by Hiro Ainana
One of them sensed the non-homing Short Stun somehow and managed to dodge it instinctively, but I took care of him with my fist.
“Now it’s time to rescue the captives, right?” I murmured to myself as I tied up the forty or so plunderers.
Because I was getting a little tired, I forgot to disguise my voice, but it wasn’t as if anyone was listening.
Opening the map, I reassessed my position.
The captives were being held in an area several rooms away.
Dots indicated two people were approaching from that direction.
“Huh? Did I go the wrong way?”
One was a plunderer, and the other…
“Let go of me, you brute!”
“You got grit, eh, noble girl? I like that.”
I heard their voices from the other side of the wall I’d used to seal off the passage.
“Maybe I’ll just have a taste right here?”
“If you lay a hand on me, you won’t get your ransom money!”
“Bwa-ha-ha!”
“What’s so funny?!”
“Yer parents have already given up on you, girlie.”
“Th-that can’t be!”
This was a pretty awful conversation.
“I like seeing that look on a high-class girlie…”
“Wh-what do you think you’re doing?!”
“Heh-heh, just havin’ some fun while Ludaman’s away!”
I heard the sound of fabric tearing, so I removed the wall and sprang between them.
“Wh-who are you?! There ain’t no one with white hair in our gang!”
“A mask?”
Both of them looked at me in surprise.
I was currently disguised as Kuro, covering the top half of my face with a white mask.
The scar on my cheek was visible on the lower half of my face.
“Die!”
The plunderer pulled out a knife and charged.
He didn’t seem to be using demonic potion, so I used the help of my “Abduction” skill to knock him out without killing him, albeit a little painfully.
“That takes care of the last piece of garbage in this dump.”
I tried to imitate the voice and mannerisms of the movie character I’d based Kuro on.
“Th-thank you for saving me.”
The young woman I’d rescued, who was blond and around twenty years old, covered her exposed chest as she thanked me.
“I am Eluterina Rondorbell. My father is a baron, and my grandfather is Marquis Kelten, who has great military clout. I’m sure he can grant any wish you might have as thanks.”
Having been held captive for so long, the young noblewoman was dirty, a bit smelly, and so on, but she was probably quite beautiful when properly clean.
I opened my Item Box and gave her some cloth with which to cover her chest.
“So please, could you rescue the women being held captive inside as well?”
“I don’t need any thanks. I came to rescue the plunderers’ captives, so that’s what I’ll do.”
As I nodded, I couldn’t help admiring the noblewoman for asking me to save everyone instead of trying to escape with me right away.
Normally, it would be a pretty tall order, but for me, it shouldn’t be a problem.
“M-might I ask your name?”
“I am Kuro, a follower of Nanashi the Hero.”
This was the role I’d come up with while knocking out the plunderers.
“The Hero…?”
Behind her, I saw one of the plunderers twitch a finger.
I’d better take care of them first.
“Just a moment.”
“A-all right…”
As I made the forty or so plunderers float in the air, the young woman let out a gasp.
“Wh-when did he recite that chant…?”
My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up her nearly inaudible murmur.
Oh right. Chant-less magic is a trick that only heroes and reincarnations can usually do, huh?
I wasn’t particularly planning to hide my power as Kuro, but I wouldn’t want to give away any information that might make me easier to identify, either.
From now on, I would mutter things like “float” and “teleport” using “Ancient Language” and use the Illusion spell to produce some special effects, so I could claim that I was using an ancient treasure.
“B-but Magic Hand shouldn’t be able to lift this many people… Is it some sort of skill?”
She didn’t have any magic skills, but she seemed pretty knowledgeable about Practical Magic.
“It’s an ancient treasure I received from my leader.”
“An ancient treasure…”
The noblewoman murmured to herself in wonder.
“I’ll be back. Don’t move—just wait in this room. Teleport!”
I pressed a canteen of water into the girl’s hands, then teleported to another room in the labyrinth with the plunderers in tow.
It was a room where my group had wiped out all the monsters back in our second round of labyrinth exploration.
This was one of the few places in the labyrinth with exposed earth where Earth Magic was permitted, which was why I’d chosen it as the spot to temporarily keep all the plunderers.
I could’ve just brought them to the first outpost where I’d made a jail, but it would’ve been a pain to round up the plunderers from all the other outposts and put them there, so I picked this large space instead.
I put the disarmed plunderers in the area of the soon-to-be second jail, then raised a thick earth wall to the ceiling to shut them in.
The floor and sides were reinforced to prevent them from digging out. Even if they had handy skills or superhuman strength, they shouldn’t be able to escape for at least the next few days.
Some of them also seemed to be female, so I put the men and women into separate jails, just in case.
It took only a second anyway, since I was using the Wall spell.
I wasn’t leaving them any food, but I did supply them with a few casks of water. They would probably be fine for a few days.
Oh right.
I contacted Lelillil in the Ivy Manor with the Telephone spell.
“Lelillil, I’m going to be bringing several victims soon who were captured by plunderers. Can you make some preparations?”
“Of course, Lord Satou! Shall I prepare private rooms for them?”
I thought for a moment.
The captives had probably gone through terrible ordeals, so it was probably best not to leave them alone.
“Could you prepare one big room and a few shared bedrooms for them, please?”
“Yes! Right away, sir! I won’t let you down!!”
Lelillil gave an energetic affirmative.
Thanking her, I used Return to go back to a seal slate I’d left near the room in the hideout where the noblewoman was waiting.
“Wh-who’s there?!”
As soon as I entered the hideout, the blond noblewoman brandished a kitchen knife at me.
She must have found one the plunderers had been using.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“L-Lord Kuro!”
…“Lord”?
“Let’s go rescue the others.”
“O-of course. I’ll show you the way.”
She started to take the lead, but I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Sorry. I know you might not want a man to touch you right now, but bear with me a minute, all right?”
With that, I lifted her up bridal-style.
She trembled in surprise, but judging by her red cheeks and her expression, she didn’t seem to object.
“I-I’m sorry?”
“If you’re scared, just close your eyes.”
“R-right! It’s my first time, so please be gentle…”
She seemed to have misunderstood. Regardless, I placed Enchant: Physical Protection on her for safety, then sped toward the room with the captives with repeated use of “Warp
.”
She must be pretty brave to make a joke like that after how the plunderers may have mistreated her.
Using the map, I kept zooming forward, and we arrived in a matter of seconds.
“Is it on the other side of this boulder?”
“Y-yes, thasss right…”
She mumbled incoherently, dizzy from the high speed.
Moving aside the boulder and the steel stay bar, I stepped into the dark room where the women were being held.
I could see fields where plants that looked like black-grained barley and dark-red wheat were growing.
Those must be the ruination weeds and destruction stalks, the main ingredients of demonic potion. Ruination barley and destruction wheat would’ve been more accurate, if you ask me.
The living quarters of the captives seemed to be farther inside.
“Eluterina!”
“Leader!”
As we entered the room, two girls, one with chestnut hair and one redhead, came running up to embrace the noblewoman.
They appeared to be explorer buddies, both from noble families.
To keep things from getting too confusing, I’ll just refer to the noblewoman I first met as the “blond noblewoman.”
“I’m here to save you. Bring everyone here. If there’s anything you want to take with you, grab that, too.”
The girls looked at me suspiciously, but when they saw Eluterina nod, they let out cries of joy.
Drawn by their voices, the women who’d been gathering at a distance came over, too.
There was a total of forty-three people here, all women.
For some reason, six of them were still cooped up in an area separate from the main living quarters.
“Is this everyone?”
“There are also four doctors and one alchemist. Polina went to get them, so they should be here soon.”
“I see.”
Nodding at the blond noblewoman, I looked around at the rest of the captives.
“We really get to leave?”
“I’ll finally see my family again…”
“We’re saved. I can’t believe it…”
Aside from the noble girls I’d spoken to first, most of the others seemed more confused than happy.
Right. I guess I’d better warn them.
“I’m going to get you all out of the labyrinth.”
I waited for them to understand before I continued.
“But I can’t return you to your families right away.”
At this, some of the girls started crying or wailing. I quickly went on.
“Before I release you, I have to rescue the people being kept in other areas. Please just give me a few days.”
To be honest, not all of that was true.
I was afraid that the higher-ups in the Shiga Kingdom might try to have these girls killed if they knew they’d been cultivating demonic-potion ingredients, so I wanted to buy some time to take care of that.
“I’m going to teleport us to a safe house aboveground now.”
“W-wait!”
“Please, not yet!”
A muscular girl and the blond noble both cried out to stop me.
“What is it?”
“Polina isn’t back with the doctors yet.”
Oh right. I forgot about that.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come back for them.” Then I turned from the blond noblewoman to the muscular girl. “What about you?”
“The bodies of some of my friends, and theirs, are in the torture room over there. I’d at least like to bring back their explorers’ badges or locks of their hair…”
Opening the map, I looked for the torture room in question.
Dangerous monsters patrolled the route there, including some with paralytic poison or petrification abilities.
“The path to the torture room is too dangerous. I can go there for you and get what you need.”
“Please take me with you! I want to say a few burial rites for them…”
I tried to go by myself, but the muscular girl pleaded to come along, so I relented.
“All right. But I can only bring two of you.”
Any more than that, and it would be difficult to protect them all.
“Then I will come with you, Elder Sister.”
Eluterina stepped forward.
It appeared that the other captives referred to the muscular girl as “Elder Sister.”
“All right. You two wait here for a moment, please.”
I picked up the rest of the girls and their belongings with Magic Hand, then teleported all of them to the Ivy Manor.
“Wh-where are we?”
“Big Sis, look! The sun! I can see the sun!”
“Are we really outside? Truly?”
Standing in the garden, the girls looked up at the sky with tears in their eyes.
Lelillil arrived to greet us, so I left her in charge and went back into the labyrinth.
“This is the torture room?”
“Must be. I’ve never been here myself, but you can tell from the smell of blood.”
Back in the labyrinth, I proceeded to the torture room with the blond noblewoman and the muscular Elder Sister.
However…using a torch as our light source might have been a bad idea.
With the blood-slick torture instruments, the rotten odor, and the pit with flies buzzing around it, the flickering shadows cast by the flame just emphasized the horror-like atmosphere.
If this were a certain famous horror game, my sanity meter would be plummeting right now.
And sure enough…
> Skill Acquired: “Madness Resistance”
…my log only confirmed my thoughts.
I was curious about how this was different from skills like “Psychic Resistance” and “Fear Resistance,” but I still had tons of skill points, so I quickly maxed it out and activated it in the hopes of easing the disturbed feeling in my gut.
“Garth, Zahana, Bodorina…you can pass on knowing that this man has saved us.”
Miss Elder Sister peered down at the bodies in the pit, speaking gently.
I watched over her from a distance, not wanting to interrupt her good-byes.
“When the plunderers capture a man, they force him to choose between joining their crew after providing them ‘entertainment’ or being tortured to death,” the blond noblewoman explained to me softly.
Because there was an air vent that ran from this room to the field, the agonizing screams reached it directly.
The cruelty of these plunderers made me feel sick.
“We women were kept in that room and forced to tend to those strange plants, but every few weeks, the plunderers would bring in a new woman and take one away in exchange.”
The woman they took away would be tortured to death like the men.
As if just hearing those screams wouldn’t have been agonizing enough…
“I hated myself for being relieved when I wasn’t the one chosen.”
Tears started to stream down the blond noblewoman’s cheeks, so I gently held her to my chest.
While I comforted her, the other young woman finished saying her final words to the fallen explorers.
She started to go into the pit to retrieve their badges, but I stopped her.
Instead, I made a show of collecting the bones and badges into the Item Box with Magic Hand, while secretly using Magic Hand to put the entire bodies into Storage as well.
At the very least, I wanted to bury them somewhere that sunlight would reach.
“Lord Kuro, what is this magic circle?”
As she turned away to wipe her tears, the blond noblewoman pointed at a sinister magic circle decorated with skulls and bones.
Activating my “Miasma Vision,” I saw that the whole room was so full of miasma that it was pitch-black, and the magic circle was absorbing the miasma and curses.
With all this miasma around, though, I was surprised that the victims’ bodies hadn’t turned into undead monsters in the pi
t. Most likely, this magic circle was what had prevented that.
Flipping through some materials about magic circles, I couldn’t help wishing that I had a reverse image search.
…Hmm? I got a search result?
Evidently, Storage had had a built-in image search all along.
“It’s to amplify and diffuse madness. Looks like they used it to strengthen negative emotions and spread them around.”
This information was contained in materials I’d taken from the Wings of Freedom, a cult that had resurrected a demon lord beneath the old capital.
According to these materials, it had been passed down to one of their ancestors by the yellow-skinned demon.
They had apparently used this kind of magic circle to create fertile ground for reviving the demon lord until the chaos jars and malice urns were completed.
Maybe the yellow-robed person Ludaman had mentioned was connected to the yellow demon somehow.
“Should we destroy it?”
“Of course.”
The last thing I needed was for this thing to bring that demon lord back again after I’d defeated him in the old capital.
I used a Holy Stone’s blue light to wipe away the evil magic circle.
“Holy light?”
“So, Mr. White Hair—erm, Lord Kuro—really does work for the Hero.”
Eluterina and Miss Elder Sister looked at me with eyes full of admiration.
Anyone can use a Holy Stone, you know.
Although most other Holy Stones wouldn’t produce blue light, since I’d customized mine with blue.
Now, a thought had just occurred to me, so I kept the physical destruction to a minimum as we left the torture chamber behind.
“…You don’t want to leave?”
When the blond noblewoman brought me to the small room containing the doctors, the alchemist who spoke for their group gave a shocking declaration.
I had sent the muscular girl to gather the other girls at the Ivy Manor.
I wanted to leave the blond noble there, too, but she insisted on coming with me because she was worried about the girl, Polina.
“And why is that?”
“I’m from the alchemy guild, and these girls are apprentices from the doctors’ guild.”
That didn’t explain why they didn’t want to leave, so I waited for her to continue.