The Culprit's Arrest
I tied up the collapsed Steiny and loaded her onto the carriage. According to Syucali, Steiny had discussed ways to stop the carriages with the repairwoman. The person Steiny had mentioned—a hunter with specialized knowledge—was me. When we spoke at night, she had acted as if I were excluded from the plan. As if I had nothing to do with it at all.
"I got completely fooled."
I wasn't sure about her combat abilities, but I could feel mana flowing through her glib tongue. It was probably one of her skills. "We need to catch the repairwoman now. If we're late, the carriages will stop completely."
So the repairwoman had also been seduced by Steiny's silver tongue. "Let's hurry."
"Yes."
Once we caught the repairwoman, the threats to the merchant caravan would disappear. I still couldn't believe there was a way to stop this many carriages at once. But this other world had far too many things I didn't understand.
I hurried after Syucali toward Carriage No. 6.
"Where are you going?"
"You seem busy."
"Did something happen?"
I ignored the adventurers who recognized me as I passed their carriages and arrived at No. 6.
"Carriage repairwoman!" Syucali roughly flung open the door of Carriage No. 6 and called out to her.
"Hm?!"
The moment she saw Syucali and me, her face filled with panic. The repairwoman must have realized that Steiny had failed.
"...Hehe. Too late."
"What do you mean, too late!"
The repairwoman's expression shifted from panic to one full of madness. "Don't get in my way!"
At her violent outburst, Syucali charged forward. In that instant, the repairwoman slammed the model hammer she was holding onto the carriage floor.
-Crack!!
With a sound like something shattering, my body lurched forward. The inertia sent both Syucali and me flying toward the repairwoman.
"Got her! The repairwoman!"
"Hehehe... Hahaha! You may have caught me, but this carriage will never move again!"
"You talk like you've already won. If you die here, it's over for you."
"Hehehe... Do you really think you can kill me? All of Isabella's fortune is in this caravan. Without me, you'll never get these carriages moving again!"
"You little..." Syucali drew her dagger and aimed it at the repairwoman.
"Stop. Killing her won't solve anything."
"But Master Kang Seo-ja... This bitch...!"
"Endure it. It's not like we don't have options."
"Ugh... Understood."
We captured the repairwoman as well and bound her. I took the model hammer she'd been carrying and examined it closely.
'There's mana in it.'
It wasn't an ordinary hammer. It was a rare tool flowing with green mana.
"So this is what stopped the carriages."
"Hehehe."
There were marks where the hammer had struck something. It looked like a cracked shell... similar to a walnut.
"What did you break?"
"Who knows~"
"This damn woman..."
-Thud!
"Ugh!"
Syucali drove her fist into the repairwoman's stomach and glared at her.
"Cough... Cough!"
"Speak. Now."
"Hehehe. Why should I?"
"If you don't talk, you're useless to us, so we'll kill you. You don't want to die, do you? So tell us how to get it moving again."
"Hehehe. It's a moss-vine fruit. When the fruit blooms, it wraps tightly around the inside of the cave and binds everything."
"What the hell does that mean!"
"This carriage was built using cave mushrooms. That means the moss-vine fruit has spread to the carriage wheels too, you idiot!"
"What?!"
After hearing the repairwoman's words, I stepped outside the carriage. When I checked the wheels, strange vines had completely wrapped around the entire drive mechanism. And seeing that Carriage No. 6 hadn't been hit from behind...
"The other carriages must be the same."
Once Carriage No. 6 stopped, the ones in front—No. 5—and behind it also came to a halt.
"What's going on?"
"Doesn't look like an attack..."
"The carriages stopped on their own!"
The hired adventurers began murmuring in confusion. In the end, everything had gone exactly as the repairwoman intended. All the carriages had stopped.
Inside the now-stopped Carriage No. 1, Isabella, the owner of this caravan, looked down at the two women.
"Benma, Steiny."
The bound repairwoman and hunter wouldn't even meet her eyes.
"Sigh... So you finally went through with it."
She pressed a hand to her forehead as if she'd expected this.
"What should we do, Lady Isabella?" Paula asked, gazing at her with concern.
"...For now, we have to get the carriages moving again."
"Is that even possible?"
"I don't know. If we can't move them, we'll be stuck here forever and won't be able to resupply in Kidichi Territory."
Isabella looked like she hadn't expected the carriages to be stopped this thoroughly.
"So, Benma. What exactly do you want from me?"
"Fifty thousand gold."
"Are you insane?" Paula growled, glaring at the repairwoman over the absurd amount.
"Then these carriages will never move again."
"Even the Poila family couldn't afford to hand over that much money, could they?"
"Don't you know anything, even though you're a master merchant? If you're under a noble, you get the position and work to match."
"Haah... Your head really is full of flowers. Do you honestly think a noble would trust someone who already betrayed them once?"
"I don't want to talk any longer. Fifty thousand gold."
It seemed she had no intention of listening to Isabella. I wondered how obsessed with nobility she must be to have plugged her ears so completely.
"Steiny, you disappeared from the village for a while. So you met a noble, did you?"
"As expected of a master merchant. You're exactly right."
"How much did they give you? I'll pay more."
"I don't need it. I'm done moving only for money."
"You've gone blind with power."
"I don't want to stay buried in that village forever."
"You certainly dream big."
The two traitorous aides seemed to burn with tremendous ambition for success. It felt like they had already steeled themselves for this outcome. Even with a master merchant standing right in front of them—someone who could have their heads chopped off at any moment—their momentum didn't falter.
"They're trash, Lady Isabella."
"..."
"I'll deal with them quietly."
"If you kill them rashly, we won't be able to move the carriages."
"Then let's leave the repairwoman and deal with Steiny first..."
"Killing them won't solve anything, Paula. Besides, since Steiny went to the Poila family, she's one of theirs now. If I touch a noble, it'll cause me all sorts of trouble."
Isabella and Paula seemed to be discussing the situation and struggling to find a solution. There didn't appear to be any easy answers.
"If we pay the money and get the carriages moving, we can catch them again later."
"She'll have an escape plan. And if she runs, the carriages will stop again. That's the kind of woman Benma is."
Isabella was a master merchant who knew how to read people. She understood exactly what kind of actions and plans the repairwoman would have.
"Then what should we..."
"Haah... That's why I don't know either."
Isabella seemed to be under immense stress from this situation.
"Maybe I should just... end it all..."
Perhaps because of that, she glared at the two bound women with eyes full of killing intent.
"Heh... You just have to choose. Nobility, or killing us and ending it here."
On the contrary, Steiny met that gaze with composure and tossed out the options. It seemed she already knew what choice Isabella would make.
"..."
With no other options, Isabella could only glare at Steiny.
"Lady Isabella."
I quietly called out to her. She slowly turned to look at me.
"I'll take care of it."
"Kang Seo-ja..."
"You can do it?"
Seeing both Isabella and Paula react at the same time, I could feel how desperately they wanted to lean on someone—anyone.
"Yes. After all, I was hired for this."
The master merchant truly seemed to have no solution. The sudden betrayal by these two had caught her completely off guard. Of course, the usual Isabella would have prepared countermeasures in advance, but right now she looked strangely rushed. Was it because her mansion had been destroyed? Or had her vision narrowed because of her greed to return to nobility? I didn't know what was making her so vulnerable, but this seemed to be the hardest moment for her.
"I suppose I have no choice but to trust you..."
Isabella admitted she couldn't find a solution herself and looked at me.
"Alright."
"Then I'll take the repairwoman with me."
"Fine. But don't kill her."
"Understood."
I grabbed the bound repairwoman and left Carriage No. 1.
"What, are you going to torture her? Then this carriage will never move again."
"Shut your mouth." Syucali glared at the repairwoman.
"Don't worry. I won't do anything like torture."
The repairwoman smiled as if my words pleased her.
"Instead of doing pointless things, why don't you just prepare the fifty thousand gold?"
Holding the carriages hostage, the repairwoman was completely confident, as if the answer was already decided. That was true. She possessed exclusive expertise about these carriages. Even if we asked other repairmen, they wouldn't know the solution. It was knowledge only she possessed. Without her directly revealing the information or bringing in specialist repairmen from other regions, there was no way to get the vine-bound wheels rolling again.
In short, in this world with poor information networks, solving the problem in a day or two was impossible. The repairwoman must have known that too. Finding and recruiting a specialist like herself could take days—or even months. In the end, she believed Isabella would have no choice but to release her and meet her demands. After all, Isabella wasn't the type to act impulsively; she was a woman who could endure and persevere for the sake of her future.
"Hehe."
The repairwoman's smile never faded. She had absolute faith in those wheels—wheels that would regrow vines no matter how many times they were cut.
-Click... Creeeak...
I opened the door to Carriage No. 2. Inside, it was packed with a considerable amount of supplies.
"Oh? This much should be worth about ten thousand gold, right?"
The repairwoman looked delighted, thinking we'd accepted her demands.
"Syucali."
"Yes."
"Take out the aphrodisiac."
"Ah... Yes."
Syucali pulled out a pink potion from her bosom and handed it to me.
"These carriages really won't move without you, will they?"
"Hehe... Of course not."
"Not even Steiny knows?"
"What would she know about carriages? Why would I tell her?"
"I see. Understood."
I sprinkled the aphrodisiac Syucali had given me onto my hand.