Kujonin 006: Story 6

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Kujonin
Author: Hanabokuro
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Story 6

When I went to the road the soldiers told me about, sure enough, there was a mansion covered in ivy near the cemetery.
There was a lock on the gate, but when I pushed it, it easily opened.
“Pardon my intru-sion…”
Concealing the sounds of my footsteps I entered through the gate and saw a garden that had once been taken care of, where flowers grew in great profusions and weeds grew as much as they wanted, pretty much untouched by human hands.
However, the path that continued to the mansion’s door had short weeds growing in it, and evidence that it had recently been used.
In one corner of the garden, herb-types and medicinal plants were growing, en masse; they’ve stretched up nearly to the window.
Peeking into the window, within is the kitchen; the roof and walls have crumbled so the sunlight shines in directly.
I’m here after such great pains, so let’s steal some herbs and try to make suitable medicines in the kitchen.
There’s no person who’s a landlord for this house, so no matter what I make no one will care.

Opening the leaning door, I enter the kitchen.
Inside, herbs are growing through the walls and wooden floor.
Here and there the floor is loose, so I have to pay attention.
The floor in front of the kettle is made of stone, so there is where I’ll draw the magic circle.
Producing drinking water with Life Magic, I mix it with magicstone powder and go to draw the magic circle.
Joining up the geometrically patterned circular formation, when I placed a nearby branch into the middle of the circle, in a flash the branch disappeared, and I understood that the magic circle had become hot.
It’s an improvised induction heater.
Putting the herbs and medicinal plants in the pot I made clean with Clean Up, I simmered it.
From the ingredients, it looks like I can make poison and paralysis preventatives, but it doesn’t seem like I can hope for anything more.
Exactly what was the landlord trying to protect himself against?

At that moment, the sound like that of a winged insect flying came from above the house.
I used Detection Skill there, finally, and understood the full story of this house.
I understood that in this 3 story house, from the 2^nd floor to the 3^rd floor, it has become a beehive.
Moreover they’re giant bees, so there are even ones around the size of a medium-sized dog.
In a back room on the 3^rd floor, a cow-sized queen bee is enshrined.
Furthermore, I discovered that in this mansions basement are 3 people, humans and demi-humans.

I immediately erase the magic circle and leave the pot.
Outside, oversized wasps have begun to fly around.
I don’t know how strong these bees are nor what kind of poison they have, but the people in the cellar are alive, so they might know some countermeasures.
From the kitchen I crossed the entryway, proceeded down the corridor in front of the dining room, and proceeded to the basement by way of the staircase.
During that time, cautious of the sounds of the bees’ wings and the floors above, I hurried while trying to make as little sound as possible.
When I opened the basement door, it was pretty much pitch black so I turned on the light.
Lighting up where I would step, I descended the stairs and opened the door.
There was a lock, but it easily opened.
In the basement was a prison with iron bars, and within are two beastmen.
One is a reptile-type young female beastkin with scales on her neck; the other is an elderly dog beastman.
The two of them are looking over here.
In front of the prison is a human man sprawled out on a straw mat, sleeping.
“It’s finally… time to change shifts, huh…”
The exhausted looking, emaciated man slowly awoke.
“You! Who are you?!”
The man who saw me took out a knife and thrust it out.
“A, no, uh-. I just wanted to know the way to defeat the bee monsters up there, though…”
“You! How did you open the lock? What the hell are you?!”
“What, you say, I’m a pest exterminator, though…”
“Haa!? What the hell are you saying?!”
The man seems to be in a state of confusion, and he came swinging the knife to intimidate me.
However, on top of being emaciated he seems to have weakened, huh; his movements are sluggish, or like completely without energy, so it has no impact.
“Uoooooraaaa!”
The man is cutting my arm with the knife, but he let go of the knife that didn’t pierce through my skin.
At the clang sounding from the knife falling, the man who had been watching it looked at me, and just when I thought he was trembling with fear, he slipped past my side and ran away.
While screaming, it seems he encountered a bee monster in front of the ascending stairs, so the instant a scream sounded, a blue dot on the Detection Skill disappeared.

Anyway, it would be bad if we were found by the bees, so I drew a magic circle on the door; it’s a trap stuck on where invaders from the outside will be blasted with a windstorm.
Actually, after that the trap was activated several times. The magic circle lit up in pale blue, and from the door that sounded with wind, I saw red dots being blown away with Detection Skill.

Calming down the 2 frightened people behind the iron bars, I opened the iron-barred door.
Because the hinges were the inset type, by lifting it up it was easily opened.
I would imagine this is thanks to leveling up and increasing my Strength numbers.”

Hearing the two of their stories, I understood that the two of them are slaves and this is a hidden place for slave-trafficking.
Since they haven’t been given meals in a while, it seems neither of them have much strength.
Producing drinking water with Life Magic, I gave it to the two of them and ask about the bee monsters.
Those bees are monsters called vespahornets, with needles in their rears that, when they sting you, poison floods through your entire body and paralyzes you, they told me.
They crunch up their paralyzed prey with strong jaws, which is why they’re terrifying.
I asked whether there were countermeasures, but it seems like they don’t know.
The man in front of the prison seems to be a hired hand as well; the slave trader is yet another person, but recently they haven’t seen him here.
“I think we’ve been abandoned,”
the elderly dog beastman said.
“Because nobody would want such an old beastman or a cursed beastman.”
So saying, while looking at the wrinkles in his palm, he hunched over.
“What do you mean by cursed?”
“I am a survivor of the Gekko Tribe…”
The Gekko Tribe are gecko beastmen, so it seems they can cling to walls and ceilings, are long lived, and are said to be suited for covert operations in conflicts between countries.
However, it would also be easy for them to betray, so they were suspected, and in the end it seems that all members of the entire tribe were made into slaves.
“Because I have the Appraisal Skill, even though I was a slave I was given preferential treatment, but being able to see the truth does not necessarily work out well…”
She was able to see that her hardened shoulder and arm was magic that gradually killed from her master’s enemy.
Certainly, petrification should be able to be healed through acupunctural treatment, and if she told him he would shed tears of happiness, but they had no money for the treatment so she kept silent.
Maa, I’ll ask Camilla about the petrification, regarding having acupuncture done; for now, let’s go outside.
The only exit was swarming with vespahornets, so let’s dig a hole and go out through a different spot; when I said so, the two of them looked over here with faces like, “What the hell is this guy saying!?”
Above this basement is the kitchen, the place where I had just been making preventative medicines.
Whether the preventative medicines were also effective on vespahornets or not, there were no monsters around it.
Making a stand of earth with a magic circle, I drew a magic circle on the ceiling and opened up a hole, easily making it so we can get out through the kitchen.
Giving the preventative medicine in the pot to both of them, we snuck out through the mansion’s grounds.

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<T/n: (2/4)>