogens. Have they lost their minds?"

Rusted iron armor, expensive-looking robes... Warriors and mages? Flashy clothes.

By contrast, aside from my white hair, my style was ordinary. One faded white hemp shirt. Black trousers, a little frayed. And a functionless white coat of a robe that I had shaken out my pockets to buy this morning. No reason. It had looked cool, so I'd bought it on impulse.

I patted the new clothes and worried, briefly, that someone might mistake me for a court mage...

"Oh my! Young man, they said there's a giveaway up the street — you picked a good one!"

This morning a rude woman hanging laundry in the street, wearing a robe flashier than mine, had looked me over and offered her review, and I had folded the worry away. With pockets everywhere, people seemed to want the things for convenience as much as anything else.

"Mm..."

Still, seeing that the moment Irregular rewrote the world, the clothes I was wearing were rewritten along with it, I figured I could set the useless worry down. I smoothed the shirt that had come through a fight with a divine beast unscathed, walked up to the young clerk at the counter, and held out the torn request sheet.

"I'm here to register for a request."

The clerk looked back and forth between my face and Sarah.

"Yes. For registration, could you give me your name and rank?"

There was an appraiser behind him. I couldn't hide it. I leaned in toward the counter and spoke as quietly as I could.

"...Ellen. F-Rank."

"Oh! Even an F-Rank can register this request. Don't worry."

"......"

There didn't seem to be any malice in it. The voice was simply far too loud. The central hall, and of course the self-proclaimed adventurers around me, all turned their eyes my way.

"—Hey, you!!"

With the shout, someone came toward us and roughly seized my shoulder.