The Slave Trade of West Wall Village (2)

Rusted iron plate clung to a giant who looked well past six foot three.

The man draped himself over my shoulder as if I were an armrest and started in with the sneering.

"F-Rank? What's an F-Rank doing taking a request? If you've got some rare disease, go home and—"

He cut himself off. His eyes slid over Sarah beside me, wrapped in nothing but a single length of black cloth, and the corner of his mouth climbed. He shoved me aside and stroked her hair.

"Not bad, for an F-Rank's party member. Come join ours. I'll feed you special, and I'll give you a bed. How's that sound?"

Her short hair bobbed under the giant's hand.

"…Smell."

Sarah spoke with her head bowed low.

"Huh? Oh, right. Splurged on some special perfume this time. Curious? Go on, take a whiff."

He leered and dragged his hand roughly through her hair.

I let out a small sigh, rolled my eyes, and wrote a line into Skip.

A lurch—

My vision flipped, and a heavy thud rang through the hall. When I looked down, my right foot was planted on the giant's head, all six foot three of him driven into the floor. His eyes were huge. He trembled where he lay.

"Guh—hak! Wh… what the hell!"

The guild's central hall went dead silent. Adventurers stared with their mouths hanging open, and even the receptionist directly in front of us dropped a pen and froze.

I glanced at Sarah. She looked back at me, mouth pressed tight, and gave only a nod.

"……"

This wasn't a skip of the whole story. It changed nothing but the outcome between me and this giant. For me, though, Skip was exactly what it sounded like: only the result appeared. I had no idea how the process had played out.

"Hey, Sarah. Did you happen to see how I moved?"

She only whipped her head from side to side.

So even a divine beast can't see the process… Maybe the sequence I draw for Skip sits a dimension past this one.

Crash!

The giant shoved my foot off and scrambled upright.

"Y-you coward!"

Coward how?

"We don't need an F-Rank. I'll ask one more time. Join our party!"

He turned away from me, clicked his tongue, and stroked Sarah's hair again.

Is he actually stupid?

He didn't even seem curious why he'd been on the floor.

"…"

Sarah lightly knocked the armored hand aside and looked up at him, face blank. He startled—she'd hit harder than he expected—but his expression twisted at once.

"Crazy bitch. I treat you like a person, and this is what I get."

He swung straight for her head.

A wet rip—

It wasn't a dull impact. It was liquid spraying, and the dozens of self-styled adventurers in the guild, receptionist included, froze all over again. Sarah wiped the blood spattered around her mouth and looked at the giant the way one looks at an insect.

"Huh…? Ah… AAAAAH!!"

Blood was geysering from the wrist she had just knocked aside. The severed hand had flown all the way to the counter and lay there pouring. The man clutched the diagonally cut stump, collapsed screaming, and passed out.

In the silence, a woman who looked to be one of his party—a mage—ran over, jammed a Heal against the wrist, and rounded on Sarah.

"What the hell did you just do!"

Sarah shot the mage a sidelong glare, then stared quietly at me.

…What are you looking at. What do you want me to do.

I turned and looked down at the giant under the healing spell. It had been a bit much. They were the ones who had picked the fight, though, and at a time like this the best move was to ask the clerk. As politely as I could manage.

"Um, excuse me… so. What should we do?"

"It's still early! If you head just a little ways west, a carriage from the labor office ought to be waiting!"

The moment I asked, the clerk frantically pressed a permit onto the request slip and fled through the staff-only door behind the counter.

I caught Sarah's wrist, hurried out of the guild, and started the divine beast's education in human society on the way to the pickup point.

"Sarah, you have to be a little careful. There were witnesses this time, so they won't dump the whole thing on us no matter what, but if we're going to live in the village from now on—"

"Yeah."

She nodded hard before I'd even finished.

Did she actually get any of that?

"…Ha. Fine. Whatever."

The one who started it was in the wrong. And from the moment the contract was sealed, there was no undoing it anyway. I fretted over this and that as we went, until a carriage came into view at the roadside, two or three adventurers already aboard and waiting.

The western wall was a clamor of laborers. Before the collapsed stonework, people who looked well on in years, soaked through with sweat, hammered nails and lashed the stones in place with rope.

"Ah! I said put it over there!"

"Would you say it nicer, for once!"

People are the same wherever you go.

I looked up at the wall. Just as I'd seen last night at the southern Elton Gate, it wasn't all that tall. Even so, I ran a hand along the stone.

As I remembered it, height didn't matter much for a city wall in this world. It was a boundary, the line that marked a village off from the outside. Seen that way, this request might look trivial and still be one of the most important jobs in the kingdom. The pay, of course, mattered more to me.

While I stood blankly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠watching the work, a middle-aged man without so much as a hard hat walked up.

"Ah, you're the one? See those people over there? You work over there."

"Ah. Yes."

…

"You want a person to pick this up and carry it by hand?"

I had my arms around a stone as tall as I was, and I was only squirming. My back had nearly folded in half.

"See? Told you we should've hired people with experience. Look at him. Give it a minute and he'll be giving birth."

The lazy mockery made me want to hit him. Off in the distance Sarah sat under a tree, swinging her legs, not moving an inch. I'd trusted no one but myself, picked a nice simple labor job, and this was already the thanks I got.

"Haa…"

Using Skip on work like this felt wrong. I sighed, and then something flashed. A contract was supposed to be an equal bond. But perhaps because this one had been forced, what I had with Sarah was master and servant—which meant orders were possible. I looked at her where she sat on a rock, swinging her legs and counting leaves.

"Sarah. That's an order."

"……"

She shot me a look of pure disbelief, the look of someone being fed absolute nonsense. In that instant a red light came on in the system window.

"…!"

She stopped counting leaves, curled in on herself, and shook violently. Just as I'd thought. Not a simple shock—a current stabbing through every nerve. The same contract penalty the Hero had shown when he tamed an A-rank monster.

She trembled for a long while, unable even to breathe, then finally crawled out into the sunlight.

"……"

Without a word, she dragged the rock away. I was sorry. A shackle like this was still necessary, if I was going to manage a divine beast.

"Good work, all of you!"

Bricks thrown, boards nailed, something like cement smeared on—by the time the sun was going down, the day's request was finished.

"Who is this one? Next time, send them even if they come alone. The work went twice as fast."

"Ah—yes."

Oh, sure. She'll come by herself.

More to the point: five silver coins, two halves of bread hard as stone, and a ruined back.

"Tsk. Not something I'd do twice."

I shoved the silver deep into my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠robe pocket, tore into one of the breads, and straightened my back. I wanted to get home and rest, but it was a long way from Arcadia's central square out to the western wall. Unless I came on purpose, I probably wouldn't be back.

"Want to walk a loop before we head back?"

"Yeah."

Sarah gave a small nod, brushing the dust from her cloak, and we started along the wall.

West Wall Village, pressed up against it, was old at a single glance. Grass grown to my knees over the unpaved road looked as if no one had passed in a long time. Along that road stood collapsed stone walls, aged thatched cottages, and tiled houses whose roofs had cracked and fallen in.

Ding— ding—

Whenever the evening wind stirred, the only sound that reached me was a bell I couldn't place, hung from some eave or other. The sun was setting, and the feeling was somehow wrong.

"This place won't do. Let's go back."

This wasn't a horror film. Go any deeper and I would definitely get pulled into something. What I was doing now wasn't a game for leveling up, and I had neither reason nor room to step into petty clichés like this. I turned and started back the way we had come.

Creak—

…Crunch!

On that desolate side road, where there had been no one but Sarah and me, a sound like iron scraping stone hit the back of my head.

"……?"

I turned toward it, and a small sign caught my eye.

"…An orphanage?"

I couldn't forget orphanages. The novel used them often, a device for stressing how peaceful Rivelin was. For the record, in this setting Rivelin was the image of the most peaceful kingdom: low walls that weren't flashy, a palace that wasn't particularly grand, the kingdom that followed classic medieval fantasy architecture most closely—the sort you could picture the moment you closed your eyes. Walk the streets and people greeted one another smiling. In the crowded markets, arguments and laughter never stopped. Rivelin wore peace like a signboard. Above all, I had seen with my own eyes the people who came up to the princess like family. So of course Arcadia would have an orphanage for children.

But an orphanage that belonged in the heart of Arcadia, here—the exact opposite of the center. The outskirts, where the administrative map gave out. A dirt road that would turn to mud the moment it rained. Old wooden fences and collapsed thatched houses scattered along the way, on the edge of West Wall Village. An orphanage in a place like this was far too strange. No. It shouldn't exist at all.

"……"

The building itself wasn't much different from its surroundings, but around this place in particular there were traces of people.

"…"

Creak—

Sarah looked at me staring at the sign, then opened the door and went in.

"Hey, wait—"

I followed her in. There was no choice but to step inside the orphanage.

"…Is anyone here?"

The first floor was empty. A stale smell, display cases furred with dust, a few old desks in front of them, broken toys, and on the walls several drawings that looked like the orphanage children's work. Walking along the wall, I glanced at a thin book lying on a desk. It looked like an account ledger, recording the children's meal money from long ago. The state of the place… it seemed to have been shut down for quite some time.

"Sarah, let's go. I must have been on edge."

I'd already seen plenty here—realistic scenery, real people, requests I'd never encountered. A closed orphanage in a place like this was a setting that could easily exist. Having settled on that, I set the ledger down and turned to leave, and Sarah walked over and stopped, staring at the wall.

"What now."

A divine beast's nose. Thinking she might have caught rotten food, I turned and looked closely at the drawings. The children's faces were a little off.

Tap— tap—

I brushed the dust from one of them with the back of my hand, and the smiling face in the picture came clear.

"……What?"

The smiling child had no eyes. I kept brushing dust from the others, and every one of the dozens of children showed nothing but the whites.

"Even horror like this gets generated…?"

Settings branched off naturally behind the story. I knew that. I still hadn't thought an event this horrific would show up. A strange unease settled over me as I looked, and then I found one drawing where the child wasn't smiling.

"……"

Hoping I was wrong, I rolled my eyes and wrote a line into Skip.

A lurch—

My vision flipped. When I came to, a closet beside the drawings stood open, and behind it stone stairs led underground. A damp smell and a thread ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of cold air rose around my ankles. Dust drifted in the sunset light spilling into the orphanage. Sarah, beside me, shook her head as if wondering what had just happened, then frowned, looking down the stairs.

"Must be one hell of a stench…"

Her reaction made me want to go down even less. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wasn't only an excuse. Stepping into every incident was inefficient. The moment you set a foot in, an event occurred, large or small, and nothing guaranteed it wouldn't touch the main story. So—pretend I hadn't seen it. What wasn't, wasn't.

"Sarah, let's go back."

I took her wrist and turned.

A chime—

In that instant the system window flashed, and Happy Ending changed to Bad Ending.

"Huh? A bad ending…?"

I turned and looked down again into the pitch-dark basement. This cellar, hard even to find? An incident the author had never set. Because of it, an episode that wasn't in my memory at all. And in front of it, a system window rewritten into a bad ending. The moment I had set foot in this crumbling orphanage, whatever it was had already begun.

"Haa…"

Whether it was the aftermath of the grunt work or not, my shoulders were stiff.

"Sarah. We're going."

I looked at Skip, now locked, and stepped into the unknown.