Chapter 50

Chapter 50: The Guide (1)

“Hmm-hmm~”

Dark, sun-scorched skin, thick curly hair, and a beard.

Procrustes, the proprietor of the Bed Inn, hummed cheerfully as he checked the magic circle in his room.

A magic circle that let him see the state of the inn at a glance.

According to it, the sleeping smoke he’d prepared had been fully dispersed into the room where the guests who’d just arrived were staying.

“Guess the sun’ll rise in the west tomorrow.”

Procrustes said this with a wicked grin, as if he couldn’t believe it.

Then again, his idiot servant had lured in prey in broad daylight.

And prey that looked pretty loaded, no less!

Having spent long years as a robber, Procrustes could tell at a glance whether someone was rich or poor.

“Yep, settling down here was the right call.”

Stas Polis—the city built on the border between Hellas and Anapic.

Countless people passed through every day, and as the crowds grew, so did the number of fat purses.

Thanks to that, Procrustes was making money more easily than at any point in his forty years of life.

All he had to do was lure in people who let their guard down because they were inside the city, put them to sleep, strip them of everything they wore, and sell what was left to the Thieves’ Guild.

Kill two birds with one stone—no, three.

No more roughing it in camps like the old days, no more lying in ambush by the roadside, no more bloodshed.

His income was even several times what it used to be.

Sometimes he wondered if it was really okay to make money this easily.

‘No, no! There’s no guarantee this many people will keep coming to the city. I need to earn as much as I can while I can.’

Procrustes rose from his seat as if uprooting a seed of laziness sprouting in his heart.

His “lodging robbery business” was a seasonal trade. He had to rake in as much as possible while it lasted.

Procrustes, having returned to being a diligent robber, left his room and went upstairs.

“Boss! Are they all asleep?”

“Yeah? Then go get the ropes.”

“Already got them ready.”

His idiot servant had readied the ropes without being told.

Seeing the useless fool finally start pulling his weight stirred something in him.

“I’m the one who brought them in, but this is a jackpot. The man looks young and healthy, and there are two kids and a woman too. They’ll all fetch a high price.”

Stas Polis, with its endless stream of people, was currently one of the hubs of human trafficking. Because of that, prices for people were always being set, and the ones that sold highest were women and children. Women especially—the more beautiful and the fairer-skinned, the higher the price.

In that sense, today’s guests were a bit of a shame.

The hair was bright blond and she seemed a beauty, but her brown skin was a flaw. She might have her admirers among a select few, but there was a risk the price would be beaten down.

“Should I open it?”

He had already come upstairs and reached the door.

Procrustes decided to focus on the task at hand and nodded. Meaning: open the door.

The servant opened the door nervously.

Watching him, Procrustes cursed the spineless fool inwardly.

They’d all be asleep from the sleeping smoke, so what was there to be scared of—

—Thwack!

The moment the door opened, something flew in and lodged itself in the servant’s leg.

“Gk— Aaaagh……!!”

The servant screamed loudly in pain. Checking what had hit him, it was half of a tray from the guests’ room, split in two.

The other half flew at Procrustes, but unlike the servant, he didn’t suffer the gruesome fate of having a tray shard buried in his body. The magic tool on his wrist had become an invisible hand and caught the flying shard.

As proof of that, while the servant lay collapsed with a tray shard stuck in him, unable to even scream, Procrustes was still standing on both feet.

“Oh, that bracelet a magic tool?”

---

Smoke clouded his vision.

It was annoying, but Anagin sensed it was merely meant to put him to sleep, so he sat still on the bed and waited.

Ah, he got up for a moment, grabbed the tray on the table, and sat back down on the bed. Then he split the tray in two and waited.

After a while, the door opened. Anagin threw the tray pieces as they were.

Straight at the two human figures visible through the gap in the door.

—Thwack!

But what do you know—he’d thrown two, yet only one sound came out.

The tray piece he’d thrown at the innkeeper had stopped right in front of him. As if an invisible hand had blocked it.

“Oh, that bracelet a magic tool?”

Anagin asked, his eyes falling on the bracelet.

Perhaps because he’d been traveling with the mage Pinku Pinku, he could instinctively tell that the bracelet was a magic tool.

His guess must have been right, because the innkeeper didn’t deny it. He was simply astonished.

“H-how…?”

‘All thanks to my wonderful Master.’

Anagin replied inwardly.

Thanks to the Master who’d fed him every kind of poison, things like sedatives had no effect on Anagin whatsoever. He didn’t say it out loud, though—because he had no intention of conversing.

Anagin rose from the bed and approached the innkeeper.

From the look of it, the bracelet seemed to be a magic tool that blocked incoming projectiles, so he could just walk over and beat the man himself.

Whether from fear or something else, the innkeeper stood frozen in place.

Then the innkeeper smiled an unpleasant smile.

“So you’re a Giant.”

The innkeeper Procrustes deduced that Anagin was a Giant.

After all, the only one who could endure the sleeping smoke and kill a man with a shard of a tray was a Giant who wielded a giant’s power.

It wasn’t all that impressive a deduction, really. What mattered was that even knowing Anagin was a Giant, Procrustes didn’t flee.

It wasn’t simply that his knees had gone weak. He seemed to have something he was counting on.

Anagin noticed that too, and soon he found out what it was.

[Bind and tie]

Procrustes chanted an incantation, extending a hand toward Anagin.

Anagin wondered for a moment what that was, but soon realized it wasn’t aimed at him.

It was aimed at the bed behind him.

Shhhk—!

At Procrustes’ command, chains burst out from each corner of the bed Anagin had been sitting on. Four chains flying like living snakes. They meant to bind Anagin.

At that moment, Anagin swept his hand wide and caught every flying chain.

The four chains wrapped tightly around Anagin’s hands, as if making up for the bird with a chicken. It was a successful defense, if you could call it that, but Procrustes merely laughed loudly.

“Hahahaha! Got you!”

“This kind of…….”

Anagin tried to snap the chains as if they were nothing.

To Anagin, who uprooted trees, smashed boulders, and killed beasts bare-handed, chains were nothing special.

But the chains didn’t break as easily as he’d expected.

“That bed is the Giant’s Bed! Sturdy enough that even a giant can’t escape it! The chains on it too! The moment you’re caught, you’re finished!”

Perhaps sensing victory, Procrustes explained the name and function of the magic tool without being asked.

‘A bed sturdy enough to hold even a giant, and the chains are a bonus…….’

Not bad.

Anagin, too, was curious about the identity of the bed tightening around his arms and pulling at him, so the explanation was actually welcome.

Shhhk……!

Anagin braced himself so he wouldn’t be dragged onto the bed.

“Give up. The Giant’s Bed is powerful enough to bind even a Giant!”

It didn’t seem to be pure bluster.

The force of the chains squeezing Anagin’s arms was definitely no ordinary thing.

At first it was just a tight grip, but the more he resisted, the stronger the chains grew, as if they meant to crush him.

The strengthened chains pulled even tauter to drag Anagin along, and the bed bolted to the floor creaked and groaned.

“Lucky me! To harvest even a Giant today. And a Giant is the most expensive—!”

—Crrrack!

As Procrustes shouted excitedly, the sound of solid wood snapping rang out.

It was the sound of the floor that had been anchoring the bed being torn up.

The bed was sturdy enough to hold even a giant, but the floor was not.

The bed that had been pulling at Anagin began to be dragged by him instead.

Anagin swung the four chains wrapped around one arm like a handle, flinging the bed like a flail.

Straight at the excitedly babbling Procrustes.

And so the Giant’s Bed collided with Procrustes.

---

“H-hiiik…!”

The servant, who had been screaming with the tray shard stuck in his leg, screamed again at the sight of his master, body crumpled from being hit by the bed.

Who would have thought his master—who had subdued not only ordinary people but Giants and mages with all sorts of wondrous magic tools—could be taken down this easily.

“Keugh…! Gwoooh…….”

Procrustes, broken and crushed from the collision with the bed, wheezed like air escaping and reached a hand toward the servant. As if begging for help.

But the servant couldn’t help him.

With Anagin approaching, what could the servant possibly do?

“Ah…! Aaah……!”

Watching Anagin approach, the servant tried to flee.

But with the tray shard buried deep in one leg, walking was impossible.

The servant tried to stand, but soon collapsed from the pain.

“Don’t move.”

Just as the servant was about to crawl away, Anagin warned him.

Whether from the pain in his leg or from that calm yet bloodthirsty voice, the servant froze solid.

Anagin walked over to Procrustes and pulled the magic tool off his broken wrist.

“Gk…, w-wait…….”

Whether because his precious magic tool had been taken, or simply from the pain of his broken wrist, Procrustes screamed and begged Anagin desperately.

He looked like he wanted to say something.

But Anagin wasn’t interested, and tossed the bracelet to Sphinx.

“How is it? A magic tool? Looks broken?”

Sphinx, who had purified the sleeping gas with her robe to endure it, caught the flying bracelet and examined it.

“Mm, it’s definitely a magic tool, and it does look broken.”

“Damn.”

“It’s not serious. It just overloaded from blocking the bed you threw, so I can fix it.”

“You can?”

Sphinx made a face as if she’d slipped up. Instinctively, she realized she’d just gained more work. But it was already too late to take it back.

Sphinx admitted that she could fix it.

“Good. Then fix it and you wear it, Pinku Pinku—or give it to the kids.”

“You’re okay with that?”

Sphinx asked, sounding surprised.

Knowing Anagin’s personality, it wasn’t strange, but it was still a little surprising.

A magic tool that blocked projectiles—even with limits—was quite a useful thing, so it would have been more useful for Anagin to wear it.

The man himself waved a hand as if he couldn’t care less.

“Don’t need it. I found something I like better.”

Anagin lifted the ‘Giant’s Bed’ that had fallen to the floor after colliding with Procrustes and slung it over his shoulder.

With a bed large enough for a person to lie in comfortably hoisted on his shoulder, Anagin looked as intimidating as a giant carrying a boulder.

“I’ve got something to ask, and I don’t need two mouths explaining. So, raise your hand if you can explain better.”

A calm yet terrifying statement.

Procrustes, his whole body broken and crushed, and the servant with a tray shard in his leg looked at each other.

Their thoughts, readable through their eyes.

A moment later.

The servant raised his hand a little faster.

---

The servant explained about Procrustes.

Procrustes was a robber who committed lodging robberies using all sorts of magic tools. Usually he put victims to sleep with sleeping gas, but when someone proved resistant, he subdued them with magic tools.

“The guests he subdues that way get everything they’re wearing stripped off, and then they’re sold to the Thieves’ Guild.”

“Thieves’ Guild?”

“Yes, lately they’ve been expanding into human trafficking…. Ah! A-and I was only following along under duress. They happened to need an extra hand, so….”

The servant, who had been explaining well, seemed to realize his slip and stammered as he desperately defended himself.

He’d been terrified by Anagin, who had smashed Procrustes with the bed without a moment’s hesitation.

That Anagin nodded.

“I understand.”

“Y-you understand?”

“No, I didn’t ask about your circumstances. I’m not interested.”

The servant’s face twisted.

But there was nothing to be done. Anagin really wasn’t interested.

What he was interested in now was something else.

“How many ‘Giant’s Beds’ are there in the inn?”

Anagin checked whether there were more Giant’s Beds that could get in his way.

The servant answered meekly.

“Just that one. I-I swear.”

“Just one….”

Anagin looked disappointed. He’d expected as much, though.

Then again, it would be odd for there to be more than one of something this good. More importantly, it was free, wasn’t it?

“Where are the other magic tools?”

The servant didn’t even think of lying and led him to Procrustes’ room.

In it were two bags.

“Both are subspace bags. One has the magic tools, and the other…….”

The servant trailed off.

Anagin could roughly guess what it was.

It would hold the valuables stripped from all the guests kidnapped so far.

“A good haul.”

Anagin grabbed the subspace bags and tossed them all to Sphinx.

Sphinx, with her quick reflexes, caught the subspace bags squarely.

“For now, you hold on to them.”

“Me?”

Sphinx asked, as if to confirm he was sure. One bag held a vast fortune, and the other held precious magic tools.

Even if Anagin and Sphinx had grown close, these weren’t things you’d hand over so easily. The subspace bags themselves were valuable too.

But to Anagin, they weren’t.

Right now, there was something more important to him.

“Hey.”

“Y-yes!”

“Where’s the Thieves’ Guild?”

“I don’t know well. The exact location, I…….”

“You sell people, and you don’t know where it is?”

“I-I really don’t know.”

The servant answered in a trembling voice.

When Anagin started to raise a hand, he shouted as if screaming.

“I-I really don’t know! Really!! They come to pick them up! Y-yes! They come to pick them up! Mostly at night……!!”

Judging by the servant’s reaction, he seemed to be telling the truth.

Anagin thought for a moment, then spoke one last time.

“Are they coming tonight?”

---

Stas Polis was bustling, with endless crowds coming and going every day.

But even Stas Polis grew quiet at night.

Because most of the city’s people were asleep.

Yet the fact that most were asleep meant there were those who weren’t.

The prime examples were thieves and the city guard.

Thieves ran their business at night; the city guard hunted those very thieves.

*Clang. Clang.*

A back alley behind the Bed Inn. One of the brutes who'd brought the carriage pulled the rope and rang the inn's bell. Normally, his temper would have had him pounding on the door, but the inn's proprietor was a major trading partner of the Guild—someone even the boss couldn't treat lightly—so he rang the bell politely instead.

But something was off.

Usually, the moment you pulled the rope, the slave working here came right out. Right now, no one was coming.

Just as he wondered if something had happened—

*Thud. Thud…*

Footsteps.

"Ah, there he comes now."

For a moment, a bad thought crossed his mind, but the brute soon relaxed.

And yet—something was strange again. The footsteps were far too powerful, too heavy—

*Crash!*

Just as the brute was about to realize something was wrong, something burst through the door and sent him flying.

The brute slammed into the wall on the opposite side.

Flung by the sudden calamity, the brute bled from his head.

But that was the least of his concerns right now. Because…

"You're from the Thieves' Guild, aren't you?"

Standing there was some lunatic with a bed hoisted over his shoulder.

"You're going to show me the way."