## Chapter 386 – Color From Outer Space
“Goddamn it.”
I guess I have no choice but to go out.
—Kweaaaaak.
Quetes howled once more. What a son of a bitch. He yawned a couple of times as if he were tired, then plopped down on the spot. I guess he thinks we’re resting since we’re not moving.
Bring me the goddamn soy paste.
“Guess I have no choice. Hey, Blackie, go take a look.”
“Alright.”
I fully opened the door and stepped outside the inn.
—Creak.
What’s the problem anyway, with Claudia and Winia standing guard behind me? If an emergency breaks out, we can just kill them all, like always.
They were riding in a slightly large four-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses. It looked like it could easily carry a few people inside.
Looks like the kind of carriage human traffickers would use.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Three robed figures stared at me silently. Their faces were hidden by the deep hoods… Could these bastards really be human traffickers?
“Hey there, fellas! Long time no see!”
I waved my hand cheerfully while holding my sword, trying to act like a local.
“Ah, but I don’t have any merchandise today. Sorry to say, we don’t have any women to sell, hehehe. Sorry to make you come all this way for nothing.”
Let’s try to pretend I’m a villager for now.
They could just be travelers, but in my judgment, suspicious guys like these usually work in suspicious trades.
The thugs in town said they haven’t had any customers to rob lately, so if we exclude that, these guys are likely either human traffickers or guys who ‘know’ this village.
In that case, they must be involved in some kind of crime.
“Why don’t you rest at the inn while you’re here?”
I greeted them cheerfully with that thought in mind, but they didn’t even react, just kept staring at me.
There’s no particular movement.
They’re not even taking out weapons.
“It’s gonna be a problem if you don’t answer.”
Are they just that confident? Or are they just reckless bastards? Should I make a preemptive strike? All sorts of thoughts ran through my head.
“…Those corpses.”
The voice that suddenly came was not normal, but had an ominous tone.
I tightened my grip on the sword.
As expected, strangers you meet in a random village are never normal.
“Did you kill them?”
Come to think of it, there were corpses everywhere since I had annihilated all the thugs in the village. The robed man pointed at them and spoke to me.
“Well… I don’t really know. This village is weird. The fog… is too thick. Maybe the fog made this village weird.”
Not knowing what to say, I just glossed over it, and the robed figures started whispering to each other, checking each other’s faces.
“If there are no goods… we shall return.”
Then, saying that, they were about to get back on the carriage.
They acted as if they didn’t care at all about who we were or why the village was in this state.
“Wait a minute. Actually, I have a few items left.”
“…?”
“It seems this village used to be in the human trafficking business. They’re not in great condition, but there are a few items left. They’re not really useful to me anyway, so I’ll just hand them over if you pay me.”
When I started talking like that, they reacted.
“…If there are goods, we will pay the price if you bring them.”
“Hehehe, now we’re talking. How much are you willing to pay per person?”
“We will decide after seeing the goods.”
“This time, there are some healthy men too, what about them?”
“We will also decide that after confirming the goods.”
These bastards were definitely human traffickers.
But their detached attitude bothered me a little. You could feel from their few words that they had a ‘take it or leave it’ mentality.
Our identities and the situation of the village were completely unimportant to them.
They seemed to be obsessed only with the fact of whether or not they could engage in human trafficking. Perhaps they were guys who didn’t think about anything other than human trafficking.
Beings born only to engage in human trafficking!
The only ones in this world who could have this kind of mindset were cultists who worshiped pain and crime.
These bastards were definitely cultists.
—Patzzut.
Mana began to surge with anger…!
Claudia and Winia were still watching from the inn, waiting. Coordinating with them was already a daily routine, so if I started acting, a battle would break out immediately.
“Well, wait a minute… But hey, fellas. What are you?”
I opened my mouth while trying to time my surprise attack.
“…There is no reason to answer you. Bring the goods quickly.”
“Yeah, I guess personal information doesn’t matter when you’re buying and selling people.”
Only then did they start moving stealthily.
Were they preparing to attack?
They’re human traffickers in the first place. With the village already ruined, they might even be planning to subdue me and sell me off. Their robes fluttered slightly.
“But, you goddamn cultist bastards, it does matter! Hail Order God!!!!”
—Flinch!
The cultists reacted to those words. I impulsively said the name of another god and charged forward with my blade raised.
“Ah, a minion of Ijzermart!!!”
“You cultist bastard!!! You cursed bastards dare to engage in human trafficking!!!”
Alarmed, they hurriedly rummaged through their robes, took out black wands, and aimed them at me. —Swaeak! At that moment, a fireball flew and hit the head of the robed figure in the back.
—Whoosh!!
“Kkyaaaaaaak!!!”
The cultist engulfed in flames screamed and collapsed. That was really nice cover fire. With Winia around, there was nothing to fear!
“Da, Daoc!!”
The guy next to him quickly aimed his wand and tried to return fire, but Winia’s Fire Bolt was faster. He too was hit by a fireball and writhed in agony.
In an instant, two of the three cultists were roasted.
As expected, there’s no match for a surprise attack.
With two of them subdued in an instant, the guy in front of me tried to run away instead of attacking.
“Celestial Demon’s Descent.”
I immediately kicked off the ground and chased after him. I wasn’t about to let a heinous cultist bastard get away…! Since I borrowed the name of Ijzermart, I had to produce results!
“Euheoeok!!!”
His hood came off as he ran desperately.
Then, a snow-white back of the head was revealed. It was a familiar skin color. I recalled the inhuman appearance of the cultists I had encountered in the underground waterways and slums of Isbant.
Snow-white skin, bizarre tattoos all over their faces. And two eyes as black as night, without even the whites!
An unforgivable scourge of the world!!!
“Kim Katz Drop Kiiiiiiiiick!!!”
I unleashed a dropkick as is. —Thwack! The outstretched leg struck the cultist’s back. “Keuheok!” He screamed and flew away like an evil magician levitating in the air, then tumbled over and over.
“May the blessing of the Order God be with you!!!!”
“Keuhaaak! What the…! Why is a minion of Ijzermart in a place like this…!”
I landed skillfully, raised my sword, and ran towards the fallen cultist.
His skin was truly as white as snow. His face contorted in pain, he groped the ground as if trying to find the wand he had dropped.
“Nowhere to go!”
—Crack!
I immediately stomped on his wrist to subdue him.
“Aaaaaaak!!!”
“The sin of serving a cult! And the sin of trying to buy and sell human lives! You will pay the price with death, you cultist bastard!”
He didn’t have any tattoos on his face, but I had already seen quite a few cultists like that. And above all, his two eyes were black as night, without even the whites.
Clear evidence of a cult…!
“Keuhak…! How dare! How dare youuu!”
He howled in pain, bared his teeth at me while shedding black tears. The cultists in the waterways used their own language, but he seemed to speak this language quite well.
“Speak, cultist! What the hell were you doing in this place!”
I roared, holding the tip of my sword to his neck.
What the hell are you planning to do with the people you buy?
Just thinking about it for a moment, the most terrible and dark tragedy seemed to overwhelm my brain.
Are you planning to turn them into ghouls like the Eternal Life incident! Or maybe you’re plotting some heinous human experimentation.
You sons of bitches…!
How can you even call yourselves human!
“Keuaaak…! Keu, keukeukeu… There is nothing to tell to ignorant fools who worship demons disguised as gods…!”
“What the hell are you babbling about, you son of a bitch? If you talk nonsense, I swear to god, I’ll pull out all your teeth, you parasite!!!”
He seemed to be trying to get out of the situation with nonsense, so I was about to cut off his arm. But at that moment, he roared fiercely and spat out black blood foam.
“Minion of Ijzermart, I will curse you!!! Keuhaaalk!!!”
—Kwaaaaaaaa!!!
“You, you crazy black hydra bastard!”
I reflexively threw myself to avoid all those unpleasant bodily fluids. A sticky, tar-like liquid soaked the ground.
Fortunately, none of it touched my body.
—Hwaak!
“Uh, uh!”
But at that moment, I felt like the world was turning black!
“What is this?”
But it didn’t even last a second before I found the light again.
Was I just mistaken?
The cultist, who turned his head and looked at me, smiled ominously and said as if declaring.
“Keukeukeu, can you feel hell…?”
“What hell? I dodged it?”
“…?”
Anyway, it was clear that he was going to make more of a fuss, so I immediately swung my sword.
“Wa, wait a minute!!!”
“Excuse me!”
—Thwack!
As the blade fell, his snow-white head flew into the sky.
Strangely enough, the blood that splattered was not red, but black. As expected, the cultists were so evil that even their blood was black.
“Fucking cultist bastard.”
I will dedicate his death to the black people who were exploited and painfully perished in the hot sugarcane fields.
The three cultists met their deaths in such a way.
“What kind of guys were they?”
“They seem like the same bastards as the cultists we saw in the waterways back then.”
Claudia, who had approached, asked while examining the corpse.
In my opinion, they seem to be those cultist bastards who were active near Isbant. What the hell, it’s such a shitty backwater that all sorts of weirdos are there.
Anyway, I’ll let Elise know next time I see her.
“But… what kind of guys were they really?”
Overall, their combat power was terrible.
No, it seemed like they didn’t even know how to fight. Is it because they’re priests? Or are they not the guys in charge of combat?
Not all religious people have powerful force like gangsters.
The Guangmyeong Star Cross Society, where all members can perform combat, is a special case, and other religions have paladins in charge of combat and priests in charge of other tasks.
“Blackie, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. These guys were really weak, you know?”
Maybe these guys were also cultists in non-combat positions.
Anyway, we checked all of their corpses. None of them had tattoos on their faces. It was speculated that they were probably low-ranking cultists.
So that’s why they were driving around in a carriage, doing human trafficking.
In other words, they seem to be low-level cultists.
But that’s just my guess.
“Katz, the carriage is completely empty. I don’t see anything suspicious.”
“I think I found something.”
When I searched the corpses, I was able to find small iron plates with familiar symbols engraved on them. It was the one that Elise and I had seen so many times.
What the hell are these bastards doing?
—Clang.
And I also found two money pouches containing about 500 coppers. It’s about 10 silver in cash.
Were they planning to buy the people who were forcibly detained in the village with this money? Besides that, I was able to get three black wands.
It’s a decent income.
—The Foggy Plains.
I felt like there was some terrible secret hidden in this place.
It’s a very wide place, and the fog is so thick that it covers the entire place.
There’s no better place for evil beings to hide and live.
“Well, whatever. Let’s get out of here.”
“What about this carriage?”
“We have to burn it. Winia, I’m counting on you.”
“It’s a little pitiful to just kill the horses.”
You kill people just fine.
Well, isn’t this an era where people feel more sympathy for animals than for people?
And so we left the village.
The village hidden in the fog disappeared into the fog.
