Bound for Korea
I tracked down the ones that had been hiding.
The tally, once the work was done: forty-five common goblins dead, one hobgoblin dead, and six or seven of the smaller ones taken alive. Catching them had been nothing but curiosity.
The place was known as a goblin cave, and that reputation alone kept people away. If the goblins around here suddenly vanished, someone might come looking. What I wanted was a dimensional transit point I could pass through in safety, without ever drawing a human eye.
The hunt also taught me something new.
"Monsters are worth money?"
"Yes. Monsters carry negative mana by nature. Abnormal strength, abnormal muscle, the power to use abilities—that is the reason."
"Is that so? Then I can make money selling goblins too?"
"That's right."
"Then why has nobody touched this place until now? Don't tell me the payout's nothing."
"You catch on quickly."
There is only one reason to leave money lying where it sits. The numbers don't work.
"How much do they fetch?"
"For a fully grown goblin, ten of them would bring you about three or four coppers."
Ah. So that's it. Ten of them, for the price of the plainest meal there was. Better than scrounging recyclables, maybe. Then again, recyclables don't rush you, bite you, or spit poison. Weighed that way, the return looked even worse.
"Which is why I didn't mention it. Hobgoblins are different, though. Sell one well at a magic shop and you'll get far more than you would for goblins."
Even so, it didn't sound like much of a profit. Better to find a use for the thing myself.
"Is there another way? To make use of it."
"Among monsters, hobgoblins rank fairly high. They may not match a warrior orc, but they are far stronger than an ordinary one. Short of a saber tiger or a giant bear, no monster of orc level or below—and no ordinary beast of the mountain—will come near anything that carries a hobgoblin's scent."
"That's much better."
So I set about cutting the hobgoblin's corpse apart. Vrrrrrr— The electric saw chewed through thick hide and bone. Tough and dense as both were, even a proper butchering tool took a long while.
I carried the cut pieces outside and buried them shallow, scattered here and there, with only a light cover of soil so the smell would seep out. That ought to be enough to keep the mountain beasts off. I splashed blood nearby and hauled the other corpses as well. The Ogre Power Gloves had raised my strength, but shifting some forty bodies still devoured the hours. By the time the last of them was dealt with, a full day had already gone.
I went down the mountain, brought the vehicle back, and made for the cave again. Crushing through brush, circling and doubling back, I finally climbed to the mouth of the cave. I couldn't drive inside. Instead I took the Hummer in beneath a rock that jutted out beside the entrance.
From the gear I drew the earth-attribute magic ring and slipped it onto my finger.
Then—
Dig the Earth
Dig the Earth
The ground sheared away in a clean block, a meter wide, a meter long, and a meter deep. After a few casts, a neatly cut space opened beneath the overhang. I parked where the Hummer's roof would stay out of sight, tucked just far enough in, and threw a camouflage net over the top. Once a casual glance wouldn't give it away, I went back into the cave.
Deeper inside, I found a place I could use. I tamped the floor as flat as it would go, brought the air mattress in from the car, and spread it out. Pssssht— Air rushed in, and the broad mat settled into place.
I set down a camping chair and cast the levitation magic again. Rising just off the ground, I drove a nail into the cave ceiling overhead, ran a line down from it, and hung a lantern at the end. When I lit it, light flooded the wide space.
"Ah. Now I can actually live."
I set up the chair and the table and took out an MRE. High-calorie stuff; my stomach filled fast. The hard labor was behind me. Tonight, I decided, I could afford a little luxury.
I brewed coffee from whole beans and took out ice. The virtue of a magic pouch is that whatever goes in comes out exactly as it went in. I produced a glass, dropped the ice in, poured the brewed coffee, and added mineral water. I lifted the cup and gave it a turn. Ice against glass—clink, clink, clink—a clean, bright sound as the cubes spun. I drank it down cold.
Haaah. Iced coffee.
Once I'd had my cold swallow, I got up again. I picked up one of the rice sacks I'd set on the floor and went farther into the cave.
A small chamber opened off to the right. Inside, the little goblins squirmed, arms and legs bound in cable ties.
Kyaaaah—! Kyeeek!
Small as they were, they bared their savagery the moment they saw me. Monsters, as everyone knew, could not be tamed, and I had no thought of taming these. I only wanted them to keep other eyes off this place. They were small; they wouldn't threaten me yet. Their breeding, though, was ferocious. Leave them alone and their numbers would swell in no time.
I tore open the sack I'd brought and dumped the rice on the floor in front of them. The instant they saw it, they crawled over, shoved their faces into the grain, and chewed. I didn't know how much they needed. Around each of the seven, I scattered about a cup.
After I'd fed them, I came back and lay down on the air mattress. I was tired. I'd sleep here tonight.
Lying there, I turned the shape of the cave over in my head. The one I'd checked had two ways out.
The plan was to make their nest toward the entrance—let them live there, so anyone who wandered close would take the place for a goblin den. Between their nest and my hideout, I'd haul in rebar or steel pipe and wall it off, and if that wasn't enough, follow up with cement. Stack the bags high, pour water over them, and they'd harden on their own. I'd seen it done that way often enough on Nutube. Once that side was sealed, I'd come and go by the other entrance. Far less work than digging a new cave from nothing.
Turning that future over in my mind, I let sleep take me.
I was back on Earth.
The point on this side lay on the surface, so I came up and moved. Fortunate—across the way, I could see the container I had left behind. It wasn't far. I marked it on the map, measured the distance and bearing from where I stood, and judged where inside the container the transit point ought to sit.
"Then on Gaia, I only need to dig about here."
I meant to tunnel into the cave and set the transit point underground. The container would only need its inside dug out as well. By any normal measure it was work that called for an excavator, but with the earth-magic ring I could manage it alone.
I went back to the container and drove the Hummer I'd left parked there into downtown Cairo. I had lingered in this place too long. It was time, at last, to return to Korea. I washed myself clean, bought a plane ticket, and flew home.
I rested for a day, then went in to work the next morning.
The moment I stepped into the office, the staff who saw me startled and started in at once.
"What the hell? What happened to you?"
"You all right?"
"Why didn't you get in touch? What about Manager Park?"
Nearly ten days had passed with no word from me, and the company had already been quietly humming with rumor. Had he gone missing? Been kidnapped? Maybe he was dead. Someone had even said I'd killed myself. The man at the center of all that talk had walked back in, and of course they were shocked.
Almost at once, the team leader sent for me. He took me into a conference room and asked, quietly.
"What happened? What were you doing all this time that you couldn't even make contact?"
"Ah. Well. There was an incident."
"What kind of incident?"
"I was kidnapped."
"What? Where? By whom?"
I gave him a story that was half truth and half lie.
"The one who did it was Hassan, the local driver assigned to escort me."
"What?!"
If a local employee had committed a crime, that was no small matter.
"Then how did you get out?"
"They grabbed me and dragged me out into the desert, but I barely managed to escape. I walked across the desert into downtown Cairo and took the first flight back."
The team leader sank into thought.
"Hah."
There was no way, just then, to know whether a word of it was true.
"All right. I'll look into it. Until then, stand by."
"No. The truth is, I haven't been able to sleep since that day. I'm going to get psychiatric counseling. And I'll be taking a few days off."
"What? No. That won't be good for you, either."
I knew that. What company wants an employee with a record of psychiatric counseling? But it wasn't a comfortable spot for the team leader, either.
"Honestly, I thought about telling you over the phone. I came in because I wanted to say it to your face."
He looked thrown by an attitude nothing like my usual one. He had always taken me for a quiet employee who almost never pressed his own opinion. At the same time, another thought seemed to occur to him—if a man really had been kidnapped, he might well come back changed. The team leader's face tightened. In the end, he said he understood.
If I chose to make an issue of this, the shock to the company would be severe. An employee kidnapped overseas—if that proved true, the executives would have to step forward and produce a response. Let it leak outside, and it was only a matter of time before the company's image hit the gutter.
What weighed on him more than any of that, though, was simpler. Promotion reviews were underway right now. Fault or no fault, if a subordinate met with an accident or a crime, the team leader in charge was bound to see his evaluation destroyed.
As if the question had only just come to him, he asked one last thing.
"And Manager Park? What happened to him?"
"Sorry? Why Manager Park?"
"You didn't see him?"
"No. He wasn't in the office earlier..."
I played ignorant and slipped past it.
"He went to Cairo looking for you. Never mind. Go home and rest for now."
I stood, bowed, and left the conference room.
From the Seoul office to my place in Suwon was an hour and fifty minutes. All the way there on the subway, I watched the people standing around me.
They say a person changes when his surroundings do. Everyone I could see was ordinary. They didn't look ordinary anymore.
Some of them would be worth selling as slaves, wouldn't they?
How much would that one bring?