We had finally reached the city.
We landed somewhere a little bit away and proceeded to walk from then on.
According to Marcho, the city of Eclaba was a large metropolis surrounded by gigantic walls and populated by more than a hundred thousand citizens. It was divided into three sections: the commercial area, the residential area, and the agricultural area.
Kuina hid her fox ears and tail using her Transform skill while Ancient Elf wore a hood.
To begin with, my and Elder Dwarf’s appearance did not differ much from a human’s so a disguise was unnecessary.
Like so, we wouldn’t attract too much attention to ourselves.
Even though they were rare, elves and dwarves had established themselves as one of the races in this world, distinguishing themselves from being monsters.
When a crystal is broken, the monsters created directly by the Demon Lord would vanish but that wasn’t so for their descendants. It would seem the monsters created by the other Demon Lords had conceived children and lived in prosperity and thus produced their own environment.
The Golems made by the dwarves were the same, by the way.
“Oto-san, look, what an impressive line.”
“That’s, they’re collecting tariffs as well as barring entry to dangerous people.”
“What a troublesome line.”
It was certainly a troublesome thing; one that would waste our time.
I decided to do it the easy way and borrow Kuina and Ancient Elf’s abilities.
“Ancient Elf, could you carry all of us?”
“I’ll manage. I can also check if there are any people nearby.”
“Okay. Next, Kuina. Can you hide with some magic?”
“Yup, I can but it’ll only be limited to our appearance. Our smell and the noises we make won’t be hidden.”
“It’ll be fine as long as the other party’s an ordinary human so please, do it.”
“Okay!”
And so, we became invisible through Kuina’s illusion magic and entered the city by riding the wind Ancient Elf blew.
◇
“Woah, there’s a lot of people here.”
“Master, they’re a little too many and it’s making me feel sick.”
We undid our invisibility at a place with no one around and then proceeded to the commercial area of the town.
I was with three beautiful girls so the gazes of the surrounding people gathered on us. But since they were still just little girls and since I was unambiguously sticking close to them, none of them dared to call out.
Nevertheless, there truly was so much people gathered in this city, both inside and out.
People looking for treasures and magic stones excavated from the great dungeon gathered here and those people brought their own goods to trade. Then, there came people looking for the goods that those people brought. There would then be people looking for those goods and so on and so forth, repeating the process over and over again, with each cycle increasing the scale of trading further.
Towns like this often formed near first-cla.s.s dungeon, or so it would seem.
By the way, the dungeon about 80 kilometers away from this city belonged to the [Time] Demon Lord.
If I had the abilities of [Time], making a dungeon prosper would be a simple job. Although the person himself had said that the largescale time rewind he did during the [War] was done with the Creator’s support.
“Master, if we go all out and ma.s.sacre all the humans here, we’d get tons of DP. It’s going to be safe for us too since even if we rampage here, we can just put all the blame to the [Time] Demon Lord.”
With a smile on her face, Ancient Elf said such terrifying things.
That might be correct when considering only the efficiency of things but…
“Let’s refrain from doing that. It’s against my principles and when the [Time] Demon Lord gets wind of it, he’ll surely kill us. And most of all, the people here might someday become my town’s citizens.”
“Sorry.”
“First of all, what do you all think of humans?”
“The humans? They’re cattle for us, right?”
Ancient Elf tilted her head in confusion.
I looked at the other two but they didn’t think Ancient Elf’s reply was strange.
There probably was nothing wrong with it from the point of view of a monster who had immense power.
In fact, I who held special emotions toward humans might be the weird one to them.
“If they are indeed cattle, then they should have other uses than to be killed and be eaten, right?”
“As expected of my master, you intend to use them to the last bit.”
There was no need to forcefully change their perspective toward humans for it might change voluntarily as they interact with them.
“Even though I’m the only one that won’t do it, there certainly are Demon Lords that, based on the circ.u.mstances of things, will strategically a.s.sault a human city.”
The one to respond to my words this time was Elder Dwarf.
“I wonder, why do that kind of thing?”
“It’s one way to attract humans. If they attack a city, you see, humans in large numbers will come to them and seek for revenge. There’ll be lots of strong humans too. If the Demon Lords manage to kill their would-be killers within the dungeon, they’d receive a ton of DP.”
It was a story I heard from Marcho.
If a Demon Lord did a largescale a.s.sault on a town, the human army would mobilize.
And the stronger a human was, the more DP the Demon Lord would get. Furthermore, it would seem that the strong emotions of the humans filled with the thoughts of justice and revenge were extremely delicious.
Poking the hornet’s nest as they say was an old trick done by the Demon Lords.
However, such a method would cause the humans to eventually distance themselves from the dungeon and thus, when compared to the method of seeking some form of coexistence with the humans, it will lose out in the long run. Moreover, there would always be that chance wherein the Demon Lord would be killed by the many hero cla.s.s humans he had provoked.
Simply put, it was a short-term last-ditch effort for when one needed a lot of DP.
“That sounds interesting, Oto-san. Let’s try it!”
“No, let’s not.”
Kuina could be kind of capricious sometimes so I decided I should be careful.
◇
We walked as we checked the prices of the different goods sold at the commercial area of Eclaba. The goods and their prices would serve as various reference materials someday.
But then, a group of three boorish men appeared and looked like they intended to stand in our way.
They were garbed in light armor with worn-out one-handed swords hanging from their sides.
“You little misses look cute. Wanna go eat some tasty food with us? We just scored some good stuff from the dungeon so we can treat you to some expensive food. Whaddaya say?
“Oi, oi. All of them’s a brat ‘cept for one. One’s even a man!”
“They can’t be brats if they’re this fine. Let’s just leave the guy here.”
They talked as they showed such sleazy smiles.
I was surprised in a way; I didn’t expect to find such stereotypical men here.
“Could you please not bother my companions?”
“Hey you look like a girl. Anyway, what, you their friend or something? You trying to show-off? Well, we’re just kind misters who are going to show them something more fun than playing games so don’t get in the way, okay?”
I looked like a girl?
It bothered me, to be honest.
I then felt Kuina repeatedly poking my back.
“May I burn these sc.u.m who dared talk like that to Oto-san?”
“I’m forbidding any killing today. Moreover, don’t get involved, okay?”
“Okay.”
She looked disappointed as she looked down.
I understood what she felt since I too wanted to kill them.
“I’m not their friend; I’m their guardian. I have a duty to protect these girls so I will get in the way.”
“I see… go to sleep then!”
One of the men swung his fist.
Even though I could have easily avoided it, I didn’t even try.
And then, his fist hit my cheek but didn’t separate from it.
“It hurts! What the, hitting this guy’s like hitting iron!”
The man held his hand and crouched down. Well, hitting me would do that to someone like him.
The man then raised his face and upon doing so, he began to tremble. The other two men also trembled soon after.
“AH! AH! AHHH!”
“Hii!”
“W-waaaaahhhhh!”
The three screamed as they began their escape.
I did not cause their panic, however.
“You guys have endured well.”
It was caused by my monsters.
They saw that the men actually dared to hurt me but since I had forbidden them to kill, the release of their urge to kill was all they did. It was, however, enough to make the men face their doom.
In the aftermath of things, the surrounding humans also lost their marbles.
They truly were S rank monsters.
“Oto-san, please take back your order of not getting involved. Even though I knew it won’t hurt you at all, I still didn’t like it. I could have kill him a dozen times even before his slow fist hit.”
“Me too, master.”
“Yeah, I agree. I won’t let anyone bring harm to my master.”
Being loved by my girls really made me happy.
With no other way, I decided to stop getting myself be purposely hit next time.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you guys worry. I’ll properly make it up to all of you.”
I had decided that after our tasks for the day were finished, I would let everyone enjoy themselves to the fullest.
◇
We had finished the viewing of the market price of the goods so next was, in a way, the day’s main event.
“From here on, we’re gonna be looking around mainly for weapons. Be especially mindful, Elder Dwarf. We can sell any weapons we have that are better than the ones here. Use it as reference.”
“Understood but I think it’s unnecessary; it’s unlikely humans could make something great.”
“That’s certainly true, yeah. I also share your sentiments but we’ll still use it as reference. After all, it won’t do us any good if we offer the humans weapons that are too powerful. So, it’s important to sell them only slightly better weapons than the ones sold here.”
For argument’s sake, let us a.s.sume we ma.s.s produced and sold a.s.sault rifles in my town.
It would be really popular and make the humans clamor over it. But this would invite the ire of the other Demon Lords and thus be like digging my own grave.
On the other hand, the far-too-advanced technology would stimulate the humans’ greed and, in order to have a monopoly over it, they would wage war on me in the true sense of the word.
No matter what, doing things in moderation was the key.
“I understand. I’ll closely examine the things here and make some drafts. Afterwards though, I’ll leave the manufacturing to those two. Mundane tasks are so boring after all.”
Such a task was probably unamusing for Elder Dwarf the researcher.
Nonetheless, I felt she would still do the task superbly.
“Sorry for making you do such a boring job but in exchange, I’ll use [Creation] to make an interesting weapon for you to study. I’ll also prepare an environment wherein you could focus on nothing but your research.”
I smiled a little when I stroked her cheerless head.
She then smiled with supreme happiness in return.
“I love you, master.”
Even such short words made her face redden and talk in whispers.