Following the Trail (5)

After traveling for a long time, you sometimes run into outlaws such as highwaymen and bandits.

Since I can enlist the spirits' help, I'm quite good at sensing that sort of trouble, and can avoid most problems before they arise. Even so, it's not as though I've never been attacked by bandits.

But who would have thought...

"I never thought even a traveling merchant would attack me. The West really is dangerous."

I never expected an utterly ordinary traveling merchant to attack me, guards and all, just because I'd asked for directions.

Traveling merchants who journey from place to place should be a somewhat smarter sort, the kind who can't survive without being able to calculate risks and rewards, but...

"You! You know what happens when a demihuman does something like this to humans, don't you!?"

The merchant kept hurling abuse even with everything below his neck buried in the ground, but his face showed little intelligence.

Ah, no—under the circumstances, perhaps even the wisest person wouldn't look particularly intelligent.

Still, demihuman. Demihuman, huh...