Volume 3 - CH 12

「Disturbance in Lanbaltic」Part 2

“This is a rather grand welcoming committee we got here…”

“Even if they got quite a few people, it doesn’t feel that way to me.”

Standing in the middle of the open space, Ariane shrugged her shoulders in response to my little joke, as the men surrounding us started to sneer.

“Don’t think you have a lot of leeway, you blockhead! Did you hit your head or something?”

When one of the men, who was holding a large war hammer in his hands, insulted us the other men simultaneously started to laugh.

“Oioi, there could be another elf inside that armor, ya know? Handle that one carefully! Well, our target is the woman, so make sure you don’t leave any scars!!”

The one saying this was apparently the person in charge, a man with short hair who stared at us with a mocking smile on his face as he licking his lips. However, he didn’t give off the feeling of being the slave traders’ boss and felt more like an underling instead.

Their objective seemed to be the capture of Ariane.

“Hehehe, we’re lucky a dark elf came to a human town! I can’t contain my excitement at how much we can sell her for!”

“Oh yeah, my little Johnny is getting all excited as well!!”

When Ariane irritatedly lowered her cloak’s hood to look around, the men who surrounded us grew even more excited.

That reminded me, Ariane was a dark elf, a rarity among the elven race. Elves were like money trees to humans, so it was inevitable that people like this would come along and attempt to sell her. Due to the way Petros and the people of Buranbeina acted, I had completely forgotten about that.

When we went to gain an audience with Petros, one of these guys must have seen Ariane reveal her face and decided to follow her here.

“Humans are humans after all. You’ll regret targeting me……”

Her eyes were filled with anger as she spoke and unsheathed the 『Sword of the Lion King』. The surrounding men only let out more cheers as they watched her.

It seems like those guys didn’t know that elves were excellent warriors, if they believe that their numerical advantage was more than enough, then their attitude had gone beyond reckless.

I could only sigh as I looked at all of them before I grabbed hold of my shield and gave Ariane a brief reminder.

“We need to get information and they can’t talk if they’re all dead. Also, killing them in broad daylight while we’re in a human city would cause be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Alright!”

Ariane had barely agreed before she ran off at breakneck speed towards the nearest men. A moment later a man’s scream echoed through the area.

The ground at the feet of the three men she targeted suddenly rose up and stuck them in place. By the time the other men noticed the screams of their companions, Ariane had already slashed the three with her sword. The speed of her swing had increased from before. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was serious, if the 『Sword of the Lion King』 was showing its effect, or if her natural strength and skills were simply greater than those of these men.

Two of the men were crouching in pain with slashes on their arms and chests, while the last had been hit so hard in the head by the sword hilt that his eyes rolled back as he fell. The surrounding men scowled at her as they took a fighting stance and drew their weapons, but she was already approaching her next targets.

When I heard a shout from behind me, I took the shield in my left hand turned it on the charging tough-looking man. The space between the two of us had vanished and the man was already pulling his weapon back to gain momentum for his swing.

“【Shield Bash】!!”

It was one of the warrior class’ basic skills, meant to push enemies back. However, the mythical class shield combined with this body’s strength resulted in the simple skill carrying an overwhelming amount of power.

The shield gave off a slight glow as I thrust it towards the attacking man. The end result was that two men further away lost hold of their weapons, while five others were flung against a wall. The arms of the men that lost their weapons were mangled and the necks of those who had been blown away were twisted in the wrong direction.

“Uhh… that was an unexpected accident. Therefore, it’s totally not my fault!”

While I was trying to make excuses for myself, the remaining men finally noticed the overwhelming difference in power and were already running away in fear. As for Ariane, they had already seen how she brought down six men.

Among the people who were running away, I spotted the back of the energetic, short-haired underling.

“As if I would allow you to escape!”

I quickly caught up to the underling and firmly struck his back with my shield with the correct amount of power.

“GYAAHIIIIIIII!!”

The short-haired underling screamed in pain as he was badly bruised after he hit the ground. It wasn’t necessary to use skills on regular humans.

When I bent down and grabbed the man be the neck, he started begging for his life.

“Hiii!! W-Wait!! Just my life, please just spare my life!!”

“Such a noisy man, you should learn to be quiet for a bit.”

I offered the man some frank advice as I dragged him to Ariane while she was looking at the bodies scattered about the area.

“Ariane-dono, things are finished on my end and I found someone that can talk.”

“Arc, some actually managed to survived that?”

When Ariane said that, she had a regretful expression as she looked between the groaning men with slashes across their arms and legs at her feet, and the bodies that were still embedded in the side of the wall.

“Well, stuff like that tend to happen. Besides, I was able to secure someone who’s guaranteed to talk.”

Saying so, I lifted the grim-faced underling, who had been quiet until now, up by the scruff of his neck. Ariane’s golden eyes narrowed as she glared at the man. The blood stained sword with the lion-shaped hilt in her hands made the look in her eyes all the more frightening.

The underling let out a wretched scream as a stain appeared in the crotch of his pants. Apparently, he had lost his nerve in front of her.

This was the perfect opportunity to try out some interrogation methods of cop dramas. If I’m not mistaken, we should play good cop and bad cop for the interrogation, right?

“There’s no need to be afraid if you just answer two or three of our questions. Ahh, but your answers better not upset her. Your chances to answer equals the number of your limbs, if your answers aren’t satisfactory, she’ll start to cut them off one by one.”

I had yet to release the man’s neck, as he turned pale after I finished whispering the ultimatum into his ear. Wasn’t the good cop supposed to act like this? Ariane did stare at me in protest, but she’ll be playing the bad cop here.

“The first question is for your right arm. Are your bosses selling people to Nozan slaves traders? Well?”

While I was calmly asking the question, I took the underling’s right arm and held it out in front of Ariane. Her eyes seemed to say there was no helping it as she placed her sword on the man’s arm.

“Hiiiii, t-that’s right! We sell slaves to Nozan merchants!”

The man answered with a cramped expression as he struggled to pull back his arm. I gave an exaggerated nod to show that his answer was satisfactory before patting his cheek of the check and moved on to the next question.

“The next question is for your left arm. You’ll answer correctly, won’t you? Have you been kidnapping people from this city? Well?”

Strongly grabbing hold of the man’s shoulder, I politely asked the question. The tip of Ariane’s sword was quickly moved to his left arm.

“Y-Yes! B-But we many target refugees that wander around the city! You have to believe me!! We were tempted by the devil when we learned that a valuable elf appeared in the city!!”

“I see, I see. Does your group also kidnap proper citizens as well?”

The underling’s eyes were rapidly looking back and forth while I was asking for a confirmation while smiling beneath my helmet. Since my smile couldn’t be seen from under my helmet, I began tightening my grip on his shoulder more and more.

“J-Just sometimes! If we only targeted citizens we’d be too easy to track! It’s the truth!!”

“Is that so, on to the next question then. Among the citizens you sometimes capture, was there a maid? I’m sure her name was…… Furani Markham. Do you have information about the women called Furani?”

I spoke slowly so the man could process what I was saying while slowly relaxing my grip on his shoulder. The man must have been a heavy sweater because his entire back was covered in sweat.

“I don’t know!! I don’t know anything about such a woman, I swear!! You said the woman was a maid!? That’s totally unreasonable! Why would we kidnap someone so easy to identify!!”

The man was on the verge of tears as he looked up at Ariane and me.

“I’m gonna ask about your boss now. Where are they holding all the kidnapped people?”

“B-Because they plan to leave the harbor at one in the morning…… everything should already be loaded on the ship!”

“Then can you guide us to the ship?”

“Please forgive me! I’ll be killed if I did that!!”

Completely ignoring the man’s pleas I grabbed him by the neck again and dragged him towards the harbor, Ariane following behind after she sheathed her sword.

Our little uproar was attracting the stares of the fishermen in the harbor, when we reached a wharf where all the ships were visible, the area had taken a solemn atmosphere.

“That ship over there!! You haven’t been given permission to depart yet! Stop!!”

There were several guards yelling at a ship that was setting sail. At one of the piers filled with ships, I could see a ship slowly advancing towards the offing.

The ship was apparently leaving without having permission to depart.

However, the underling lowered his head when he saw the departing ship and he went pale as he started to shout.

“Fuck! What is this?! I was hired to sail!! You shitty bastards were the ones that sent us to capture the elf, and then you leave me behind when things get dangerous?!”

Like a puppet with its strings cut, the man fell to the ground before he started to scream curses at the departing ship and punched the ground, ignoring his own shortcomings.

Those who managed to escape must have reported what had happened to their boss and prompted the crew to make the hasty escape.

After all, capturing and selling elves was a serious offense in Rhoden. If the planned capture had failed, then those involved would be labeled criminals.

It was necessary for them to run…… but I had no intention of letting them get away.

“Ariane-dono, look after this guy!”

Saying only that, I dashed towards the pier.

Since it had to travel slower in order to swerve around the other ships docked at the harbor, the slave traders’ ship hadn’t made it that far away.

If it weren’t so crowded, I could have used 【Dimensional Step 】to transfer to the ship’s deck, but there were simply too many witnesses.

I leaped onto one of the ships docked at the pier and started to jump from ship to ship. The rocking my landings created caused some of the those ships’ crew members to yell at me, but I paid them no mind as I closed in on my target.

The captain of the slave ship looked my way when he heard the commotion, but it was too late. Reaching the ship that was docked the closest to the slave traders’ ship, I took a giant leap and managed to land on the vessal’s starboard bow.  。

One of the crewmen immediately drew his weapon and attacked, but I caught his arm and threw him with all my strength, sending him flying at an impressive arc before he hit the water.

After that, I climbed onto the ship’s deck.

“T-T-That’s the guy!! He followed us here!!”

When I surveyed the ship I noticed the sound of approaching footsteps from below while a man was shrieking at me. He must have been present in the warehouse district, considering that his eyes were bulging and he had broken into a cold sweat.

“Kill that intruder immediately!!”

A large, hairy man dressed like a traditional pirate, who was most likely the captain, stepped forward and started yelling orders at the crew.

Having been revitalized by the command, the entire crew drew their weapons and rushed me. As the surge of people closed in, I grabbed my shield off my back.

“【Shield Bash】!!”

The force generated by the collision blow many crew members off of the ship and into the sea. The blow also caused waves to appear across the sea’s surface while screams could be heard all over the ship.

When they realized that they were no match for me, the remaining crew members jumped into the sea, leaving only the captain on the deck.

“W-Who are you !? Don’t think that you can just get away with this, bastard!!”

The captain screamed at me despite the fact that the sword in his hand was trembling. When I silently took a step forward, the captain expression turned solemn as he took a frightened step back.

The captain closed his eyes as I made a large swing with my shield and directed a 【Shield Bash】at one of the ship’s twin masts.

The sonic boom that stuck the mast caused it to bend and sent wood chips flying everywhere. The mast tittered there until it’s last fastenings  gave way, letting it fall into the sea with a grand splash.

Suddenly, shouts of admiration burst forth from all the people in the harbor who had been watching.

As I watched the large bodied captain sniveling at my feet like a small animal, I wondered if I had gone overboard.