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Frontier Lord Chapter 020: The merchant and his wares

Chapter 020: The merchant and his wares

After we greeted each other, we shook hands with Peijin and each of the escorts whose bodies were covered in heavy armour. I was surprised by both the dampness of Peijin’s hand and the hairiness of the escorts’. Nevertheless, I was soon showing them to the storage yurt of Iruk village.

It was old lady Maya who had lectured me about shaking hands with the visitors. According to her, it was my duty as a lord to do so. It was thus something I would absolutely not forget to do.

「That’s right」, began Peijin once we reached the yurt. 「I hope I’m not being too hasty, but I’ll get straight to the point — could you show me the materials you collected from the Earth Dragon? The price they fetch will vary with the size and quality, so I’ll appraise the goods before we trade.」

I felt that he was indeed being a little hasty. I looked at Aruna, though, and when I saw that her horn was glowing white, I nodded. Klaus and I headed into the yurt.

The colour white signified that a person wasn’t hostile. However, the fact that Peijin wasn’t blue either probably meant that he was only here to do business, and did not harbour especially good intentions beyond that.

I wondered how much of the stuff I could trade away. It would be bad if Peijin came to believe that this fiefdom offered nothing for him. Deciding to take the middle ground, I decided to show him a single tooth, a single claw and a piece of shell about the size of a shield.

I had no idea how much a dragon’s materials were worth, anyhow…

So we’ll just wait and see.

I took the claw and the tooth, while Klaus carried the shell out of the yurt. The jaws of the armour-clad escorts dropped when they saw us emerge with the materials in hand. Peijin drew his mouth into a taut smile, and his skin turned a darker shade of green.

Is something wrong, I wondered. Could they have realised that we had purposely chosen the small objects? He didn’t look put-off, though… at least, that was what I figured.

「These are the materials…」, I ventured. 「What’s wrong, Peijin? Your expression seems to have changed for… the worse.」

「Gekko geko geko geko」, croaked Peijin. 「Now that’s nuts. When I heard that you had slayed a dragon all by yourself, I assumed that it was relatively small… but what I’m seeing here tells me that it was pretty large, wasn’t it?」

「Hm? Was that considered a big one? I’ve only seen one in my life, so I have no basis for comparison. I was thinking of hunting another one, but I didn’t manage to.」

「Looking for another one, eh?」, he replied. 「I apologise if this is impudent of me, but did you really slay an Earth Dragon all by yourself?」

The eyes on top of Peijin’s head narrowed and swivelled around to stare at me. The escorts looked like they suspected something, too, for their expressions were grim.

Did he think I just happened to come across a carcass?

Peijin’s expression told me that he suspected I was telling a tall tale.

I already planned to hunt dragons whenever I came across them, though, and I was considering exporting the materials obtained as a local product. It wasn’t good for others to be questioning the quality of the goods that we offered…

So I had to prove it to them.

「While Aruna was there too, I was the only one who fought it. If you’re wondering how I fought it, I climbed onto its shell and broke its shell open. But it’s hard to put into words… so I’ll provide a live demonstration.」

I turned to Klaus.

「I’m going to fetch my battleaxe, Klaus. Bring me another piece of shell in the meantime — one that is big enough to be comfortably cleft in two.」

「Hyo, hyo, eh? Break… its shell?」 exclaimed Peijin.

His throat swelled to enormous proportions in his surprise. We left him standing there as I headed for my yurt and Klaus wordlessly went back into the storage yurt. When I returned with battleaxe in hand, Klaus had already placed the piece of shell on the ground in front of the storage yurt.

Not wanting to waste any more time, I gripped the battleaxe and readied a swing.

Breaking the shell apart had been the most tedious step for the villagers. The monsterfolk had heated and cooled it until cracks began to appear, then got to work with a hammer and chisel, slowly but surely chipping parts of it away. It had taken copious amounts of effort and fuel, not to mention physical strength.

It had, in short, been a tremendously difficult undertaking.

I had thus offered to tap the shell with my battleaxe, looking for a spot where I could break it easily. I had tried to find a weak point or something for days on end, and upon finally finding one, continued hitting it for a few more days. And that was how I had, with my battleaxe, learnt the skill of cracking the shell into pieces in one swing.

After I found success, repeating it became significantly easier. I had thus helped the monsterfolk to break the shell apart.

「That’s a great skill」, Klaus had said while watching me. 「You should give it a name!」

He ended up coining it ‘Battleaxe Shell-Cleave’ on my behalf.

Aruna, who had also been watching nearby, agreed that it was a good name. Eventually, it was accepted by the monsterfolk too… in fact, the children now pressed me to perform ‘Battleaxe Shell-Cleave’ whenever I visited the village.

I swung at the shell to demonstrate the skill to Peijin and his escorts.

With a loud clang, my battleaxe went right through the shell and into the ground, leaving two neatly-cleft pieces of shell wobbling on both sides. Peijin’s mouth fell open, and his long tongue spilled out. Some of the escorts turned blue, while others froze in place and the rest fell on their rear ends.

「See…」, I said. 「Though this was a skill I learnt only after fighting the Earth Dragon, I think this is enough to demonstrate that I do have the ability to defeat one. If we find another one, I will slay it and we will export its materials, so I look forward to our future cooperation.」

Peijin snapped back to reality and took a deep breath, then repeatedly nodded his head up and down.

「O-O-Of course!」, he stammered. 「I’ll take your entire stock — the tooth, the claw, the shell and the pieces of shell you used to demonstrate your skills for us! Rest assured that I will offer you the market price for them!」

He turned to holler at his escorts.

「Oi! All of you! Unload the goods! I can’t afford all this stuff even with every single coin I have on me!」

The escorts, who had also returned to their senses, began to unload all sorts of goods from the carriage. They piled boxes, barrels and sacks of stuff in front of the storage yurt.

With his inventory (written on lambskin) in one hand and a frame of beads (called an abacus, apparently) in the other, Peijin began making calculations. He walked from one end of his wares to another as he counted what he owned. Muttering the number of coins (bronze, silver or gold) under his breath for each item, he crunched numbers which I assumed were the prices of his wares.

At long last, he raised his upper lip and gave us a smile.

「Good stuff, good stuff — I’m glad we have enough. If not, we’d have to give up our food money too. Oh, right… since we’re here, unload those things from the back of the carriage too. We were unable to sell any at the Kingdom of Beastfolk, but I think Dias will want them.」

An escort nodded and brought two young — very young — children out of the carriage.

They looked much the worse for wear. Dressed in rags, they were nothing but skin and bones, and their golden hair and skin were covered in filth. Their eyes were devoid of the usual light one saw in those of children.

This told me all I needed to know about them.

They were orphans, orphans just like I was.

So this was what he couldn’t sell…? Were these children another of his wares? This Pejin… he’s selling orphans? As slaves…?

A sense of fury that was difficult to describe welled up in my chest. Trying my best not to show my anger, I focused on gnashing my teeth. Aruna, grabbing one of my wrists, whispered for me to calm down.

Good grief, said old lady Maya as she approached and noticed how I was feeling.

「You can’t show children a face like that, my child. I’m sorry, merchant-san, but we are not fond of slaves. I hope you understand.」

Watching me shaking in anger, and then hearing old lady Maya’s words, Peijin began to panic. He looked flustered, and turned pale. As his expression continued to worsen, he tried to explain himself.

「This is a misunderstanding」, he said, his mouth flapping. 「They aren’t really slaves. We tried to help them… yeah, that’s right. We tried to help them by including them under our wares — they’d have died if we hadn’t done so. There’s no malicious intent or anything, just, you know, circumstances…」

Beads of what looked like oil formed on his skin as he continued his explanation.

The children were a pair of twins born on the same day, at the same time, in the same village. They had been believed to be harbingers of doom as they were the offspring of beastfolk, and the day after they were born, the villagers had come together and decided to execute them.

Their parents, not wanting this to happen, had taken the children and fled from the village.

Far away from the village, the four people had spent a few days in the forest devoid of human footfall. Then, Peijin had come across them and taken a fancy to the children. Life in the forest took a massive toll on their parents, who grew ill from exhaustion. Though Peijin had bought a large variety of medicine hoping that they would get better, their condition only worsened… and when they were knocking on death’s door, they entrusted him with their children.

At the end of the day, though, Peijin was a merchant, and he had refused to do something that did not offer him profits. That was why the parents had asked him to adopt the children as another of his wares with their dying breaths.

「I don’t want to offload these unfortunate children onto you, either」, he continued. 「But I received quite a hefty sum from their parents, so I agreed to take care of them until I found someone decent. Yet, nobody wanted children like these, so I’ve been unable to sell them off. The money I received from their parents has already run out, and I’m sustaining losses as I still have to feed them. And now we’re here. I heard that humans like purchasing and taking care of slaves, so I thought we could find a compromise. Please forgive me, I don’t have any malicious intent…!」

Having finished his explanation, Peijin hung his head low.

Now that I knew his circumstances… I guess I had no choice. My anger had been a knee-jerk reaction, and after hearing that he had no bad intentions, I apologised and hung my head low too. Hanging his head even lower, Peijin continued to apologise. As we stood there adopting the same pose, Aruna snuck up behind me and spoke up while using her finger to prod my back.

「Peijin isn’t lying」, she said. 「Those children are strong blues.」

I assumed that I was the only one who had heard that. I stared intently at the two children who had not spoken a word since their appearance. Even though a scene had occurred in front of them, their pupils had not moved an inch.

I had spent a lot of time in the past taking care of orphans like this… so why not do the same now? Having made up my mind, I shifted my gaze over to Peijin.

「I will never be able to tolerate slavery… so I don’t approve of purchasing these children either. But if they have nowhere to go, then trading for them is a different story. I’m making an exception for you… listen, I will compensate you for your efforts. You can have as much of the dragon’s materials as you need to cover your losses. No… not only your losses, but every cent you spent taking care of these children.」

Peijin’s eyes grew wider, but he nevertheless smiled at me.

And that was how I took these twins under my wing…

Not as my people, but as family.