Mushoku Tensei: Reincarnated as the weakest Sword God

By the morning hours, Baazar had completely transformed.

The quiet of the night gave way to an explosion of lively commerce.

The merchants spread their wares outside their shops, shouting to everyone who passed by.

"I've got big, juicy melons here! Last chance, folks! They're gone tomorrow!"

"There are Gryphon claws here, thirty Cinsha if you buy now!"

"Does anyone have Nania cloth? I have Tokutsu fruit to trade!"

The vendors shouted out their prices, while their potential customers shouted back their offers.

"Gino, we didn't come here to buy gifts," Elinalise chided me.

"Yeah, I know," I said with a shrug.

As the market bustled around us, Elinalise and I got to work on our to-do lists from the night before.

First, we needed money, the currency of this place is Cinsha, something unfamiliar to me.

However, the coin itself wasn't particularly different from any other, it was just a small round piece of gold with a bad design stamped on the surface.

We sold some of the stuff we had brought and got a good amount of this local currency.

It seemed like bartering was very common here, but it was always smart to have some money in your pocket.

For now, we secured about 7,000 Cinsha to pay for our short-term needs, I wasn't sure how much we were going to need, but our dinner yesterday had only been 2 Cinsha, we would probably be fine for a while.

With the money problem sorted, we started gathering information about Rapan.

Apparently, it was a major city, so it wasn't that hard.

And it seems that the city is about a month's journey north...

I also asked for directions to get there, just to get an idea of ​​what to expect.

The usual route is through the Nkots region and take the long way around the desert, but there have been a lot of bandits on that road lately, so it's not safe. The smarter merchants are cutting right through the Ucho desert these days, and so they head to the marker then head north to the oasis.

From there, it's a winding road west for a while.

Once the Kara Mountains are visible, you keep heading north towards the next oasis, from there, the desert is a little less brutal to the west and you make your way through it as fast as you can, and then you head northwest to get back on the normal path and thus you reach the Labyrinth city of Rapan...

what a tedious shit...

...

Elinalise had assumed that we would find a guide fairly easily, but her experience was not really applicable here, when you visit an unknown country for the first time, you always start with the border towns where travelers were common, that difference had confused us.

things were not going as planned anymore

but still, there was no point in panicking, life always throws a few snowballs at you hehe, besides we have only been here for two weeks, the normal trip would normally have lasted a year.

"what would I normally do in a situation like this, Elinalise?" I asked her as we sat down to lunch.

"Pushing straight for the shortest route possible, to be honest though, I've had enough of walking through the desert for a while now" she muttered as she brought her spoonful of soup to her mouth.

"Yes, that makes sense," I muttered.

"What do you think, then?" she said with a lift.

"...hmmm, perhaps we can accompany a merchant heading to Rapan?" she suggested.

"That sounds like a plan, let's see if we can find one," I said, and so we finished our lunch.

...

"Sir, do you happen to know of any merchants on their way to Rapan?" I asked.

There wouldn't be any caravans actively seeking escorts around here, for the same reason that there were no guides to be found, but Elinalise was an S-rank adventurer and I was a Sword Emperor, if we offered money and our services, we might be able to find someone willing to take us with them.

But unfortunately, the man told us that there weren't many people heading to Rapan in general, most of the traveling merchants were heading to a place called Kinkara, in the east...

Still, I tried asking around town for a while, almost everyone was heading to Kinkara, and after an hour or two, I had almost resigned myself to that route.

But then, just when I was about to give up, we stumbled upon a lead.

"Oh, Rapan? Then you want Galban, I think he's set up shop on the west side of the river, go see if you can find him," he said.

Elinalise and I immediately went to find this Galban, he had evidently made a fortune traveling the route between Rapan and a city called Torreon...

bringing magic stones to Rapan and collecting objectives on the way back, people said he traveled in a caravan of six camels, which meant he made good money.

We didn't need to ask much to find the shop we were looking for, it wasn't very big, but there were six camel-like animals tied in front.

When we got closer, a dark-skinned woman came out from inside the shop, she was wearing a breastplate and a skirt that wrapped around her waist, her muscles couldn't be seen under the equipment, but she looked quite strong.

It took me a few seconds to realize that it was Carmelita, the same warrior I had met yesterday.

"Hey! You're those people from yesterday!" She screamed

Apparently, she also remembered us, although she seemed surprised to see us. Apparently, the little mustachioed man she had saved yesterday was Galban himself, thank goodness she had decided to help him yesterday.

...

Galban greeted us with a warm smile as we entered his tent.

"My apologies for yesterday, friends! We were surprised to see that you had already left when we returned yesterday!" he said.

Apparently, they had gone out to look for their camels, which had fled in the chaos, along with the valuable cargo they were carrying, then they returned to the battle site and discovered that we were gone.

Galban claimed to have spent a lot of time trying to find us that night.

He could have explained the plan before disappearing then...

"It must be fate that he found us like this, would you like to join my caravan as bodyguards?" he said.

Anyway, from the looks of it, he was looking to hire new swordsmen, that made sense, he had lost some yesterday.

"How about 500 Cinsha to Rapan, what do you say?" he said.

Judging by the way he was reciting compliments on my defeat of the griffins, he'd had that idea in mind all along - I seem to remember him curling up in a ball for the entire battle - but whatever, this was exactly what we needed.

"Okay, sure, we'll go with you to Rapam then," I said with a smile.

"Ah! Splendid! That's really wonderful, I'd even be willing to sign you both to a long-term exclusive contract! If you're interested, I've never seen a swordsman of your caliber before! I'd make it worth it, I assure you! How about 10,000 Cinsha a year? No, wait, Balibadom would make a fuss, would 8,000 be enough? I could..."

The offers were starting to get too ambitious, so I ended up having to interrupt. "I'm sorry, but we have to take care of something in Rapan, however, we'll keep the offer in mind" I said.

To my surprise Galban accepted it quite easily, we had found our ticket to Rapan.

Everything was back on track.

And so, we set out for Rapan as members of Galban's caravan.

The head of his guard team was the warrior Balibadom, also known as Hawkeye. His companions were Carmelita the Bonebreaker and Tont the Great Edge. Adding myself and Elinalise, we had five fighters and a merchant in our group.

There were also six camels, if we counted them. I considered making up names for those guys as well, but decided against it after learning that we might have to eat them if we ran out of food in the desert. I didn't want my first taste of camel meat to taste like guilt.

Before we set out, we gathered to define our basic battle formation. As a general rule, we would keep Galban in the center. Balibadom would go in front, accompanied by Carmelita on the left and Tont on the right.

Elinalise and I would position ourselves at the rear.

The five of us would form a protective circle around our master and his camels. No matter which direction we were attacked from, one of us should be able to

intercept the threat before it could harm our client. The classic Imperial Cross formation, basically.

We began traveling east of Bazaar until we reached the main regional highway.

The place names meant nothing to me, but this sounded like the route that was frequented by bandits. To be safe, I told Balibadom what I had heard.

"We don't know of a safer route through the desert," he said.

"If bandits attack, that's what we're here for. Sometimes they just demand a toll and let us go on our way."

Still, there was a chance we might encounter some greedier bandits with interest in more than just money and goods.

For example, they might demand that we hand over Elinalise, given how attractive she was.

That could be a problem. It's not like the two of us were old friends of Galban and company. We had saved their lives, but that didn't mean they would risk their necks for us if it came to that.

There was always the chance that we might be hanged.

"You seem nervous, Gino, but I wouldn't worry too much," Elinalise said quietly. "With your skills as a swordsman on our side, a few bandits shouldn't be a problem," she said.

"You think so?" I muttered.

"I do, and if worst comes to worst, I'll use my charm on them," she said with a wink.

"What, do you want to be taken to their base, chained up, and beaten?" I said with a raised eyebrow.

"God, you're extreme, as long as you go willingly, even the bandits will be gentle with me," she said with a smile.

"Are you speaking from experience?"

"We all make mistakes in our youth."

Elinalise didn't seem too worried. Those days are long gone though, and she'd probably be less inclined to do something like that now.

Well, whatever, we could probably fend off an attack pretty easily.

Our group made its way east through the barren fields for a while.

We had to fight a lot of monsters along the way.

There were Begaritt buffalos, which would charge at you in groups, and large tarantulas, huge spiders that moved

slinkily

We also encountered Windmaster Eagles, flying monsters that would cast wind spells at you from above.

Some of our desert friends also appeared: mostly cactus treants and those killer lizards, which were apparently called Gyroraptors.

However, Balibadom proved to be able to detect our enemies well in advance, so we were never forced into serious combat.

It turned out that he had a Demon Eye himself, thus earning him the name Hawkeye.

His Demon Eye was the same type as Ghislaine's: it allowed him to see the flow of mana in the world around him.

This was very useful as a means of detecting enemies.

"We have monsters ahead. Ready for combat, everyone."

So far, he had perfectly predicted every approaching monster and every change in the weather.

It was almost like traveling with Ruijerd.

He wasn't as accurate in details, but he detected enemies very quickly.

His many years of experience were probably a key factor.

So with all this, our journey to Rapan continued.

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