The Gannin Plains
After an early breakfast and checking out of the hotel, Hwanin stood in the open yard in front of the hotel's attached Kue house and fitted Emergency Food with his gear.
"Even if it feels stifling outside, keep it on."
Kuu.
Emergency Food answered obediently. Once Hwanin settled the Valkyrie Helm — wings and all — over his head, Isilite came leading her straw-colored Kue and let out a murmur of admiration.
"Wow. Emergency Food looks amazing~."
Kuet!
Emergency Food gave a little swagger and flicked his tail feathers. Standing next to Isilite's straw-colored Kue, the comparison was plain to see.
The straw-colored Kue was a touch larger overall, but Emergency Food's wings and flight feathers were far superior. The straw-colored one's legs, though, looked a little sturdier. Its body was big enough to carry two riders; Emergency Food could only manage one.
Even that gap would reverse once Emergency Food hit his fourth growth stage.
"Master. I'll load the bags."
Isilite took Hwanin's leather pack and secured it firmly to the coupling at the rear of Emergency Food's saddle, then sheathed the Black Spear and fastened it alongside. She held up a straight rod — shorter than the Black Spear, but still longer than most longswords — and asked him,
"Is this your new staff, Master?"
"I only discarded the head. The deer antlers were nothing but decoration, apparently. No effect at all."
At first he had found the antler head cumbersome and considered selling or discarding it for a more portable stick or rod. He had visited a magic-tool shop and tried every kind of staff, stick, and rod they had — but none of them let the twin currents of warmth and coolness flow into his body the way the antler staff did. If anything, they felt blocked, empty of any energy at all, and left him vaguely stifled.
In the end he had the old staff analyzed, learned the antlers were pure ornament, dismantled them, and simply finished the joint clean. The result looked like little more than a plain stick, but Hwanin preferred it that way. Flashy decoration only drew the eye and got in the way.
"I see. I never liked the antler look much either. It was the kind of thing only dim-witted tribal aberrants would go for."
Seizing the chance to criticize the shape she had never cared for, she earned a short snort of laughter from Hwanin.
"I stole it off a hobgoblin. Of course it looked like that."
"Ah."
Isilite grinned sheepishly and stroked Emergency Food's neck.
"There. All done."
Kue~.
Then she began loading her own gear onto her Kue — Kurti.
Heh. This is really nice.
Thanks to the subspace pouch, the bulk of their load — two sleeping bags, clothes, cookware, and food for Master, herself, and both Kues — packed down so tightly that their traveling kit was absurdly light compared to ordinary travelers.
"The subspace pouch Lesim gave us as a gift is wonderful. Without it, the volume alone would have been more than we could carry."
Lesim had come by the day before with various expressions of thanks and goodwill, and had left them the subspace pouch he had previously only lent. It did nothing to reduce the weight of stored goods — not even by one percent — and had no preservation function. A simple subspace pouch. Even so, a storage capacity of roughly one cubic meter made it worth more than ten gold coins.
In a hamlet, a single gold coin carefully spent could keep a person idle for life. In a village, thirty years of leisure. Ten gold coins could feed ten generations in a hamlet, or three in a village. Watching someone hand over such a sum as a casual gift had left Isilite clicking her tongue at the gulf between rich and poor — but that was another matter.
Anyway. I just need to trust Master and follow him.
After selling twenty-one weapons the day before and returning, Isilite had heard how much money Hwanin had earned during the forty days she spent training as a maid at the technical institute — and she had been stunned.
Forty gold coins.
Her own equipment alone had cost nearly a full gold coin, and Emergency Food's gear looked like it easily exceeded that. The sidelong glances from other guests and hotel staff as they passed the Kue house were proof enough. All told, their spending in Wayford over those forty days had come close to five gold coins. How on earth had he earned more than thirty gold on top of that?
"If we want to make money exploring labyrinths, we'll need to collect aberrant corpses. Best to prepare a few more subspace pouches."
Realizing he was talking about their future schedule, Isilite glanced at Kurti — the Kue she had seized when she left her bandit crew — and answered.
"I can carry about two hundred kilos, and a Kue can manage another two hundred… so if we buy three more pouches like this one, we could haul a mountain of aberrant byproducts out of a labyrinth."
"I have no intention of becoming a laborer. One more decent pouch in the next city will do."
"Yes, Master. We're ready to leave."
With the travel bag and her heavy iron greatsword loaded behind Kurti's saddle, Isilite watched Hwanin spring lightly onto Emergency Food's back. That movement alone, she thought, already exceeded what any ordinary Soul Master should be capable of. She mounted Kurti after him.
"Let's go."
Hwanin tapped Emergency Food's flank with a stirrup. The Kue turned of his own accord and walked out onto the road.
It was a rest day, so traffic was heavier than usual. Emergency Food slipped nimbly between carriages, and Isilite guided Kurti up alongside him with easy grace.
"Master. Where is our next destination?"
"The holy city of Parhist, three weeks south of here."
"Ah! Are you planning to attend the grand festival that opens in two months?"
"Yes. There's a tournament during the festival. I intend to recruit companions there."
"Companions…?"
Isilite's heart gave a hard thump.
What am I to Master?
Right now I'm a maid. Maid and pack mule, more accurately.
She knew wanting more than that was greed — and yet the word "companion" made her ache with a lonely kind of sorrow even as she felt glad simply to remain at his side as a maid.
"Yes. When the time comes, I plan to hear your opinion as well. Give it some thought beforehand."
…Huh?
Does that mean he already thinks of me as a companion?!
"Y-yes. Of course."
Isilite gripped the reins tight and clamped her mouth shut. If she let her guard down even a little, she was certain she would whoop and start bouncing in the saddle.
The holy city of Parhist and the small city of Wayford both lay within the Gannin Plains. The eastern and western Roatings Jungles framed Wayford and Parhist on either side.
Follow the western Roatings Jungle north and you reached Lake Oljot, a sixth-class forest labyrinth, and Yulkam. Push east through the eastern Roatings Jungle and you came to the port city of Praber — ruled by Baek Ryeogang's parents — and Lake Allyugel, a body of water as vast as a sea. Head due south across the plains and a scattering of hamlets and villages appeared, and beyond them the upper-class city, the fortress-capital of Parhist.
Hwanin and Isilite followed the road that countless carriages and travelers had worn into existence, and Hwanin looked down at the firmly packed dirt track. The road existed not only because the Roatings Jungles lay a week's travel to either side, but because relatively gentle hills and open plains stretched between the two cities, fixing the route of travel in place.
They rode toward the horizon along that road, talking of this and that.
"Do you know anything about Parhist?"
"I heard about it when we studied current affairs and general knowledge at the institute. The reason Parhist could become a holy city is that the surrounding land is full of gold and silver veins."
Cities that rose to holy-city status naturally tended to command several small cities or mid-tier cities, along with countless villages and hamlets. Parhist had done the opposite — swallowing everything around it until it became a holy city.
"In pure urban scale, Parhist wins by a landslide. But if you add up all the surrounding villages and hamlets, it's about the same as Wayford."
"So they bought residents with money and expanded their territory into a holy city. That kind of approach would have created no small number of problems."
Wayford was a fairly large city for the region. The villages and hamlets under its control numbered close to three digits. A holy city ought to command even more than a small city like Wayford — mid-tier and small cities as well, as a matter of course. Yet Parhist controlled fewer villages and hamlets than Wayford.
"That's why they only have one small city under them, and their history is shorter than Wayford's. Our teacher at the institute said that's why relations between Wayford and Parhist are a little strained."
"Strained relations…"
Hwanin suddenly recalled a merchant's story he had overheard in a tavern.
When two cities were relatively close and on good terms — kin cities, blood-related houses — they sometimes pooled their strength to pave the road between them. A paved road brought all kinds of logistical and arithmetic advantages. But if war broke out for any reason, or if a labyrinth overflow occurred, that same road became an instant invasion corridor. So unless the cities were exceptionally close, paved roads simply did not get built.
By distance, the holy city of Parhist is practically Wayford's direct superior among upper-class cities — but their relationship is anything but warm. Which means a paved road will never appear between them.
Paving a road was ordinarily framed as a higher-ranked city extending a hand to a lower one. In other words, the seventh-class tiger-kin lord of Parhist found it laughable that the mere fourth-class lord of Wayford refused to bow his head. And the fourth-class lord of Wayford had no desire to bend his waist to a Parhist lord who had bought his rank with money and had no history to speak of.
With that, Hwanin felt the final piece of the Skin-peeling Clan–Lianarin Trading Company affair click into place.
"So that's why Aldjin Bere moved so quickly."
"Pardon?"
"Mobilizing enough force to crush a major trading company within a few hours, just because a relative was attacked, is an excessive response. Lianarin was, after all, one of Wayford's three great trading houses."
Under ordinary circumstances, the company would have paid Aldjin Bere a massive tribute through some form of judicial settlement and been forgiven. Of course, an attack on a sixth-class tiger-kin noble daughter was a serious matter — but the collapse of an entire major trading house would send considerable shockwaves through the city and could even damage municipal revenue. Hwanin understood perfectly well that there were times when money had to take priority over honor.
That was why he had found it hard to understand. The entire affair had been finished within a mere four hours of the incident.
"But if that was the real background, then of course it would happen."
"Uh…"
The sudden leap in the conversation left Isilite looking blank.
"The reason Aldjin Bere swallowed Lianarin Trading Company. It was retaliatory."
"……??"
"……"
Faced with Isilite blinking at him in total incomprehension, Hwanin closed his mouth.
Isilite was decent at acquiring knowledge and putting it to use. Give her an egg and she would recall the egg recipes she had learned and cook them skillfully. But her ability to take given information and, through association, deduce new facts was not particularly strong.
Hwanin began explaining more carefully, breaking it down so she could follow.
The relationship between Wayford and Parhist. The Skin-peeling Clan's connection to Lianarin Trading Company. The attack on the noble daughter. Wayford's regular army moving with such speed. The principal goods Lianarin handled.
"Aldjin Bere does not like Parhist. And the reason goes beyond the historical depth you mentioned."
"What else is there?"
"You already know that Lianarin's role was to bring fashions from Parhist and spread them in Wayford."
"Yes."
"The company buys goods with money in Parhist and sells them in Wayford for profit. Then it takes that profit and buys more goods in Parhist to sell in Wayford again. In other words, Wayford's capital flows one way — into Parhist."
"Uh…"
If Wayford could sell its own products to Parhist, it would not have been a problem. But reverse exports from a lower-class city to an upper-class one were rare. Wayford, moreover, had no particular specialty and had long failed to advance to mid-tier status. Given the difference in scale, most of what Wayford could produce, Parhist could produce as well — so there was nothing to export.
From Aldjin Bere's perspective, it must have been galling. Work hard to fatten the city, and all that nourishment simply drained away to Parhist. For that reason, Aldjin Bere had likely been watching the irritating Lianarin Trading Company and the Skin-peeling Clan for a long time…
"And the moment the incident he had been waiting for occurred, Aldjin Bere moved."
"The sixth-class tiger-kin noble daughter's labyrinth attack…"
"Exactly. He had a legitimate pretext, so he crushed Lianarin Trading Company legally — without any public discontent or backlash."
"C-couldn't he just have ordered them removed because he didn't like them? He's the city lord, isn't he?"
"A company the size of Lianarin is almost certainly connected to Parhist's upper ranks — whether by one degree of separation or two. Striking such a company merely because you dislike it would give the other side grounds to intervene."
"……"
By this point Isilite had finally caught up. She pressed her cheeks with both hands and let out a long sigh.
"Th-that's… not simple at all."
"A major trading house's annual revenue would run to thousands, even tens of thousands of gold coins. All of it carved from Wayford's flesh. How would you feel if you were Wayford's lord?"
The justification was on their side, and the practical gain was more than sufficient. A two-for-one deal. No reason not to take it. Susa's hurried departure had probably been because some business venture tied to Lianarin had gone wrong.
Isilite's mouth fell slightly open. She was astonished by the estimated income of a major trading house — but even more so by Hwanin's intellect, which had deduced all of this from just a handful of facts.
Isilite did not think of herself as particularly stupid. About average, maybe? After all, the gossip she had picked up yesterday while walking the ordinary districts and the central avenue to sell weapons had been more or less at the same level as her own thinking.
— Lianarin Trading Company and the Skin-peeling Clan were in cahoots!
— I heard the Skin-peeling Clan attacked a sixth-class tiger-kin noble daughter?
— Our city lord made an example of both of them and crushed them.
But Master was different. He had seen through why Aldjin Bere had crushed Lianarin so thoroughly, and why he had done it as fast as roasting beans over a lightning bolt.
I've thought it before, but Master is definitely no ordinary person.
It had been the same yesterday when he spoke with Brillit and Lesim. Listening from the side, she had wondered why the conversation kept breaking off mid-sentence — yet Hwanin had understood everything.
Ugh. They say men don't like women who are too stupid…
She didn't hope to become as clever as Master. She just wanted to be smart enough that when he said something, she could grasp it right away. How was she supposed to manage that? Isilite's worries multiplied.
The journey was not entirely peaceful.
Over three days, beasts that looked like aberrants attacked them several times, and they came across bloodstains and the wreckage of carriages and carts more than once.
"Looks like the cleanup from the labyrinth overflow still isn't finished."
"It was never going to be simple. Tracking aberrants that have left a labyrinth is beyond most ordinary forces."
That did not make the journey difficult, however. Hwanin used the attacks as practice, refining the soul arrow, soul explosion, and soul shield techniques he had not been able to hone properly — and dispatched the ambushing aberrants with ease. The hides and byproducts of the beasts and aberrants they defeated were tanned by Isilite's hands and stored in the subspace pouch.
The power of thirty-eight soul orbs is certainly impressive.
A simple barrage of soul arrows was enough to put holes through six or seven second- to third-class aberrants before they could even close the distance. Inside a labyrinth, aberrants would be overflowing, making soul orbs easy to resupply — and outdoors, he only needed to gather the surrounding spirits. He would never run short.
Hwanin considered party composition.
If I take the rear as support and ranged damage, and Isilite takes the front as a strength-based melee damage dealer, what we need is a front-line tank and a healer.
In a four-person party, simply applying necromancy to the members could produce combat power comparable to a six-person party. They did not need a large group.
We need a small elite force. If I can find a solid shield-bearer in Parhist, that would be ideal.
He was turning these thoughts over when he and Isilite came upon the traces of yet another ambush.
"Looks like these people were attacked by aberrants too."
Half-eaten human remains, a cart smashed and scattered, luggage thoroughly ransacked — Isilite frowned. How long had it been since the labyrinth overflow, and they still hadn't cleaned this up? Were the central tiger-kin all complete idiots?
While Isilite silently cursed the incompetence of the tiger-kin lords, Hwanin examined the traces left at the scene more carefully.
And then…
"Emergency Food. That's not food."
He pulled the reins to stop Emergency Food, who was sniffing at the corpses, and spoke.
"This was an attack by people."
"…What?"
"They were attacked by people, and while they were trying to recover, aberrants hit them. There are human scum nearby pretending to be ordinary travelers."
At Hwanin's words, Isilite belatedly noticed the signs of human hands among the ransacked luggage. Looking more carefully at the corpses, she could see slash wounds and the marks of blows to the back of the head.
"These bastards who don't even know merchant ethics…"
Isilite muttered through gritted teeth, her face twisted with fury. Hwanin watched her for a moment, then asked,
"When you were a bandit leader, what did you do in situations like this?"
"Well, when a labyrinth overflow floods the area with aberrants like this, we go hunting them. Safe roads are good for regular business. And if we find travelers or merchants being attacked by aberrants, we help them."
"And sell the byproducts you get from the aberrants."
"Yes. Villages that would trade in byproducts are either too far away or won't let us in, so we force a sale on the merchants we just saved. But we didn't gouge them! We only took about ten percent over market price."
From a merchant's perspective it was not a high-margin deal — but they had kept their lives, so they accepted without complaint. Hwanin nodded and lightly nudged Emergency Food's belly with a stirrup.
It was a signal to walk, but Emergency Food turned his head, looked at Hwanin, and let out a cheerful kuu~ before breaking into a run.
"Ugh. Running again? Emergency Food really loves to run."
Isilite fell in alongside him.
Kuet!
Kue.
Kuu?
Kue~.
As they ran, Emergency Food chattered at Kurti in a stream of kue-kue sounds, as if holding a conversation. Watching them, Hwanin felt a mild frustration and scanned their surroundings.
Without aerial surveillance, it's a little inconvenient.
Emergency Food's sense for presence was sharper than that of most wild herbivores — he could detect living creatures at nearly fifty meters. But compared to when he flew and searched for enemies, the range was less than a tenth.
Where there were shortcomings, there were also satisfactions. Riding Emergency Food felt like sitting in a luxury car with perfect suspension. Unless Emergency Food deliberately shook his body, almost no impact reached the rider. How remarkable that was became clear the moment you thought about horses. An inexperienced rider wrecked both their own lower back and the horse's — but a bipedal Kue could be ridden in complete comfort even by a complete novice with no riding technique at all.
Kueet!
Leaving the road slightly, Emergency Food climbed a low hill, then charged down the far side in high spirits, leapt, and beat his wings into a gentle glide. In an instant he covered hundreds of meters. Kurti and Isilite both went wide-eyed, staring after him with envy-tinged awe.
Kuppi~.
"Wow~. I want to fly too…"
The sensation of gliding on a living creature was better than he had expected — different from riding in an airplane. Hwanin savored the strong wind that blew at height and allowed a smile to touch his lips.
Then he wiped the smile away.
Thirteen people. Two class-holders, five melee, six ranged.
In mid-flight, he had spotted a band of armed robbers hidden behind a hill that perfectly screened them from the road.