Therefore, the person registered with the Gate was Ms. Kaori herself. She could travel to any place she’d previously been thanks to its Teleportation Magic. No one knew why this had been part of a past civilization, but it could’ve been an unimplemented game mechanic that existed within its data.
Once we passed through the Gate, we ended up in a forest.
Ms. Kaori had said she wanted to join us, but politely refused when the time came. Because of recent events, the inner workings of the Crimson Moon Brigade were in shambles. Tons of people had joined because I’d taken down twenty level 99 players, but at the end of the day, these newcomers weren’t of high quality yet.
They were players who hadn’t joined any of the big guilds, so their levels were fairly low. They couldn’t be counted on in battle, so Ms. Kaori leaving the guild for a period of time wasn’t wise. If the bastard’s Lions of Patriotism attacked it without her there, the whole Brigade was sure to collapse.
“Um... Master Shinobu?”
Alice called out to me as we walked along the forest path to Abrasil. Cerberus was walking a short distance behind her, his tail wagging. He really has become her pet, hasn’t he?
“Hm? What’s up, Alice?”
“Is Lady Tsukuyomi not joining us?”
“I left her in Izanach to take care of some things for me.”
What we’d been working on—my last resort, Amaterasu—was at last in its final stages. I’d left the fulfillment of her remaining summon conditions to her younger sister, Tsukuyomi.
Thinking back, I was pretty sure we’d been working on this ever since I completed the tutorial. Gabriel and Tsukuyomi had been doing their best behind the scenes—it meant a lot to me.
Amaterasu’s summon conditions required us to gather tons of materials, so I’d been having my familiars go and collect them from dungeons every chance I got.
Summons had to stay within a fifty-kilometer radius of the summoner. I really panicked when I found that out, since it dashed my plan to dispatch as many summons as I could to a bunch of places around the world. But in the end, Ms. Kaori had been able to pull some strings in the black market for me, so it worked out.
Gabriel and Tsukuyomi were, of course, a big help too. Summons in our home base, Izanach, were able to go where they pleased, regardless of my own location. So when it came to mana, I made sure to have the two of them working at full force to build it up whenever they had a free moment. Thanks to that, my wish would be granted in a day or two, when the required amount of mana would be met.
“Man, that Transport Gate really is useful.” I turned around.
The Gate in question had been some ways away just a bit ago. Two pillars had stood there, both of them about three meters tall, with a five-meter space spread between them. What did it look like? If I had to describe it in the easiest way, I’d say to think of a door that could go anywhere from a manga that starred a national cat-shaped robot. This door worked the same as that one, where it connected places. It transported us several thousand kilometers away and had me saying, “Damn, that’s good” without realizing it.
Those pillars had then disappeared. More precisely, the light was camouflaging them; it would appear again if one were to touch it.
“Transport Gate...” I mumbled to myself. “Can I ask something?”
“Yes, Master Shinobu?” Gabriel answered.
“With this, we can go anywhere Ms. Kaori has been before, right?”
“That is what she claimed.”
“Hm. That might be useful for us.”
“How so?”
I simulated a few scenarios in my head and nodded when I concluded they would probably all work. There was definitely plenty of room for more thought, but the potential was undeniable. If we use this right, we just might be able to corner the Lions of Patriotism and that bastard in one fell swoop.
It was a slippery slope, and a lot of things were left uncertain. But it would definitely be useful. Maybe we should launch that attack at the same time as this gauging we’re doing here? Or maybe not. They’ve gotta be wary of my actions by now. Would that make it necessary for us to alert them of our presence in Abrasil? At any rate, unfortunately for Tsukuyomi, it was looking like she’d have to keep working on Amaterasu’s case without rest.
The air changed while I was lost in thought.
All traces of emotion had vanished from Gabriel’s face, and the atmosphere had chilled. Cerberus began growling at our feet, and Alice’s cat ears pricked up a moment later.
“It was quiet, but there was a scream. A woman’s.”
I wanted to pat Alice’s head for her good reporting skills. She might have sensed it a bit late, but it was almost at the same moment as everyone else. She was over level 50 at this point, so... Yeah. Combined with her superior sensing skills as a demihuman, she was just about ready to hold her own. To think she was once a dying child in a slave market.
Across from us, a woman appeared. This harpy dressed in rags ran at us with bloodshot eyes.
†
There were five of these harpies running at us. They weren’t alone either—a bunch of other demihumans were with them. Ones with elf ears, ones with fox ears, even a lizardman.
I could see about twenty demihumans, all of them female, dressed in beat-up clothing and handcuffed. You could tell just by glancing at them that they weren’t being treated very well.
“They’re probably slaves on the run,” I noted, and Gabriel agreed.
In Japan, our image of harpies was that they had sharp bird talons on all their limbs. Their lower halves and part of their top halves were completely bird-shaped. One would say they looked more like your typical monster than a demihuman.
But in this world, harpies were basically just humans with wings.
“Master Shinobu, what will you do?”
I put my hand to my chin to mull it over. We could make out some armored men running after the women. They were probably the slavers chasing after ones that slipped out during transportation. There was only about a ten percent chance that I was wrong.
“You can ask me that, but...”
Any one of us could’ve easily beat up those slave merchants, but I hesitated to make that decision. What it came down to was: ethically, would it really be okay for us to save them?
From the perspective of a modern Japanese person, a slavery system was unthinkable. But this was the world of La Vita Online. Whatever my own morals were, it was questionable whether I had the right to push them onto others in this world. What if these people had been made slaves because they were being punished for crimes they’d committed, particularly heavy ones? What if they were specifically serving the people they’d wronged? In that case, using my strength as authority wouldn’t feel right.
“I’d like to assess the situation first.”
But how should I go about doing that? Do I just stand and watch until the right moment? Or talk it out with them when they calm down?
“Are you not going to help them, Master Shinobu?” Alice looked troubled.
“It wouldn’t be right for me to butt in when I don’t have all the facts.”
Her face took on an even lonelier expression after that. She herself had been treated horribly in a slave market, so it was understandable. But it’s not like I’d saved her by beating up the person selling her.
“Aaah!”
A harpy that looked to be about ten years old fell down in front of me. The people chasing her yelled when she did.
“There! I’ll get that brat! You guys go on ahead!” shouted one of them.
“Leave it to us!” another responded.
The man ran at us. “You there! Get out of our way if you don’t wanna pay for it!”
He got on top of the little girl on the ground. “You damn brat! Do you know how much trouble you’re causing us?!”
Her face was drenched in despair. His, in turn, was colored with joy and malice.
She screeched. He hadn’t even hit her yet. The man looked even more gratified.
Click. Alice undid the safety device on her weapon and placed her finger on the trigger.
“Hold right there, Alice. Master Shinobu does not wish for you to do this.”
Alice puffed out her cheeks at Gabriel’s words, but took her finger off the trigger reluctantly.
“Lemme tell you, brat! Three of us died when you harpies attacked our kingdom!” The man swung his right fist down toward the girl. “We’re breaking the Demihuman Slave Pact by doing this, y’know! We went through all that trouble of kidnapping you, so you owe it to us to make us money!”
Just as he attempted to bring his fist to her head—
“All right, that’s enough.”
My leg did a nice roundhouse kick to the man’s face.
“Bwaaaugh?!” He sounded like a cartoon character as he flew ten meters away. White specks and blood flew through the air, so his front teeth had most likely broken.
Gabriel went next. More accurately, she’d moved even before I did. Apparently hearing him say “we’re breaking the Demihuman Slave Pact” was her green light to be as violent as possible.
The knife she threw sliced across the space, leaving a trail of blooming blood flowers in its wake alongside the sounds of men screaming.
Alice turned to me. “So you are going to save them?” she said with an accusatory tone.
“I wouldn’t have if we didn’t figure out the situation. But now we know.”
“So you would’ve just stood there and watched if that man hadn’t said anything?”
I shrugged, a bit heartlessly. “All’s well that ends well if we manage to escape. I would’ve stopped their attacks on the demihumans without killing them either way.”
“But you wouldn’t know the situation in that scenario. Yet you’d save them?”
“I would’ve stopped his fist right before it hit the girl. Just knowing that there are people out there who will hit little girls is enough information.”
I smiled at Alice, and she returned it. She then cocked her gun and pointed it at the men.
Bang, bang, bang.
The dry noise accompanied the flames of the assault rifle.
†