Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, it’s hard to work under an incompetent superior--though, the superior might be thinking the opposite--If it was just a job, it’s easy enough to quit; but for people of a certain territory, they couldn’t do that.”

We’ve just entered the territory of Baron Muno, so I use All Map Exploration, as usual.

It seems that there is a garrison of soldiers in the pass, slightly ahead of us--there are 20 soldiers, all with levels ranging between 3 - 7.

On the other side of the pass is flat terrain, sporadically situated small hills and forests decorate it.

The area is wider than Kuhano’s Earldom--however, the entire population is only around 40,000, which is a third of Seryuu City. There is only one big city in the Baron’s territory, while the rest of the residential areas are small villages of less than a thousand people each; the large city where the Baron lives has 20,000 people, and is called Muno City.

And, in Muno City--there’s a Demon.

Level 30 and hiding in the city--it’s probably doing something fishy--since it will be a lot of trouble, for the sake of the girls, I should probably stay away.

But, didn’t Arisa say that Demons which had crossed worlds are high-rank? I don’t think that this Demon would be ranked very high with only a level of 30.

I wonder if Demons can be born in this world?

Shifting my attention away from the Demon, I examine the Monsters in this territory--there are no Monsters of low level, on the other hand, there are several Monsters over level 10 all in various places. Even nearby there is a level 24 Monster called a War Mantis lurking around.

Furthermore, there is also something else peculiar; although they don’t seem to be Monsters, living in a forest near Muno City--the forest is 30 kilometers wide, and 20 kilometers in length--there are Wood Giants.

Although there are only 10 Wood Giants, the strongest is level 39; their levels averaged at 30.

Another notable thing is that there are a lot of thieves--although I’ve expected this, their gangs are much larger, most of which are comprised of between 20 - 30 people--but the biggest group has around 200 members; their base is on the outer edge of the forest where the Wood Giants live.

Since there are so many outlaws, it is very likely that the public order in this territory is quite bad.

I’d like to take a detour around this Baron’s territory, but that means we’d need to circle around to the Royal Capital, and if we take a longer detour, then we’d have to get to Duke Oyugock’s territory. It’d take roughly 2 months--furthermore, according to the traveler’s journal, if we get caught in some of the harsher months of winter, we would be unable to move until spring.

Autumn was ending and winter was rapidly approaching, we only had a month or two until we had to find somewhere to stop until spring--we hoped to make it to Labyrinth City before then.

***

“Good afternoon soldier, are you not feeling well?”

 

“It’s nothing--I just don’t feel like moving today.” The soldier yawned widely as he spoke.

 

“Is that so, thanks for your hard work.”

 

“Mhm, you can go through.” The soldier said, lazily sitting down in front of the Military Post, letting our wagon through without even getting up to inspect it.

His clothes were slovenly worn, an uniformed person would likely believe him to be a bandit, but he actually belongs to Baron Muno’s army.

“Hehehe, Ennui Field is quite useful, right?” Arisa spoke proudly, leaning over the separating board.

 

“Yeah, we’re saved.”

 

The soldier before was that languid because Arisa cast Mind Magic which made the entire garrison of soldiers become incredibly tired. Although, since it was early morning, there was the possibility that he might be like that anyway, even if we didn’t use any Magic.

There’s a reason why we deliberately used Magic.

From the results shown on my Heads-Up-Display, the soldiers in that garrison had things like ‘Murder’ or ‘Rape’ in their Reward & Punishment, just like the thieves--they are people who do whatever they want, abusing their power.

So I used a spell that would neutralize them in advance, so they wouldn’t cause us problems.

Arisa offered to use the Sleep Spell, but it had a higher MP cost, so we used Ennui Field.

It would probably be problematic to leave guys like that alone, but they hadn’t actually done anything to me, or to people important to me, so I wouldn’t feel right killing them--and the War Mantis was slowly approaching the garrison, it would take care of them for us.

Anyway, back to the soldiers.

The Map showed that the War Mantis was rapidly approaching the garrison behind us--the soldier’s fates were sealed.

***

On the afternoon of the same day, when we were passing through a village with a population of 300 people, a man on the side of the road called out to us.

There are three thin teenage girls standing beside him, their faces are quite nice, but because of how fatigued and disheartened they look, they look much older than their ages.

“Sir, won’t you like to buy these girls?”

The girls look imploringly at me at his words.

Arisa pokes her head at when she hears the conversation, she looks between the girls and I, “You can’t save them--we are traveling to a dangerous city, and they don’t have the look of people who could fight.”

I could see sympathy in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I can’t take them.” I say to the old man.

The girls sigh and look away.

He looked at me, and then at Arisa who had her head poking out of the curtain above the separating board, her eyes narrowed at him.

The man gave up, “That so? Sorry for taking your time.”

“Before you go, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“What is it?”

“Did your village fall into poverty because of a bad harvest?”

“No, that’s not the reason; it was certainly smaller than usual, but we didn’t have a bad harvest.”

“Then, was the tax too high?”

If the situation continues and they keep selling people like this, won’t the number of viable workers gradually run out and the village disappear?

“Even if the tax is high, we could still barely last through winter with the little crops we have.”

“Was it because of thieves?”

“They’re former farmers, and we won’t be careless enough to let our winter savings get stolen by them.”

“Then, did some Monsters appear?”

“If that happened, then we could only give up. It was a congratulatory gift for the Baron’s daughter’s wedding, we had to give 30% of our winter savings.” The man exhales heavily after speaking.

The Barron is terrible.

Although, it might be an arbitrary action by the Tax Collector.

“Didn’t you send a petition?”

“If we did that, the whole village would end up as serfs--do you know of Tonza Village? Everyone in the village was forced to become a serf, there is no one in the village anymore.”

I check on the Map, and there isn’t a village called Tonza--but there’s a place called ‘Ruin of Tonza Village’.

Is the Baron a tyrant on top of being a fool?

Since I felt a little curious, I ask, “Do you know who the Baron’s daughter is marrying?”

“According to what the Tax Collector said, it’s the hero.”

Hero?

I’ve searched through the territory, but there is no one with the hero title.

The man suddenly talks, sounding as though he is making an excuse, “It might be an impostor, but it’s really what the Tax Collector said--you can ask the village head if you want.”

“If she’s really marrying the real hero, why would they torment the people?”

“Hah, a lower-class man who’s nothing but a tax tool like me, wouldn’t know how the big-shots think.”

Well, I can’t deny that.

However, if he’s really the same hero, a ‘straightforward altruistic fool’, and ‘justice idiot’, like Arisa has said, then we could just ask about the daughter to solve this question--if I’m not mistaken, that hero has an uncommon preference right.

“I have one more question, how old is the daughter?”

“Well, there are two daughters, one is 19, and the other is 24.”

“I see, thank you. Please, take this as compensation.” I said, giving him a few silver coins and starting the wagon moving again.

I hope that he will be able to live using those coins, and not have to sell those girls--it’s the best I can do in this situation.

***

Arisa clambered out of the wagon and onto the skirting board, I quickly grabbed her hand and helped her to the driver’s seat--however, instead of sitting next to me, she sat on my lap with a grin.

Turning her head to face me, she noted, “Hey, you seem to have noticed.”

“Yeah, it’s an impostor.” I reply, wrapping my free arm around her waist, and aimlessly running my fingers over her stomach--I feel that I had been neglecting her a little; she happily sighs.

Anyway--yeah, the hero that Arisa has told me about, Hayato Masaki, has a fetish--he’s a lolicon: the look-but-don’t-touch kind. I don’t think a man like that would take either a 19 or 24 year woman as his wife, he might have had a change of heart, but then he would more than likely go after his beautiful female attendants instead.

“The pervert might have been cured, but the Saga Empire wouldn’t make a mistake like letting him marry a small-time noble from some foreign land.” Arisa seems to agree with my assessment.

Just in case, I try narrowing the search parameters on the map, to check if there’s another hero, beside Hayato Masaki.

 

A person with the ‘Hero’ title -- Does not exist.

A person with any ‘Unknown’ Skill -- Does not exist.

A person with the ‘Self Status’ Skill -- Does not exist.

A person with a level higher than 50 -- Does not exist.

 

There’s no one who could possibly be a reincarnated or transported person either.

There’s a fake hero in this territory, it seems.

I am pretty certain that the Demon in Muno City is the one behind this--however, I don’t intend to get involved--I repeat, I have no building interest or intention to scout it out--please don’t look at me like that, Arisa.

 

“I want to sightsee--I’m not getting bored--”

 

“What was that, master?” Arisa looks at me with a grin and raised eyebrow.

Crap, did I say that out loud?

“Nothing,” I sigh and look away from Arisa.

I mean, I wouldn’t even be tempted if there was anyone who could be a threat to the girls--but they were getting stronger, and as long as they didn’t attack the Giants or Demon--they would likely be fine--