Chapter 2
The human-trafficking guild was peaceful as ever today.
Inside a massive building brazenly situated in the middle of the city, slave hunters sold the people they had captured.
Then the guild members began sorting the people.
The fair-faced elves were sent mainly to brothels,
the dwarves who could tolerate going underground were sent to the mines,
and the sturdy, capable beastfolk were sent to the arenas.
The guild members sorted the demi-humans like merchants sorting fruit at a market.
Throughout this entire process, neither the guild employees nor the slave traders showed the slightest hint of guilt.
According to a culture that had originated in the empire that ruled this land a hundred years ago, it was perfectly normal for pure-blooded humans to treat demi-humans as slaves.
If they felt wronged, they could go to the demi-humans' territories, or become strong enough that humans couldn't lay a hand on them.
In other words, being weak was a crime.
Most of the people here genuinely believed that.
And besides, they weren't doing this because they particularly hated demi-humans.
As proof…
“Yes, we've confirmed you're a pure-blooded human. Please wait in the line over there, and they'll process you.”
They did this simply for money.
Whether someone was a demi-human or a human was hardly important.
If they were weak, easy prey, and had value, they were sold.
People going about their daily lives as if it were perfectly normal in a place where people were bought and sold.
A special person visited that place today.
“Sound the alarm! We're under attack! We're under attackaa!!”
Boom!
A guard threw open the main entrance and hurried inside.
While everyone there was wondering what was going on, a knight carrying a sword entered the building.
A shabby knight covered from head to toe in a suit of scrap-metal armor and wearing a dented helm.
Everyone there was horrified when they saw the red tail feather hanging limply from the knight's head.
“Fuck! Why is that monster here?!”
“What terrible luck! Run!!”
In the slave-trading guild that had descended into chaos, the red-plumed knight—our protagonist, Duke—took a deep breath.
‘Mmm. The stench of fucking criminals.’
They sold people.
Their karma scores had probably plunged into the negatives long ago.
In other words, no matter how Duke dealt with them, he would be innocent.
However, he hadn't come here to enact justice.
‘This was the guild that supplied test subjects to the mad scientist.’
That scientist was technically a mage scholar, but Duke simply called him a scientist.
‘What does that matter?’
After arbitrarily deciding someone else's identity for him, Duke returned to reality and reviewed his plan.
First, he would be captured as a slave by this guild so he could become that scientist's test subject.
However, he had built up a reputation as a wandering knight named ‘Duke Urwick’ over the years, so he couldn't allow himself to be captured pointlessly.
Even if he was going to be captured, he had to be captured miserably after pursuing justice to the bitter end.
That way, his descent into darkness would make sense, and no one else would suspect anything.
Duke cleared his throat and spoke with deliberate dignity, using the vocal technique he had practiced for a hundred years.
“Your sins have ultimately led me here.”
Duke waited for the slave traders' reactions.
Whether they resisted, cursed him, or responded in any other way, he was confident he could answer in kind.
But all he received in return was silence.
‘Huh. Was that too cringeworthy?’
While the knight of justice, Duke, was wondering inside his helm, one of the slave traders finally broke the silence and reacted.
“Eeeeeek! Save me! Mooooom!!!”
“···”
Starting with that slave trader, panic began to spread.
“Guards! Guards!! Fuck, he's getting away!”
“I’d rather die than be caught by that bastard… Sorry, big brother! Ghk.”
“The guildmaster is running!”
Duke could do nothing but harden his expression as he watched the chaos unfolding before his eyes.
He had merely shown up, yet everyone was either running away or killing themselves, and he couldn't have been more flabbergasted.
‘Criminals really don't have any guts.’
Duke sighed deeply inside and put Plan B into action.
Plan B—A cornered rat bites the cat.
With a gesture, Duke blocked every exit from the building.
He destroyed the emergency exits and blocked the windows with desks and chairs.
It was a declaration that no one would be leaving this place.
Only then did the rats finally bare their teeth.
“Damn it! Release the bees!”
“Will this work?”
“We'll die if we don't!”
Hearing the conversation between the guildmaster and his aide, Duke's lips twitched beneath his helm.
The rumors he had spread for years in preparation for this day had worked.
Duke was allergic to bee venom.
The criminals seemed to believe that wholeheartedly.
‘Almost there.’
Only then did Duke begin fighting in earnest.
He cut down the guards and security men charging at him with his battered sword.
He dodged a spear thrust at his side, seized it, and hurled it.
Thwack!
Without even sparing a glance for the three men now impaled and decorating the wall, he continued his one-man rampage.
The summoners released the bees, but Duke acted as though he had no time to deal with them.
Before long, the swarm drew near him.
‘Now!’
To ensure that the bees wouldn't be stopped by his armor, he lowered his head just enough for the greatsword aimed at his neck to graze his helmet.
Clang!
His helmet fell cleanly away.
Immediately afterward, an ice spike flew toward him, and Duke thrust out the joint of his left gauntlet.
Pieces of armor fell away with a discordant clatter.
“We did it!”
While the guards cheered at having stripped away his armor, Duke could barely keep the corners of his mouth under control.
He had smiled as much as he pleased beneath his helm, but now that his helmet was gone, his facial acting was important too.
Then the bees began stinging his exposed skin.
Of course, he hadn't simply allowed himself to be stung; to make it plausible, he pretended that his mana barrier had been punctured amid the melee.
“Ngh···”
Duke cried out in pain the instant a bee stung him.
At first, he continued swinging his sword without a care, but to anyone watching, he was clearly more wary of the bees than of the people.
After five minutes, his movements began to slow noticeably.
“It’s working!”
The slave traders cheered.
Duke cheered inwardly as well.
After rampaging desperately for about thirty minutes, Duke prepared his grand finale.
‘My sword is reaching its limit.’
In other words, it was time to perform the scene he had prepared.
He charged at the warrior wielding the enormous axe whom he had been watching for some time.
Then the hammer warrior who was the axeman's partner brought his hammer down beside Duke.
Duke defended against the hammer with his sword despite his impaired condition,
Clang!
and the sword, having reached its limit, finally shattered.
Duke was left empty-handed after his sword disappeared.
The axeman didn't miss the opening and buried his axe in Duke's chest.
‘Only this deep!’
Just before the axe struck, Duke poured mana only into his sternum and left his flesh and muscles unprotected.
A huge wound resembling a fatal injury, though not life-threatening, was carved into his chest.
“Cough!”
Duke bit down on a blood packet and spat blood as he rose again.
He surveyed the criminals with venomous eyes, then locked gazes with the guildmaster, who had been watching from a safe place.
At last, the knight of justice made one final resolve and charged toward the guildmaster, the source of all evil.
Countless spells rained down, arrows struck home, and guards and security men moved to block him, but they were all useless before the knight's determination.
Duke even smashed through the barrier and reached the guildmaster's side.
The guildmaster, white as a sheet, drew a musket pistol.
“I am Duke!!”
Like a knight charging a windmill, Duke roared and rushed at the guildmaster.
The guildmaster retreated as far as he could and pulled the trigger.
“Eek!”
Bang!
The bullet pierced Duke's chest.
That single shot brought Duke's final advance to a halt.
And the instant his outstretched hand, as if to snap the guildmaster's neck, reached the guildmaster's throat—
Thud.
the knight finally succumbed to reality and collapsed.
“Huff··· huff···”
The guildmaster sank to the floor and caught his breath.
Duke lay collapsed with his eyes closed, wearing an imperceptible smile.
‘The performance was good.’
With that, Duke's plan to get himself enslaved without arousing suspicion could be considered a success.
At that moment, the guildmaster loosened his tie as though he were feeling stifled and looked at Duke.
“Did we take him down?”
‘Hey, don't say lines like that. It makes me want to get up.’
Barely suppressing the impulse, Duke remained unconscious until the moment iron shackles were fastened around his neck.
***
The news that Duke had become a slave spread like wildfire through the underworld.
Various people, including those who held grudges against him and those who found him interesting, grew desperate to buy him.
However, this was not the situation Duke wanted.
His goal was to be sold to the scientist.
So he began his next plan.
It was nothing particularly difficult.
- “Huff! He's trying to escape!”
- “The bees! Bring the bees!!!”
He simply had to remain unsold until the scientist arrived.
Whenever it looked like he might be sold at auction, he put on an escape show, and if someone somehow bought him anyway, he folded that person's spine.
‘Strength solves everything.’
If something couldn't be solved, that meant he didn't have enough strength.
After repeating such behavior about eleven times, Duke had somehow become a bundle of clichés commonly seen in novels.
A valuable but troublesome defective product whose price had fallen because it was so difficult to handle.
And only after half a year of being held captive did his plan finally bear fruit.
The scientist, who had been regularly attending the auctions for several months, finally bought Duke, apparently because he could now afford him.
‘I did it!’
After doing the math, Duke realized he still had half a year before meeting the protagonist.
Now, all that remained was simple.
He only had to endure the scientist's experiments for six months.
It wasn't dangerous or difficult.
He would endure the experiments he could withstand, and if one genuinely looked like it might kill him, he would put on another escape show.
Duke gazed at the ceiling, deeply moved that his long buildup had finally paid off.
‘Did you see that, sky? I did it!’
He flipped the bird at a nonexistent god, brimming with a sense of accomplishment, then cleared his throat.
Now that he had been sold, it was time to deliver one of the knight's standard lines.
“Though my body may be bound, my convictions shall not be broken.”
It was a line most knights delivered when they were captured.
Its sister line was ‘Ngh, kill me,’ but that was a line exclusively for women, so he didn't use it.
‘Come on! Try any experiment you like on me!’
Duke waited for the scientist's response with eager anticipation.
However, the scientist's next action was nothing like what he had expected.
Click.
The key turned, and the handcuffs and collar came free without resistance.
“???”
The scientist—Retort—spoke to the flustered Duke.
“With this, you are free.”
“???”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, would you help me a little?”
The scientist smiled with his wrinkled face.
*
Retort was a scientist who was somewhat more exceptional than most, but also quite extreme.
He was someone who didn't begrudge a little sacrifice if it meant raising humanity's average level.
If he could develop a drug that increased the potential of tens of thousands of children yet to be born, then the sacrifice of a few hundred people in the present could be forgiven.
If he could find a way to break through the walls faced by superhumans, then he would gladly cut open the bellies of thousands of ordinary people.
If he could find a technique to restore the aged bodies of those who had reached a higher realm too late, then it was only rational to use the elderly of an entire village that was going to die anyway as materials.
Under this belief, he had committed every sort of deed, while steadily sharing his modest achievements with other superhumans.
To someone like him, the specimen called Duke that had suddenly appeared one day was impossible to refuse.
‘If I succeed in dissecting that man's genes, mana, and soul, humanity will advance another step.’
A wandering knight who had traveled throughout the kingdom, creating countless legends and tales of valor.
If he could uncover that knight's secrets, humanity would undoubtedly advance further.
Even the heavens were on Retort's side.
Duke had originally been worth an amount far beyond what Retort's budget could afford.
But thanks to his repeated escape attempts and the buyers he had killed, the price had fallen enough.
‘This is a revelation.’
Convinced that it was a revelation from fate, Retort purchased Duke.
- “Though my body may be bound, my convictions shall not be broken.”
Duke, now his purchase, glared at Retort.
In that instant, the deeds Duke had committed were listed in Retort's mind.
The man who had torn in half the wicked noble who bought him at auction and that noble's guards.
A chill ran down Retort's spine, but he maintained his composure on the outside.
‘The methods the others used until now are dangerous.’
He had no intention of repeating the mistakes of the idiots who had gone before him.
Retort was rational enough to be a scientist, so he chose a different method instead.
‘Treat him as an equal collaborator.’
He had never intended to cut open Duke's stomach or crack open his skull in the first place.
Since he wasn't going to perform only one experiment and be done with it, why would he cut open the belly of a goose that laid golden eggs?
Hurting Duke would be a loss for humanity.
Rather than kill him, it would be far more useful to his research to periodically obtain his blood, mana, and fragments of his soul.
As the first step, Retort wanted to offer him his trust.
“With this, you are free.”
“···”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, would you help me a little?”
Duke remained silent in response to Retort's question.
Retort waited anxiously for Duke's answer.
‘What is he thinking?’
Duke himself was thinking about something else entirely.
‘You're not this kind of person. Don't go soft on me. It's not as if I won't kill you anyway···’
Duke's whitewashing machine had no place for Retort.
Unaware of this, Retort took the silence as affirmation and led him to the laboratory.
And several months later.
The original protagonist Duke had been waiting for so eagerly—
Rex entered the room next door.