High-Value Merchandise
A heavy, solid weight. How in the hell were those American military bastards keeping their weapons, that a thing like this could turn up rolling around a black market?
The necklace asked then, curiosity threading its voice.
"Awfully strange-looking, for an insecticide."
"Well. The bugs are big. Ordinary insecticide won't cut it."
The Egyptian, assuming the words had been meant for him, asked.
"What?"
"Nothing. Talking to myself."
"Anyway, like we said—the stock comes off, and she holds six. Plus a hundred rounds. Eighty buckshot, twenty slugs. That right?"
Getting my hands on it had meant scraping cash together more times than I cared to count. I didn't pinch a coin, though. Once I got back I could sell the two slaves, sell the gold, and fill the hole.
"That's right. We'll do business again if the chance comes."
"I got you the gun, but don't go stirring up any big trouble. And you know how this works—breathe a word about this place, and you'll be buried in a pyramid right beside a pharaoh. You hear me?"
"Don't worry. It won't come to that."
I paid, got behind the wheel, and headed back to the containers.
The container yard was a portal point I'd set up on the outskirts of Lorenzo, right on the site of the goblin den. Through a brokerage I'd taken the land on a one-year monthly lease, a long-term rental, then hauled in containers on a temporary basis, ringed the perimeter with them for walls, and carved out a space inside.
I still hadn't cleared the goblins, though, so I had no choice but to make for the cliff again. I drove the Hummer through the point I'd made there and crossed once more into the other world, Gaia, then drove on toward Lorenzo, the city of merchants.
The guards already knew my face and opened the gate without a fuss. Heart quickening, I took the Hummer in toward the central square.
Fortunately, the slave caravan hadn't left the city. The caravan master found it strange—the odd baron, back again after only a few days.
"What is it this time?"
"Good thing you haven't gone. Would you take a little more merchandise?"
"Merchandise? Well. Let's see the goods first, then we'll talk."
Surroundings they had never seen, a language they had never heard, faces to match—Park Dongseon and Go Yumi looked utterly lost.
A moment later, while I was still speaking with the caravan master, a pair of hulking men stepped in and forced the iron collars they'd brought onto both their necks.
"Hey—hey! What the hell is this!"
"Aaaah! What are you doing! Get away! Aaah! Honey! Honey!!!"
The two thrashed for a moment with the collars locked around their throats, but the instant the metal cinched tight they folded, strengthless, to the ground.
"Guhhh—!!"
"Khk—!!"
They lay there drooling, and as the fight drained out of them the force choking their necks let go as well. It had lasted only a short while, but the collars had squeezed hard enough to cut off their sight, and for a long moment they couldn't gather themselves enough to rise.
Watching the two writhe on the ground, I haggled, thoroughly pleased.
Park Dongseon's price wasn't much different from the Egyptian men's. Only a paler face and cleaner skin earned him a little more than last time—three gold.
If I want real money, I'd be better off catching Koreans than Egyptians and selling them.
With that thought I moved on to haggling over Go Yumi, and from that moment I understood how hasty my decision to sell them had been.
"You really are selling her? No changing your story once the deal is done."
I could feel the caravan master's mouth watering as he looked at Go Yumi. Part of me wanted to play hard to get, but honestly, keeping the two of them in one piece was stress enough. I wanted to see those two rotten bastards hauled off as soon as possible, so I swallowed the sting and nodded.
For Go Yumi I received fifteen gold—more than the three I'd sold so far put together.
Damn it. Of course.
In that instant I understood. I'd been fleeced. If a wholesaler was naming fifteen gold, the auction value was several times that. Fifteen gold alone came to two hundred twenty-five don of gold. Ninety million won.
Son of a bitch!
But I'd already agreed to sell, and there was nothing for it. Stung by how much I was leaving on the table, I took the coins with tears in my eyes and handed Go Yumi over.
She seemed to take the meaning of those tears entirely the wrong way.
"Baby! I know how you feel! I was wrong! So please—I—please! Please don't do this! Baby!!! Aaaah!!"
I watched her being dragged away, the Submission Collar locked around her neck, regret thick in my eyes.
Damn it.
But I told myself this, too, was an investment. A man can't spend his life only on deals that pay, and in this world I was little more than a beginner. Even if I had to swallow a loss, stacking experience and a record as fast as I could was the better choice for the future. That was how I comforted myself.
The caravan hands dragged Go Yumi off, and I asked the master about this and that. Pleased, perhaps, at having bought good merchandise cheap, he answered with the easy kindness of a man doing someone a favor.
Just as I thought.
The way a cash crop throws off more value than the grain a man needs merely to live—what isn't meant for survival, but for amusement, entertainment, and pleasure, is what truly makes the money.
I asked about the slave trade as well.
"The slave trade? No particular restriction. Same as any other business, though—you need the approval of the crown, a lord, or a city. But you're a baron. You're a noble yourself, so you form your own caravan and approve it yourself, no? Don't tell me you didn't know."
Ah. Right. I am a noble.
Setting my station as a baron had been the right call after all. In an age like this, rank was a thug's own license.
And so, pocketing the eighteen gold coins I'd made selling the two of them, I left the square. Twenty-two in all. Three hundred thirty don of gold. It still stung, and yet on the other hand I'd made the money awfully easily.
I loaded the coins into my magic wallet. It was enchanted as well—a small pouch, but thirty times as roomy inside, enough to carry several hundred gold coins without strain. I lashed the pouch tight to my belt.
Now it was time to go hunting something else.
I drove the Hummer toward the goblin den I'd marked on the map, climbed to the five-kilometer point, and stopped. Camouflage netting went over the vehicle. Then I geared up.
First I pulled on two layers of armor vest, and over that the tactical vest I'd bought in the Egyptian market. Every dangling pouch I packed full of shotgun shells. A pistol went on my belt, along with a spare cylinder already loaded, and a military dagger on the opposite hip. On my head I set a helmet with a face shield, the sort you see in games, and mounted a high-intensity headlamp on top of it. I fixed a light under the shotgun as well. Not content even then, I stuffed my tactical pants full of glow sticks.
Beyond that I slipped on a ring and a bracelet inscribed with magic, and put the necklace on too. I filled the magic pouch with food and water, packed it into a tactical bag, and slung the bag on my back. Hiking boots laced, I started up the mountain.
I rested along the way, ate a simple meal, and closed in on the goblin den. As I climbed, I triggered the stealth spell.
Concealment
The body blurs, and fades from sight.
Slowly, I climbed.
At last I found the cave the children had spoken of.
"There it is."
I unslung the gun from my shoulder and seated the stock hard against it. I picked up a stone lying on the ground and hurled it at the cave mouth. It struck the entrance and rolled across the dirt.
Thock! Tat-tat-thock!
I waited a moment, then threw another.
Thock! Thock-tat-tat-tat-thock!
A short while later—
Kkiririk—kkirik—
With that strange chittering, four goblins walked out of the mouth: green bodies, yellow eyes steeped in madness. One carried a spear tipped with a stone blade ground to a point; the others held daggers, or stone axes in their hands. They searched the ground around them, and their gaze even passed over where I stood, but they didn't find me.
The reason I'd drawn them out was simple. I had no idea what would happen if my first meeting with them came inside a pitch-dark cave. A warm-up, of sorts.
Once they'd looked around and started to turn back, I slipped in behind them, raised the loaded shotgun, and walked forward.
Step.
At the footfall in the quiet woods, they turned.
But—
Bang!
With a crack like thunder, one of them flew backward in a smear of blood and slammed into the ground.
"Kieeeek!!!"
I dropped the stealth spell and closed on them fast. I didn't forget to chamber the next round.
Clack!
And then—
Bang!
Another of the panicked creatures was blown backward.
"Kiiiiik!"
While one spun and fled, another charged me. The bastard's going to warn the rest. But—
Clack. Bang!
The one rushing me was flung the other way. And again, at the back of the one fleeing into the cave—
Clack. Bang!
I aimed only roughly and let it rip, but the spread of the shot was considerable. One leg of the goblin just about to duck inside the cave was caught in it.
"Kieeeek!"
It pitched forward, one leg soaked in blood.
Clack.
Shotgun in hand, I came up behind it. The goblin was crawling toward the cave, but—
Clack. Bang!
Thud!
The back of its head burst as if a hammer had come down on it.
Against anything that moved, a shotgun really was the right tool. It couldn't match a rifle for penetration or rate of fire, but a shotgun's greatest virtue was precisely that wide curtain of shot. For hitting a small target on the move, nothing beat it.
I shoved the pump forward and fed the loading port with the shells I'd packed thick around my waist.
Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk.
Shells seated, I switched on the headlamp fixed above my brow and walked slowly in.
The cave mouth. I drew one of the glow sticks crammed into my tactical pouch and snapped it.
Tick.
Once I confirmed the bent stick was glowing, I tossed it to the ground.
Thup.
I might lose my way inside the cave. Markers were essential. And so I walked slowly on, into the thick dark.