by Hiro Ainana
I deliberately kicked one of the stones at my feet to draw the hydra’s attention.
The monster reared its four heads and raised its bat-like wings in an intimidating posture.
When I concentrated on the four heads of the hydra in my mind, the target mark changed instantly to reflect my thoughts.
Fire.
I mentally pulled the trigger.
The spell consumed seventy magic points, and magic bolts the size of small spears appeared before me and fired at the hydra in rapid succession with a loud blast.
I wasn’t sure if it was because of my high level and stats or some ability, but time seemed to slow until I was watching it frame by frame.
The first Magic Arrow was blocked when the hydra produced a red film around its body. Arrows two and three struck the membrane, the fourth pierced it, and the fifth arrow bore straight into one of the hydra’s heads.
Before the impact could move the head away, the sixth and seventh arrows reduced it to pieces.
From the eighth arrow on, the only effect they offered was to splatter the remains of the head until nothing was left.
The arrows that had hit their mark continued on, pulverizing the dead trees, soil, and rocks behind them until the landscape was utterly transformed.
It was an overwhelming display of violence, as if I’d been firing a large-caliber autocannon.
After the one hundred and twenty Magic Arrows had finished annihilating the hydra’s four heads and the mountain behind it, the flow of time around me finally returned to its usual speed.
Pressing a hand to my ears in case I’d torn an eardrum, I checked the log to confirm the death of the hydra.
Having lost all its heads, the rest of the hydra was flung backward, wrecking the remaining half of the fort. The ensuing tremors, thanks to its immense weight, reverberated through my stomach.
I covered my mouth with a cloth to protect my throat from the dust in the wind.
I returned to Liza, who was stunned speechless.
“It’s over,” I told her.
“Master, please forgive my earlier foolish remarks. While I certainly knew that you were strong, I had never imagined this degree of—”
I casually hushed Liza’s dramatic display of surprise.
“Sorry, but could you keep that magic a secret from the others?”
“Yes, even if it costs me my life.”
Okay, you don’t need to take it that seriously.
“No, if your life is at stake for some reason, please just tell them.”
I accepted the reins from Liza and rode the horse over to the corpse of the hydra.
From up close, the immense creature was truly stunning. If I’d run into it in my original world, I probably would’ve been eaten before I could even think to run.
Amid the reddish-brown stained rubble lay brutalized bodies and broken weapons.
Although I’d been told that this was a hangout of ne’er-do-wells, I still couldn’t help feeling pity for their terrible deaths.
It wasn’t quite enough to make me want to bury the bodies, but I could at least have a moment of silent prayer for them before leaving.
We carried on over the blood-soaked ground, dismounting in front of the fort that was now the tomb of the hydra.
Once I landed on the ground, the slight whiff of iron in the air became a stench.
I asked Liza to recover the monster’s core, then retrieved one of the fallen swords at my feet and thrust it into the ground as a grave marker.
Then I pulled out a bottle of liquor to use for funeral rites—a far cry from its original purpose. I’d originally bought it in case I needed to bribe my way past this fort.
Sprinkling the liquid over the sword, I prayed for their souls to rest in peace.
While Liza was getting the core, I continued my investigation of the Muno Barony.
Returning to the search for enemies, I discovered a relatively high number of monsters level 30 and above.
In the mountainous area to the west-southwest of here, there were more hydras like the one I’d just defeated. My search had returned only one level-37 hydra, but on closer investigation, there were two more hydras of levels 29 and 24 over there, too.
The area was practically on the other side of the territory from where we were now. So that hydra traveled all the way from there? I don’t know what the cruising range of the average flying monster is, but they could be trouble.
Not that I’d have any difficulty dealing with them, since I had an antiaircraft spell now.
Most of them seemed to live in the mountains far away from the highway or human habitations anyway, so we probably wouldn’t encounter any.
I also found a single hell demon on the list. What’s more, he was located in the lord’s castle in Muno City. Most likely, he had employed a wicked plot that was responsible for the decline of this territory.
I examined the detailed information about the demon. He was level 35, a lesser hell demon like the eyeball I’d fought back in Seiryuu City. His race-specific inherent skills were “Flight,” “Transformation,” “Doppelgänger,” and “Lesser Magic Resistance,” while his general skills were “Psychic Magic” and “Ghost Magic.”
This time, I searched specifically for hell demons and found three others. All of them were level 1, with the title Doppelgänger. They must have been created by the stronger demon’s skill of the identical name.
These copies had the same inherent skills as the other demon save for “Doppelgänger,” though they had only one general skill of either “Psychic Magic” or “Ghost Magic.”
One was in Muno City, and the other two were in different towns. The one that had infiltrated Muno City was acting as a magistrate, among other things. I’d have to be careful of this guy.
Come to think of it, the demon in Seiryuu City was possessing a human…
Just to be sure, I searched the map for people with the status Possessed and found two knights.
There were higher-level knights to be found in the castle, but after a bit of comparison, I realized that they’d been chosen because they had the most crimes in their Bounty field. This made sense, since the guy being possessed in Seiryuu City was a villain, too.
Unless they posed a threat to my kids, I had no intention of deliberately setting out to defeat them, but it’d be another story if any of them got in our way like the hydra had. In that case, I’d use my full power to take care of them.
It’d be a huge pain if the lesser hell demon ended up summoning a greater hell demon and reprising the labyrinth incident in Seiryuu City, so I put a marker on all the demons and possessed knights so that I’d know if they went anywhere suspicious.
During our stay in the Muno Barony, I decided it’d be best to check the situation on the map at least twice a day, once in the morning and once at night.
If there were any signs of danger, we could make our move.
But, of course, the safety of the kids in my care came first.
As I finished my investigation of the demons, Liza returned.
“Master, I have recovered the core.”
“Great, thanks.”
I accepted the core and slipped it into a sack in the horse’s saddlebag. It was deep red, about twice the size of a softball. Examining the grade, I found it was a very high quality.
“I’m going to take a little break. Do you mind calling everyone over?”
“Yes, right away.”
After I gave instructions to Liza, I remembered the half-buried bulk of the hydra in the rubble of the fortress.
“I don’t want to worry everyone, so let’s keep this monster a secret.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Liza nodded meekly, then mounted her horse and left to summon the others.
After seeing her off, I went back to collecting information.
This time, I looked up the addressee of the letter I had been tasked to deliver for the old witch from the Forest of Illusions.
Whe
n I searched for giants, I found only one result. It was near the blank area in the large forest, so I guessed that the giants’ village was probably in there.
The old witch’s tower in Kuhanou County had been in a blank space, too, after all.
We could probably travel most of the way in the carriage, but if we wanted to travel on the side road leading into the forest, we’d have to take individual horses or go on foot. A peek with the map’s 3-D display confirmed this suspicion. The side road was about a twelve days’ journey away.
Next, I studied the distribution of people.
The population was awfully small. Though the barony was much larger than Seiryuu County, there were far fewer people. Muno City was the only place with over ten thousand people; the other towns and cities numbered only a few thousand at most.
There were several villages along the main road and the border, but most of them had only around fifty people.
And, consistent with the previous information I’d gotten about this place, many of the commoners’ conditions read Starving.
The discrimination against demi-humans in the Muno Barony was so severe that there wasn’t a single one in Muno City, and even the other towns and villages were entirely segregated.
Among the mountains more distant from the highway, there was a smattering of little settlements with less than a hundred demi-humans of the same variety.
In addition, there was an abandoned mine city, inhabited by kobolds, in the mountains near the west-northwest border. They belonged to the same clan as the ones that had hit the silver mines in Kuhanou County. The distance between the two was almost thirty miles, so I was impressed that they’d taken on such an expedition.
At any rate, the famine was even more severe than I’d expected.
If they could use this hydra as food, a lot of lives would probably be saved, like what they did with whaling in Japan after World War II…
Maybe it could be edible? The meat from the frog monster and the rocket wolves was delicious, and we might meet someone who knew how to cook it.
Each of the hydra’s necks was as thick as a horse’s body. I cut one into round slices of about three feet with the Holy Sword Excalibur and put them into Storage.
I stored the rest of the body, too, of course.
Suddenly, remembering what the hydra had been eating, I checked the details of the corpse in Storage. It was possible to remove the contents of the stomach separately.
Using the Pitfall spell, I made a hole about fifteen feet wide and deep.
I emptied the contents into my pit: the bodies of the victims from the fort. I knew I wouldn’t want to see the state they were in, so I averted my eyes.
I moved away until I wouldn’t be able to see what was inside the hole, offered another moment of silence for the victims, and left the fort.
> Title Acquired: Gravedigger
After descending the slope in front of the fort, I dismounted from my horse about thirty feet away and waited for everyone.
I took a deep breath of the dry air, then released it slowly, hoping to dispel the emotions that had settled over my heart like rust.
Having been in this parallel world for a while, I should have been used to encountering death by now, but it still just didn’t feel good.
As Lulu and Arisa waved at me from the coachman stand, I returned the gesture as I tried to pull myself together and ran to meet the carriage.
Once I met back up with everyone, I returned the horse to Nana and had Lulu drive while I soothed my heart playing old maid with the younger kids in the back using a handmade set of cards.
About two hours after we’d left the fort, Liza and Nana returned from their scouting mission.
“There are several men and women sitting on the side of the road some distance ahead, sir.”
“Master, they did not appear to be hostile, I report.”
The people turned out to be the head of a village, his granddaughter, and two other young serf women.
I had already seen that there weren’t any dodgy creatures or robbers along our way, but I had sent them ahead because I didn’t know what these four were up to.
“I wonder why?”
“Well, this gives us a chance to hear out what the locals have to say.”
Brushing off Arisa’s suspicion, I checked our food supply in Storage. Some of our lower-quality meat like bear or brown wolf could probably serve as a suitable payment for information.
I took over the coachman’s position from Lulu and headed toward the intersection between the main road and the village road where the four were waiting.
When our carriage entered their field of vision, the man who was apparently the village chief leaped to his feet and hailed us with a wave and a yell.
His granddaughter was on my radar, too, but I couldn’t see her. She must have been hiding in the shadows.
“Can we help you with something?”
“I’m the chief of the village over yonder. You’re a peddler, ain’tcha?”
While I exchanged introductions with the leader, I reviewed their information.
My AR display said the man was forty-three years old, but he looked like he was in his sixties. Just as his Starving condition implied, he was gaunt and rather pale.
Despite the cold, he wore no coat over his filthy-looking tunic.
The serf girls, who were in their early twenties, were probably freezing as they sat on the side of the road. They wore nothing but simple sack dresses of unbleached cloth, and their feet were bare. Furthermore, the dresses were so short that the girls were in danger of flashing their underwear just by walking normally.
Strangely, they seemed better nourished than the village chief. They were certainly skinny, but they didn’t have the Starving condition.
After we finished our introductions and standard chat about the time of year, we finally reached the meat of the conversation.
“See, there’s something we’d like you to buy.”
“You don’t mean those serf girls, do you?” I asked.
The village chief shook his head.
“No, no. Come over here.”
“Sure.”
The man’s granddaughter crawled out from a little hollow off to the side of the road. She was gaunt, like the others.
She was wearing what appeared to be her grandfather’s coat, and the hem dragged along the ground as she approached.
“What I want you to buy is my granddaughter. She’s still young, but if she grows up anything like my daughter, who was the most beautiful girl in the village, she’s sure to be—”
I cut him off there.
“You want to sell your own granddaughter into slavery?”
“If she stays here in the village, she’ll starve to death, like as not. The soldiers at that fort might kidnap or kill her…”
The village chief averted his eyes bitterly.
So the stories I heard in Kuhanou County weren’t just rumors.
“By my reckoning, she’d be better off getting bought by a kindly seeming merchant such as yourself.”
Personally, I think it’s best for a family to stay together even if they’re poor, but then again… I’ve never been starving to death.
The chief was eyeing the healthy-looking faces of the younger kids as they were peering out from the carriage.
“Please buy me, Mr. Merchant.”
The chief’s granddaughter spoke very clearly for such a young girl. Her expression was solemn, and it looked so desperate that I was a little intimidated.
“Please! If the village can buy rations with the money, so many young children will be able to make it through the winter…”
The girl folded her hands in front of her face pleadingly.
Arisa was gazing at me with wide eyes, but I had no intention of buying this child.
“I’m sorry, but I have plenty of slaves.”
Really, they’re more like family than slaves anyway.
My flat refusal left the chief’
s granddaughter in despair, and she lowered her head miserably.
At this, one of the serf girls who’d been watching with great interest stood up.
“Chief, is it our turn to negotiate?”
“…Go ahead.”
The two serfs removed their tattered clothing, exposing their naked bodies. They were so emaciated that it was more painful to watch than sexy.
“Mrrr, lewd.”
“E-excuse you!”
Arisa and Mia leaped out of the carriage to cover my eyes.
“S-so cold!”
“Yes, it’s especially cold today.”
Through Mia’s and Arisa’s fingers, I saw the two women hunch over for a moment, shuddering in the frigid air.
Well, yeah, that tends to happen when you take off your clothes outside in the middle of the winter.
“Mr. Merchant, wouldn’t you like to buy yourself a good time?”
The older of the two serf women struck an odd pose as she launched her sales pitch.
“The price is one copper coin, or you can fill this pouch with grains and potatoes.”
“Ah, of course, meat is welcome, too! It doesn’t have to be anything as fancy as rabbit or bird. Any meat will do just fine, even rats or monsters,” added the younger.
Monster meat, huh…?
Perfect, now I can find out what kind of meat is edible.
“Monster meat?”
“Yeah, insect monsters are usually pretty bad, but legs from crickets and grasshoppers and the like can be quite tasty—”
“There’s a shortage of food around here, see. We’re not forcing the serfs to eat monsters or anything.”
The village chief cut in with an excuse.
“They eat wyvern in Seiryuu City, too. I’ve had some before, so I’m not going to judge,” I reassured him, and he patted his chest.
Admittedly, I might have wrinkled my nose at it before we tried that rocket wolf meat, but not anymore.
“I don’t need any slaves or ‘good times,’ but there is something else I’d buy,” I said.
“Something else? I’m not sure what else you’re hoping to buy from a remote village like ours…”
“What I’m looking for is information.”
“Information?”
