Chapter 103 - Damn Reincarnation

Market

'Where did he go?'

Ujicha, the great warrior of the Garung, could not help feeling bewildered. The slave trader was nowhere to be seen. Had he run away? Abandoned his wife and the elves he had paid so much for?

If he really had fled, when had he found the chance? Ujicha had never looked away. He had blinked a few times, yes. But surely a man was allowed to blink.

Yes. The brief instant of a blink. More than enough time for Eugene to accelerate.

THWACK!

A kick flew in from outside Ujicha's field of vision and struck his jaw. The blow went far beyond anything he had anticipated. Who could have imagined that some lowly slave trader would move like that?

Ujicha did not even manage a short scream. The surprise attack was swift and precise. That single blow severed his consciousness. His eyes went slack, and his massive body, over two meters tall, swayed.

SPLAT.

Ujicha toppled backward, his bald head landing in the very center of the vomit. Dazarang, still panting and struggling with his motion sickness, could only let out a shriek.

"Wh-wh-what the...?"

Without even wiping the vomit from his mouth, Dazarang sprang backward. Or tried to. His knees, worn down by a lifetime of severe obesity, could not carry out the sudden order to jump.

In the end, he failed to retreat nearly as far as he had intended. He took a couple of steps back, and the jiggling of his enormous body brought another wave of nausea.

"Bleeergh..."

Vomit poured onto the unconscious Ujicha's face. Eugene had seen all manner of filthy, horrifying things since his previous life, but the sight before him drew an unfeigned grimace.

"That's fucking disgusting."

"Urgh... Bleurgh..."

"Just how much did you stuff down your throat? You keep puking, and there's still more!"

As Eugene spat out those words, he moved a finger. Wind condensed at his fingertip and shot toward Dazarang.

THUD!

The wind bullet struck his solar plexus. It did not disperse. Having contracted with Tempest, Eugene could control wind as naturally as the mana in his core.

"Uuurgh... Uuuurgh...!"

The wind lodged in his solar plexus became a vortex. Dazarang's belly fat rippled violently in its grip. Nor did it merely shake his flesh. The fierce wind churned his stomach and forcibly dragged whatever he had yet to vomit back up his esophagus.

Born into a count's family and raised without hardship, Dazarang found this pain an utterly unknown sensation, one he had never experienced in his life and would never have occasion to experience again. After throwing up everything in his stomach, he crawled along the ground, tears and snot streaming down his face.

"P-p-please, please spare me..."

"Who said I was going to kill you?"

Eugene wrinkled his nose as he spoke. The man had done nothing but retch instead of answering, so Eugene had simply made sure he had nothing left to vomit. Without moving any closer to Dazarang, he extended a finger.

"Hey."

He had only pointed, but Dazarang dropped to his knees on the spot. He would never forget the pain of being singled out by that outstretched finger and struck by the wind. Kneeling was his only choice. All twenty-three years of his life, all the authority he possessed as a count's young master, offered no protection from the fist right before him.

"How much money have you got?"

Eugene touched his outstretched index finger to his thumb, forming a circle. It was a blatant gesture. If anything, it reassured Dazarang. If money was what he wanted, wasn't that simple and straightforward?

"Th-three hundred million sals in common currency. And about a billion sals in jewels."

"What would you do if I asked you to give me that money?"

"Of... of course I'd give it to you..."

"I'm grateful you're willing to hand it over. But won't you remember this later and come looking for revenge?"

Eugene emphasized the word "later" as he stared at Dazarang. Those words made Dazarang think harder than he ever had in his twenty-three years.

He quickly reached a conclusion. If the man was talking about later, didn't that mean he wasn't going to kill him? Dazarang immediately bowed his head.

"On... on the honor of House Coral, that will never happen."

"Why are you staking your innocent father's honor on it?"

Eugene grumbled and glared at Dazarang.

"I didn't do anything to you. If I did anything at all, it was refusing to sell you the elf you wanted. But whether I sell my goods or not is my choice as a merchant, isn't it?"

"Y-yes."

"We could've parted ways and left it at that, but you tried to fuck me over. Right? You teamed up with that savage over there, the one who's still unconscious. You were going to take me out, take out the woman with me, and steal every elf I had. Isn't that right?"

"Yes..."

Don't wake up.

Dazarang meant that with all his heart. Ujicha was still lying unconscious. What if he woke up? Could he turn this situation around? The great warrior of the Garung tribe? The man who had been knocked senseless by a mere slave trader's single blow, and had pissed himself begging the monster who killed Blon to spare his life?

Trembling, Dazarang reached inside his clothes.

"You brought all this on yourself, so you have to take responsibility."

Dazarang pulled out a small pouch. He turned it upside down and shook it, sending large jewel boxes tumbling to the ground.

THUMP! THUMP!

"This buys your life."

Eugene narrowed his eyes at Dazarang.

"If you come looking for me again, next time you'll pay with your life, not jewels."

He had changed his face. The identity he had used in Samar was false, too. In fact, he had not used any identification since entering the forest proper. Common currency? Jewels? He could easily launder things like that without a trace.

Still, he gave the warning. The wind Eugene summoned lifted the heavy jewel boxes into the air.

"... Hah!"

Ujicha opened his eyes.

The first thing he registered was a complex, peculiar taste that defied description. Then came a somewhat familiar smell. Together, they roused his dazed mind.

"Gah!"

Ujicha sprang to his feet with a shout. Roughly wiping at the vomit smeared over his head and face, he looked wildly around. Dazarang on his knees. Jewel boxes floating in the air. The slave trader standing ahead.

Anger drove Ujicha into motion. With a monstrous roar, he charged Eugene. He had not earned his position as great warrior simply by looking menacing. Mana coursed rapidly through him, accelerating his body.

But to Eugene, that acceleration looked sluggish. Clicking his tongue, he pressed his foot against the ground.

CRUNCH!

The earth surged upward into a barrier.

'Magic!'

Ujicha kicked off the ground and leaped. As he did, he sensed something was wrong. Samar's warriors received the blessings of spirits without learning spirit magic. Warriors born in this vast forest possessed an affinity for spirits from birth, and Ujicha enjoyed the blessing of wind spirits.

The primal spirits present in every breeze made him agile beyond what his enormous size would suggest. Yet this leap was thoroughly unsatisfying.

He had wanted to soar high into the sky and smash the insolent slave trader from the head down. Instead, he barely cleared the barrier.

'Why?'

The reason was simple. Primal spirits without wills of their own could not defy higher spirits, and the wind in this space was under Eugene's control.

In short, Eugene was the worst possible opponent for Ujicha. Eugene spread his right hand toward him.

WHOOSH!

A tremendous gust swallowed Ujicha. Then the wind turned into blades and shredded his clothes.

"Aaaaargh!"

Ujicha flailed in the heart of the cutting vortex. Eugene watched him with an indifferent expression. In contrast to his utterly bald head, Ujicha's body was thick with hair. Eugene nodded and clenched his fist.

BOOM!

The wind burst. The currents wrapped around Ujicha ripped every last body hair out by the roots.

"Gaaaah!"

Ujicha screamed at a kind of pain he had never felt before. His newly smooth body fell toward the ground. No, it did not fall. Eugene raised the wind again, lifting Ujicha high into the air.

"L-let me go!"

Ujicha struggled desperately to escape the wind. He strained his core to squeeze out mana, fervently imploring the spirits that had blessed him. On top of that, he used the Garung tribe's battle sorcery.

Garung battle sorcery borrowed the power of souls. It was a form of necromancy. The Garung were far from the only tribe to employ necromancy in their battle sorcery, and what Ujicha used was nothing exceptional in Samar.

He should not have used it. Eugene sensed the souls drifting around Ujicha. They resembled the vengeful spirits summoned through black magic, their sense of self long since destroyed.

'Disgustingly so.'

Eugene hated that kind of sorcery because it resembled black magic. So he showed no mercy. Besides, this was hardly someone who deserved mercy in the first place. The bastard had attacked him first.

"Aaaagh!"

Dazarang trembled and covered his ears at the screams from high above. The cracking and grinding of bones twisting. Screams begging for mercy. He remembered what had happened a few days earlier, a memory he never wanted to revisit.

The monster that had torn Blon apart so effortlessly. The beastlike eyes flashing gold. The sharp teeth revealed whenever its lips curled back.

'I-I want to go back. Home... to Shimuin...'

Ujicha's screams grew distant. They did not stop; they receded farther and farther away. Could a man with twisted limbs survive being hurled into the distance and falling? Even if extraordinary luck kept him alive, could he survive this savage forest with a body that could no longer move?

That was none of Eugene's concern. He stowed the jewel boxes inside his cloak and returned to the driver's seat.

"May he meet a peaceful death."

Kristina was praying with her hands together. To Eugene, her words sounded like a nasty joke.

"Peaceful death, my ass. If he lives, he'll be worse off than dead. Even if he's lucky enough to die on impact, he'll have suffered every kind of pain before he goes."

"But he will find peace after death."

Kristina smiled brightly as she spoke. She really is twisted, Eugene thought as he took the reins. The cart rattled into motion. The elves held their breath and said nothing. Even so, they stole glances at Dazarang, who was still prostrate on the ground. Sold as slaves and accustomed to persecution, they felt an unfamiliar delight at the sight of that human noble, reduced to begging on his knees and still unable to lift his head.

Levera felt the same. She stroked her right eye, which her former master had slashed with a knife and seared with fire. A mysterious heat lingered around the socket. It was an entirely different kind of heat from the pain she had felt when it was burned.

'... He's wonderful.'

Levera gazed at Eugene's back, spellbound.

* * *

"... I think you should probably head west."

"Could you be any vaguer?"

"What else can I do? My memories aren't intact."

Siknard grumbled, furrowing his brow.

"All I have left... are a few fragmented memories. I relied on them to search for the domain, and it drove me to despair."

"Then why don't you just come with us?"

Eugene asked, tilting his head askew.

Siknard did not answer at once. He watched Eugene for a moment, then gave a brief laugh and shook his head.

"I can't. There's no telling what might happen while I'm away from the village."

It was the first time Eugene had invited him, but he had expected that answer. The fairy trees' barrier was not absolute. This village of wandering elves had survived for years because Siknard cut down any intruders who came close.

"... The dark elves have been approaching more often in recent years."

Siknard murmured as he stroked the sword set beside him.

"Whenever they came close, I captured them, tortured them, and killed them. That's how I learned what was happening. Iris. That fallen creature is trying to spread corruption to strengthen her position."

"..."

"It's not even funny. That bitch is a monster—no, an abomination that should not exist. I can hardly believe she was once an elf like us, one of our own. After massacring elves three hundred years ago, now she claims she'll embrace them?"

Siknard gripped his sword hilt and ground his teeth.

"I don't believe it. Iris and the dark elves claim they only make 'offers' to wandering elves, but that cannot be true. They threaten them and force them to become dark elves. They kill anyone who refuses. If I leave this village... what if the dark elves descend on it?"

Siknard had fought in the war three hundred years ago. He was one of the few surviving elven rangers. In the forest Iris had burned, he had seen hundreds of elven corpses with their entrails ripped out. That sight had become a curse he could not shake for centuries, holding him captive.

"... Finding the domain should ease your anxiety, too."

Eugene smiled bitterly as he spoke. Siknard was not the only one haunted by scenes from three hundred years ago.

"After all, no one's managed to find it for centuries."

"... I suppose so."

Siknard murmured and released his tight grip on the sword hilt.

"Don't be too disappointed even if I can't find it. The main family's forest isn't as big as Samar, but it's still plenty large. A hundred elves could move in, and no one would even notice."

"... And it would be safe."

Siknard looked at Eugene with a relieved expression.

"... Thank you, Hamel."

"Where's that coming from all of a sudden?"

"... If you hadn't come, we could never even have hoped to leave this village. That's why I'm thanking you."

"Oh, is that all?"

Eugene rose with a hearty laugh.

"So. Head west... Anything else?"

"Centuries have passed. The landscape will have changed."

"Useless bastard."

"... As you head west, keep your attention on the leaf. That will probably let you find the domain."

Siknard lowered his gaze and sighed.

"... That isn't particularly helpful advice, is it?"

"As long as you know. I'm leaving now."

Eugene patted Siknard's shoulder and left the hut.

Kristina was already at the village entrance. She gave Siknard, who had followed Eugene, a polite nod, then looked at Eugene.

"Are we leaving now?"

"Yeah."

Kristina was not the only one at the entrance. Every elf in the village had come to see them off. Perhaps some were followers of the God of Light, for several clasped their hands in prayer toward Kristina.

No. Not only Kristina. Many of the elves were looking at Eugene with pleading eyes.

Those gazes were not unfamiliar.

'So heavy.'

Then as now, gazes laden with expectation were unbearably heavy. What could they do but pray desperately? They knew this village was not completely safe. They had no choice but to cling to hope.

'... Was your burden so much heavier than mine?'

Narissa was sniffling and crying. Had she grown attached already, after only a few days together? Her wet eyes held admiration as she looked at Eugene. Levera's eyes looked much the same.

'Vermouth.'

Everyone called him the Hero. Everyone placed their hopes in him. Wherever they went, those who recognized Vermouth would cling to him, pleading for him to save the world, defeat the Demon Kings, avenge their children, their parents, their friends.

"I hate Heroes."

The words escaped Eugene before he realized it.

"... Pardon?"

Kristina turned to him with a puzzled expression.

"I'm just saying."