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

Chapter 266

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Chapter 266 – Expanding Forest

“Her Majesty the Queen, please wait.”

“…Well, perhaps you should take care of it yourself.”

At the Prince’s request, Myrril ceased firing. Prince Haidar stepped out of Casspir, accompanied by his escort twins, who held up their PPSh.

They had a hand in Kaienholt’s case, but there was no reason why they couldn’t finish off the small fry with a pistol round.

The sailors, stunned by Casspir’s majesty, saw that it was the children who had come down and approached them with daggers and spears in their hands and smiles and mockery on their faces.

“What the hell? What is this, a child with no brains has come all the way back here?”

“Oh, you are demon girls, aren’t you? You don’t seem to be fully grown yet, but that’s okay…”

The submachine gun fired a bullet that pierced the heads of the lusting sailors. Five or six men collapsed, unaware of what had happened.

“”…it’s you who lack brains. You lowlifes.””

“Wha!?”

“Enemy attack, mages!”

The sailors who had been engaged in looting and plundering gathered around, but they did not understand that they were incapable of countering the guns.

“Kill them!”

“There are only three opponents, go around and…buhhh!”

Unable to approach, let alone resist, the sailors were shot down one by one, leaving a pile of wreckage in their wake. In the shadow of a collapsed house, a uniformed man who looked like an officer, protected by shields on either side, could be seen ordering the sailors with bows to attack.

As they drew their bows, the sailors noticed something unusual. The arrow that pierced through the wall of the house, tangled in the ivy, pierced the sailor with the shield. The Prince had already activated the currency of grace. The surrounding soldiers were swallowed by the trees that swelled from the pile of corpses beside them, and before they could scream, their torsos were pierced, and their limbs torn off and turned into green particles.

The officer, frozen in shock, was lifted high into the air, his stomach ripped out by the spreading branches.

“O-ooohhh… ah!”

The man’s body, jumping up to a dozen meters, explodes into green particles. Simultaneously, trees in the village all over the place flew up and caught the group of fleeing sailors, spreading their rustling branches and undergrowth and turning them into nutrients. The Prince’s power quickly transformed the hollow into a dense forest.

“No matter how many times I see it, it’s still amazing…”

In a matter of minutes, the only thing moving in the depression was the ever-expanding vegetation.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Your Majesty the Demon King and Queen.”

I nodded to the Prince and the others who had returned to the car and started the Casspir.

“Yoshua, take the path ahead.”

“Understood.”

We walked carefully along the path northeast of the village.

The northeast side of the rocky mountain was a valley, and although there was a difference in elevation, the narrow path continued with many obstacles. It was like a natural trench, suitable for defense but not for attack.

The fact that the villagers were able to hold out with such a small army was due to the advantage of this geographical location, wasn’t it?

“Yes. Even so, they must have been crushed by sheer force of numbers.”

They fought for their lives to the end, losing only a few dozen men. There was evidence of the battle in the valley, such as wooden shields with arrows sticking out of them and broken wagons, perhaps from the delayed battle when they attacked the village. There were no bodies.

“Considering the size of this village, there are very few bodies and survivors. Also, there are no enemy bodies.”

“The ruts in the wagons are overlapping and deep, and they have carried heavy loads many times.”

Did the Imperial Army carry down the corpses of their comrades? Besides…

“”””Women, children, being held up.””””

I guess that’s what it comes down to. They’re disgusting to the end.

As we crossed the valley to the other side, the view opened up. There is a gentle slope for several square kilometers. Here and there were wrecks of wagons and bodies from both sides.

“We are advancing, but there is no sign of the enemy. Prince, wait until we reach the forest; rescue first.”

“I understand.”

“Yoshua, I think we can get down from the rocks on the right.”

“Yes. Hold on.”

When we reached the end of the flat area, we stopped a short distance ahead. The Casspir is bigger than a bus and weighs more than ten tons. The road was a slope, and I had to make sure it was strong enough and wide enough to get through.

At the edge of the plain was a cliff with a bare rock face. Looking down, the difference in elevation was about 200 meters. Next to the rock Myrril had mentioned, I could see a slope leading down. It was a ninety-nine-degree turn as if the slope was heaving. The slope is more like a cliff than a hill. The width and shoulder of the road might be accessible to Casspir, but if the driver makes a mistake, he will be thrown headlong into the cliff.

Oh, wait. Even if we could go straight, we’d have to turn around and switch back to get back.

“How about that?”

“Impossible. I’d rather store and teleport than take unnecessary risks.”

Myrril, who had come up beside me and peered over the cliff, nodded.

“Oh, that looks good. Look.”

“Look, even if you say so…”

I checked what Myrril was pointing at with the binoculars I had taken out of storage. The wreckage of the wagon, horses, and people lay at the bottom of the slope. Apparently, they had indeed fallen at the turn of the ninety-ninth turn. The distance was too great to see without binoculars, but the wreckage was so crumpled that it was hard to tell what it was.

After all, there was no need to get out of the car. The Imperial Army is crazy.

“Yoshua, the smoke we saw earlier looks like this.”

With my binoculars, I finally saw the coastline in the distance. The source and cause of the smoke were also visible.

I estimated the distance to the sea to be about ten kilometers. The distance to the sea was much closer than the lord had estimated, assuming we took a shortcut along the cliffs. There were about ten ships of various sizes anchored there, sending small rowboats to the shore. Small forests and groves were scattered about, and smoke rose from them. There were wagons and people carrying something.

“Prince, is that the imperial ship in the back?”

“Yes, it is a ship of the Imperial Navy.”

It is a large sailing ship. It resembles the cruiser I saw in the Republic, but even its armament is not visible. The Prince does not seem to know the navy’s equipment either, but at best, it is a projectile gun and a distant thunder cannon.

According to Myrril, soldiers are stationed in every forest, oasis, and settlement in sight, and horses and wagons pass between them and the sea. Even with binoculars, I could only see bits and pieces.

The jumbled mess at the intersections of the routes looks like a loot depot and a bridgehead barricade. Smooth and systematic logistics? Even if it’s looting.

“They move in such an orderly fashion. Is this different from the one that was ordered to follow us?”

“The Imperial Navy is not under the command of Kaienholt. It is a unit of the home country.”

“The false demon king’s men are different, huh? By the way, Prince, you said that those stationed in the outlying lands are not from the Empire?”

“Yes, they are from the occupied territories.”

The victims of an invasion become accomplices to the invasion and become perpetrators just like those who oppressed them.

It was the same in my former world. You could call it lightening the chains of slavery, turning the malice and resentment of the weak against the even weaker. It’s a move used by occupiers and rulers to divert hostility away from themselves. They are truly disgusting.

Myrril asked the shrine maidens in the rear compartment as she came down from the gun emplacement.

“Do you know where the people of Solbesia are being held?”

“”Will you fight with those numbers?””

“Of course. How many people are in captivity?”

“”It would be reckless.””

If we were to kill them from the safety of the armored car, that would be one thing, but to go into the enemy camp and rescue them all, even with our strength, we would be taking a risk that could not be worth taking.

“How many, I ask you.”

Ignoring the twins, Myrril turned to the shrine maidens.

“”””…T-thirty-six.””””

Surprisingly few, considering the circumstances, but too many to be left to die.

“Yoshua, I would like to hear your opinion, Your Majesty the Demon King.”

The shortest way to the coast is about ten kilometers. It takes an enormous amount of time, effort, and danger to reach it, using narrow slopes to descend cliffs, traversing rocky terrain, crossing the Imperial Army’s position, repeatedly fighting battles, and crossing several difficult places, but if it is only to escape, it can be done quickly by teleporting.

“If only to escape, it would be easy.”

“”If only…””

“Yes, if only. If we were capable of that kind of profit and loss thinking, we wouldn’t be in these places in the first place.”

“”…..””

Frankly, I’m sick of it. Even if I cut back a little, once we’re gone, the enemy will come back to bite them. Even if I take out the Prince and the seven shrine maidens, how can they be happy while worrying about the people of Solbesia that we left behind?

“The demon king will run away from a small army of people. Don’t make me laugh.”

When I looked at them, the twins were frightened and retreated. I don’t know if they were just taken aback by the inappropriate old man’s smug look or what.

“It was as hard as I expected.”

“Well, I didn’t expect it to be a walk in the park, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”

I looked back at the frozen child elves and ordered.

“All disembark! Rescue the prisoners. Shrine Maidens, tell me the location of your companions trapped on the cliff. Fell and Eyal, escort and watch the Prince!”

“”Watch?””

“Don’t let him go on a foolish rampage by mistake. Make a forest here and take care of the rescuers.”

I stow the PKM light machine gun and the PPSh submachine gun with the Casspir and leave the composite bow with pulleys instead.

“I hope this will at least protect you, right?”

“”Of course.””

“Yoshua, I’m ready.”

My goodness, Myrril-san, you are surprisingly light. I’m paralyzed at the thought. The usual UZI, Star, and Alaskan. She’s fully equipped with an M79 slung diagonally over her shoulder. The reason she carries a light bag is probably the assumption of a round trip. I can’t carry more than 30 people at a time.

“Tell me where they are. I’ll leave the order up to you, but preferably the youngest first.”

“”””Four people in a wagon.””””

The wagon goes down the hill, and one of the shrine girls points to the back of the wagon where there are what appear to be figures, but it doesn’t look like there are that many people in the wagon. The distance is about 200 meters. There are about five men who appear to be sailors, but the others are, at most, one or two?

“When it was old enough.”

“””” And twelve, big… and five babies.””””

I grabbed Myrril and threw myself off the cliff.

Those guys, I’m going to kill them.