I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 63
“What? What are you talking about now! Why the sudden change of heart?”
The Fire Magician whipped around to glare at his companion.
He had already sent the tranquilizer-coated needles flying into the carriage. The woman, the child, and even the magical beast inside would be sound asleep by now.
To do all that and then suddenly say he was quitting—that he should do it alone—what kind of nonsense was that?
The Wind Magician spoke in a low, hushed voice.
“I’ve done enough by helping you this far. I’m staying in this country. You go on your own.”
The Fire Magician grabbed the arm of his companion as he tried to turn away.
“Wait! You’ve got it all wrong. They’re going to find out it was us anyway. You know that merchant owner isn’t some ordinary guy. He’ll figure it out sooner or later. You can’t stay here.”
“But…”
“Are you scared because you saw that Healing Magician fight? Or are you afraid of stealing the beast? You didn’t have any problems until the plan was brought up.”
“…”
The Fire Magician gripped his companion’s shoulder tightly. Although the Wind Magician was the 3rd Grade leader, it was the Fire Magician who actually led the party. He made all the decisions. The Wind Magician simply followed along, and that had always been the best arrangement.
The Fire Magician squeezed both shoulders now, his voice a lethal whisper.
“Get your head straight! We don’t even know if things will go well once we take the beast and the kid. And you want to go without even the beast? Ha! Our lives will be worth less than flies then.”
“But…”
The Wind Magician seemed genuinely terrified of that Healing Magician.
The Fire Magician glared intensely at him.
“We have no choice. Everything went to hell because that Healing Magician killed the Captain. The Captain was the one who promised us money and noble titles, and now he’s dead.”
“…”
“If we mess up, we’ll be found out and kicked out of here, but even if we go over there, we’re more likely to be held responsible for the Captain’s death than to get paid. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. You know how the Guild treats traitors, don’t you?”
The Adventurer’s Guild asked no questions when you joined. As long as you took jobs and handled them properly to build a career, they didn’t care if you were a rotten person or a murderer. They didn’t judge, and they didn’t ask questions about your past.
But it was a different story if you betrayed the Adventurer’s Guild or caused them a significant loss. They would send your description to nearly every place they had influence, making it impossible for you to even exist in this world.
The Adventurer’s Guild was woven into almost every aspect of life. From gathering herbs to running errands, escorting, hunting, and monster suppression—they even acted as mercenaries or farmhands. If a noble paid enough, they would even help with the harvest.
Even for jobs everyone hated, the Guild would find someone to do it. People said it was harder to find something the Adventurer’s Guild couldn’t do than it was to find gold on the street.
No one wanted to be an enemy of an organization like that.
“M-maybe it’s better to confess to the Adventurer’s Guild now and beg for forgiveness?”
The Wind Magician hung his head, whining. He was always like this. He would agree to something and then spend the whole time regretting it, agonizing, and hesitating.
But was that even possible at this point? The man was an idiot. That was likely why he’d fallen for his sweet talk in the first place.
The Fire Magician clicked his tongue, his voice softening slightly.
“You know we can’t do that. Go ahead, tell the Adventurer’s Guild everything. They’ll just happily hand us over to those noble bastards. Our heads will be rolling for treason.”
The Wind Magician’s face turned pale. The Fire Magician sighed and continued.
“It’s the same even if we stay quiet. Even if we aren’t caught right now, it’ll eventually come out that we were colluding with the enemy and feeding them information on the merchants.”
“…”
“Just our rotten luck. This was supposed to be the last job, but that other guy had to show up…”
The Fire Magician patted his companion’s shoulder.
“It’s fine. We just need to take the beast and the kid. This is our last chance. It’s important that it’s a child, not an adult. It’s our chance because she’s still unskilled at controlling the beast. Don’t you see? If we just hold onto that kid, the beast is ours. Do you have any idea how huge that is?”
“…That’s…”
He doesn’t get it. The Fire Magician hid his exasperation and forced a smile.
“Besides, we can use the kid to control the Healing Magician. What’s he going to do if we threaten to kill his brat? You saw how he treats his wife and kid, didn’t you? He’s absolutely obsessed with them. By taking that girl, we get a tamer and a magician with two attributes at the same time.”
“Is that so?”
He finally seemed convinced. There was almost no chance things would actually play out that way, but once they crossed this line, they would both be beyond saving. By then, this indecisive fool wouldn’t be able to back out anymore.
The Wind Magician glanced toward the woman inside the carriage. He asked hesitantly.
“Then wouldn’t it be better to leave the woman behind? If we take both the woman and the kid, that giant might…”
“Aren’t you angry? Everything was ruined because of him.”
“Well, I’m angry, but…”
“Just imagine his face when he finds that woman abandoned and broken.”
“…”
It didn’t matter if his companion understood or not. He wanted that giant’s face and heart to be mangled with pain. He wanted to drive him mad with rage and sorrow.
“…That giant will never be able to smile again.”
“…”
At any rate, now was the chance while everyone was distracted. Everyone was busy tending to the wounded and repairing the broken carriages. No one would notice if a person or two slipped away.
Even if someone saw them taking the woman, they’d just think the usual—that the delinquent magician was after a woman again, and this time the bastard was even laying hands on a young child. They might frown in disgust, but they’d look the other way. Unless they were close, most people didn’t interfere in others’ business. That was the way of their society.
The Fire Magician gripped the Wind Magician’s arm tight to make sure he didn’t run, then peered into the carriage.
The woman and the child had collapsed, but he wasn’t sure about the Horned Rabbit. It was lying still, looking like it might be asleep, but it could be awake. Its rump and tail weren’t moving, but its ears seemed to twitch every now and then.
“Are you sure you hit the beast properly?”
“Yeah. The drug should have worked perfectly. I don’t know much about magical beasts, but rabbits have thick hides, so I specifically aimed for the ears.”
“Good. Now, open the door.”
“I’m working on it, just wait a second,” the magician whispered back.
The Wind Magician stared intently at the interior latch. The iron bolt began to rattle and slide bit by bit.
Damn it. Why did he have to install something like that?
If it weren’t for the latch, they would have been done by now. That giant was truly annoying. A man blessed with talent upon talent—a truly detestable man.
A guy like that… normally, I would have lived my life ordering him around.
The Fire Magician’s lips twisted into a grimace.
He wasn’t meant to live a life like this. Originally, he was a nobleman whom commoners wouldn’t dare look at. He was the second son of a noble family that ruled a prosperous territory, even if the rank was somewhat low. He wasn’t the kind of person who should be loitering around a filthy Guild office, wandering in search of daily work, or acting as a guard for some insignificant merchant.
If he finished this job properly, he would be a noble again. He had been promised a small but profitable territory. It was possible not just because he sold information, but because he was a Fire Magician and his companion used wind.
If he’d had more talent, he might have found a way to stay in this country. But he didn’t have the talent to become a 1st or 2nd Grade.
While moving from 5th to 4th Grade was possible through effort, moving from 4th to 3rd Grade required immense effort and a vast amount of time.
To reach the 2nd and 1st Grades above that required genuine, innate talent.
The numbers were only a digit or two apart, but there was a massive wall between them that could not be scaled.
In his hometown, everyone had praised him as a talented boy since he was young, but when the lid was opened, he was nothing more than an average talent.
“…It’s ready.”
The Wind Magician spoke up hesitantly. Snapping back to reality, the Fire Magician saw that the latch holding the carriage door shut had been slid aside.
“Good. Let’s go in.”
If he could only be an ordinary magician, then he would abandon that path and return to being a noble. And this was likely the last path ever offered to him. He could not let it go.
The Fire Magician pulled the carriage door open. He quickly stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
In the dim light, he saw the collapsed forms of the woman, the child, and the Horned Rabbit.
The Horned Rabbit, which had been lying still without a single movement, suddenly lifted its head. Its black eyes met those of the Fire Magician.
The magical beast tilted its head and let out a small cry.
“Pii?”
His heart was racing. Juhwan ran in the direction the servant pointed.
Several guards were lying on the ground, struck by arrows.
Juhwan used a small knife to make a quick incision and pulled out the embedded arrows. The guards screamed, unable to bear the pain. Their bodies tensed, their muscles turning rock-hard.
He reached out and placed his hand on the man’s wound, pouring in his mana. Perhaps because he was in such a rush, he might have put in a bit too much power. The man’s wound closed up in an instant.
“My God!”
The merchant owner standing nearby muttered. He could hear the servants gasping all around him.
With the Miller Merchant Company at the center, the healing of one side of the procession was underway.
While Juhwan was treating people, the merchant caravan was in a state of chaos.
On one side, the company servants were pulling some goods out of the damaged carriages and repairing the broken sections. In some cases, they emptied a cart and broke it apart to reinforce a carriage.
On the other side, the guards were separating the dead from the wounded and loading them onto carts.
Because the carts were being used that way, they were inevitably forced to discard some goods.
Servants were running to other merchant companies to see if there was any empty space to carry their shop’s goods or the wounded.
Juhwan stood up after treating several people. It was time to go to the next company.
Leonard of the merchant company had told him not to treat those who couldn’t be saved, but most of them could be saved. Since the Miller Company said they would foot the bill and Juhwan guaranteed he could save them, the other companies didn’t bother stopping the treatment.
Yes, they would all live. The patients Juhwan treated would definitely survive. His heart felt just a little lighter.
As he continued to use mana, he realized that Healing Magic was the easiest. it also consumed the least amount of mana.
Maybe the reason I can use Healing Magic so easily is because of my wish.
When he first fell into this world, he had seen people die. After fully realizing he had come to a world where no one cared if a person fell like a log, he met Lij and Dorothy.
It was likely what his heart had strongly desired back then. His desire to never let his family die again was so strong that perhaps that feeling had triggered the Healing Magic. The fear of death he already carried had exploded when he gained a family. He never wanted to lose anyone again.
Maybe Fire Magic and Wind Magic manifest in the same way.
Perhaps they appeared when he felt a true, desperate need. Looking at his experiences so far, it seemed certain.
Is it an ability Santa gave me?
Maybe it was just because he was from another world, but even so, it was thanks to Santa.
The image of Santa huddled in front of the subway station suddenly came to mind. Was that Santa still there, looking for a customer whose wish he could grant? Or did he only appear on Christmas Eve?
Suddenly, his thoughts shifted to the Fire Magician.
The handwritten note from Santa that appeared when he walked with his head down overlapped with the torch that had suddenly appeared in the darkness while he was searching for the bandits.
It was probably because he had seen both in situations he never expected.
As the image of the Fire Magician dragging Marie away came to mind, his face scowled involuntarily. If he hadn’t seen it, that man would have dragged Marie to some secluded spot and…
Suddenly, a strange thought occurred to him.
But didn’t he go too far?
That Fire Magician had likely done things like that to the women of the Red Sword before. The Red Sword party was terrified of him.
Maybe Marie had been a victim, or maybe it was Jessie or Karin.
Even if he’d only made attempts, it was clearly something he had tried before.
Wouldn’t the people around them have known? Judging by how people reacted when he let Marie go because of Juhwan, they must have known. Everyone knew he was that kind of bastard.
If so, there was no need to go far from the procession, was there? He could have just done it a short distance away. No one would have stopped him, and the Fire Magician hadn’t even hidden it. He’d even told Juhwan to wait his turn.
And yet, that man went too far.
That spot was right on the path where Juhwan was going to check for other bandits. It wasn’t just nearby. It was the best place for someone to hide.
The pile of stones the Fire Magician had gathered to set up his torch flashed through his mind. There had been quite a lot of stones. Perhaps he had intended to hide a message to the enemy under that pile.
If dragging Marie away was just a cover to deceive others…
When someone lit a torch next to the company carriage so the bandits could see, no one saw who lit it.
He’d thought it was because they were flustered or because it was too dark, but in reality, had there been no one in front of the torch at all?
A Fire Magician could ignite a fire even from a short distance away.
Where were they when the enemy attacked?
When the enemy’s arrows first flew, that magician party wasn’t where they were supposed to be. When he looked again, they were standing in the safest spot.
They’re the traitors.
Juhwan bolted upright.
At that moment, a sound like it would split his eardrums pierced his ears like an awl.
[PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!]
“Gah!”
“What the—!”
“What is that sound!”
People screamed and covered their ears.
It was Oz’s cry.
Oz was giving a warning.
He was alerting Juhwan that someone was trying to harm Lij and Dorothy.
Before he could even think, Juhwan’s body was already sprinting toward his carriage.
