Damn Reincarnation

but Ujicha managed to grab Dajarang’s wrist first.

“Y-you son of a bitch,” Dajarang cursed.
“Why are you stopping me? No, before that, why did you just stay silent instead of helping me?”

“If I had come forward to threaten him, the Zyal tribe wouldn’t have stayed still,” Ujicha said in his defense.

“So what?! I… I need that elf…,” Dajarang said, panting in rage.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ujicha lowered his body and whispered into Dajarang’s ear.
“In any case, he said that he wouldn’t be selling the elf.
When he leaves the market and exits the Zyal tribe’s territory, we can attack him at that moment, kill him, and take the elf for ourselves.”

“…Will that really be okay…?” Dajarang asked doubtingly.

Ujicha reassured him.
“It will be fine.”

Usually, such an action wouldn’t be allowed.
This market had been opened following an agreement made between the various tribes.
The agreement also specified that the merchants provided with plaques to attend the market were not to be attacked.

But Ujicha didn’t care about that.
Although the pride-filled words that the merchant had uttered had resonated with his warrior’s soul, Ujicha would still much rather be a nobleman than a warrior.

“…Your nonsense sounded very persuasive,” Kristina said once they were alone.

“If you thought that it sounded persuasive, there must be something wrong with your head,” Eugene snorted.

“In the first place, I did call it nonsense, didn’t I?” Kristina defended herself.
“Thanks to Sir Ryan, it seems that I’ve learned a rather useless life lesson.”

“Life lesson?” Eugene repeated.

“Yes.
The outcome of an argument is often decided by how loud your voice is, rather than logic,” Kristina said with a sigh.
“And rather than persuasion, you should just back them into a corner and give them no room to respond.”

“Tina, you really are a genius…!” Eugene gaped at Kristina with a look of admiration.

Kristina just tilted her head questioningly at his sudden exclamation.
“…Huh?”

“The ‘life lesson’ you spouted just now is something I actually learnt entirely from you.
But why have you only realized it just now? Could it be that you taught it to me without even realizing that you were doing so?” Eugene praised her sarcastically.

“Please just shut up,” Kristina hissed as she rolled her eyes and glared at Eugene.

The following transactions all went smoothly in their own way.
Eugene bought two male elves, and one of them had even been afflicted with the Demonic Disease, so he was able to purchase the elf for less than the market price.

If there was one thing that could be called a minor issue, it would be that the last elf exhibited for sale was a female.
She hadn’t caught the Demonic Disease and she didn’t have any scars, so the merchant who was selling her had been able to drive up her price until it was much higher than market price.

“…One billion sals,” Eugene raised the bid even as he felt like he was about to cough out blood.

The spectators that had flocked to this impromptu auction let out cheerful roars.
In order to pay one billion sals, Eugene would need to dig into the last of his remaining gems.
It might be stating the obvious, but the Lionheart clan’s Black Card couldn’t be used in a market like this.

‘Don’t raise the bid any more,’ Eugene begged inwardly. ‘Wait, no, please do raise it.
That way I can just give up cleanly.’

Feeling distressed at the potential loss of so much money, Eugene clenched his fists tightly.
He didn’t want to make a fuss, so if he needed to, he would reluctantly pay for the elf with his remaining jewels.

However, now that he didn’t have any money left, wasn't the only option to give up if someone had a higher bid? So Eugene still held out hope that someone would post a higher bid, so he could be free to give up.
Of course, that didn’t mean he would just give up on saving that elf.
He would just be left with no choice, really, no choice at all, but to don a mask and become a robber.

“A billion sals! Someone has offered a billion sals,” the auctioneer called out.

‘Please, someone, anyone, please place a bid.’

After a final countdown, the auctioneer announced, “Sold for a billion sals! Congratulations!”

“What’s there to congratulate, you son of a bitch,” Eugene cursed quietly.

“Huh?” The auctioneer leaned closer

“No… thanks for this,” Eugene said as he swallowed the anger that was welling up inside of him and took out his box of jewels.

With this purchase, Eugene had managed to squander all the jewels that he had brought into the forest with him.
The slave trader who had managed to sell his elf at twice the market price had a truly gleeful look on his face.
With his molars on full display[2], he calculated the total amount as he assessed each gem individually.

“All done, you’re free to take her with you.” Once he confirmed that the jewels had the appropriate value, the merchant happily handed over the elf.

“…” Eugene silently accepted his new purchase.

“I’m happy to have reached such a good deal with you.
But you really are quite unusual, brother.
What are you planning on doing with four elves?” the slave trader asked.

Eugene’s mouth snapped open to let out an angry reply, only for him to get a hold of his boiling emotions and turn away from the man.

All four elves, including Lavera, were riding in the cart that they had brought with them from the elven village.

Kristina hesitantly asked, “…Sir Ryan, are you feeling fine?”

“No, I’m not,” Eugene ground out.

“Your money was used to save those in need.
Don’t think of it as a waste,” Kristina advised.

“Who said that I was?” Eugene huffed.
“I just said that I wasn’t feeling fine.
Do I look like someone who’s going to act upset just because I had to spend one and a half billion?”

“Aren’t you feeling pretty upset right now?”

“This is just how I usually look.”

Although he had never had to worry about money ever since he had been reincarnated, Eugene still couldn’t help but feel that it was wasteful to have spent so much money.

‘It’s alright… it might have been one and a half billion sals, but that’s only enough to buy five pairs of giant’s testicles,’ Eugene tried to comfort himself, but this didn’t help him very much.

 

While Eugene was riding the horse that was pulling the cart, the elves who were riding behind him were all listening to Lavera’s tale.
The elves had all thought that they would definitely be branded as slaves and sold to other masters, but Lavera’s words brought hope to these newly purchased elves.

As they traveled, Eugene’s scowling face also began to loosen up little by little.

“…Sir Ryan,” Kristina spoke up.

“I know,” Eugene said with a grin as he pulled on the horse’s reins.

As the horse accelerated, the cart started rattling.
None of the elves made any noise to show surprise.
Until moments ago, the faces of these elves had been filled with hope, but now all that was seen spreading across the elves’ faces was fear.

Lavera tried to stay calm.
There was no need for her to worry.
The Guardian of their village, Signard, had spoken to her personally before they left.
They were going to a dangerous place, but there shouldn’t be any danger.
No, well, they might run into something dangerous, but it wouldn’t pose much of a problem.

Signard had said these words while trying to reassure Lavera.

…But was that really the case? Lavera’s shoulders began to shake at the sounds she was hearing.
She could hear the pounding footsteps of a tribal warrior drawing closer.
Why were they being chased? The natives of the forest should be bound by the rule of not attacking the merchants who were invited to the market.

“…Sir Ryan…?” Lavera sought out some reassurance.

Tension and fear was causing her breaths to quicken.
Lavera placed a hand on her chest to calm her pounding heart as she turned to look at Eugene for reassurance.

Hearing a call come from behind him, Eugene turned his head around to look back at her and asked, “What’s with your expression?”

“A-are we going to be alright?” Lavera stammered.

“Of course we’re going to be alright.
This actually works out great for us,” Eugene replied with a bright smile.

While their pursuers had been quickly narrowing the gap between them, past a certain point, they had stopped drawing any closer and were keeping their distance.
Were they waiting until Eugene and his party had reached a point where an attack wouldn’t cause any political problems for the raiders?

’I guess I should be grateful,’ Eugen thought to himself as he continued heading straight forward, not seeing any need to change direction.

Like this, they soon left the territory of the Zyal tribe.
As the cart slowly headed deeper into the forest, Eugene was left wondering when their attackers would approach.
Was it now?

Yep, it was now.

Their pursuers sped up and quickly closed the distance.
Then, they overtook the cart.
The warrior who had been chasing after Eugene’s group appeared to have been jumping through the tree branches above the road, as he fell from the air a good distance in front of them, blocking the path of the cart.
Without panicking, Eugene brought the cart to a halt.

“Urp…!” Dajarang, who had been hanging on to Ujicha’s back, covered his mouth as he held in the urge to vomit.

He quickly got down from Ujicha’s back, collapsed onto the ground and vomited.

“Get down.” Even as the sounds of vomiting continued to ring out from behind him, Ujicha did not look back at Dajarang and instead pointed his finger at Eugene as he made this demand.

As he did, he also checked to see that Kristina and the elves were still riding in the cart.
He wasn’t interested in Kristina herself, since she had yet to remove her disguise of a middle-aged lady.
However, after he handed the one-eyed elf over to Dajarang, that left three elves for him….

Ujicha licked his lips with a smile.

Eugene stood up without getting down from the driver’s seat.[3]

“You said that your name was Dajarang Kobal, right?” Like Ujicha, Eugene stretched out a finger and pointed at Dajarang.

“Urp… Uwaaargh…” Dajarang was unable to reply to the question and just kept vomiting.

But the truth was that his reply didn’t matter.

Eugene had spent one and a half billion sals in order to buy these three elves.
Dajarang had said that he would buy Lavera for eight hundred million.

In other words, Dajarang had at least eight hundred million sals’ worth of gems on him.

‘It can’t be helped.’ Eugene suppressed the urge to laugh as he leapt down from the cart. ‘I had no intention of robbing him.
But since this bastard decided to try and engage in robbery first by blocking my way, then….’

That just left Eugene with no other choice.

“Don’t you understand what kind of situation you’re in?” Ujicha’s lips twisted into a scowl as he looked at Eugene, who showed no signs of fear.

Ujicha hadn’t brought any of the other warriors from his tribe with them, but there shouldn’t be any problems.
It was just a single lowly slave trader after all.
Tearing someone like him to pieces would be even easier for Ujicha than catching and killing an insect….

“What?” Ujicha unconsciously spat out a surprised cry.

The slave strader, who had been right in front of them until just now, had suddenly disappeared.

1.
The original Korean idiom for bullshit was ‘the sound of a dog chewing on a bone.’ ☜

2.
The original Korean term has it as ‘his gums were in full bloom.’ ☜

3.
Pending clarification as previously it said that Eugene was on horseback. ☜

Openbookworm's Thoughts

Penguin’s thoughts: all I got from this chapter is that a fully functional elf is worth about three pairs of giant cojones