Chapter 42
The next morning.
Jeong Yushin entrusted the inn's business to Silva and went to the monster dismantling shop.
When he returned from his third trip to the labyrinth, Darmong told him that the manager of the monster dismantling shop had returned from his absence.
The former wastrel who had once ruled the back alleys of the Eastern District.
The elf who had been beaten like a dog by Spirit Teacher Siemus and reformed.
Although he had left his life as a wastrel behind, he still wielded influence in the Eastern District, so there was a good chance he had information about the slave hunters.
After entering the Western District and walking for quite some time, he arrived in front of the monster dismantling shop.
It was the smell of blood, something he hadn't smelled in a long time.
When he entered the shop, Malon recognized Jeong Yushin.
“Hey! Aren’t you that Barbaroi?”
“Yes. Where is the manager?”
“He’s here.”
An elf wearing an eyepatch emerged from among the dismembered monsters.
The elf wore baggy work clothes and exuded an unmistakably decadent air.
The manager of the monster dismantling shop.
Aldein Ashwood.
“What is it?”
Aldein approached slowly with both hands in his work-clothes pockets and spoke.
“Do you know about those slave hunters?”
Aldein chuckled at Jeong Yushin's question.
“I do. Did Darmong tell you about me?”
“What are their names? Where are they?”
Aldein came closer and stared intently into Jeong Yushin's eyes.
Jeong Yushin's brows furrowed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Aldein grinned.
“It’s nothing. I’ll help you. It’ll take a day. But I have a condition.”
“What is it?”
“Help me with some work.”
Jeong Yushin's expression crumpled.
He was responsible for managing Darmong's inn. He wanted to return as quickly as possible.
“You mean now?”
“That’s right. That’s my condition.”
“Phew. All right.”
Jeong Yushin changed into work clothes and worked alongside Malon.
Thanks to leveling up and his improved perception, he could dismantle the monsters with ease.
Once he started working, he immediately became absorbed in it.
All distracting thoughts disappeared, and he devoted his entire mind to cutting, chopping, and tearing things apart.
His anxious mind slowly settled into stillness.
Evening came.
Those who had finished working gathered in the shop's yard, laid down a metal plate, and began grilling meat.
Jeong Yushin declined their invitations.
He had left the inn unattended all day.
He felt terribly sorry knowing Silva must have handled everything alone.
He strongly felt that he should at least go back and show his face.
Aldein spoke from behind Jeong Yushin as he left.
“I’ll go over tomorrow evening. Stay at your post.”
“Yes.”
Jeong Yushin hurried along and arrived at Darmong's inn.
The inn was quiet. Silva had probably already finished working and gone to sleep, as he wasn't downstairs.
Jeong Yushin looked around the inn once, scratched his head, and went up to his room on the second floor.
He dragged his tired body upstairs and threw himself onto the bed. Darkness descended.
* * *
The next dawn.
Feeling guilty, Jeong Yushin got up early, helped Silva clean the inn's hall, and washed dishes in the kitchen.
Jeong Yushin and Silva worked frantically from morning until evening.
Night came. After sending out the last customer, they finished tidying the entire inn hall.
Jeong Yushin and Silva settled onto the steps at the inn entrance with bottles of liquor in their hands.
Silva took a sip of liquor and sniffed the air.
“Looks like it’s going to rain.”
Jeong Yushin looked up at the sky.
It was difficult to tell beneath the dark night sky.
He could feel moisture in the night breeze as it lightly brushed past him.
The first rain of early summer?
His mind was restless.
‘That’s right!’
A weapon. He needed equipment. His longsword had broken on the fifth floor of the labyrinth, and his light armor had been shredded beyond repair.
The only usable weapon he had was the slave hunter's dagger in his possession.
It was the one he'd taken from Dito's son.
“I need to stop by the forge for a moment. Silva, go inside and get some sleep first.”
Silva tilted his head at Jeong Yushin's words.
“At this hour? There is somewhere open, of course, but wouldn’t it be better to go tomorrow?”
“There’s something I urgently need to buy.”
Jeong Yushin rose and ran to the forge in the Western District.
Boron’s forge was closed.
“What is it?”
He stopped a passing dwarf and asked.
“Huh? Boron? His new assistant swung the hammer wrong, hit Boron in the head, and knocked him flat.”
Einhofer, who bore the Hand Tremor Imprint, finally seemed to have caused trouble.
Jeong Yushin turned around and returned to the inn.
He couldn't go to another forge.
The problem was that he had brought only a little money, expecting to purchase equipment cheaply.
‘Damn it.’
His chest felt tight, and nothing was going his way.
He shouldn't have gone to the forge so late in the evening in the first place.
Jeong Yushin walked quickly.
His head began to burn, and his heart started pounding.
One or two drops of rain began to fall beneath the dark night sky.
‘What’s wrong with me.’
Jeong Yushin ran a hand through his increasingly wet hair and slowed his pace.
After walking for quite some time, he arrived back at the inn.
Clatter!!
He opened the inn door and went inside.
The dark inn was quiet.
Most of the lodgers had gone to the labyrinth, so it was always quiet at night.
But this silence was different.
Jeong Yushin's head slowly turned.
A wooden box sat on the table at the spot Jeong Yushin often used—the one closest to the counter.
Jeong Yushin approached the box as if in a trance.
A strong smell of blood seeped from the box.
He opened it with trembling hands.
Creeeak.
The opening of the box slowly widened, revealing its contents.
The head of a middle-aged female gnome.
Three heads of small gnome children.
One of the small heads was a face he already knew.
All four heads had their eyes gouged out.
The corners of their mouths had been stretched open to their ears, and
their mouths were crammed full of silver coins mixed with mashed food.
The children's faces were horribly contorted, as though they had suffered until the very moment they died.
“Uweeeeeek!!!”
Jeong Yushin bent over and vomited.
The reason Dito had betrayed the bottom-tier party.
The reason Dito had tried to kill him.
That reason was contained inside the box.
Clatter!!
The inn door opened.
Jeong Yushin raised his head.
Aldein stood there.
“It suddenly started raining. No wonder the weather felt so lousy.”
Aldein, wearing baggy work clothes, glanced at the box and spoke.
Step. Step.
Aldein shook the moisture from his work clothes and approached Jeong Yushin.
Creak.
Thump.
Aldein closed the box on the table.
Jeong Yushin stared blankly up at Aldein.
“What are you staring at so blankly for?”
Aldein bent down and placed a hand on Jeong Yushin's shoulder.
“Come to your senses.”
Aldein tapped Jeong Yushin's shoulder.
“You’re not coming to your senses.”
SMACK!!!
Jeong Yushin's face turned to the side. His cheek burned.
A light returned to Jeong Yushin's eyes.
Aldein grinned.
“I brought information. Do you want to hear it?”
Jeong Yushin nodded.
Aldein rose and shouted.
“Come in, everyone.”
Several people filed in through the inn entrance with disciplined bearing.
There were a boar beastkin, a cat beastkin, and a lizard beastkin, along with an elf and a dwarf. Several were familiar faces he had seen at the monster dismantling shop.
“Check around for any ambushes. And clean this up.”
Aldein covered his nose and pointed at the vomit.
Aldein's subordinates scattered, entering the second floor and the kitchen.
One of them brought a rag and broom from the storeroom and cleaned up the vomit.
“Sit down.”
Aldein sat at the nearest table.
Then he pointed to the seat across from him.
Jeong Yushin silently sat in the spot Aldein indicated.
Aldein took a note from inside his clothes and waved it.
“Can you read?”
“Not very well.”
A hoarse voice escaped Jeong Yushin's mouth.
“I’ll read it to you.”
Aldein began reading the note.
“The slave hunters are called the Crimson Hunters.”
“They came over from the Western Empire, laundered their identities in the southeastern Lionel Kingdom, and then gathered in the Labyrinth City.”
“Those bastards have quite a bit of money. They made a decent living kidnapping people from the Eastern Union. Karin tried to keep them in check, but honestly, she couldn't do enough.”
“···Thirty lower-ranking members and one mid-ranking member. That’s all.”
Aldein read through every word on the note in a rambling monotone, then yawned.
Jeong Yushin looked at Aldein.
“Where are those bastards now?”
“In the Eastern District.”
“Why does the Labyrinth City leave them alone?”
“They’re just a bottom-feeding group that cares only about money. There are plenty of groups like them. The big shots in the Labyrinth City have plenty else to do. The guards are busy too.”
“Why on earth...”
“Did you come here to petition me?”
Aldein's head tilted to the side.
“Did you come to say that the Labyrinth City's laws are wrong and that there’s no justice? Wake up, you stupid half-blood Barbaroi. You think you’ve become somebody just because you’ve been grinning among good people?”
Jeong Yushin glared at Aldein.
Aldein raised a finger and scratched at his eyepatch.
“Darmong, Karin, Mion, Siemus, Luke, Ashur.”
“Chief, we found a wolf beastkin in the storage shed in the yard. It seems strong drugs were forcibly administered.”
A cat beastkin who had come out of the kitchen interrupted Aldein.
“I’m talking here, you bastard.”
Aldein glared at the cat beastkin with his one remaining eye bulging wildly.
“S-sorry, Chief.”
The beastkin trembled and lowered his head.
Jeong Yushin gritted his teeth.
‘Silva.’
The face of the beastkin who always smiled quietly flashed through his mind.
Aldein tapped the box.
“Can’t you tell at a glance? Slave hunters don’t mess with the strong. They target the weak, those without backing, the city’s vermin. Look at that white wolf beastkin. That one’s drugged, but all four limbs are intact, aren’t they?”
Aldein leaned back leisurely and continued.
“What are you going to do? Hide in Mion’s skirts? Run to your swordsmanship master and cling to that master’s trouser leg? Can’t you stand on your own without the people around you?”
Murderous intent surged within him.
As if trying to kill him weren't enough, those bastards had given a starving child a few coins and made that child commit murder.
They were the ones who had gouged out the eyes and torn open the mouths of the child he had shown kindness to and that child's family.
Jeong Yushin raised his head.
“I’ll kill them. Every last one.”
Something dark stirred deep within Jeong Yushin's eyes.
Aldein stared into his eyes for a while, then grinned.
“That’s more like it. Your eyes are the same as when we first met. No, they’re even better now. Those are good eyes.”
The subordinates who had searched the inn stood in formation behind Aldein.
“Take it out.”
Aldein said it indifferently.
“Yes.”
An elf answered and took a set of clothes from a leather bag, placing it on the table.
A black coat.
“You don’t have any equipment, do you? Put it on. It’s made from monster hide and will stop most ordinary knife blows.”
Jeong Yushin looked at the coat and nodded.
Clatter.
Aldein unfastened the sword at his waist and placed it on the table.
“This is the sword I use. Draw it.”
The bodies of the subordinates standing quietly behind him flinched.
Though none of them said a word, their eyes grew as large as lanterns.
A long sword with a reddish hue.
Jeong Yushin grasped the sword.
Aldein watched every one of Jeong Yushin's actions as though he wouldn't let a single moment escape him.
Shing.
The sword revealed its form beneath the inn's dim lighting.
It was not an ordinary double-edged sword.
A thin, single-edged blade.
It looked like it could easily cut flesh, but would have difficulty cutting through armor.
“It may look that way, but it cuts well.”
Click.
Jeong Yushin slid the blade into its sheath.
“···Why are you going this far for me?”
At Jeong Yushin's question, Aldein rested his chin in his hand and thought deeply.
The inn was so quiet that not even the sound of a needle dropping could be heard.
Aldein's mouth slowly opened.
“If you need work, I give you work. If you need advice, I give you advice. When I see someone brimming with murderous intent, I feel like putting a sword in their hand. In short, it’s simply what I felt like doing.”
Aldein rose from his seat.
“This is all I can do for you. Those slave hunters are deep in the Eastern District, so be careful. I’ll give you a guide. He can’t fight alongside you.”
“..."
“Snub-nose, stay here and guide this friend. If he says he doesn’t want to go, just come back. Take this box, too, and look after that wolf beastkin. We’ll protect both until the job is done.”
“Yes.”
The boar beastkin bowed his head as he answered.
“I’m going.”
Aldein rose, walked away with loose strides, then abruptly stopped.
Then he returned to Jeong Yushin and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I forgot I was supposed to tell you this.”
Aldein’s lone eye curved like a crescent moon.
“Welcome to the Labyrinth City.”