Episode 42 - The Bulkro Family 1



Through the information Platt's rats had gathered, they learned that a family of mole demi-humans was being subjected to forced labor in the coal mines of Charcols — a mining town situated along the coast.
Kaftin immediately left the others behind and set out for Charcols.
He pulled his hood low and traveled under a false name, riding south by carriage for three days. At the end of it, a small town appeared — Charcols, nestled in a basin carved between towering rock faces.
He paid the fare and walked the streets. It became clear immediately that this was a grim place.
Laborers shuffling along with hollow expressions. Women with dark faces hurrying their children somewhere, heads down.
"Hm. Impressive that it keeps running in this state..."
Interesting — but entirely irrelevant to him. He headed straight for the mine.
A path cut into the sheer rock face climbed partway up the cliff. About halfway along, the coal mine where the ones he was looking for were working came into view.
"Good work today — you hit your quota. Well done. Here's your food. Eat up and do the same tomorrow."
The man dropped a wooden tray on the floor without much care and walked out without looking back.
The stocky mole-faced man looked down at the tray in front of him, exhaustion carved into every line of his face.
One tray. For him and both his sons.
On it sat a few chunks of bread that looked a week old and two small clusters of grapes. Barely enough for three people to move the following day.
The surge of resentment lasted only a moment. He reached up and touched the thick metal shackles at his neck, then picked up the bread, broke it in two, and held the pieces out to his sons on either side of him.
"Father...?"
"Here. Eat. We'll need to dig just as much tomorrow."
"But..."
"I'm not hungry right now. So you two go ahead."
At that same moment, at the entrance to the mine, the owner was face to face with Kaftin.
"Wh-who are you?"
"No need to be tense. I simply — your mine looks rather impressive from the outside. I was hoping to take a look around. Would that be alright?"
"Do you have any idea what time it is? Not tonight. Come back tomorrow morning."
"That's not going to work for me. I don't think I'll have the time otherwise."
"Then I'm afraid a tour is out of the question. Come back another—"
Kaftin produced a coin purse and gave it a meaningful jingle before the man could finish.
The most effective negotiating tool in this country, without question.
Predictably, the moment the man registered the sound, his eyes changed.
"Oh... a friend who understands how things work. In that much of a hurry, are you?"
"More or less."
"...Let's start by hearing how much you have in mind."
"......"
Kaftin watched him rub his hands together in anticipation — then dropped the entire pouch on the ground without a second thought.
The sound of coins drew the man in immediately.
"Is this — is this really alright? This much...?"
"Think of half of it as an investment."
"I-investment... hehehe... an insightful friend, aren't you."
The man crouched down and began pawing through the coins — and Kaftin calmly repositioned himself behind him.
The man was probably too accustomed to this place to notice. But where they were standing was a narrow cliff path with no railing, barely wide enough for two people to pass.
Which meant that if Kaftin were to make a slight miscalculation right now —
Thud.
"Wh-what?! Who—?!"
"Oh dear. My foot slipped."
A flat, disinterested explanation.
The last human voice the man ever heard.
He screamed as he fell — a drop of at least twenty meters. Kaftin watched with a crooked smile, picked up the pouch, and walked into the mine.
The mole demi-human family, lying on their rags and preparing to sleep, heard something that should not have been audible to them.
A clacking sound — something like hoofbeats, but far heavier.
The owner had left for the evening and wouldn't return until morning. Could it have something to do with that distant anguished scream from earlier?
"Wh-who's there...?"
He pulled the tattered blanket over his two sons and carefully rose to meet whoever it was.
The mine was dark — but darkness was familiar to him. Reading the silhouette ahead was not difficult.
At the same time, he sharpened his hearing and sense of smell to compensate for his poor eyesight —
"Wh-what are you... who are you...? If we disappear, the mine owner won't stand for it—?!"
Cold sweat ran down his back.
From whoever was still some five meters away, the smell of blood was already drifting toward him — thick enough to turn the stomach.
And beyond that — a presence that made the hairs in his nose stand up and his breath feel cut short.
"S-say something! Tell me who you are and where you're from!"
"...Kaftin. Student of Vesren Painroad."
"......?!"
Whose student he was — that didn't matter.
What mattered was the figure who lit the torch on the wall and revealed himself.
A man in a jet-black robe. Exactly as the world described dark mages and necromancers.
"If you're going to kill me—!"
"Hm?"
"Please — just pretend you didn't see my sons."
"......?"
"If it's my body you need or something like that—"
Kaftin shook his head.
There seemed to be a significant misunderstanding here. He rubbed his chin for a moment, then belatedly remembered what he was wearing — the black mage's robe that had originally belonged to Athunga — and snorted.
"Ah. You've misread the situation. I'm not a dark mage or anything of the sort."
"Then—?!"
"If I had to put it one way... I'm a new employer who'd like to hire you. Or — perhaps it's more accurate to say I'm someone who came here wanting to lead you and your life somewhere better."
"......?!"
Words that should have been tempting to any ordinary person.
But Fawza — father of two sons — shook his head.
There was no way someone had good things in store for people like them. Creatures that barely passed for anything in human society. This had to be the same kind of con the mine owner ran. The polite refusal was the safest response.
"I decline."
"...Reason?"
"...We are satisfied with our current life. Nothing more than that..."
"Oh. So you're satisfied living as slaves — working yourselves to the bone and tearing apart week-old bread for it?"
"......"
Kaftin's expression shifted.
That was not the face of someone living.
It was the face of someone who had already died while still breathing — the same face as his own.
An unpleasant feeling came over him.
In this world — in his world — the only one allowed to be dead while still living was Kaftin himself. That way, no one could threaten his position. No one could claim to understand him and use that against him.
"Disappointing. This is a chance for not just your life — but your two sons' lives to change completely. Probably the last chance like this you'll ever get. And you still refuse?"
"...I decline."
Kaftin decided on a more direct approach.
"For what it's worth — you may want to know what's coming. I just kicked what appeared to be your mine owner off the cliff. By accident."
"......!!"
Fawza swallowed.
A killer soaked in the smell of blood, someone who treated human lives as though they weighed nothing. His nose had not been wrong. He could not follow this man.
"Which means you'll be driven out of here too. Are you planning to sit in the street and starve?"
"......"
A silent, stubborn nod.
Kaftin's expression soured.
"What about your sons?"
"It goes without saying... death is better than following someone like you!"
"Hfheheh..."
A killer? He was calling him a killer?
The laugh slipped out on its own.
Could this man say — hand on heart — that he had never stepped on a single ant in his entire life? That he had never committed any act of killing whatsoever?
No. Impossible.
The bread he had just chewed, the grapes — both taken from living plants. And the very air of this world — they breathed it freely, every moment, claiming it as their own.
Life was endless plunder and slaughter. That was violence. The only way to escape that chain was death.
"So... you don't want to become a killer."
"That's right. Our goal is to live decently, as ordinary—"
"Then you should die."
"......?!"
Fawza felt the killing intent rising from Kaftin as he approached — and set his jaw.
He immediately moved to block the path to his sons, grabbed the pickaxe lying on the ground with trembling hands, and leveled it at him.
"For someone who claims he doesn't want to be a killer — you reached for that weapon without any hesitation."
"...Because you're trying to kill me — my sons—!"
"Heheheh... and if my skull happened to catch your pickaxe and I died from it, you'd become exactly the killer you've been refusing to be. And you'd still resist?"
"Of course—! If it means my sons survive—!"
He looked at the man bracing himself with everything he had — then Kaftin simply laughed and withdrew the killing intent entirely.
"Well. That resolve of yours will come to nothing if things stay as they are. So I suppose I'll be leaving."
"......?!"
One moment he had been advancing with clear intent to kill — and now he was turning away as if none of it had happened.
And — come to nothing?
"Wh-what does that mean?!"
"What does it mean — don't tell me you don't even know the state of your own sons?"
"......?!"
Fawza spun immediately to look at his sleeping sons.
He rushed over, pulled back the blanket, and checked them over frantically, looking for any sign of something wrong.
Finding nothing obviously amiss, he let out a breath of relief — and at that moment realized Kaftin had followed him and was standing directly behind him, looking down.
"What are you relieved about?"
"Hk—?!"
He grabbed the pickaxe again and planted himself between Kaftin and his sons — and Kaftin clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"I'm asking what you're relieved about."
"...Because my sons don't seem to have anything wrong with them—"
"Which is exactly the problem with you."
"......?!"
Kaftin glanced over his shoulder at the boys and spoke.
"A look from here tells me enough."
"Wh-what are you—?!"
"Hm... killer, physician, blacksmith — among various other things. A once-in-history genius of the highest order."
"......?!?"
The grandiose self-description delivered alongside a casual admission of being a killer — Fawza gripped the pickaxe harder.
"Fine — if you're so extraordinary, then you can tell me what's wrong with my sons?!"
"Of course. I'll tell you for free — knowing won't let you do much about it anyway."
"......!!"
Still chuckling with obvious enjoyment, he began to list the conditions.
"First — malnutrition. The fact that they're still conscious is practically admirable. And the one on the right is sweating cold. If it's just a chill, he's lucky — but in the worst case, it could be the early stages of the Pauper's Reaper. And beyond that—"
"W-wait—?!"
Words he had never wanted to hear. Fawza went white and dropped the pickaxe entirely, grabbing Kaftin's arms and shaking him.
"The Pauper's Reaper—?! You expect me to just believe something like that—!"
"Believe it or don't. Either way — without proper treatment, your sons won't make it past this winter. Makes no difference to me."
"...Ngh—?!"
"In which case, the responsibility for both your sons' miserable deaths falls entirely on you."
"......!!"
—To be continued—