TRHK Chapter 20

"I appreciate the thought, but——"

Faking a look and tone of difficulty wasn't as hard as I'd expected. I'd watched Eifel turn down a servant who'd been pestering her before, after all.

"The hall is badly short-staffed."

"The castle won't fall apart without you alone."

"Even so, I would feel uncomfortable... Young Master Joel……."

"Maylin."

Joel's expression grew more desperate. Like he genuinely loved Maylin.

"This time……."

He trailed off mid-sentence, and shut his mouth all at once. What had he been about to say?

"No. I think I've been too hasty."

He let out a breath, and smiled—the smile of someone barely holding something back. It was a feeling I found hard to understand.

"If you want to go, go."

"Yes. I will take my leave, then."

I made my escape without a second's hesitation, and Joel watched me go with a bitter look. If the original Maylin had been standing beside me, I'd probably have grabbed her shoulders and shaken her, insisting she'd been fooled by that look, that this bastard would stab her in the back down the line. But she wasn't here. Only I was.

When I hurried back to the party hall, the housekeeper spotted me and, for some reason, looked relieved.

"Well done."

I could half-guess what exactly I'd done well, so I just grinned and left it at that. The housekeeper snapped back to her usual self almost immediately, swatted my backside, and started scolding me to get back to work.

This next party, said to be far larger in scale than the last, was drawing steadily closer.

This was my first time coming to the back gate at night, and my heart pounded the whole way. All I could hear were insects, but every time the wind creaked past—every single time—I flinched and looked around.

Kahron, as it turned out, was surprisingly good about keeping to a time. Getting him to agree to meet at all had been the hard part, but once a time was set, he never showed up late. Slacking off, apparently, was reserved strictly for training. I smiled, watching him show up right on time again tonight.

"Why're you smiling like an idiot?"

There wasn't a hint of malice in it—he genuinely seemed to be wondering. I felt my expression sour on the spot and changed the subject to the closed gate.

"Do you know how we're getting out?"

"With a key."

"There's no key, though——"

Clink. He tossed a key up with one hand and caught it. My eyes lit up.

"Where'd you get that?"

Without answering, Kahron slotted the key into the lock. The back gate, more of a rat-hole compared to the front, creaked open with an old, worn sound. I hurried through after Kahron. He shut the gate behind us.

"The black market. I'm so nervous."

I'd already pulled the robe up to cover myself from head to ankle as we walked toward town, and the words slipped out before I could stop them.

The black market showed up often in fiction—not just in The Sword God's Adventure, but in countless other novels too. In most of them, the protagonists found treasure there, or met their companions.

"Have you been to a black market before, Kahron?"

Walking beside me, he nodded. His eyes narrowed a little, like he was recalling something from the past, and it looked, somehow, endearing.

"Before. Somewhere else."

Was he talking about where he was born? He'd probably originally been… nobility, from some other country. I held back the urge to ask more.

Kahron led me to some kind of tavern. Just before we reached town, he pulled his black robe up and took the lead.

We cut across the inside of the tavern, and the people drinking at the tables glanced our way. Maybe because it was strange, both of us with our faces more than half covered by black robes? But a fair number of the people in there were dressed the same way.

"By black wind—wind to the earth."

Kahron said this to a rough-looking man who seemed to be the owner, and the man nodded and opened the door behind him. It felt exactly like a scene out of a novel, and I found it fascinating. I held down my pounding heart and followed Kahron through the door.

"Ah."

There were stairs to go down, and it was so dark I nearly missed my footing, so Kahron had me hold his arm.

"……."

Seeing this, I guess we really have gotten a little closer. I gripped his arm tight and went down the stairs.

At the end of the fairly long staircase, there was one more door. When we opened it, a new world unfolded before us, exactly like the phrase implied.

A space too vast to compare to the castle's training yard. Countless people, from who knew where. Stalls, endless, lined up without number. Auctions, breaking out everywhere. It really was the "underworld," and the phrase fit exactly.

"Here to sightsee?"

He tapped my open mouth shut with one finger, needling me. But this was the exact black market I'd only ever encountered in a novel. How was I supposed to not look around? And besides, if we wanted to find someone selling herbs, we'd have to walk around plenty anyway.

"Finding herbs and sightseeing both."

At my shameless answer, Kahron snorted. I dragged him by the arm toward the very first stall in sight.

"That gem there is a love gem. As long as the person isn't a mage above the fifth circle, it'll make anyone fall in love with you."

The market vendor pointed at the red gem I'd been looking at and explained. I'd only glanced at it because it was close to the color of Kahron's hair—I hadn't known it was something like that. Kahron, arm still caught in my grip, gave me a look that was practically dripping with meaning. He hadn't misunderstood, had he?

"N-no, I'm good."

I waved my hands in a hurry and moved us on to the next stall.

A book stolen from a dragon's lair. A famous knight's sword, used until the day he died. An artifact a mage had poured his heart and soul into making.

Things I'd only ever imagined, reading books aloud to my mother back in our forest cottage, were laid out right in front of me—it was strangely moving.

Thinking about it, Kahron, the Count and Countess, Joel—they'd all been people I'd only ever read about and imagined too, but back at the castle I'd been too busy scheming to survive to feel anything about it. And the black market didn't spoil the sense of wonder in things, either, the way the castle did.

"Are you here to have fu——"

I shut Kahron's grumbling mouth with a special little snack I'd bought from a stall. It was a small, square-cut treat, and it was extremely sweet. Apparently it was a specialty eaten on some island far off the mainland.

"Sweet."

He didn't seem to like sweet things much and grumbled all the harder. Didn't like sweet, didn't like bitter. Still, since he wasn't just turning around and leaving me behind, he seemed at least somewhat willing to go along with things.

Having made it about halfway around the market, we came to a stop at the auction hall. My ears had caught the word "herbs" among the items the announcer was calling out.

There didn't seem to be very many people participating in the auction. There were other auction halls besides this one, so maybe they'd gone off after flashier lots elsewhere. Whatever the reason, it worked in our favor. Fewer competitors meant more for us.

"Now, the first item is……!"

The announcer, sensing no one else was coming, moved things along quickly. We took our seats at the participant benches and waited for the herbs to come up.

"The third item is a set of rare herbs. I'll introduce each one individually!"

Finally, the thing we'd been waiting for. Eager, I listened, and grew steadily more disappointed as the announcer described them.

"Anyone interested in purchasing?"

Only a few of the herbs sold. The rest went unclaimed. The announcer, looking a little at a loss, scanned the seated crowd and finally, seeming to have no other choice, brought out some kind of box.

"Even those of you with no interest in herbs will change your minds once you see this!"

What he pulled from the box was a fan-shaped plant that looked, at first glance, almost like a poison herb. Depending on how it was prepared, sure, it could probably become a poison. But that one was, without question, a medicinal herb. To Kahron, at least.

"That's the one, Kahron!"

I slapped Kahron's thigh, whispering, unable to hold it in—surprise and joy that we'd finally found the herb we'd been searching for so long, all wrapped into one motion. Kahron gave me a look that said is there anything you won't do.

"Now. We'll start the bidding at ten gold!"

My smile of joy died out in an instant. Ten gold? My monthly pay wasn't even one gold. The other herbs had all started at one gold—why did this one start at ten?

Sensing the crowd's discontent, the announcer launched into a long list of the herb's merits.

"This herb is called Kisen! An extremely rare herb, found maybe once every ten years. In the hands of a skilled physician, it can even bring the dying back from the edge!"

It was a useful herb, sure, but nothing so grand as saving someone from the brink of death. And once every ten years? Back in the forest where I'd lived in my previous life, I'd tripped over these things constantly. Was it really that rare here? If so, that at least explained why we'd had such trouble finding it.

I tilted my head to the side and asked:

"Kahron. Do you have the coin?"

If not, we had a real problem. Thankfully, Kahron raised his hand without hesitation. The announcer's eyes lit up as he called out:

"Ten gold, we have ten gold!"

Given how little response the herb had gotten, I'd figured we'd have the whole thing to ourselves—but a hand went up from the other side. Three people, in black robes like ours.

"Twenty gold."

"Twenty gold, we have twenty! Bold move! Anyone else?"

At that, Kahron said, low:

"Thirty gold."

The announcer, the three people who'd called twenty, and I all turned to look at Kahron at the same time. A sudden anxiety hit me. He did actually have the gold, right——? Was he maybe thinking, since he's a Sword Master, that if it comes down to it he'll just kick up a scene and bolt——

"Thirty-five gold!"

The competitors raised their hands again. The announcer's face lit up with pure delight. Kahron kept going.

"Forty gold."

"Forty-five!"

"Fifty gold."

"Argh. Fifty-five!"

A brief silence fell. Was that as far as it went, then? I wasn't even sure Kahron actually had fifty gold to his name—such a staggering sum—so I let out a breath of relief instead.

I was thinking maybe it'd be better to just go back and search the forest thoroughly all over again when—

"Fifty-five gold going once! If no one else——"

"One hundred gold."

Kahron threw out the final blow.