I Was Connected to Earth’s Black Market From Another World With The Skill [Market]! (WN)

Chapter 264

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Chapter 264 – The Coming Disasters

The following day, Prince Haidar made a decision. He decided to return to the Republic. The shrine maidens were also worried because there was talk of taking over the work in the village, but in the end, they decided to go with him.

“When we return, we will all go together. Please work with us then.”

The prince told the elders and boarded the Casspir.

“Of course we will.”

I gave the elves, who had come to see us off with all the villagers, five sets of clothing and fabrics that Simon was so proud of, as well as a composite bow with a pulley and a machete. These were part of the collection of silent weapons I had acquired earlier, but I couldn’t hit them properly when I shot them, so I gave them to Minya, who had kept them for herself.

“This is a souvenir. I will see you again when I have the chance.”

“I am very grateful to you, Your Majesty the Demon King and Your Majesty the Queen. Please take good care of the prince.”

“Umu, don’t worry. We will protect them and everyone in the north and make sure they live happily ever after.”

Behind the grateful elders, the elven women spread out the fabrics and clothes and broke into gasps. I’m glad they’re happy… but Simon, I just noticed that the coloring is a little bright, isn’t it? I’m not sure if it’s the color sense of the area he’s in, but there seem to be a lot of primary colors. Brown, beautiful, and wearing primary colors seem to be like the Masai people…

Well, that’s okay.

“Well then, let’s go.”

As we talked, I looked back to the south and was startled by the fact that the edge of the forest seemed closer than yesterday, perhaps because of my imagination. Well, I reminded myself that if that was the case, it was not a bad story, at least for the elves. But I wouldn’t want to get too close.

“Well, good luck to you.”

“And good luck to you too, Your Majesty.”

I started the Casspir and headed north.

I had refueled in the morning, so there would be no problem getting to the coast. The tank holds about 220 liters, and Simon says it has a range of about 700 kilometers.

That means about three kilometers per liter? I don’t know if that’s good or bad for an armored car, but it’s more economical than the Griffon hovercraft. No, my standards are wrong.

“Prince, how far is it to the coast?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I’d say about two hundred miles.”

About 320 kilometers. We would be there by noon at the earliest.

“I hope everything will be okay.”

“Myrril-san, I’m afraid there might be a problem if you talk like that, so could you please stop?”

“No, the weapons have already been serviced and reloaded. A few enemies won’t be a problem.”

I don’t think that’s the point. Just when you think you have a solid system in place, the enemies and monsters appear in greater numbers or with greater capabilities than you prepared for, or they have unexpected extras.

“Well, Myrril, were you able to contact Rinko and the others?”

“No problem. She said something this morning. I didn’t understand it because I didn’t know all the words.”

“No. Are you sure she’ll pick us up?”

“That won’t be a problem. She said she had already left and that she was close by.”

A buckwheat noodle shop, huh?* If they were still preparing, we would be in trouble. [T/n: I don’t know why it comes to this.]

Since there was no point in worrying about a problem that had not yet occurred, I asked the prince what I had been wanting to ask him since yesterday.

“What kind of elves are the people of Solbesia called?”

“What do you mean?”

“The elves of Solbesia look and live a little different from the elves of Casemaian. I thought they might be another group.”

“No, I don’t know; I have no contact with the elves of the northern continent. Over here, they are just called the ‘People of Solbesia’ or the ‘Demon Tribe’.”

“I see. I just thought you were called dark elves because you are brown-skinned elves.”

“Dark elves? I’ve never heard of that.”

“I see. That’s okay then.”

Well, dark elves are bad in some works, right? It was an unintentional remark. It could have been rude.

“In our continent, there are only two categories of elves: the ‘northern elves,’ who live in the north and dislike humans, and the ‘southern elves,’ who live far in the south. And further south, in Solbesia, I don’t know what they call them.”

Further south of Sud… I guess you’d call them Polar Elves. I think Solbesia is a pretty high latitude to be called the South Pole.

“It’s only natural to get sunburnt when you live in Solbesia. I think both Yoshua and I have changed color a bit, haven’t we?”

Is that so? I don’t think we’ll turn brown in a few days.

By the time the sun rose in the middle of the sky, the shining light made the inside of the car very hot. I opened the windows to let the breeze through, but the windows were made of bulletproof glass, as this was an armored car. There were still rocks and bushes in our way, and it was not safe to open the rear hatch because of the possibility of an enemy ambush.

“Hey, hey… if you were driving in Africa, you’d at least have air conditioning, right?”

I found a knob on the dashboard that looked like it, but it was either broken or only had a heater function, and only fresh, warm air came out. I opened the gun turret to try to ventilate it a bit…

“Fuwah! Yoshua, this is impossible.”

“It can’t be helped, let’s close it.”

It turned out that only fine sand and hot air were blowing in, which did nothing to lower the temperature. I handed out large plastic bottles and asked people to cover their heads with water. I also handed out 500 milliliters of mineral water to encourage people to overhydrate.

Aside from the prince and the others, Myrril and I were not used to living in an arid region. By the time we felt thirsty, we were already dehydrated.

“The people of Solbesia, who live in such harsh land, do not dry up.

“”We are drying up.””

“You are drying up?”

The prince makes a troubled face when I turn to him.

“The people of Solbesia were not surrounded by sand because they wanted to be. Over the years, the ‘currency of grace’ has been reduced, and the places where people can live have been gradually narrowed.”

“”””I really want to live in the forest.””””

I swallowed the words I was about to say, “If that’s the case.”

Then they should have fought and taken it. If only they had continued to hunt humans, animals, and monsters and turned them into forests. The result would not have been so disastrous. If only they could have gotten food for life, a place to hide, and the art of fighting, all from the forest.

But it was the prince’s mother, the Queen of Solbesia, who bound him not to choose this way of life. It is hard to believe that a country could be buried in the sand just because of her idea. Perhaps it was the pacifist ideals defended for generations that destroyed their homeland.

I am not qualified to laugh at their choice, as I have only been capable of genocide since I came to this world, but… it is a somewhat disturbing story.

“I don’t know if the other elves have the same abilities as the prince and the others… but I don’t see why they would be so misanthropic.”

Either we came to the same conclusion, or he read my mind. With a voice that only reaches the driver’s seat, Myrril, in the passenger seat, mutters.

“Kill your enemies, or your friends will be killed. If you want to avoid both, you have no choice but to break contact and hide in the woods.”

“I agree.”

I looked back and saw the prince and the shrine maidens huddled together in their sheets, sound asleep.

What choices the generation after them will make is their own question, but hopefully, they will find something that is not like the kings whose whole country perished, or like the northern elves who nearly became extinct because they cut off contact with others, but I hope they will find something that is not like my way of life.

“Hmm…”

It had been about an hour since I had driven through the scorching desert. Myrril, who had been sitting on a gun emplacement, took in the sandy breeze and exhaled suspiciously, thinking it was better than being in a closed room.

She wore a bath towel like a turban to protect herself from the sun, and she looked cute, like one of the desert people in a picture book, but that was beside the point.

“What’s wrong, Myrril? Tell me as soon as you feel something is wrong, okay?”

There was a clang, a loading sound, and I could hear her looking ahead as she held the PKM ready.

“Yoshua, slow down. There are about… dozens of figures ahead.”

No, wait… I’m just going to make a straight line back to the sea, so please don’t do that.

“A little to the right. Yes, keep going straight.”

As we passed through a series of sand dunes, we could see smoke rising from behind a rocky hill ahead of us.

As usual, it was not cooking smoke. It was black, vast, and rising unevenly. It was either a fire or a burn.

“That’s why I told you to stop that…”

The prince, who had woken up in the noisy driver’s seat, stared intently at the windshield.

Some of them are carrying wounded on their horses. So far, none of them have attacked us, but we cannot make out their personalities because they are all covered with rags to protect them from the sun. If Myrril had not shot them, they must not have been enemies, so they approached the car.

I saw a woman with a small child in her arms. This must be a civilian.

“Your Majesty the Demon King, please don’t shoot those coming towards us!”

“Understood, Mir!”

“I understand. I can’t see their ears or skin yet, but that’s…”

“”””Friends.””””

I could tell from the shrine girls’ brief response that trouble was brewing. I was not surprised because I thought it was a foregone conclusion.

“Hey, over here!”

I pulled the Casspir to a stop and waved, and the men ran toward us, wary. Brown-skinned, well-dressed faces, tall. Long ears peeked out from under turban-like headdresses.

“You are the people of Solbesia, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“What happened? And the others?”

The men, not knowing the prince’s face, continued to call for help.

“The village was attacked. They took everyone.”

“Big ships, many of them.”

“Anyone who tried to stop the destruction and looting was killed.”

“There are more fleeing behind us.”

The coast must be more than a hundred kilometers away. Had they fled from so far away? And the woman with the child?

“Is it a coastal village under attack?”

“No, it’s a village in Kaimani. There is a valley there.”

I don’t understand, even when they say the name of the place. The men pointed in the direction of the village, but it was far to the east from where they had fled. Either they are confused, or they don’t know the unit of distance, so they can’t tell how far it is.

“”The elves don’t eat fish. They don’t trade either.””

The twins who accompanied the prince looked at me suspiciously and said, “What are you talking about?” I don’t ask what kind of life they lead.

“They say they don’t have to live by the sea.”

No, I don’t know. If they were attacked by a ship, you’d think the settlement would be on the coast.

Anyway, I told them to bring out supplies of water and food and to gather up those who had escaped. We can’t move with all of them.

“Run south. There is a forest that will protect the people.”

“A forest? There should be no forests.”

“There are now.”

He looks back and forth between me and the prince, unsure if he can trust us. That would be true. It would be deadly to cross the sea of sand in desperation and lie about it.

“It is about a hundred miles away, but if you ride your horse for a moment, you will see the treetops. If you can get there, you can call for help through the words of the plants and flowers.”

“No, we can’t. We have been stripped of our power by the Empire…”

I don’t know what the words of the plants and flowers are, but it’s probably a means of communication for the elves. It requires magical power to use it.

“If you’re talking about the shackles, don’t worry.”

I took them from as many people as I could see in the warehouse and threw them away. Everyone looks at it with blank stares, puzzled, touching their own chests.

“How do you do that?”

“Just run away. Take the water and food that’s in there.”

“Y-yeah.”

I looked at the woman, who was holding a sunshade over the child, and handed her a bath towel. After thinking for a moment, she poured water on the towel. She seemed to dry up and exhaled in relief.

“Come on, drink the water. And for the children.”

“Th-Thank you…very much.”

“If your friends behind you are alive, I’ll help them out and send them after you. When you get there, ask the man in the forest to send help.”

Outside Casspir, the shrine maidens seemed to be casting healing spells on the wounded. Those who can move are given water to drink and told to take bottles and food and head south.

“Myrril.”

“Strange. I asked the refugees where the village was located, but they still pointed east of the smoke.”

“Then what is burning?”

“Your Majesty, the Demon King.”

The prince and the twin guards bow to us, their faces filled with emotion.

“It would be excessive to ask for further assistance.”

“Okay.”

“”Eh.””

“We’ve come this far; let’s move on. Let’s go, everybody, get ready for a firefight.”

“””Yes!”””

I have to admit, I knew this was going to happen anyway. I get back in the driver’s seat of the Casspir. There was no Myrril in the passenger seat. Nor was she outside.

“Huh?”

“The demon king makes his living by not being able to overlook the oppressed and weak.”

Myrril-san smiles at me from the gun emplacement.

No, that’s not a line you say with such motivation, is it? I engaged the clutch, started the car, and drove to the village in the valley called Kaimani or something like that.

“Uh, it can’t be helped. It is the work of one who possesses the power of evil, my queen.”

We laughed, playing the demon king in a desperate attempt.