Chapter 114
Chapter 114
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 114
Chapter Title: Infiltrating the Slave Pens
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Since Dungie couldn't sense the presence of the hidden magic circle, Dun shifted positions and called for Tiarin, who was playing with the All-Gem.
"Duuuun!!"
The moment he called, Tiarin plastered herself against Dun.
"Agh, ack! Get off!"
"Hmph, it's been forever. I heard you come to the All-Gem every night just to play with Dungie?"
[Leave me alone......]
"What'd he say, that dung beetle?"
Dungie, watching from the side, bit Tiarin hard once.
Tiarin's HP dropped to a third.
"Eek! Dun! Look at this! I told you, that Dungie's a two-faced piece of shit! Dun, I'm dying...... Your one and only teleportation magic specialist, dark elf chieftain, and soul contract holder Tiarin is dying......"
Tiarin grabbed Dun's leg and wailed loudly. No tears came from her eyes.
"Ugh...... Shut up......"
With Tiarin around, there was never a moment of silence.
Dun stuck a sparkling recovery potion in Tiarin's mouth and clicked his tongue.
"I'm on my way to the slave black market right now, okay? If we go, you have to be quiet. Open your mouth, and I'll send you straight back to the All-Gem."
"Ooh, Dun's buying a slave?"
"Don't want one."
"Why not? You could boss it around all you want."
Owning a living being's entire life came with responsibility. Dun found that overwhelming.
Screw it up, and you'd end up with obsession, revenge, betrayal—all sorts of headaches.
"There are plenty of ways to make people work without owning them as slaves."
If the reward for the work felt fair, efficiency went up.
"Hmm, true. You've always gotten people to work for you by passing them around, right?"
"Hey, don't put it like that. Makes me sound like total trash......"
[Dun's not trash!]
"Yeah! Who's calling our Dun trash!"
"?"
The conversation veered into weird territory, so Dun raised one eyebrow.
After reflexively bantering with Tiarin, Dun took Dungie and Tiarin to the location Gesen had mentioned to search for the hidden magic circle again.
"Body transformation."
He didn't forget to change his appearance and name to Minu this time too.
"Ooh~ Who's this handsome guy?"
"Shh. Cast that presence-concealing spell quick. Before I send you back."
Dungie couldn't envelop both of them.
Besides, Dungie probably wouldn't cover for Tiarin even if she got killed.
Dun, Dungie, and Tiarin—having concealed their appearances and presences as much as possible—scouted near the villa where the black market was held again.
"Any spots where you feel a teleportation circle?"
Dun whispered softly.
"Yeah. See that place that looks like stables? Something's under that pile of straw."
Fortunately, Tiarin lowered her voice too and pointed at one stable with her fingertip.
"Does this type of teleportation circle leave records?"
"Hmm...... I'd have to check."
"I'll keep watch. If I signal, run fast."
"Signal means run to you?"
"Punishment teleport."
"Eek, too harsh."
Grumbling, Tiarin headed to the stable, lifted the straw, and started clearing it away.
She tapped the gradually revealing floor with her foot, and suddenly light glowed from the ground, exposing a single teleportation circle.
Tiarin placed her hand on it, channeled mana into the circle, and soon extracted a long string of numbers and formulas from within.
49545756…………66686589 838577776982
"Whoa, what does it say?"
The workers were all off eating, so the area was quiet.
Dun, on lookout, stuck out his tongue at the long string of numbers Tiarin pulled out.
"I can't read it directly yet. Understanding it raw is in the realm of gods. Us mages process it to extract info."
Tiarin drew a magic circle in the air, overlaid it on the formula, and poured in mana.
The formulas in the circle writhed, then shifted into continental common tongue, Illitin.
"Hmm. Travel log recording is on, destination's the northern part of the territory. This volume okay?"
"Yeah, no one's around, so keep it at 20."
Dun always griped about her being loud, so hurt Tiarin had gotten him to approve specific volume levels.
Scared of sudden teleport back to All-Gem, Tiarin checked her ring. 20 ouls. A whisper.
Tiarin snapped a photo of the circle's shape and details with her photosphere, then called Dun back.
"Dun, let's go!"
"All done?"
"We're gonna have them draw the exact same circle outside, right?"
"Yeah."
Using the stable's circle would leave a record, so better to draw a new one outside.
Dun restored the straw to its original state and slipped away with Tiarin before anyone came.
* * *
"Evil noble Manshay~"
Humming, Dun kicked away the pebbles on the magic circle he'd set up in the territory of another emperor-faction corrupt noble, Baron Weas.
"Dun, where's this? Why set up the circle here of all places?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
It was a trap to make them track their traces and suspect each other.
Anyway, generating a magic circle would create a new one where Count Altoid stored his slaves. Tracing it would lead to another emperor-faction noble's territory—suspicion planted.
Tiarin would definitely ask for the detailed plan then.
Explaining that meant covering the wedge-driving between Count Altoid and the emperor, weakening the emperor's core mage troops, while helping Seol Do-yun and pursuing personal goal of softening violence toward NPCs......
"Dunno."
"Hm? You just wanna set it up here on a whim?"
"Not that, tsk, ask Dungie."
It was half-joking to dodge the barrage of questions, but Dungie spoke up.
[Dun...... Emperor-faction nobles...... Making them suspect each other......]
"Oh."
Since becoming a pet and sharing Dun's strength and mana, Dungie's intelligence stat had shot up, and the little guy was getting smarter.
Started a bit below human speech and smarts, equalized at some point, now a tad sharper than average.
Speech still a bit slurred, though.
"Dungie's capable."
[Heehee...... All thanks to Dun......]
Dun smiled warmly, fiddling with Dungie's flower, and Tiarin gaped in shock.
"What about me? What about me? Dun, how come the way you look at me's different from how you look at Dungie? Why no praise for me?"
Dun blankly stared, letting Tiarin's words flow in one ear and out the other, then suddenly spoke.
"Anyway, let's hurry and raid that slave caravan!"
"Yeah!"
Tiarin was persistent but simple-minded.
Switch her interest to a new topic, and the attack stopped cold.
Dun sighed inwardly in relief and quickly stepped onto the magic circle before Tiarin could comment on every little action.
Bright light enveloped them, and the scene changed abruptly.
"Hmm......"
Fortunately, the circle was in an inconspicuous spot.
A large building came into view.
He'd expected rundown squalor, but it felt surprisingly comfortable.
Slaves wearing fancy gem chokers strolled the front grounds inside a fence.
Their bodies bore whip marks from beatings, but their expressions weren't as grim as typical slaves.
Their clothes were decent quality too.
What drew the eye were the slaves outside the fence.
Their iron chokers were rusted and faded, they scraped tree bark from hunger or lay listlessly on the ground.
Their bodies were ragged horrors from brutal floggings.
They were trapped in rectangular glass enclosures to prevent escape.
〔Common Slaves〕
The sign outside the glass read.
The huge glass tubes exposed their insides starkly from outside.
The gem-choker slaves avoided eye contact with the iron-choker ones as much as possible, but stole fearful glances.
"Somehow...... This is super intriguing? What's the deal here?"
Tiarin murmured in low admiration at the slave training center's layout.
"No wonder the slave prices are insane. Makes sense now."
It was a system to foster competition inside the training center and obscure individual values.
'High-quality slaves need to take pride in being slaves...... Even noble-born, I can make 'em grateful for slave status, nyah!'
Gesen's drunken ramblings had seemed bullshit, but this was clever, familiar design. Dun silently gazed at Altoid's slaves for a moment.
His head suddenly ached.
"Tiarin, find and disable the magic surveillance orbs."
Now that he knew exactly where the slaves were gathered, no need to worry about teleport blocks. No reason to sneak.
But to maximize impact, the training center needed to be found raided right before the black market opened, so disable the orbs.
"Dungie, how many people here without collars?"
[......About three. On the first floor...... Gathered......]
Dungie filtered out the rust-iron scent from necks with his improved scent-tracking skill, counted the humans, and answered.
With prep work done, Dun strode boldly to the slave training center's main entrance and kicked the front door wide open.
The three overseers in plain sight were sipping coffee and chatting.
Dun's brazen entry through the front door left the overseers, still processing, tilting their heads.
"Who's that guy?? Newbie?"
"Seems like......"
One flustered overseer spoke up.
"Sent by Gesen?"
"Nope."
Catching shady organization overseers was Dun's specialty.
Dun snatched a baton from one overseer and knocked them out one by one.