Chapter 30: Chapter 30: Tidying up

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

It’s been a few minutes since I ran into the forest with mister Bhav. Ahead of us I could see the flickers of human figures.

“Just as I thought, there have been no trackers so far. Mister Bhav, I’m going to call out to them, but stay vigilant, alright?”

“S-sure.”

“Also, I use a bow, so I’ll stay behind you, but you absolutely must not turn around.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Just in case.”

Though it would be best if it doesn’t come to that.

“Mister Arim! It’s Yuuri. We came to save you!”

“—What?!”

Seemingly surprised, mister Arim stopped in his tracks. I guess this would be surprising.

That [Teleportation] trap is supposed to be a rarely set contraption in labyrinths and the like. It’s a snare that drags you off to another floor. It was quite a large-scale trap.

Indeed, to the point where it’s practically a waste to place it on a back road with so few people.

“We’re heading back. Mister Elric, come this way.”

“What happened to the others?!”

“They came along. ‘Without losing a single person,’ everyone’s safe. The others are heading off towards Alec.”

“I-I see…”

“We captured the bandits too, so “Who is the mastermind?” is something we’ll know the answer to soon.”

If I’m right, he shouldn’t be able to shrug it off when I say this.

“Shit, those useless idiots! Don’t you guys come any closer!”

“sigh, so… it’s true?”

That trap isn’t the kind of thing that can be easily installed. Moreover, it’s unbelievably inefficient to set it up on a detour route where so few people travel.

In which case, the snare was probably there with us as the target.

The ones who worked on it were probably some guys mister Prokel contacted when he separated from our group on that rainy day.

The two days since then were probably the set-up period for the trap.

“You used the [Teleportation] trap to split up the group. You were going to let the inexperienced escorts get wiped out. Then, if you disguised it as a raid, the cargo would fall into your hands, is the long and short of it I think.”

“You bitch…”

“If mister Elric reported that you fell into a high level trap and barely escaped with your lives, then nobody would suspect you of a thing. Your reputation would fall, but you could continue being adventurers.

You probably wouldn’t even have a problem with the breach of contract penalty. You would have the 20,000 gold coins from among the cargo after all.”

If we converted that to Japanese yen, it would be around 200,000,000. Split between 20 people, it would be 10,000,000 each? The profit lowers with more people, but even so that’s quite the sum.

You could probably easily live a life of luxury for a year. I guess in this world you could manage for 3 years?

“Aside from mister Elric, everyone in the merchant group would be slaughtered, and you would say that some people from your party died too. If your party are the only ones who make it back alive, then suspicions would fall on you instead, after all. Once things cool off, if they just come back and say, “actually, I survived,” then it’ll probably end with everyone being glad for you.”

“You’ve even…”

“Was Alec’s survival outside of your plans? He may not look like much, but they call him “The One-Armed Heavy Swordsman,” you know. He should be turning the tables on your buddies around now.”

Though I don’t actually know if they’re alive or dead yet. When Alec doesn’t have a great sword, he suddenly becomes a total wuss, so…

Well, my Master went after him, so I’m sure everything is fine.

“”Heavy Swordsman”… which means that other guy is “Haster”?”

“And they call me “Yuuri”. I’m sure you know what that means.”

The apprentice of the Wind Sage, and Alec’s companion is known far and wide. Aside from mine and Alec’s faces anyway.

“Fuck. Don’t come any closer! If you come over here, who knows what’ll happen to this guy!”

“Hiii?!”

Arim takes mister Elric hostage and hides behind him. I don’t have to address him as “mister” anymore, right?

“I’ll be disposed of by the guild if I’m caught anyway! So I’ll just have to show you how good I am at getting away.”

“I’m afraid that’s already impossible.”

“Won’t know unless I try it. Your magic, or my sword, wanna test which one is faster?”

“At this distance it would overwhelmingly be my magic.”

“Except… if my target is this man’s neck, that’s a different story.”

It’s impossible to miss the magic circle that appears when a spell is activated. With that time, it would be easy to slit mister Elric’s throat with the sword pointed at it.

Thinking normally anyway…

“Certainly, if it’s his life that’s on the line, then you will probably be faster.”

“Heh, which means…”

“However, I have no need to go along with your bargaining.”

“Yo-you’re going to abandon him?!”

“I’m begging you, save… Hii!”

“Please, relax. Miss Leche made a request. Of course I’ll save you.”

Saying that, I remove my [glasses] slowly, making no sudden movements.

And then… the moment I removed my glasses, all reason disappeared from their eyes.

With the effects of “Golden Ratio” released, the fascination effect left them without a single thought.

Not about hostages, or escape, or gold… with their restraint torn, all their thoughts disappear, and the only thing left in their minds is an insatiable lust for me.

In a practical sense, the fascination effect happens immediately, but it takes tens of seconds for their restraint to go away completely.

Except, those effected by fascination can’t take their eyes away, and if they can’t take their eyes away, then before long they fall into insanity. This gift has that vicious cycle within it.

“Aa, aaaa… AAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaa!!”

Raising an idiotic groan, Arim pushes mister Elric away.

Without thinking about anything, he comes this way to attack me. Well, without “being able to think” about anything I guess?

“Uwah! What the?!”

With the abrupt change in situation, mister Bhav hurriedly brings his sword into a stance. Why were you sitting here relaxing?

Mister Elric was also fascinated, and after being pushed down, he got back up and started running this way.

I’ll extend my apologies, but I have to take him down too.

Using wind, I lower the atmospheric pressure, and activate a weak [Electric shock].

I throw it towards the two rushing forward to paralyze them.

“BUGYAN!”

“PIGYAA!”

“UGYABU!”

The flying electric shock is led by the unsheathed sword.

Three people, three screams. And convulsions.

Ah… it’s because you took your sword out, mister Bhav…

~*~

“That was horrible… my body is still tingling.”

“Look, I’m really sorry about that.”

After that, I tied up Arim and we went back to the meet-up point while mister Bhav carried him.

He’s been lodging complaints about how I got him caught up in the spell like this the whole way.

“I figured, since it’s Yuuri we’re talking about, she would do something klutzy. So you damaged your allies this time?”

“It was an unavoidable accident.”

“Certainly, it was unavoidable… since it was an attack from behind.”

“I’M SORRY!”

Mister Bhav had my Master’s healing spell (experimental type) cast on him, and is recovering now.

For mister Elric, I cast my healing spell (also experimental) on him for his recovery.

“Who would have thought the Vultures would be in cahoots with bandits.”

“Now that you mention it, they’ve been adventurers for 10 years, and the reason they got stuck half-way in the ranks is because they had a lot of failed requests.”

“Sounds like they have a lot of other crimes.”

We piled all the luggage on to one carriage, and after tying Arim and the surviving bandits up, we tossed them into the empty carriage. With Alec and my Master watching over them, we resumed our journey.

We should reach the border checkpoint in about a day, so we’ll have to put up with them until then.

Thanks to that, Marle and I have to walk, but we all agreed, “We don’t have any food to give to bandits!” As such, we disposed of one porter’s worth of luggage, so we’ll call it even.

We’ll be giving only water to the bandits for 2 days.

“So, the road over here will work, right?”

“Yeah, the mountain road is close to here, so…”

We were following a detour path around the mountain, but the other end of the [teleporter] was a place close to the mountain road, and so that became the shortest route.

Incidentally, we came across their hideout and collected their loot, so our wallets instantly recovered.

“Jewels, weapons, gold coins… I guess they wouldn’t really have much use for drills or other mining tools.”

“Looks like roughly 1000 gold coins?”

“Splitting it evenly, we’d each get 125 gold coins…? Wow.”

“Is it really alright to split it evenly? Anyone can see that you guys played a more active role here.”

“Yeah, we don’t mind. As long as we raise enough for our travel expenses, we won’t have any problems.”

The members of Forest Bear shivered a bit in the face of a never before seen big haul.

Anyway, why did we omit Marle’s portion of the spoils? Not that it’s a big deal.

We agreed that any “loot” we won halfway through is the property of the adventurers, so the property of the bandits was divided between us.

Anyway, as porters we had no rights to the goods, but of course with how active a role we played, they weren’t going to say, “You guys don’t get any part of this!”

And, in fact—

“Sir Alec, are your injuries alright? Should I hold your luggage for you?”

“Uhh no, I’m fine.”

“I never would have guessed that you were THE “Heavy Swordsman” Alec! I apologize for being so disrespectful to you up until now!”

“Yeah, I really don’t mind.”

“By the way Alec, want to try crossing swords with me once?”

“… I’ll take a rain check.”

Mister Jack started worshiping Alec, calling him big bro, which just seems abnormal if you see it without any context. He’s at least 5 years older after all.

It seems that mister Kale wants to try having a match with Alec, and has been making that request a number of times.

And then there’s—

“Master Haster. About the efficient transmission of magical power for [Light arrow], I’d like to ask…”

“Aaah, I’m on vacation right now, so…”

“Yeah, come on Oreas. By the mister Haster, what are your plans in Solkalis? If it’s alright with you, could we have dinner—“

“FUSHAA——!!”

Mister Oreas is bombarding my Master with questions, miss Bella is trying to seduce him, and I’m trying to make them back off from this intimidating situation.

Marle is being pampered on miss Leche’s lap, where she’s sitting to make more room in the carriage.

Miss Leche, stop it with the occasional looks in my direction. Even like this, I’m actually an adult, so please don’t expect me to sit on your lap.

And actually, don’t touch me…

“Oh right, Yuuri.”

“hm, what is it?”

“Thanks. About the great sword. Enchanting it for me.”

In any case, that’s a top secret matter, so we disposed of mister Jack’s sword.

Right now he’s carrying a spare great sword that we found in the bandits’ hideout.

To the unusually meek attitude that Alec is showing—

“… But of course.”

I said, as I stuck my chest out.

The next day we arrived at the Novelius border city, Rahon, without any trouble along the way.

With this, our journey is half-way over.

---------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: The bandit section ends here. A new development begins next.