Yari no Yuusha no Yarinaoshi (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 3

Chapter Three: A Hidden Passage 

“Hey, hey, Kitamura! Look!” 

Kou pointed at the nearest mountain range. 

“I can smell something super delicious coming from over there!” 

Father had been trying to calm down Yuki. But he glanced over in the direction Kou was pointing. 

“Huh? What’s over there?” he asked. 

I referenced my map. It appeared to be somewhere in the south-southeastern corner of Melromarc, not too far from the border. I think that even if you crossed the mountain you would still be in Melromarc. 

Sure, we could head there. Why not? I thought to myself. 

Oho? When I looked closely, I thought I saw the outline of a person flickering through the trees. 

“If Kou smells something, there must be something over there, right?” Father asked. 

“Yeah! There’s definitely something,” Kou said, drool hanging from his beak. “And it’s not too far, right?” 

“Let’s go check it out,” Father said. “It looks like we don’t need to go too deep into the mountain.” 

“Woohoo!” 

So Kou started pulling us toward the mountain. The carriage clattered and rattled at his intense speed. The road faded farther and farther away, and we followed something like a game trail deep into the mountain. 

Father opened up the map again. 

“Could it be someone’s campsite?” 

“Found it!” called Kou. 

Kou detached from the carriage and raced off. Father peeked outside and looked around carefully. 

“Some kind of animal? Monsters?” 

Then we heard a loud, sustained scream coming from Kou’s direction. But not Kou’s voice. 

“Kou! Wait—wait, don’t do anything!” Father shouted, taking care to check his surroundings and then jumping out of the carriage. I followed Father’s lead and glanced around suspiciously. 

“What in the—?” 

Like a hunter holding his triumphantly captured game, Kou held something by his feet. 

“H-help me!” 

It was begging for its life. It was a . . . a mole. A talking mole. 

Now that I thought about it, there had been a talking mole back in Father’s village, I say. 

“Kou, let him go! That’s not a monster!” Father shouted. 

“We need to confirm what it is first,” I suggested. 

“Aw, man,” Kou said and reluctantly took his talons off of the mole. 

“Sorry about that,” Father said, rushing from the carriage up to where Kou and the mole were. “That must’ve frightened you. Please forgive us.” 

“Oh, t-thank you so much,” the mole said. “D-don’t w-worry about a thing. I was following the mountain road and could hardly see, and that’s what happens when you get lost in the mountains.” 

The mole stood up. Father checked to make sure it didn’t have any injuries, and then, bowing his head, he sincerely apologized. 

“You need to say you’re sorry, Kou,” Father said. 

“Come on,” groaned Kou. He bowed his head. 

It wasn’t quite an apology, but Father seemed more focused on talking to the mole than forcing Kou to say sorry. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Father said. “Are you a therianthrope? What are you doing here?” 

In Melromarc, demi-humans and therianthropes were at the very bottom of the social ladder. When you think about how all human societies work with an upper and lower class, it’s not all that unusual. 

“Ah, yes. I am a lumo. You see . . .” 

Even if he was a brigand or a thief, he didn’t appear to have any weapons and looked like an ordinary villager from Siltvelt. And not a merchant or a salesperson, but more like a lumberjack or woodsman. Or maybe a palanquin bearer. 

Still, I couldn’t help but sense that he was hiding something from us. 

Then, from a slight distance, we heard the sound of clashing metal. The mole instantly tensed up at the sound. 

“What’s that?” Father asked, looking toward the sound. The mole suddenly raced off in the same direction. 

“Wait!” Father called. “Seems like there’s a lot going on here. Let’s find out.” 

“Are you sure, Father?” 

If we got involved in a troublesome situation, it could end up drawing attention to us and prove our very downfall, I say. 

“Well, we can’t just leave here like we didn’t see anything,” he said. 

“You are quite right, Father. So let’s get going already!” 

I didn’t have a great feeling about all this, but Kou went back to the carriage and sent us chasing after the mole as fast as he could. 

The sound of clashing metal turned out to be a battle. 

“Hehehe . . . Don’t try and resist anymore! You’re just causing us trouble!” 

“What is going on?” 

Father looked outside the carriage again to observe the situation. A large group of people was rushing to attack a cave, with a number of moles defending it. 

Keel let out a series of oinks at the sight of the battle before racing to climb down out of the carriage. Meanwhile, the mole that we had talked to previously was wildly swinging an axe, charging into the fight. 

“Wait, Keel!” Father said. “It’s too dangerous to go alone!” 

Father climbed down from the carriage after Keel and grabbed the mole by the shoulders, preventing him from entering the fray. 

“Let me go!” he shouted, struggling to enter the battle, but Father, as the Shield Hero with impressive defensive capabilities, didn’t even blink. 

“Please, let me go!” the mole cried. “I don’t mind if I get caught myself!” 

Keel oinked angrily. 

“Wait a second,” Father said in a quiet, threatening tone. He glared at Keel and the mole before speaking calmly. “Keel, this doesn’t have anything to do with us. We just need to figure out what’s going on first. Like you said, Keel, they’re probably slave hunters.” 

His sharp, cool voice reminded me of Father from the first go-around, I say. 

Keel oinked several times in response, nodding, before looking toward Lazy Pig. She was still in the carriage. She squealed loudly in response. 

Personally, I didn’t see how these so-called slave hunters were any different from plain old thieves. 

“Elena, you’re saying that even Melromarc soldiers and knights are mixed in with the slave hunters? This really is a rotten country,” Father said. 

Then he cast a gaze in the filolials’ and my direction and gave us a signal to go. 

Lazy Pig sighed and grumbled a few meager oinks. 

“You’re saying even if we rescue the slaves then they’ll be after us instead? Well, yes, but we need to help them anyway, right? We’re deep in the mountain, so we just need to make sure that no one else sees us here.” 

Then Father looked at me again. 

Aha—I understood what he wanted me to do. 

“Liberation Fireflash!” 

I chanted a spell to reveal any enemies that were hidden with concealment magic. 

We couldn’t see that well because of the dense woods, so we had no choice but to get closer to see any more details about what was going on. 

“There don’t appear to be any hidden enemies,” I informed Father. 

“That’s perfect for us,” he said. 

“Stop your futile resistance!” bellowed a slave hunter. “If you want to die, then so be it!” 

The moment the slave hunter was about to strike his sword through a mole, Father called, “Air Strike Shield!” 

The swords helplessly bounced off of his shield, right before the moles’ eyes. 

“Huh! What the hell?” 

“First let’s prioritize stopping the attack,” Father said. “Capture the slave hunters without killing them!” 

“Anything for Motoyasu!” chirped Sakura. 

“So many moles!” cried Kou in delight. 

“Let’s do it!” said Yuki. 

At Father’s orders, the filolials charged. 

“Don’t leave me out of the fray!” I declared. 

“M-Motoyasu, make sure you go easy on them!” Father called. 

Well, if Father commanded me to do so, I suppose I had no choice. 

“Who the hell are these guys?” shouted a slave hunter, caught off guard by our attack from behind. 

“Take that!” 

With her sheath still on the sword, Sakura sent one flying with a powerful blow. 

Kou went around kicking the hunters while keeping one longing eye on the moles. And Yuki chanted wind magic spells to send attackers flying away from the moles. 

“Paralyze Lance! Sleep Lance! Illusion Lance!” I groaned. “Man, this is so tedious. Aiming Lancer IV!” 

The bloodcurdling, agonized screams of slave hunters rose into the air. 

After paralyzing and putting to sleep countless slave hunters, I targeted those attempting to escape and stopped them in their tracks with Aiming Lancer. In an instant, all of the slave hunters were knocked out or frozen. 

The moles stared at us blankly. 

“Wow, it really only takes you and the filolials a second to finish everyone off,” Father commented. 

With that, we took care of the whole group of slave hunters so fast even we could hardly believe it. 

“I’ve captured the ones that were trying to run away,” Yuki announced. 

“I’ll tie them up and keep a close eye on them!” Sakura said. 

It was almost like the filolials were playing a game of cops and robbers with each other. Of course, in that scenario, Yuki would always play the role of the cop. 

The moles were staring at us with frightened eyes. Father finally took his hand off of the first mole that we encountered and gave him a signal to go ahead. 

The mole glanced back at Father several times and, with axe in hand, hurried back to his companions. 

“Is everyone okay?” he cried. 

The moles chattered amongst themselves. There didn’t appear to be any fatal wounds. 

There weren’t any captured slaves yet either, so it appeared that the slave hunters had just started their outing. 

“Anyone injured, please come over here right away!” Father called. “Motoyasu, you come help too!” 

“At once, Father!” 

Right at that moment, Lazy Pig came out with medicine, oinking away. 

Father turned to her with an exhausted expression. 

“Elena, what are you saying? We didn’t do this to sell medicine!” 

The moles were still eyeing us suspiciously as we healed them, but since we had rescued them from the slave hunters, after all, they seemed to let their guard down somewhat. We finished treating all of the injured. 

“So then,” Father said in a tone as sharp as a dagger, turning to the captured slave hunters. “Are you really going to keep hunting demi-humans for slaves?” 

“Just who the hell do you think you are?!” the hunter screamed. “You think we’ll just let you get away with this?! No chance! You’ve underestimated us!” 

“Answer the question,” Father demanded. 

Then Lazy Pig finally climbed out of the carriage and walked over to the hunters. She oinked a few times. 

“Yeah, that’s right!” a hunter snarled in response. “House Seaetto is done with! We’re in a new era, a better one! What’s wrong with hunting demi-humans? What’s wrong with that?” 

Father explained to me later that Lazy Pig recognized that the slave hunters were knights of Melromarc. After some of the Melromarc nobles who had fervently supported demi-human rights died, slave hunting in the country seemed to have increased. 

“So that’s it,” Father said. “You really think that slave hunting is okay, then.” 

“Of course it is! We won’t forget this! Hey, aren’t you the filthy Shield Hero? So the Shield Hero attacked us—our friends in Melromarc won’t let you get away with it!” 

As if they had somehow won the battle, the captured slave hunters started grinning at us. 

What unbelievable idiocy. They thought that they had found the Shield Hero, who had a bounty on his head, but had forgotten that they were the ones who had been captured. 

Keel oinked angrily at them. 

“Your day will come,” the slave hunter snarled. “Aren’t you one of the demi-humans who used to be in Seaetto territory?” he spat at Keel. “Typical demi-human. The Shield Hero and his demi-human companions . . . the whole country is after you!” 

So this was the same lot that had attacked Keel’s village, apparently. 

They were a bunch of seriously bad guys, no doubt about it. That was proof enough that we couldn’t just leave all of the justice and righteousness to Itsuki, because he’d never solve any of the real problems. Typical of any villain who would stoop so low as to support Trash, I say! 

“Father, why don’t we get rid of them?” I suggested. “There would be no witnesses or survivors.” 

If we got rid of them now, no one would have to know what happened, I say. 

“What!?” All of a sudden, the slave hunters turned pale. Those fools had assumed that they would live to see tomorrow. How pathetic. 

“How about no, Motoyasu?” Father said, and the slave hunters breathed a sigh of relief and started smirking again. They really didn’t understand the position they were in. 

“Motoyasu, can you go get that slave merchant and bring him here? I have an idea.” 

“What do you intend to do?” I inquired. 

Keel oinked a few times. 

“I’m going to sell them as slaves,” Father announced. 

“You imbecile!” sneered the slave hunter. “You can’t sell human slaves in this country. It’s against the law! You didn’t even know that?” 

He was acting so arrogant toward Father. Know your place, I say! 

Father turned to the slave hunters with an ice-cold gaze. 

“Whoever said I was going to sell you in Melromarc?” 

Lazy Pig appeared to have guessed what Father was thinking and started to oink and snort a bunch of times. 

Immediately, the slave hunters went sheet white and started to beg Father for their lives. 

“Exactly,” Father said. “You’re going to experience what it’s like to be one of the slaves that you’ve sold.” 

It was that same sharp, frigid tone that Father always used in the first go-around, I say! 

“You think that will make us apologize or something?” the slave hunter screamed in desperation. “Are you insane! Don’t do it! Please, don’t do it!” 

“What do you mean?” Father asked. “So when you sell others, it’s fine, so long as you don’t get sold? Let me give you some advice here. People who attack others need to be prepared to be attacked themselves.” 

“No, no, that’s not how it works! There’s no problem with lowly demi-humans suffering and dying! But we’re noble humans! We would never be beaten by a pathetic—” 

Should I stop his annoying babbling? Just as I thought about it, Father glanced at me and gave me the signal to go ahead and shut them up. 

So I struck him with a Sleep Lance and he slumped over, having fainted. 

“I think Yuki is doing her best dealing with the rest of the deserters, but I’m sure a separate group of slave hunters will come searching for their friends after they’ve been out of action for long enough,” Father said. 

Taking a deep sigh, Father turned to Lazy Pig to discuss something. 

“So if the knights and soldiers in this country are caught up in the slave trade, we may have no choice but to hunt the slave hunters,” he said. 

“Oink oink,” said Lazy Pig. 

“I know it’ll be almost impossible to take them all out. We also have to worry about our own standing.” Father thought about it. “Well, let’s worry about that later.” 

The moles seemed to have pretty much relaxed at this point. One of them, who appeared to be a leader of some sort, called out to us with an axe in hand and gave a deep bow. 

“Thank you so much for saving us,” he said. 

“Of course,” Father said. “I’m just glad that nobody was badly hurt.” 

Having sensed that it was safe, more moles appeared to be peering out at us from inside the cave. There were also little baby moles. 

I noticed one little mole in particular glancing our way from the shadow of a mother mole, pregnant belly swollen. I couldn’t help but feel like I had seen that little mole somewhere before. 

I did remember from the first go-around that filolials thought they looked tasty and that they were skilled at making pretty accessories. I just got the vague sense that little mole was somehow important. 

Father noticed that it was glancing at us repeatedly and waved at it with a smile. 

The mole leader spoke back up. “When you were talking with the slave hunter, I heard that you are the Shield Hero.” 

I figured that the moles trusted us if they were going to bring that up. 

“Uh, well . . .” Father nodded, as if trying to be intentionally vague. “That’s me. My name is Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero.” 

The moles all expressed their immense thanks to Father with prayers of gratitude. Then they showed us into their den. 

“Really, we cannot thank you enough for protecting us,” the leader mole said. “I wasn’t sure what would happen if we hadn’t encountered the party of one of the heroes.” 

“Don’t worry,” Father said. “I heard from Keel that some really tragic things have happened. I’m sure things have been difficult for you.” 

The mole leader frowned darkly. Maybe he was thinking about all the cruel things the slave hunters had said. 

“Well, they might try to do something once they catch wind of what happened with those guys. But if Melromarc can change from behind the scenes, I think you’ll be safe in the end,” Father said. 

We didn’t really have much choice but to wait until the queen came around here and fixed things up for good, I supposed. Which meant another two months of being patient. 

“Excuse me, Shield Hero,” the leader said. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’ve heard a rumor in Melromarc about the Shield Hero being involved in some disgraceful activities. It may be better for the Shield Hero to go to some other demi-human land, in my opinion.” 

“Sure, you’re not wrong.” 

“However, I don’t think Melromarc will let you out without a fight,” he continued. 

I didn’t disagree with the mole. That’s what happened in the last two go-arounds after all. 

“If you don’t mind, I have a proposal.” 

The mole leader explained his idea. When the time came, the moles could take us from their village and out of the country without passing through the border fortress—by means of underground tunnels they had built. 

I had no idea that those tunnels even existed. So it turns out that if we had befriended these moles previously, we could’ve had another way to secretly leave Melromarc. Well, from our experiences in the last go-around, it seemed like we had people working against us in Siltvelt anyway. So we probably would’ve been attacked either way, I guess. 

“We built the tunnels so that demi-humans could escape from this country in a time of absolute need,” explained the mole. “Please use our tunnels so you can flee this land!” 

Father scratched his head. “I really appreciate the offer, but we still have some things to take care of here in Melromarc,” he said. 

“Is that so? I do apologize for going so far as to make a suggestion.” 

“Don’t worry about it. More importantly, it seems like slave hunters know about this place, so make sure they never find out about the tunnels. Of course, we’ll do our best to stop other slave hunters from finding it, but it’s not like we’re going to stay here forever.” 

“Certainly,” said the mole. 

“Even worse, it sounds like people are going to be after you here in Melromarc,” Father said. Father glanced at me before turning back to the mole. “It sounds like you could easily get us into Siltvelt—why don’t you do that?” 

The mole cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, that’s not possible. You see, we lumo had a low status in Siltvelt and Shieldfreeden, which is why we came to Melromarc in the first place, when Lord Seaetto invited us here.” 

That’s true. While Siltvelt was sympathetic to demi-humans in general, they had a strict hierarchy system among the different races. Even if the moles went to Siltvelt, they might attract unwanted attention. 

And Shieldfreeden was out of the question. Even though they claimed that discrimination was abolished there, it was really a hotbed for racism. The obvious result of being led by that contemptible Takt. 

“Oh, okay. Still, I wonder if maybe you could have a place there, if I advocated on your behalf . . .” Father trailed off. “I guess, in a worst-case scenario, there would be others getting upset at you out of jealousy, if anything.” Father thought about it for a moment. “Regardless, until we clean up things here in Melromarc, I’d like for all of you to flee the country using the tunnels you built. Once things get better, of course, you can always come back.” 

The mole leader nodded. “Understood. Now that Lord Seaetto is no longer with us, in order to escape the slave hunters, we shall follow your wisdom and escape this country as quickly as we can.” 

“So sorry for mixing you guys up with our own problems,” Father added. 

“Not at all! You have given us a path forward when we had lost our way! Do not worry about us.” 

It sounded like they had built the tunnels without any of the Melromarc nobles finding out, so pretty much no one knew about them other than demi-humans. Which was obvious, because if they had told anyone in Melromarc, others were bound to find out. 

So the moles were there waiting for other demi-humans that needed to flee. Who, tragically made into slaves, never managed to come themselves. 

With that, we secretly brought the monster trainer to the moles’ den, and Father ordered him to sell the slave hunters as slaves. Then I forcibly added them to my party and I sent us all flying to Siltvelt with Portal Spear. 

When the monster trainer heard what we were trying to do, I saw his face light up like I had never seen before. He gave us a letter of introduction to other monster trainers he knew in Siltvelt and told us where to find them. Since word had arrived in Siltvelt about people in Melromarc making demi-humans slaves, he told us that we could get a great deal in Siltvelt. But once we sold them, Father got into an unpleasant mood for a long while. 

Well, it was only natural, as those slave hunters were scum filthy enough to make you vomit. 

After we took care of all that, we went with the moles to the entrance of the hidden tunnel and waved goodbye. 

“Shield Hero! Everybody! Thank you, thank you! We’ll never forget your kindness!” 

“Stay safe out there, and be happy!” Father called. “Please wait just a little longer and you’ll be able to come back!” 

Keel oinked excitedly and waved so hard I thought her arms were going to fly off her body. 

“Moles,” whined Kou. Certainly, he was sad to see them go. 

“Lord Shield Hero,” came a voice. It was the first mole whom we had met. He handed us a letter. 

“Thank you so much for everything you’ve done,” he said. “This was all I could do to thank you, but I heard you were friends with a weapon shop owner in Melromarc castle town. If you give him this, you’ll be sure to get some favorable treatment.” 

Father accepted it. “Thank you. We’ll use it carefully.” 

The mole nodded. “I can never say it enough, but thank you again!” 

With that, the mole went scurrying away into the entrance of the secret tunnel.