Chapter 146
Chapter 146
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 146
Chapter Title: Chapter 45. Frigid Plains (2)
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3.
What was the most essential thing for adventurers?
It was a question that could draw all sorts of answers.
But the responses from veteran adventurers were strikingly similar.
“The market.”
Nothing was more important than the market.
“Adventuring takes money.”
And rightly so, for money was the most crucial thing for an adventurer.
It wasn’t everything.
But without money, a proper adventure was practically impossible.
On top of that, the only way adventurers could make money was by selling the items they obtained.
There was also that aspect.
“Items are necessary too.”
It offered a chance to acquire items they couldn’t get on their own.
“Otherwise, why would there be adventurers who adventure through markets?”
The market was important in all sorts of ways.
“But even those adventurers avoid the Elnas Market.”
Yet the Elnas Market, located in the Elnas Mountains, was the one place adventurers shunned the most.
That’s how it was.
The atmosphere of the Elnas Market was that chilling.
To be precise, the reputation of those who had set up shop there was extraordinary.
“There are just too many people who look like you’ll bleed if you ruffle their feathers the wrong way.”
A good number of them were infamous across the Maple World. For all the wrong reasons.
“But the Elnas Market is still better than most. It has its own rules. No need to worry too much.”
Of course, the Elnas Market was a precious stage for the outlaws who gathered in the Elnas Mountains, and many made efforts in their own way to protect that stage.
But laws don’t hold sway over outlaws forever.
And so it came to be.
“As long as it’s not the back market.”
A market for outlaws, known as the back market.
“No sane outlaw goes there.”
Naturally, the things traded there were nothing like the usual goods in regular markets.
“Ralph.”
At that explanation, Dibo promptly tossed out a question.
“What the hell gets traded there for you to talk it up like that? Huh?”
El Pam provided the answer to that question.
“ Lives.”
“Huh?”
“Adventurers’ lives. That’s what they trade.”
“Lives?”
Dibo tilted his head at the response, then let out a smirk.
“Hey, don’t all adventurers risk their lives anyway?”
He seemed to think it referred to lives risked in perilous adventures.
Of course, if that were the case, the back market wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous.
“No, not those kinds of lives. It’s requests to kill adventurers.”
“Huh?”
“They call it the assassination market too.”
“Assassination market?”
Only then did everyone react with shock.
“Who the hell does crazy shit like that?”
On one hand, it was incomprehensible.
When there were endless money-making opportunities in the world, earning coin by killing adventurers?
Sure, such people existed.
Take the Hashashin of the Nihal Desert, for example.
But the Hashashin didn’t assassinate for money alone.
For them, assassination was merely a means to maintain power and grow their group. That’s why even requesting an assassination from them wasn’t easy. Regular adventurers couldn’t dream of it.
And yet, to do it like trading items?
“The crazies who pull that kind of stunt are the ones who come here.”
But with El Pam’s follow-up explanation, everyone understood.
That’s when it happened.
“Here.”
El Pam stopped in front of a building.
“Here?”
The building looked utterly ordinary.
Just one of the many structures lining the Elnas Market.
But no one questioned its plainness.
‘There’s something to it.’
If El Pam said so, the inside couldn’t possibly be ordinary.
Naturally, everyone thought the same.
‘Getting in won’t be easy.’
They’d surely need a password or some secret method to enter.
Creak!
‘Huh?’
But contrary to everyone’s expectations, El Pam opened the door in the most mundane way possible and walked in.
And there it was.
“Welcome! Are you here to eat, or for a room?”
A boy greeting El Pam’s party with a youthful smile.
“And so I told that Yeti bastard...”
“The Hector pack surrounded us, and there had to be at least a thousand of them. No bullshit, for real.”
The interior was packed with adventurers swapping exaggerated tales of their exploits.
It was an ordinary inn, the kind you could find anywhere in the Maple World.
Not in the least bit matching the words “back market.”
“This the place?”
To the doubtful Dibo, El Pam replied.
“It is.”
“Looks totally normal no matter how I squint at it.”
As he took a seat, El Pam calmly responded to the question.
“It is a normal place.”
That was the moment.
“Ready to order? Or do you need a room?”
“A room.”
“I’ll show you right up!”
At those words, the youthful staff member promptly led El Pam’s party to room 304 on the third floor.
The moment they entered the room, El Pam said.
“Push the bed aside.”
“The bed?”
“There’s an entrance underneath.”
“Oh!”
They quickly shoved the bed away, and just as El Pam said, a door appeared in the floor.
Naturally, Dibo reached to open it right away.
That’s when El Pam grabbed his shoulder and said.
“Open it straight away, and you’re dead.”
“Huh?”
In front of the startled Dibo, El Pam inserted prepared mesos into a hole in the door.
Clink clink!
It sounded like the mesos passed through the door and fell onto stairs beyond.
Exactly nine times.
Only then did El Pam open the door, and everyone could see.
Stairs leading to the back market.
“No one’s there?”
Dibo tilted his head at the sight.
“If there’d been no sound, we’d be attacked the second we went down.”
“Oh!”
Everyone nodded at the explanation.
And they were shocked at the same time.
Shocked that such a world existed.
But that shock changed the moment they descended the stairs and reached the underground market at the bottom.
‘My god.’
For one, the underground market was far larger than anyone had imagined.
‘Incredible.’
Dozens of buildings underground!
‘But isn’t it just a market?’
On the other hand, aside from that, it was hard to spot any major differences from the Elnas Market above ground.
Adventurers gathered, trading or eating—a typical market scene.
But that thought didn’t last.
“Boss, doesn’t look particularly dangerous.”
At the question, El Pam pointed to a nearby bulletin board with his finger, and everyone saw it.
‘Insane!’
The bounty list filling the board.
Literally.
Like wanted posters, with info on adventurers and their bounties.
There was one key difference from regular wanted posters.
‘They’re all famous adventurers?’
They weren’t criminals but rather renowned adventurers.
‘That one?’
‘Cygnus Knights?’
Some were even from the Cygnus Knights.
It was mind-boggling, and everyone was stunned.
The most stunned among them was.
“Oh ho.”
Ralph. He grinned and spoke.
“Oh ho? Find something fun?”
“Over there.”
“What?”
“That one.”
El Pam’s party on the wanted list.
“Ten million mesos. Not bad.”
The amount was quite substantial.
Ten million mesos was more than enough for most adventurers to change their lives.
“Which bastard?”
Of course, from the parties’ perspective, it was absurd.
Any adventurer seeing that would surely charge at El Pam’s party to kill them.
El Pam was the exception.
He wasn’t surprised.
‘Still the same.’
He knew this place better than anyone.
He couldn’t not know.
‘My head was on the line here once too.’
El Pam’s name had been on that ceiling board before.
That’s how he learned.
‘The followers of the Black Mage pissed me off.’
That the back market was created by none other than the Black Mage’s followers.
A place to eliminate adventurers who interfered with their plans, using other adventurers.
From that viewpoint, it was natural for El Pam’s party to have a bounty here.
They were the adventuring party disrupting the Black Mage’s followers’ movements the most right now.
In any case, El Pam knew the back market well.
‘Never heard of a bard, though.’
But there was no bard in his memories.
Not that it was surprising.
History had already changed drastically.
What El Pam trusted here was one thing.
‘Whoever seeks the necklace of Iphia, wife of the Lion King, can only be someone ready to fight the Lion King.’
This person was no enemy.
‘There he is.’
“Are you the bard?”
That’s why El Pam willingly stood before the man cloaked in a robe, holding a harp.
“As you see.”
El Pam said no more at the response.
“Tell us a story.”
With those words, he placed the necklace of Iphia—brought from that Mystic Gate—into the box in front of the bard.
Ting ring!
The bard immediately began playing the harp.
“On the frigid plains, beneath endlessly falling snow, there was a witch. The witch made of ice spoke. Any who enter here without my permission shall freeze cold.”
It was the tale of the Witch of the Snowy Mountains, known to all hunters of the Elnas Mountains.
A chilling story.
Of a witch in the snowy mountains who had claimed countless adventurers’ lives.
Ting ring!
“To gain the witch’s permission, one must offer spoils at her altar.”
Truth be told, it wasn’t anything special.
Even among Elnas Mountains hunters, only a few believed the Witch of the Snowy Mountains still existed in this day and age.
Adventurers certainly didn’t.
So adventurers paid no particular mind to tales of the witch.
But El Pam’s companions were different.
Everyone thought.
‘He’ll send a message.’
This wasn’t just any story—it had to be information.
‘Related to Aran’s item.’
Information on Aran’s item, which was shaking up the Elnas Mountains and beyond, the entire Maple World.
El Pam’s companions focused every sense on the bard’s tale.
‘There’s something. Definitely a clue.’
As they waited for the message, the bard stopped playing the harp and said.
“That’s it.”
‘Huh?’
Everyone wore shocked expressions at the reply.
‘What the?’
The song ended without any message.
“Then, farewell.”
With that, the bard rose, gathered his box and harp, and vanished.
El Pam’s party stared in disbelief.
“B-Boss.”
Finally, Dibo spoke to El Pam cautiously, in a low voice.
“Something’s off here, right? Did we find the wrong guy?”
El Pam answered the question.
“We found the right one.”
“The right one?”
“I got the message loud and clear.”
“The message? No, what message?”
“The frigid plains. What we seek is there.”
Dibo’s expression grew even more shocked at the answer.
It wasn’t out of ignorance.
The frigid plains made sense. The bard’s tale was about the witch appearing there.
The problem was that the frigid plains were a vast expanse that took days just to cross.
Finding something there?
No different from searching for a needle in a desert.
Of course, El Pam knew.
It wasn’t just “frigid plains.” There was more to the clue.
“He told me exactly.”
“No, how do you know?”
“The intensity of the sound was different.”
“Huh? Sound intensity?”
“The intensity when he plucked the harp.”
While singing and playing, the bard had clearly signaled El Pam.
“Intensity? You can tell that apart?”
It was a signal only El Pam could pick up on.
“He saw right through me.”
In other words, failing to notice that much meant you weren’t qualified.
In any case, their next destination was set.
No reason to hesitate.
No reason to linger in this back market.
Time to leave.
That was the moment.
“A Mystic Gate hiding Aran’s item has been discovered!”
Someone shouted.
“It’s in the frigid plains!”
A shout that shook the Elnas Mountains.