Merchant Of Yliaster

Two people sat beside a fire, as slaves around them slowly got their share of food from a queue. There was apparently a decent cook among the slaves, so the camp actually had better food than one would expect.

Maxwell took a bite from his meat skewer and immediately grimaced. He was not sure what meat this was, but it was terribly hard. He quickly ate the food by forming a small ball of darkness mana in his mouth. Darkness seemed to appreciate the food better than he did, as the pieces of questionable meat disappeared immediately.

"So, why do you work with... them?" Maxwell said, pointing at the bandits lying tied down on the ground. They were still unconscious, as Maxwell diligently pushed a complete high school curriculum inside their heads repeatedly. Maybe they would become scholars when they woke up.

"It's not really complicated," the man said, he was eating a slab of meat hungrily, and not a sign could be seen that his head had been damaged just an hour ago. He bit into his meat and quickly swallowed it before continuing.

"I'm a sworn knight of the kingdom, and the King finds bandits really useful. They are a low-cost way of doing things, they say. I don't agree with them, but I also can't disobey direct orders," he said, sounding cynical.

The man's tone was not unexpected for Maxwell. All idealists one day realized that the world was too real. Add that this world was a medieval world, and it became easy to think that a cynical knight would exist. He still noted that the man used they instead of he. Maxwell found the practice needless, but kings would king he supposed.

"So the king sent you here?" Maxwell asked, watching in amusement as Blueberry pecked at a piece of meat still hanging over the fire. The bird seemed to be unbothered by her closeness to fire, and slowly consumed a portion of meat more than adequate for a human.

"Not exactly by the king, I might say, but we have a hierarchy among knights. I was sent here by the knight commander, who gets his orders directly from the king," the man answered.

Maxwell was surprised that a level 28 knight was below someone in the command chain, though he supposed the command chain could be older than the initiation.

"What's his level?" he asked. He was curious about what level someone at the top of a kingdom would have at this point in time.

"He has almost unlimited access to rifts, but he has responsibilities, too. Even with the best rifts available, I think he is not 40 yet. The knight commander, I mean. You weren't asking about the king, right?"

"I wasn't, but you made me curious," Maxwell replied. The commander being less than 40 in levels didn't encourage him much about the rifts. He hoped that the commander was really busy with his work. Otherwise, it meant that the kingdom's rifts were subpar.

"For kings, the leveling system is a bit weird from what I've seen. It's like their levels are tied to the power of their kingdom. I saw a king drop three levels due to a diplomacy mistake when I was on a mission outside the kingdom, you know." Romin said, finally managing to finish his meal.

"What happens if the kingdom is destroyed?" Maxwell asked curiously. Romin sent him a playful look, hearing the question.

"Kings don't usually survive to see their kingdoms destroyed. I guess they would be long dead when that happened," he answered. "But if we assume they somehow survived, I guess they would drop to level one," he added. It was an interesting concept. It meant that kings could level really fast, but they could also do that in the opposite direction if they were doing a poor job.

"What about the princes? What class do they have?" Maxwell asked. This was the only weird thing about this system. He doubted that princes would wait until they became the king to select a class.

"I'm not sure about that, as these things are quite new, but I saw a prince before with the prince class, so probably, they have a class for themselves," Romin answered. He cleared his throat before sending Maxwell an inquiring look.

"Chatting and all is fine, but now that you have beaten us, you need to decide how to proceed. The king will probably send more bandits at you. I don't see a noble emblem on your clothes, so that means they could also mobilize nobles against you without needing much of a reason." he stopped, apparently considering whether or not to tell something, but he chose to continue quickly.

"Though I suppose you won't remain a commoner for much with the new system coming, you would still face more and more bandits, though," he said. Maxwell was a bit surprised that the man was not exactly on the king's side. It was true that the man didn't agree with the king, but Maxwell expected more blind loyalty from someone like him.

"Let them come, it's easier than chasing after them. If anything, Blueberry will have some fun," Maxwell said, making the man look at him, uncomprehending. Now that he thought about it, Romin probably thought that Maxwell killed the bandits. He doubted anyone could escape to report the events correctly, considering the Blueberry's perception ability.

Blueberry turned towards them, hearing her name spoken. She was busy eating a chop of… something, so she hadn't heard the discussion before. She flew towards Maxwell's head, still holding a giant piece of greasy meat in her beak.

Maxwell dodged out of the bird's way hurriedly, feeling dread as the greasy meat got close to his hair. "Hey, eat your meal first!" he shouted, drawing some amused glances.

I do understand the holiness of plumbing, now. He thought. Grease was something else in a world without proper showers.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

As he dodged, he kicked one of the bandits, making the man grunt in his sleep. This brought him back to the previous question. What was he going to do with all these bandits? He couldn't send them back, as they had seen too much, but he also didn't really want to slaughter so many people in their sleep.

He sighed as an idea slowly formed in his head. He lifted the weight from the bandits' minds and watched them wake up slowly, glancing around dazedly. He was careful about not crippling them, so they woke up quite fast.

The former slaves around the fire sent frightened looks at the bandits, but they could still keep their calm. It was not very hard to keep calm when there was someone who could make the danger disappear with a thought beside you. Also, there was a sizeable chunk among them who got bullied by Blueberry when they wanted to kill the bandits when Maxwell first made them faint.

Maxwell watched the group wake up, but still kept some pressure on the ones who woke up first. He would need all of them to wake up before actually proceeding with his plan.

The bandits reacted differently to the pressure, as some of them just squinted in concentration, while some of them chose to roll on the ground like idiots. High-school education could do that to someone, Maxwell supposed.

Eventually, all of them were awake with foggy minds, and Maxwell started to talk.

"Anyone who wants to live will lose their memories of the past day; anyone who disagrees can raise their hands." He spoke softly, but his voice reached everyone. This was a neat trick one could do with telepathy. You just needed to send over the whole message at the same time as you spoke.

The bandits stared at him, their minds still foggy due to the horrors they had seen. There were a few seconds of silence as Maxwell waited for the bandits to comprehend what he said. These people were not really bright even in the optimal conditions, so they were especially dumb with the present ones.

Soon, this was proven as one of the most gruff-looking bandits raised his hand, shouting angrily. "You will never get away with killing us! Stop your games and let us go, kid!"

Maxwell was truly astounded. He expected at least a semblance of resistance, but he supposed he hurt this specific bandit too much in the brain accidentally.

He glanced at the bandit, and the man started to float, making choking noises. Maxwell's mental energy constricted around the man as he desperately tried to fight. Next second, though, everything took a darker turn.

The man suddenly caught fire and started to scream under the terrified glances of the other bandits. His screams, though, were brief, as the fire mana concentration soon reached the level that could boil the man's blood, killing him instantly.

Silence enveloped the camp as everyone just stared at the bandit's burnt body. Most of the former slaves' eyes were filled with excitement, but this couldn't be said for the bandits'. Their eyes were filled with fear instead, as no one wanted to die a death like that. Being bandits, they were prepared to die on the job to a certain degree, but certainly not like this.

Maxwell didn't enjoy needlessly killing people, but he also failed to believe in the sanctity of life as long as the said life was filled with atrocities. He was long past the point where he would get stuck with the morality of it all.

His method, though, proved effective, and no bandits raised their hands again. There was a certain sense of expectation from everyone, as they couldn't understand how they would lose their memories, but everyone agreed that a day's memories were worth way less than their life.

Resource Acquired: A day's worth of memories(36)

No important information found in the memories.

Turning Memories into soul energy.

Value determined as high-low

What do you desire?

Maxwell smiled, as this was exactly what he wanted to do. He had done this before in a limited fashion, and this time, he would do it better. A skill that can create elements? He asked, not really expecting it to be accepted.

Trade not accepted.

Well, I tried. Maxwell smiled, looking at the System's answer. A permanent soul point? He asked as a test. He guessed that he could guess the approximate value of the resource more accurately.

A soul stat point for one hour is acceptable.

And they used to call me stingy. Maxwell thought. He considered increasing physical stats, but increasing them by a point would hardly make a difference.

"I can't say he didn't deserve it, but I find the method disgusting," Romin commented from the side, as he nudged the corpse with a stick. The place he touched crumbled into ashes immediately. "Yeah, like I said," he added with a judging look.

This made Maxwell think of something. Can you change his class so that he is not sworn to the king but to the betterment of the people of this camp instead of the king? He asked the system.

Trade is possible in the Merchant's dominion.

Oh? Does that effect work with things like this? One should not forget that Maxwell's dominion limited all metaphysical influences inside its borders as long as they didn't reach tier 4. This meant that whatever connection the Knight had to the King was being limited too, and the system seemed to acknowledge that in its calculations.

Maxwell turned to Romin before speaking. "Do you want to be free from your oath?" he asked.

The man looked at him seriously, before opening and closing his mouth several times as he tried to find something to say. He stopped after a few seconds before taking a deep breath. He finally managed to speak afterwards.

"I'm sworn, and I couldn't imagine saying I would want to break my bond to my King," the man said, having a weird expression. It was an expression that contained both amusement and hatred. It was as if the man found the situation both funny and infuriating.

So he can't say it due to the bond? Maxwell thought. He could still see the answer from the man's face, though. It was apparent that the bond was not that limiting in his dominion, as the man was walking a very thin line for some time now. He doubted that the man's class would allow that in normal conditions.

This actually explained why the man was so lax around him since they met. His bond had been loosened by Maxwell's dominion as soon as he entered it.

Maxwell stared at the knight thoughtfully. I will definitely need a place after this. He lamented.