The Red Rooster of Erg Village
The carriage rattled along the unpaved southern roads for three full days after the Emperor’s command. During that time, I couldn’t dig up a single useful piece of information about Erg Village. To be precise, whatever I already knew was the same scraps every other information broker and southern kingdom already possessed.
…This is getting awkward.
This might actually be the perfect chance to collapse the guild without earning a single lecture from my father or older brothers. That was why I wanted to prepare as thoroughly as possible, head down there, and finish the job cleanly.
“Looks like that’s not happening though…”
“Pardon, Guild Leader?”
The muttered complaint slipped out before I could stop it. Elenoa tilted her head, eyes curious as she looked at me.
“Ah, it’s nothing. It’s just… there’s so little information on Erg Village that it’s driving me crazy. No matter how deep I dig, all I get are surface-level rumors. I can’t get a proper grasp on anything.”
“……”
Elenoa’s eyes widened in genuine shock at my words.
“Even your magnificent insight cannot fully pierce through this place… Well, that makes sense. Erg is one of the most isolated villages on the continent, with almost as little known about it as that place.”
She quickly scribbled her signature with a fountain pen at the bottom of the approval document she was holding, then rested her chin on her hand in thought.
“Hmm… If the information is truly that scarce, perhaps it would be better to simply charge in without overthinking it?”
“Charge in?”
“Do you remember the phrase you once taught me? High risk, high return?”
“Of course I remember. Thanks to that, we achieved massive success in the Marbas Margrave territory…”
“Exactly. At the time, I couldn’t understand it, but because you were willing to accept risks equal to the potential gains, success followed.”
Elenoa continued in a perfectly serious tone.
“It is said that only an extremely select few have been allowed to taste those legendary eggs for hundreds of years. However, records clearly show that those eggs have been circulated into the outside world on rare but consistent occasions. In other words, doesn’t that mean the village chief or lord is at least somewhat open to trading with outsiders through those eggs as a medium?”
“……”
I blinked blankly at Elenoa’s sharp analysis.
She’s not wrong.
When I added my own personal experiences to her logic, it became even more airtight. Every time I had meticulously planned things out and deliberately chosen the worst possible options, the results had always ended in ridiculous windfall profits. In fact, the harder I tried to think and prepare, the worse it was for my bankruptcy scheme.
In that case, maybe it really is better to just smash my head against the wall like an idiot.
If I barged in without any preparation and made a complete mess of things, those closed-off villagers would probably get so offended they’d refuse to trade with me. Perfect.
Having reached my conclusion, I shot up from my seat.
“You’re right, Elenoa. Sometimes the correct answer is to follow your gut instead of overthinking it. Let’s get ready to head out for business right away.”
At my order, Elenoa gave a proud little smile that said I knew it and bowed deeply.
“I will prepare everything as quickly as possible.”
Two days later, just before departing for Erg Village, the three of us gathered in the largest reception room at the guild headquarters. Lillian, who had finally stabilized the purification work in the northern territories and returned to the capital after a long absence. Iriniel, who had essentially moved into the guild as my exclusive guard a few days ago. And me. The three of us sat in a circle, staring down at the table with deadly serious expressions.
“Since this is our first visit to that closed-off backwater village, we obviously need to bring a gift as a show of sincerity,” I said, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Those people have been obsessively raising a rare breed of chicken called the red rooster for hundreds of years to produce their eggs. There’s a very high chance they’re complete fanatics when it comes to chickens and eggs. Therefore, we need to bring a gift that perfectly matches that concept.”
Of course, my real goal was to pick something so grotesquely off-target that it would offend them to their very core.
At my instruction, Lillian carefully unwrapped a large cloth bundle on the table.
“I brought an item that meets the conditions you specified, Guild Leader… It was excavated from underground in the northern pioneer lands.”
What emerged was a black, lumpy object larger than a human head. Upon closer inspection, it was a fossilized egg with grotesque vein-like patterns horribly twisted across its surface—an unidentifiable fossil egg.
“What exactly is this, Lillian?”
“It is a fossilized egg of the venomous bird that is said to have once ruled the north. Although its life force has long been severed, the ominous and bizarre magical waves it emits are quite intense… I thought it would provide a unique stimulus and satisfy the collecting urges of those who worship eggs.”
Whether she found her own explanation ridiculous or knew she was stretching it, her voice grew smaller and smaller as she spoke. Even so, her eyes were more earnest than ever.
But… no matter how I look at it, that’s not a gift. It’s basically a cursed object meant for terrorism…?
If we shoved something that sinister into a village that treated legendary eggs as sacred, we’d clearly get thrown out on the spot.
…Perfect.
“Excellent. I love it. Pack it up.”
At my immediate approval, Lillian let out a happy little laugh and bowed her head.
Next, Iriniel placed a heavy steel box on the table with a triumphant expression.
“My turn. If it’s a village that produces eggs, they’ll definitely need an incubator, right? So I raided—no, I paid a very generous amount of money at the magitech workshop in the first district of the capital and bought something incredibly expensive.”
“I could have sworn you just said ‘raided.’ Must be my imagination, huh?”
“Of course it is, Guild Leader! I am one of the great Seven Star Swords, after all!”
Iriniel declared proudly, though she still couldn’t quite meet my eyes. When the box opened, it revealed a silver mechanical device packed with vicious-looking gears and heating coils.
“…Iriniel. That doesn’t look like an incubator. It looks like an electric torture device used to interrogate prisoners.”
“What are you talking about! The workshop artisan guaranteed that the latest heating elements would warm even the thickest egg evenly, inside and out, in an instant… I mean, it’ll warm it perfectly!”
It was a crude, vicious magitech device that would probably turn a precious egg into a perfectly roasted snack if the temperature wasn’t adjusted with extreme precision.
This is also complete garbage. There’s no way a backwater village that only raises chickens would use something this dangerous.
If we gave it to them, they’d probably take it as a horrific provocation suggesting they should just roast their chickens. I desperately held back the laughter trying to burst out of me and nodded with a serious expression.
“Truly outstanding taste. The village chief will probably faint from joy.”
A cursed fossil egg from a venomous bird and an electric torture device—no, an incubator—that could instantly turn a legendary egg into barbecue. With this perfectly misguided set of the worst possible gifts, we wouldn’t even get a chance to negotiate. The Emperor’s decree would be irrelevant; we’d be permanently banished on the spot.
Feeling much lighter, I stood up and threw on my outer coat.
“Right, let’s head to Erg for real this time.”
By the time the horrible rattling of the unpaved road finally began to ease, I poked my head out the carriage window. The entrance to Erg Village was absolute chaos. Countless merchant carriages—whether they were competing for the imperial supply rights or chasing after some life-extending elixir—were packed tightly in front of the gate. Yet not a single one had been allowed inside.
“I told you no! Go back at once!”
“But I’m offering a thousand gold coins as an immediate down payment…!”
“Even if you brought ten thousand it wouldn’t matter! Turn that carriage around right now!”
The scene of grim-faced village guards drawing their weapons and shoving merchants away was truly something to behold. Watching that iron wall of rejection, I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from twitching upward.
Guess I brought these gifts for nothing.
If we just squeezed in among them, got cursed out a bit, and got chased off, it would be perfectly natural and flawless. Getting rejected right at the entrance would prove my incompetence and give me the perfect excuse for failing the Emperor’s order.
I barely held back the urge to whistle as I waited for our carriage to stop in front of the barricade.
Finally, it was our turn. As if he’d been waiting for us, a burly guard captain with a deeply furrowed brow approached the window.
“Which guild are you from? We have no business with—”
“This is the Caldia Merchant Guild.”
Before the captain could finish, Elenoa, who had half-opened the carriage door, stated the guild’s name in a businesslike tone. At that exact moment, the captain’s fierce expression changed slightly. He quickly exchanged glances with the armed villagers standing behind him, and they began whispering among themselves with serious faces.
Huh? Why are they acting like that? Just swear at us and tell us to get lost like usual, please.
But as if mocking my desperate wish, the captain finished his short discussion and strode straight toward our carriage. He stared intently at my face through the window, then gestured for the barricade blocking the road to be removed.
“An outsider entering the village… It’s been eighty-two years.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Congratulations, human.”
“Wait, what…”
I was so stunned my mouth wouldn’t close. For reasons I couldn’t begin to understand, the Caldia Merchant Guild had somehow won the lottery and become the first outsiders granted entry in eighty-two years, bypassing countless other guilds. Part of me wanted to demand why they were letting us in, but the murderous glares from the merchants behind us were so intense that I had no choice but to swallow my tears and drive the carriage forward.
After that, sandwiched between a delighted Elenoa and a completely indifferent Iriniel, I stared at the village interior with a completely dazed expression.
The village scenery was incredibly strange. The signs on the shabby wooden buildings, the walls of the old stone fences—even the neatly maintained ground where the carriage wheels rolled. Every single surface my eyes touched was densely engraved or painted with the symbol of a bird wrapped in massive flames.
What is this… Why does it feel so ominous? For a village that worships a chicken that lays legendary eggs, these symbols are way too intense and majestic…?
At first I thought they were just religious symbols that deified the chicken in a somewhat exaggerated way. But when the carriage stopped at the huge plaza in the center of the village, the moment I saw the statue standing tall there, I froze solid.
In the middle of the plaza stood a massive statue carved from an entire block of red marble. It depicted a woman with the form of a half-human, half-bird, her majestic wings of burning flame spread wide. And after playing the game hundreds of times, there was no way I wouldn’t recognize that grotesque yet beautiful silhouette.
Oh shit. We’re fucked.
Why didn’t I connect the dots from the legendary egg? …Ah, it was because of that stupid name “red rooster.” I got distracted by how ridiculous it sounded…
My mouth went completely dry. I swallowed hard and looked back and forth between the statue and the symbols on the plaza floor. Yes, it all matched up. The fragmented information in my head clicked together with spine-chilling perfection.
No way… The ridiculously named “red rooster” of Erg Village was actually one of the Original Prisoners and Beasts of Beginning—the Phoenix of Dawn?
The Emperor—no, the King of All Lives that had taken over the Emperor’s body—had known. He had known that the legendary egg of the red rooster, said to extend one’s lifespan by ten years, was actually a byproduct laid by an Original Prisoner.
Damn it. Damn it all!!
With trembling hands, I looked down at the cloth bundle and steel box resting quietly on the carriage floor. The absolute worst trash gifts I had painstakingly chosen to offend the people of Erg Village and get us thrown out.
But if the other party wasn’t a chicken but the Phoenix of Dawn, the story changed completely. That monster, like a fallen archangel, had no interest in humans at all. Or, on rare occasions when the mood struck, it would appear and scatter blessings of flame everywhere like a capricious being.
If it’s a creature that wields such overwhelming purifying flames… then Lillian’s cursed venomous bird egg would be cleanly and refreshingly purified in an instant.
My gaze shifted to Iriniel’s steel box.
And that insane heat from Iriniel’s electric torture device—no, her magitech incubator? What use is heat to a phoenix’s egg? It would probably just feel nice and warm.
Far from enraging the red rooster—rather, the Phoenix of Dawn—both gifts had somehow become perfectly tailored, top-tier tribute items that struck its tastes with deadly accuracy.
“Ah… No!! Turn the carriage around right now!”
My mind finally snapped, and I screamed without thinking.