Off to the Empire

The rental cart arrived in front of the shop.

While the slaves loaded the cargo, I spoke to the employees.

"I'm leaving the shop to you while I'm gone."

"Understood. Leave it to us. Take care, Yohane-san."

"Yeah."

An employee replied while stocking shelves.

This was old hat by now. I especially appreciated that his hands kept moving before his mouth did.

The cargo was being loaded onto the cart.

Having women and a child do the heavy lifting might look bad from the outside, but even Azu was stronger than a grown man. No reason not to put that to use.

I'd have liked to load trade goods too, but the wooden crates of burning stone took up most of the space.

That left only enough room for food.

Seven days' worth for four people — bulkier than you'd think.

The purpose of this trip was hauling burning stone, so that was fine as far as it went.

"Master, the cargo is ready."

"Got it."

Azu called out from inside the cart to let me know they were done.

I climbed into the driver's seat at the front and got the horse moving.

Time is money. We had to travel all the way to the Empire for this run, and unlike the return trip, we had no trade goods for the way there. Best to get it over with and head back to the shop.

I steered the cart forward as the employees opened the shop behind us.

We passed through the gate and headed out.

There seemed to be a slight uptick in people returning to the town.

Things wouldn't bounce back overnight, but time would take care of that.

Inside the cart, the slaves sat quietly, chatting here and there.

That was fine, but Alexia being less lively than usual was hard to miss.

The reason was obvious — our destination was the Empire.

After all, the Empire's betrayal was the reason Alexia had fallen into slavery.

A request from her liege lord — essentially an order from the Empire itself — had sent her family to war. No support came. No ransom was paid.

Her father died.

Her mother had already passed before that battle, so the house was simply dissolved.

Feeling heavy about it was only natural.

From my perspective, the result was that I got to buy Alexia, so I had no complaints. But for her, it had to be complicated.

As I mulled that over, Alexia came to the front.

"Watching the scenery will take my mind off things."

"Sure."

Just sitting inside probably let her thoughts spiral.

Of the slaves, Alexia was likely the most inflexible.

Too serious, in a different way than Azu.

The cart journey went without incident.

The trip to Spartia had taken ages, but this Empire city wasn't nearly as far from our town.

Two days, and we'd be there.

Just go, sell the burning stone, and come back.

No trouble expected.

Monster encounters were few, and we made better progress than planned.

For meals, we ate black bread with ham and pickled greens.

No cooking required, so we didn't even need to stop — everything kept well and was easy to carry.

Along the way, we rested the horse several times and slept inside the cart at night.

There hadn't been room for a tent, but four people could lie down in the cart and still manage to sleep.

We entered Empire territory the next day, well ahead of schedule.

That was a good thing, but something gave me pause.

"Hey, is the land normally this dry?"

"It shouldn't be. The climate was relatively mild, and the land was blessed."

That's what Alexia said, but even the grass was withered.

Had there been a drought?

It wasn't particularly hot, either.

The rivers had barely a trickle flowing through them.

Water procurement wasn't a problem for us, since we had magic stones and a mage. But this area had been under Alexia's family's rule.

"The land really is… Could it simply not have rained? This sort of thing almost never happened."

"Might be wise not to linger here."

"Agreed."

Alexia hastily pulled a hood over her head.

"I'll keep this on while we're in the area. They probably think I'm dead or… being kept as someone's plaything."

"I don't mind."

"Besides, becoming a slave was unavoidable, but having my former subjects see me like this is more than I can bear."

That made sense.

Strangers seeing you at your lowest was one thing. People who knew you was another.

Not that I thought I'd reduced her to some pitiful state.

It must have shown on my face, because Alexia added:

"I am grateful for how you treat me. For the treatment, at least."

I drove the cart onward.

The dry ground seemed to make things easier on the horse, at least.

We arrived at our destination city.

There was only one gatekeeper, and he was sitting on the ground.

When I tried to speak to him, he told us in a feeble voice to just go on in.

He looked terribly weakened. His color was bad.

"Hey, got any water?"

As I was about to enter as told, the gatekeeper called out to me.

I glanced at Alexia.

Still hooded, she nodded and conjured water with magic.

The gatekeeper scrambled to hold his canteen under the flow.

Once it was full, he gulped it down in one go.

"One more, please."

Water magic — especially just producing water — apparently didn't cost much mana.

Alexia cast it again, and the gatekeeper's color improved considerably.

"Thanks… Let me give you some advice as thanks. Don't stay here long. Take it from me. The lord went and angered the Water Elemental around these parts, and this is what happened."

"Ah, so that's why the land was so dry."

"That's right. The old lord was good to us, you know…"

With that, the gatekeeper slumped back down.

Conserving his strength, no doubt.

Alexia seemed lost in thought.