Profession, Merchant Volume 9 Chapter 6 (Patreon)

Finale – The Priestess’s Execution VI

ㅤ

The next thing I knew, I was holding the priestess in my arms.


The so-called “bridal carry”.


What am I doing, me?


Oh, I see. I must have been sleepwalking, deep in my thoughts.


I would never do anything so stupid as to take a risk I didn’t have to take.


It’s all right, calm down.


The first thing you have to do is say out loud: ‘I don’t care about this person, so please do what you want’.


Yes. That should be the right thing to do.


“Kuh, let go… like I said, run away… mmmghh!!?”


But against my better judgment, I held the priestess’s mouth shut and shouted with all my might.


“I won’t let you be executed! Over my dead body!”


My scream was so loud that it echoed throughout the square.


Perhaps because of this, it immediately attracted the attention of the entire crowd, who were engrossed in the battle between the demon lord and the hero.


“Are you an idiot, you lowly person?”


I jumped up, not answering the priestess, as she glared at me.


However, I’m not a man of great athletic ability, so my leap from the platform of the cross was barely enough to get over people’s heads.


They all responded to my movement with a gasp.


“Get them!”


“Pin them down! Don’t let them escape!”


Thousands of people, no more than a few thousand, cursed in unison and rushed towards us, looking at us as if we were their parents’ enemies.


Enemies on all sides.


This is no longer a commotion for public criticism.


Everything, as far as the eye can see, is now an enemy.


Even if they are only civilians, there is no way I could take on so many people in a normal confrontation.


I am not proud of it, but I am weak.


On top of that, both my hands are full as I am carrying a badly wounded priestess in my arms.


I can’t even attack with them.


Though I must say, she is surprisingly light when I hold her.


“Gyaaa!”


“Owww, that hurts!”


So I went over the people. No, I don’t mean flying.


I jumped repeatedly, using the face of each person in the crowd as a foothold.


With blood rushing to their heads, they just look up and come towards us with simple movements, just right for me to trample on.


“‘Heh, I saw the maid’s underwear…’”


“Oh, they were white. Woohoo!”


I was a bit annoyed that some of the people I was stepping over were saying that, but…


Anyway, I relentlessly stepped through a number of faces and jumped several times.


The people here are like rubbish – I won’t go so far as to say that.


But here, it’s almost like a carpet of people.


They drift in and out of the currents of the crowd, acting in a monotonous, simple way.


Like the hairs on a carpet, fluffy, coreless, soft to the touch, and bouncy when stepped on.


Looking down at the mass of waving people, you will find them spectacular and colorful.


But of course, whether you’ll find them beautiful or ugly will depend on your aesthetic sense.


“How is it, priestess? This is the experience of a traveling merchant who has escaped hundreds of demons and monsters in his life! Ha-ha-ha!”


“Don’t get carried away! There’s no way you can escape after all this.”


“Don’t worry! This will be a piece of cake. Uwaa!”


There was an accident.


The face I was about to step on was that of a girl’s.


I had been violently trained by my father not to be violent towards girls, and so, physiologically, as a conditioned reflex, I avoided stepping on her.


“Ggh, ouch!”


I lost my footing and was, of course, knocked to the ground by the inconvenience of gravity.


“She’s fallen!”


“Oraaa! Seize her!”


My bum hurts.


But I don’t have time to check it because what comes next is guaranteed to be more than a pain in the bum.


Unfortunately, before I could recover, the pupil-dilated mob swarmed around me like brats and snatched the priestess I was holding.


Some grabbed her by her silver hair; others twisted her still-bleeding wrists and tried to drag her back to the cross.


“You’ll be rolling with us too, lass!”


Someone kicked me in the stomach, and I gasped.


Then, a couple of people started kicking me at the same time.


Ah. Just as I thought.


I saw this coming.


There’s no way I can escape this.


In the end, the priestess will be executed, with the added minus of me being caught.


Why did I do such a stupid thing…


It was just as I was about to lose consciousness.


A tremor that seemed to be caused by an earthquake and the loud sound of a building collapsing echoed through the area.


“Sir Hero!!”


As one person shouted, the square was filled with cries of despair, as if many others were following suit.


“Fuhahaha…… ghahaha. I won.”


The demon lord seems to have won over the hero, although I could not see it from where I was crawling on the ground.


However, her tone of voice is far from commanding, and she appears to be badly injured.


“Well then… Doing what you say is our motto… and with that, I will kill you all… as I have foretold.”


Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter