Rentai Isekai Chapter 16 (Patreon)

The fat almost ugly bastard-looking merchant who was hiring our adventurer party I learned later on that day when everyone was getting up and ready was named Carlos Von Greer and his credentials checked with the other merchants and the inn staff I talked to.

He was indeed the favored merchant of 'Queen' Iyana who with her approval went around New Atha and on the coastline to collect luxurious goods and magical items that would go to Iyana to be used at her leisure or be sold to her allies to keep their loyalty.

And he knew me as he had me ride in the front carriage with him with my girls riding behind us. As in he knew my status as he frankly spoke. "So Jake Barriss. The great 'hero' For someone summoned only but a few days ago to this world, the prowess and combat ability you have are astounding for your level!" He complimented me while smiling and then continued. "Truly if it wasn't for Queen Tilda summoning you first, I am sure you would be so much stronger if you had the warriors of Queen Iyana guiding your growth." He finished with some regret.

All the while my lips twitched as I answered frankly. "It is less that Queen Tilda summoned me... And more that the Goddess of Light snatched me up and told me to fix the upcoming evils in this world."

If anything that made the merchant smile even wider as he spoke with joy. "Ah! So you are not subservient to Queen Tilda and aren't her dog?"

Knowing his game I raised an eyebrow as I responded firmly. "I am my own man... Obviously things are complicated but I much rather not get pulled into royal drama and I am not ignorant to the angle of your words."

Carlos lost his overwhelming smile and joyful facade as he looked at me more seriously and spoke cooly. "Playing at being a bystander won't work young man... Tilda may be content knowing have some connection with her, and having her own assassins watching you." He leaned in closer and said bluntly. "But her Highness Queen Iyana and Hadena won't allow you such freedom."

There was a long moment of silence as I looked at him stoically before answering blandly. "They will not touch me... The light goddess along with the dark goddess are protecting me from her own followers."

And my statement made his serious face twitch as my words struck deep as all the royals in New Atha were protected by the Light and Dark twin goddesses. Should they mess with me, they could lose the very important protection that the goddesses give those royals.

So with that said I continued calmly. "If they send people at me... They better be willing to bleed for it. I have no interest in playing the royal games unless there is a very good reason for it."

After a moment the merchant smiled again as he spoke with a knowing smile. "Ahhh I see... So it's a matter of reason then."

And for the next couple hours, there were no real interactions other than the merchant telling me about Lundhaven the a major city that came close to the mountains that separated New Atha from Echesh from one another.

"Stop!" A voice rang out and I heard Carlos sigh as he grumbled under his breath.

"Damnable bandits."

And then from outside came the same male voice that yelled out. "We want only your coin purses, not your lives so make this easy for us you hear!"

I gave the merchant a look as he looked back at me and I took a breath as I opened the door and took in the assembled bandits.

From the tree line came a good couple dozen people in obvious 'bandit' outfits of mostly fur outfits with few pieces of metal covering their vitals. "Halt! Get back in the carriage or you will be cut down!" The male voice yelled and I looked over at the source to see a young man with several scars across his face but behind him and mounted on a large horse was a woman who was the true leader of the bandit group who was armed with a glowing sword.

"Are you guys sure you wanna rob a duchess's convoy?" I asked rhetorically and the bandits froze as they looked at the emblem laid upon each and every one of the caravans and I saw the leader's eyes widen as fear entered her eyes before murderous intent filled it as she looked at her own 'comrades' and then at me.

And I could see the cogs turning in her head as she realized how much of a major fuck up she made. "Turn back and I won't bother you all." I stated bluntly but we all heard Carlos from inside the carriage yell out.

"Yes turn back now you trash, and I will only send assassins when we get to Lundhaven! Rather than having my adventurers cut you down like the rats you all are!" He roared and I mentally screamed as the barbarian woman's eyes tightened and I knew there was no chance for peace.

I sure as hell wasn't going to give the cargo or money over... And the bandit woman couldn't allow the duchy noble she offended to go and I met her eyes wordlessly as the only recourse between us was violence now and in a split second I teleported onto her horse with Siren drawn from my inventory.

'High level.' I thought with a grimace as my surprise attack was blocked as she smashed her hands together to catch my sword as it slammed into her chest leaving my blade only slight piercing her large breasts before she stopped the blade and I was forced to wrench my blade backwards to dodge a spear from another of the bandits that was aimed directly at my head.

With a soft thump I hit the ground, and then franticly rolled away from the pissed off horse that was trying to stomp on me even I heard Drakia make a war cry as she enhanced her spear with her own lunar magic as she joined the fight.

"Kill the mage!" The leader yelled pointing at me as she drew her large great sword that was laying atop her lap. And I proved her right in calling me a mage as a couple more of the bandits came close I showed off my 'magical' might as I flared with lightning.

The lightning arcing off my body naturally were attracted to the metal weapons they were wielding and seeing the shivering state I stepped forward and with my sword took off both of their heads leaving a stream of blood to shoot up into the air.

"Lunar spear!" Drakia yelled calling upon her heritage further and she formed a spear inside her free hand that she threw. With the spear of solid light slamming home into the back leg of the horse making the leader of the bandits cry out in dismay as the horse although well-trained screamed and fell to its side throwing her off its back as its leg. That was punctured collapsed under the horse's weight.

'A good chance.' I thought as I sent a wave of lightning to push back several other bandits even as I realized these bandits were entirely too... Durable to be simple bandits as my lightning only stunned them.

But regardless, in the time that I pushed back the bandits and Drakia landed a crippling hit to the horse of the bandit leader. That gave my Blink plenty of time to cool down and seeing the bandit leader standing back up. I blinked behind her.

A loud crunch rang out as I slammed my sword home through her side and into her other side with my sword exiting out the other side of her body, and then my vision went black as the woman punched me in face head throwing my head back with the supernatural strength she had used in the punch despite my fucking sword audibly wrecking her innards.

"Fucking mages." The woman spat as she slowly fell down to a kneeling positon due to the lethal wound and I groaned. As I once again had to roll across the ground to avoid a spear that was just a kitchen knife tied together with a bunch of knots around a long pole from stabbing into me.

And as I came back up from my beautiful combat roll I cut off the top part of the spear aimed to stab a hole into me and then I used a hand to pull the wielder of the tipless spear closer so I could shove the sword through chest and run a bolt of lightning through his chest to kill him.

With that man dead, and Drakia had killed another couple and the final three attempted to flee into the forest. But I quickly ran them down with my Blink allowing me to teleport behind them and cut them down as through they attempted to flee through the sparsely wooded forest.

"You hurt at all?" I asked Drakia and she shook her head with her sniffling with disdain.

"No... Those bandits were clearly just civilians who decided to go down a dark path besides that woman." Drakia pointed out and I nodded with us both turning to that woman and inspecting her corpse. As she had bled out during our hunt for the rest of the bandits and as we looted her body I blinked as I pulled out a small flag from one of her side satchels.

"Oh. She was the leader of that Red Knife bandit group... Well that's an extra quest we can get a reward for." I said with a small smile as I threw the woman's money into my inventory along with her Great Sword to see if it was worth anything later on.

After collecting the loot I could hear Carlos shouting out from inside the clearly magically shielded caravan. "You killed the wench? Good, let's get going as they already pushed back the arrival by a couple of hours with us having stopped. And we need to get horses back into motion and warmed up!"

My lips twitched but I called out genially. "Yes go on ahead, I will be with my party to discuss things."

Carlos was a deviant merchant nobleman who only cared about what was going into his purse or probably riding on his dick, going from how he offered to show me where men of status 'relaxed'.

Either way the ride to Lundhaven with Drakia and Rose went rather smoothly with myself just talking with my two party members and getting to know them better. However I did have something on my mind. "Killing straight humans doesn't give EXP huh." I spoke slowly and Marie nodded firmly with her speaking.

"Yes Jake, even as a Hero. You especially shouldn't be rewarded for killing the sentient born of the Order faction of sentience." She took a breath and continued with a small sigh. "The beings of order versus the orders of chaos in monsters. That's our lot in life. But regardless, the gods of both Order and Chaos have ordained that neither force even those of Chaos may gain EXP from killing members of their own faction."

I hummed in thought and then smiled wryly as I asked. "I still got EXP from killing that necromancer wasn't he still human?"

To which Rosegave me a sad smile as she said gently. "Jake, those who truly, are evil, those who seek to only to enrich themselves at the complete loss of others lives regardless of race belong to the Chaos faction."

And Drakia spoke up somewhat gruffly. "Some monsters have even redeemed themselves in becoming beings of Order. With the gods they swear themselves to in honor of turning over a new leaf changing their races to a more Order oriented race."

A soft thump rang out as our carriage went over a small hump or maybe even a stick or something and Marie chuckled with her looking at me. "So Jake, I have a fairly decent healing spell that increases natural regeneration and a weak instant healing effect, along with my barrier spell. Do you have any suggestions for what prayer spells I should pick up next?"

I raised an eyebrow at her question and thinking about it game-wise I answered. "Hmm, I suggest either a buffing spell that increases Drakia and my own strength. Or a spell that gives us magic resistance for a length of time." As Rose nodded in understanding I then added on another suggestion. "Obviously if you can get an actual offensive spell I suggest that."

I was fairly durable all things told and with my anti-magic armor, I was basically immune to energy-based magic hitting me. But if a conjured meteor slammed into me I was basically fucked.

Anyway with my lightning magic and my stupidly sharp and durable sword, I was fine on offensive means. So having more defensive spells and passives thrown onto me would only make my life safer.

I closed my eyes and relaxed with my head leaning back into the wooden post of the carriage. Just absorbing the previous battle before I felt a poke on my thigh and I opened my eyes and saw Rose looking at me with a small smile.

"Jake, are you alright after all that?" She asked with some concern. And I quickly realized she meant about me killing those bandits and after a long moment of the nun looking at me with some amount of concern I spoke out.

"I have come to realize that as the 'Hero' or whatever, I am going to be doing a lot of killing. I have already begun sorting the people I meet in my mind into the categories of monsters, and not monsters." I said simply. And that was about it, I wasn't going to angst about killing bandits, pirates, and other beings who although weren't completely evil.

They were still clearly enemies who wanted my life, my allies' lives and my stuff.

And Drakia chimed in with a slightly teasing tone. "Marie my dear he doesn't need to cry on your shoulder."

Rose looked at her friend with a deep pout making me lightly chuckle as her pouting face was almost exaggerated with how pitiful she would look. But I spoke up as something was actually bugging me. "Drakia, I have the bloodline of a storm Dragonkin. How can I train to form elemental constructs and other things?"

The lunar Dragonkin paused at my question before humming and answering. "Well Jake, you have two options. One do the traditional thing and rely on years of hard bloody work in using your natural element in battle to learn how to mold your element." She looked at Rose and then continued. "Or you use either a divine contract like I do with the Lunar and Light goddesses to do spells. Or you finally learn mortal magic like the wizards who summoned you using spatial magic to instead learn lightning magic from a wizard." She finished.

I took in her information and slowly nodded as I thought. 'I sure as hell am not going to make a divine contract. I refuse to get infected with the Light Goddesses NTR and Insta-Loss fetish. And I have a feeling that if there is a lightning/storm god or goddess... They will have an Elektra complex or something equally cringe.'

So I gave a grunt of understanding and shifted into a more comfortable position as I smiled wryly and spoke out. "Would be nice if we had something to do on this couple day-long trip." I muttered as I was never good about sitting in the car bored.

I would always just take out a Gameboy, my phone or just anything to while away the time.

And I almost choked as Drakia said bluntly. "We shouldn't fuck during the ride... That's unprofessional."

I gave the unphased dragonkin a gimlet glare as Rose flushed and started whispering deviant things about her servicing me and us getting caught... And before she could continue further into her descent into depravity I spoke up. "Marie, tell me about how the Empire of Atha fell into the current state of New Atha."

Rose's whole form seemingly backtracked from her perverted muttering form and regressed into a beautiful if rather lewdly clad nun as she coughed to regain her composure. "Very well Jake. Giving you a mostly unbiased accounting of what happened would be for the best with how all three of the 'Queens' will want your help to bring the empire under their control."

First, she explained how the northern kingdom of Rechuyland first split apart due to the Ice Queen declaring her independence and with several harsh darker gods protecting her, the empire had no choice but to allow the succession with the other major issue propping up. The previous King who was the father of the current three 'Queens' got involved with eldritch gods and had actually summoned monsters from beyond this universe which caused issues.

And during the major upheaval that happened due to eldritch monsters invading and causing massive amounts of damage before they could be killed or sealed away. The southeastern nation of Echesh also broken apart from the Empire of Atha with the massive mountain and desert separating the hospitable parts of Echesh meaning no real army could make it to Echesh to bring it back under control.

"So that's the general history of how the empire fell apart... At least for now it's impossible for New Atha to bring the Empire back without dealing with both the Ice Queen and the Orc Necromancer Queen... To say the least they are actually losing ground to them according to the upper members of the church."

'No wonder I was summoned to New Atha. With their current issues its likely I was summoned to act as a rallying call to bring the three factions/queens together to push back the invaders.' I thought before I pulled out one of the missions we actually did take. "So once we arrive in Lundhaven and we get the confirmation of the question completion. I say we go right back out to deal with that demon camp mission."

Drakia and Rose both nodded firmly with Marie saying with clear distaste in her voice. "Killing demons should be our priority honestly. As true demons of evil will taint the very ground they walk upon and said ground will need to be cleansed and blessed in order for any life-giving things like plants and drinkable water to remain in the area."

And that was it. Besides talking with Rose about some more mundane things like the latest happenings in New Atha and what was going on in the other nine countries/kingdoms, we just talked for the rest of the day as those bandits were the only thing that came out during the trip to Lundhaven.

-

Other than dealing with a couple of goblin scouts who were looking at our caravan with covetous eyes, there weren't any other incidents over the next couple of days of riding in the caravan

As we headed towards the large mountains of Echesh which separated New Atha from the Republic of Echesh I could tell the environment was greatly changing as the thick luscious forests of New Atha thinned with the land turning far more hilly and Carlos explained the area around Lundhaven was known for its strong metals, its deep caves due to the powerful rivers running through the hilly valleys.

And lastly, this area was known for its mages who fled New Atha to learn magic without the capital's restrictions.

The city itself of Lundhaven was of a more Euro castle-like designs rather than New Atha's more fantastical Roman architecture and as Carlos the merchant gave me the payment to his escort he spoke with a welcoming smile. "So Jake, have you reconsidered my previous offer? I can show you all the pleasures Lundhaven has to offer?"

But as I went to respectfully but firmly decline he held up a hand and said more seriously. "Hero... Before you deny me again, please understand that all of Lundhaven's upper class of note also join in on such meetings at Queen Iyana's palace, so if you have designs to gain connections with the upper class to use our resources you will need to come to this party."

He smiled with a hint of something in his eyes as he finished with things hidden in his tone. "Of course... This party is being thrown in your honor of arrival and should you deny Queen Iyana who so graciously is throwing a light party to introduce you to the people that control half of New Atha's own military. Things could become painful for you in the future." He warned me at the end making my face pinch as I realized I got played.

I knew that me being famous as the 'Hero' was going to have complications but I really didn't want to snub the military of the land I was stuck in for the foreseeable future... Especially when the valuable dungeons were actually held by the military which used said dungeons to power-level soldiers.

After a moment of meeting his eyes I asked with bland tone of voice. "And when is this party supposed to be?"

The merchant and noble bowed his head slightly and said more naturally in an apologetic tone. "Queen Iyana is well aware that you have a couple quests you wish to accomplish. So the party has already been set to occur in three days. Allowing you the rest of today, and tomorrow to do the demon scouting mission your party took."

My face stiffened slightly at hearing they had pulled my file on what quests I had taken but I nodded in understanding and responded evenly. "Very well. Tell your queen I shall see her upon that night then."

And with that I turned around with Drakia and Rose silently following me as they could tell I wasn't too happy with the subtle and not-so-subtle manipulations going on around me.

Once we left the city of Lundhaven while riding a couple rented horses back towards the deeper hilly forests I spoke up. "I don't want you two going to that party or whatever... In the worst-case scenario the best chance for me to get away is to teleport out and just fly away."

Both girls agreed to wait for me in an Inn belonging to Queen Tilda's holdings so 'Queen' Iyana couldn't take hold of them as hostages in the worst-case scenario. But regardless we quickly rode our horses the good three or so hours into the wilderness where the demon scouting camp was.

-

The demon scouting camp was an obvious thing, as we entered the valley it was supposed to be within, the tree's lining the valley we entered were sallow yellow things. The tree's bleeding streams of diseased sap, that had coated their trunks in hardened spikes that ran down their forms like amber filth.

The previously dark and rich ground of New Atha that was famous for its fertile ground even in this mountainous terrain turned into a yellow hard clay like soil that obviously couldn't support life as all the grass and ferns unlike the dying tree's couldn't survive however long these true demons had lived here.

And finally... Just the air was acrid, like I was in a dry still attic that burnt at the nose with the smell of countless dead and rotted mice and rats.

'No wonder demons are kill on sight.' I thought with a grimace as I took in the surroundings and then I took a breath as I spoke. "Rose you stay behind Drakia and myself... I will teleport in the battle directly onto the Blood Drinker once he shows himself. Otherwise, we purge the imps that are supposed to be here."

With no other words being said besides making sure Rose our squishy healer stayed safe behind us. We delved deeper into the demonic corruption that had stained the land and with such obvious corruption. It wasn't difficult for us to find the cave leading into the demonic holding as the deeper the corruption the more twisted the surroundings became.

As the entrance to the cave literally had veins of glowing 'lava' that Rose quietly gave an explanation to it as I was obviously worried about walking on lava. "It's not really lava... Just corrupted mana brought from the depths upwards to help fuel the demons who live off of mana rather than mortal sustenance."