The Slave Trader's Mercy
The man with Adore floating above his head bowed even lower than before.
“Yes, ma’am! My name is… Ah, right. You said you weren’t curious. How rude of someone as lowly as me to nearly overstep. I almost wasted a noble’s precious memory on myself.”
“What the hell is wrong with him now?”
[You can tell how scary Master is in about ten minutes.]
“That’s not true! I’m always the victim here. A perfectly innocent citizen!”
[From that guy’s perspective, Master probably looks like a slightly insane woman who commands snakes, casts magic without incantations, and talks to herself a lot…]
Yeah, I bet he’s currently strangling that snake right about now.
I kept one hand firmly wrapped around Rai’s neck while scanning the bewildered crowd.
“How did this…?”
“Can we really leave? What about the slave traders?”
“We’ll die if we get caught running.”
“What do we do now?”
They still hadn’t grasped the sudden shift in their situation. It didn’t even seem to occur to them that I had saved them, which was honestly a relief. I had no intention of babysitting them to the very end anyway.
“It’s raining right now, so just run. Get out of here.”
The moment my calm voice rang out, countless eyes snapped toward me at once. I wasn’t exactly the theatrical type, so the attention felt incredibly uncomfortable.
“Who… who are you?”
“That’s none of your business. If you don’t want to die, you’d better run as far from this place as possible.”
“Pardon?”
“A tidal wave is coming soon.”
“Was this place even near the sea?”
“Run? But how? There are definitely guards outside.”
The people were still panicking, but my plan had become much simpler than before. Once I found Einy, I would simply incinerate the entire area. It was the crude but efficient method of burning down the house to kill the cockroaches.
There were over a hundred Blood Wing members. There was no way I was going to waste time killing them one by one. Using a wide-area attack would be far more efficient. And it wasn’t like I couldn’t do it. I could.
“Just follow this man. He’ll lead you out.”
“……Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“But I’m part of this slave trading ring…”
Crackle.Adore let out a loud, dangerous spark and drifted menacingly closer to the man’s head.
“I mean, I can just betray them! I’ll do whatever you order! Of course I will! All I need to do is get everyone safely outside, right?”
Nothing like a threat to your life to sharpen someone’s ears. I gave a light nod.
“Take the people to the nearest wall. That glowing fellow above your head will break it down for you. It’s storming, so no one will notice the lightning either.”
“……Um, could you please get this thing off my head? I’m feeling a rather severe threat to my life right now…”
[From my experience, that’s not going to happen.]
“No can do.”
While the nameless Blood Wing member wore a look of utter despair, Rai’s cheerful voice brushed past my ear. As expected, my little spirit took after me—he had a definite sadistic streak.
[Uahaha! I know Master very well. He’s probably learning exactly how that human slave feels right now, down to the bone.]
“That almost sounds like you’re saying you know how a slave feels, Rai?”
[Hey, you! What are you doing?! Hurry up and save the people already!]
Look at him trying to change the subject.
Of course, no one else could hear his voice. I continued watching the slave trader line up the prisoners while still gripping Rai’s neck. I observed him carefully to make sure he wasn’t trying any tricks, all while quietly debating whether I should kill him or let him live.
“Headcount complete! We can leave anytime!”
“Hmm…”
“It’ll only take two minutes to reach the nearest wall!”
“What are our chances of escaping?”
“I’m the one in charge of patrolling this sector at this hour, and since I’m here… eighty percent! Plus it’s raining!”
I could practically hear the sound of him pledging eternal loyalty. So this was the extent of loyalty among scum. I stroked my chin beneath my hood and asked,
“You really want to live that badly? Even if it means sucking up to me?”
“Of course!”
“And what will you do once you’re alive?”
“There’s… plenty to do…?”
“But even if I spare you, you’re still a slave trader. That’s why I was planning to kill you.”
Did he really think I’d let him live? The look of shock on his face was almost comical.
Slave traders were the one type of person I genuinely despised. I wanted to kill him right then and there, but then he wouldn’t cooperate. So for now, I decided to offer him a carrot.
“Here’s the deal. If you help me get everyone out and find Einy, and you’re still alive by the end, I’ll spare you.”
“That doesn’t really sound like you’re sparing me…”
“You heard right. But even a straw looks like a lifeline when you’re drowning, doesn’t it?”
I smiled and patted his shoulder. He trembled with an awkward expression. Maybe he felt a chill. It was getting pretty cold with the rain.
“And before you head to the wall, tell me where the second prison is.”
“It’s on the opposite side. Right in front of the main gate, so it’ll be easy to find… However, unlike this place, it has heavy security. This area is more of a back corner.”
“Got it. Now take them and go.”
“……What about you?”
“I said go.”
It was foolish of him to expect an answer. I wiped the smile from my face and hardened my expression. The man, now Adore’s hostage, practically fled up the stairs with the slaves in tow.
I followed behind them, met their bewildered gazes, and personally slammed the iron door leading to the prison shut.
After closing off the exit and turning around, I saw a staircase leading downward, swallowed by ever-deepening darkness.
I stared into the pitch-black abyss without Adore for a moment, then raised my right hand.
Rai silently slid from my fingertips and vanished down the stairs without a sound.
“Eat everything.”
I didn’t need to explain. He already knew exactly what I wanted. Still, I spoke the words aloud.
“Leave nothing behind.”
Devour every last piece of metal that made up the prison. Consume even the remnants buried deep in the ground. Erase it so completely that it would be as if nothing had ever existed there.
While I was moving toward the second prison, a massive thunderclap roared so loudly it made my ears ring and drained my mana.
That told me Adore had successfully smashed through the wall. I’d been a little worried since he wasn’t the best at following instructions, but it seemed everything went fine.
The rain grew heavier by the second.
Not a single drop touched me, of course. After all, what could be more ergonomically and supernaturally perfect as an umbrella than Undine floating above my head?
As I continued walking, I ran into several spear-wielding guards. Before they could even make a sound, they became Undine’s prey.
You could say that running into a water spirit master on a rainy day was such terrible luck it deserved to become a proverb.
“Grrraaawkk!”
If I trapped someone in a sphere of water and released them right before they drowned, I’d be left with a half-dead body in a coma. If they didn’t receive urgent artificial respiration, they’d likely end up a vegetable. But whether they lived or died didn’t matter to me. I left the unconscious men behind and kept moving.
Since I planned to kill them all anyway, their lives held no value to me.
It took quite a while of trudging through the downpour before I finally spotted the pitch-black main gate. It had clearly been built massive and sturdy with the intention of preventing anyone from escaping.
Even from a distance, I could tell how thick the iron door was. To my eyes, however, it might as well have been an automatic sliding door.
I adjusted my hood and looked around.
There was definitely another prison nearby, but the heavy rain made it hard to see. Detecting presence was difficult too.
“Hmm… He definitely said it was right in front of the main gate.”
[Master, I sense a similar amount of metal in that direction as the previous prison.]
“Oh ho.”
Looks like I needed to give Rai another nickname.
Metal Detector! It would be incredibly useful for finding coins buried in beach sand. It also seemed perfect for locating gold veins. Wait, could it find diamond mines too?
[I can suddenly feel… a massive surge of greed coming from Master.]
“The more money, the better.”
I’d look for mines later. For now, it was time to raid the second prison.
The second prison had been built directly across from the main gate, likely so they could immediately house newly captured slaves. As expected, it had a sturdy iron door—double-locked, no less. But the moment Rai touched the tangled mechanism with his hand, it opened effortlessly.
I opened the door as easily as breathing and stepped inside.
Any door locked in front of me was meaningless.
If I wanted to, I could become the greatest thief on the continent. Not that I’d ever bother with such a bothersome profession.
“Finding a gold mine would be much more profitable.”
[Why are you suddenly so obsessed with gold mines?]
“I just realized a new function of yours.”
Humming a small tune, I descended the stairs leading to the prison with light steps, as if I were simply out for a stroll.
It was only after reaching the basement that I began to wonder why there were no guards here.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, the guard stationed at the underground prison threshold thrust a sharp spear tip straight at me. Crap.
The rain must have masked his presence.
“Aaaargh!”
Having Rai with me made such things irrelevant, though.
The guard who had suddenly lunged from the darkness witnessed a miracle—the spear he had thrust at me melted and dripped away like water. Before he could even react to the shock, Rai shot forward and wrapped around his neck in an instant.
Rai’s golden body shone with red eyes that didn’t suit him at all as he applied pressure. A short, sharp sound echoed through the dark prison.
Crack.
It was the sound of a neck breaking.
I blankly watched the burly man—who I hadn’t even gotten a proper look at—collapse limply to the floor with a thud, then muttered in disbelief.
“……You killed him?”
[I-It was an accident…]
For a brief moment, an awkward silence filled the air. Perhaps because the sudden ambush had made it hard to control his strength, Rai glanced at me nervously, like an elephant that had accidentally stepped on a baby chick.
I knew better than anyone that it hadn’t been intentional.
“What are we going to do about this?”
[Well… I didn’t mean to…]
“I was planning to let Grack be my first kill!”
[Ah, so that’s the problem?]
“As usual, nothing ever goes according to plan.”
[You already committed your first murder when you were ten. The Bee Swarm, remember? Have you forgotten those guys?]
Realizing he didn’t need to walk on eggshells anymore, Rai spoke in a bright voice and climbed back up my body. Wrapping around my ankle, sliding up my leg, passing over my belt, and settling on my shoulder—it all happened in the blink of an eye. It was a familiar routine for both of us.
If anyone ever tried to strike me, Rai would already be in that exact spot. He was practically a piece of living partial armor with built-in mobility.
The reason I could wander around so fearlessly was largely thanks to Rai and his overwhelming defensive power.
“How could I forget? But that was different from now. I didn’t kill them directly.”
[And now?]
“You killing someone is the same as me killing them.”
[Hmm… I already killed him. What now?]
“Ugh, I guess there’s nothing we can do. I was planning to kill them all at once later anyway, so let’s not worry about it.”
I dug at my ear, then casually kicked the dead man’s body into the corner.
In your next life, please don’t be born human. And if you must be born, make sure you’re born a slave.
I don’t know if it was strange of me, but I didn’t feel even the slightest bit of pity for slave traders, even in death.