Overpowered Reincarnation Perks! - Chapter 5.4
It’s literally a fortress built with castle walls, and its scale is said to be more than ten times that of this village, a massive city.
Unlike the village at the foot of the mountain that occasionally suffers from magical beast attacks, the Castle is completely free from magical beast intrusions, and even the nearby mountain ranges are said to be inaccessible to magical beasts.
The reason is said to be that the Castle’s dominion acts similarly to a protective charm, emitting a force that repels magical beasts. Unlike protective charms that simply erase presence or emit scents or sounds that magical beasts dislike, the Castle’s power actually prevents magical beasts from approaching.
In other words, people with protective charms are only safe when avoiding magical beasts, and if they walk into a magical beast’s lair or strike first, they’ll be attacked without fail. But the Castle is different.
Even if you attack a magical beast from the Castle, the beast not only can’t counterattack, but it can’t even enter within a certain distance and flees.
While it’s good that it’s a safe city with no threat from magical beasts, there’s one problem.
‘It’s difficult to obtain magic stones.’
In this world, the magic stones that people use conveniently are made by extracting and processing the core stones of magical beasts, so in the Castle where you can hardly even see the shadow of a magical beast, let alone an attack, items using magic stones become extremely rare.
So, the Castle periodically dispatches investigators to go around villages near mountains where magical beasts live and extort magic stones.
Yes. Extort.
They don’t buy them for a fair price, they just take whatever they can get their hands on.
It’s corruption, in other words.
“They usually come once every few months, so I didn’t expect them to come already, but it seems something urgent came up requiring magic stones. Moreover, they were asking if there were any suspicious people.”
“Were there any suspicious people in our village?”
“Not that I’ve seen, but it seems the investigator thinks there might be.”
The inn employee said this while looking at me.
‘Well, I am an outsider.’
Not only Callion, but also the people of this village didn’t doubt my lie about losing my memories much.
When I said I lost my memories due to the shock of being abandoned in the mountains, instead of questioning how I could have been abandoned alone in the mountains, they were very surprised and said it must have been scary, but they were glad I made it safely to the village.
Because they were kind people who believed and empathized with others before doubting them, I was able to adapt quickly to this village.
However, it seems the people from the Castle are not like that.
Well, if they had kind hearts, they wouldn’t come all the way from the safe Castle to the village at the foot of the mountain to bully people.
‘What’s so great about that sacred object.’
The object imbued with the Castle’s dominion that prevents magical beast attacks is called a sacred object, and this sacred object can be distributed outside.
‘I heard that there’s a sacred object in this village’s palisade too, so magical beasts don’t usually approach.’
The power imbued in the sacred object rapidly depletes when it leaves the Castle, weakening its effect. It doesn’t completely drive away magical beasts, but only goes as far as ‘making them not think about attacking’.
Even that effect completely disappears over time, so the sacred object needs to be replaced periodically.
So, the Castle supplies sacred objects to villages located at the foot of the mountains on the condition of sweeping up magic stones and various other forms of bullying.
This is corruption at its finest.
“Then where should I hide?”
“I’ll open the back door for you. Avoid the direction the investigators are coming from and go around to the south. They’ll probably go north after investigating here.”
This means I can’t go back to the antique shop either.
It looks like I’m about to be in a midnight chase scene.
“Get out of the way!”
As the murmuring crowd parted left and right, men in neat uniforms entered the inn. While the people of this village had ordinary appearances like in the modern world I was in, the investigators dispatched from the Castle were all tall, slim young men with handsome features.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they can compare to Callion or Senes. Those two possess beauty that transcends humanity, while these are just what’s commonly referred to as handsome.
Of course, I’ve never once acknowledged cases of what the public calls handsome. I have quite high standards, you see.
“Hey. Has any suspicious character visited this village recently?”
“Travelers always visit, you know.”
The inn employee quickly pushed me back and stepped forward to face the investigator. I tried to sneak out through the back door, but it was locked.
Sis, how am I supposed to leave if you push me away without giving me the key!
“I mean someone who’s not an ordinary traveler. Someone whose appearance or behavior was suspicious.”
“We have many guests using the inn, so I’m not sure…”
“Why are you pretending not to understand?”
The investigator threateningly kicked a chair.
“I heard that an outsider has been staying at this inn for a while now.”
They’re talking about me.
While the villagers are generally kind, they’re not exactly saints, and if the investigator intimidates them, some might get scared and talk about me. They might not have thought that just talking about it would be a problem.
“If you’re hiding a suspicious character, you’ll be treated as an accomplice. If you don’t want to get hurt, speak up.”
“There’s no such person.”
“Then are you saying the one who reported to me was lying?”
“……”
“How dare you deceive an investigator, I should cut out your tongue as an example.”
I can feel the inn employee’s tension even from behind. Given that they’re standing firm despite having no obligation to protect me, it wasn’t hard to guess what might happen to me if the investigator caught me.
‘They might drag me away, imprison me… or maybe even kill me.’
Since they’re not looking for me with good intentions, assuming the worst, it could be death. I checked my remaining lifespan.
[Time remaining: 3 days]
The number had decreased by one as midnight had passed. I sighed and raised my head.
Whether I die in three days or now.
