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“Discovery of fire led humanity into civilization, and the invention of gunpowder guided humans to the apex of the food chain.

In that sense, humanity’s greatest predator isn’t beasts, monsters, or demons—it is humanity itself.

After working for more than a decade in an information agency, I realized nothing is scarier than people.

Who knows what they might do if they feel cornered?

“…Wait a moment.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s devise a plan. A plan first.”

I stopped the three people who were about to enter the black market.

“Have you all ever used the black market?”

Pereyti and Francesca answered that they had. However, despite my question, Camila remained silent. There was no need to voice it; both Camila and I knew each other well enough.

I nodded and continued speaking.

“Since you’ve used the black market, I believe you know how things operate there. However, the black market in conflict areas is a different story, so please pay close attention to what I’ll say.”

The black market is an underground market that exists outside the law. It’s a place where all sorts of illegal and legal goods are traded in ways that evade the law.

Naturally, there’s nothing that can be called law in the black market. There might be rules, but there are no laws.

In that sense, the black market in conflict areas is more dangerous than any other.

“When you enter the black market, be cautious of people. It’s not just pickpockets or fights that are a concern; you never know what out-of-their-minds individuals might do.”

It’s not extraordinary for a person to kill another. When someone is cornered, nothing is more important than their own survival. Therefore, those who make a living in that chaos have a few principles.

And I spent half of my life in such places.

“The people gathered in there are those who have come, hoping to survive against all odds. Many have nothing left to lose. Since we know nothing about the structure here, we must help each other if problems arise within the black market.”

“…We need to come up with a contingency plan.”

“Don’t ever stray too far.”

I gently caressed the pistol that was nestled safely in my coat.

“And for now, just follow my lead.”

—

Episode 11 – No Problems at the Northern Front

The northern black market, contrary to its name, resembled anything but a market.

There were no stalls filled with goods, no dazzling lights to catch a passerby’s eye, and no merchants calling out to attract customers.

Instead, only those desperately struggling to survive for another day filled the space.

“I have a few cans of food; can I trade for those candles over there?”

“I can recharge your magic. If you need your electronic devices or ignition stones charged, come right here.”

“I’m selling meat! Meat!”

People trading their skills for food, and others selling food to gain warmth. Unidentifiable meat and objects of unknown origins.

Rags wrapped around them, shrouding the light that couldn’t escape, casting shadows over sorrowful faces.

“Hey! You can’t possibly think that one meat stick is worth a whole basket of vegetables!”

“If you’re unhappy, then don’t buy! Get lost!”

“Damn it…! You young punk…!”

Two men grabbed each other by the collars. The one being grabbed twisted his wrist in agony, while the one grabbing swung a punch. They rolled on the muddy ground, choking each other, while onlookers ignored them and walked away.

The dark alley of a city that didn’t even let starlight in. The bright full moon silently overlooked the city.

The crumbling gray city seemed to be a pool reflecting all the gloom of the world.

The alchemist looked at the collapsed gray city and, turning away, smiled slyly.

“What a mess.”

“That’s how black markets are. What were you expecting?”

Pereyti, walking beside me, spoke up.

“Even with martial law declared, so many people are gathered here. They’re quite bold.”

It’s not bravery; it’s desperation. Even if they fear guns, they’re much more afraid of starving to death or watching those around them die of illness.

Everyone here knows that.

As we cautiously passed through the alley, Camila, who had been sniffing, narrowed her brows.

“…But what is that smell?”

“Probably dog urine.”

“Ugh.”

As is typical in isolated conflict zones, public health in the north had hit rock bottom. The streets were littered with filth, hospitals were short on medicine, and every shelter was filled with patients.

Given the situation, the hygiene of the black market was abysmal. Moreover, the state of the people gathered in the black market was close to catastrophic.

Clothes that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in days. With every shoulder bump, flakes fell, and bits of dandruff stuck to the ends of their hair and shoulders. Teeth were yellowed, and the breath of those speaking was foul. No, even without speaking, passing by would result in an indescribable stench that made your nose pull back.

Of course, Camila and I were already accustomed to it.

Camila had accompanied my older sister on a medical mission with Doctors Without Borders and had gone as far as Syria, where bullets flew, while I had received orders from Information Command to visit regions in Central Africa, Latin America, and Southwestern Asia that I had never even heard of.

Traveling in such areas naturally exposed us to a variety of smells. The exotic spices of unfamiliar foods, the stench of decaying corpses, and the odor given off by people who couldn’t wash themselves because they had no drinking water.

They weren’t familiar odors, but they were things we had to become accustomed to, and eventually, we would.

Despite that, the reason Camila couldn’t help but frown was that the stench was coming from her own body.

“…Ugh!”

Camila, staggering, doubled over. As she bent down, she vomited right in the mud.

“I can’t take this anymore. The smell is too overwhelming.”

“Hang in there. Can you only do things you like in life?”

“But…!”

Lifting her head, Camila yelled out. Her bright blue eyes were now filled with tears.

“It’s just not right to cover ourselves in filth…!”

“…….”

She was right.

Before entering the black market, I had asked the three of them to roll in the mud. During that process, it seemed that, by misfortune, some remnants of dogs had gotten on Camila’s clothes.

“Why do we even have to do something like this…?”

“There’s no other way. It’s simply the method.”

With a shallow sigh, I spoke to her in a gentle tone to comfort her.

“What do you think would happen if we wandered around in neat and tidy clothes here? Can’t you see how people look?”

In the north, where public health and sanitation had already crashed, what would people think if we walked into the black market looking fresh, smelling of shampoo and soap?

We’d instantly become targets for robbery.

“If we had just walked in without this, we would have been robbed long ago.”

Listening quietly, Francesca offered a wobbly smile. The corners of her mouth quirked up slightly, trembled.

“Colonel, wouldn’t we just fight back if that happened? We’ve got two mages here.”

“Do mages carry knives in their bellies? And what would happen if those gentlemen who came to gather information started brawling? It’s not like we can stand out any more than this.”

“That’s true.”

Pereyti, who had joined the conversation, nodded in agreement.

“Unlike you and Colonel Nostrim, the two of you stand out too much. You look too much like people with a lot to lose. Following the Colonel’s words, we can’t dismiss the possibility of running into ill-intentioned individuals the moment we step into the black market.”

“But still….”

Francesca raised her arm to take a whiff. Sniff, sniff.

She had only taken two sniffs, yet her face instantly deteriorated. For someone who had grown up as part of an aristocratic family and become a high-ranking civil servant, the stench emanating from her body was far too intense.

“It’s an indescribable stench… the smell of the alchemical substances in the workshop is almost fragrant compared to this….”

“Haha! What smell could be worse than the odors from the sewers!”

“…Sir Pereyti.”

As I patted Camila’s back, I shook my head. A sigh involuntarily escaped me.

Of course, I understood Camila and Francesca’s feelings because the same foul odor was enveloping my own body. Just a few hours ago, I had been lying in a hotel room. Now I was smeared with filth.

What on earth was I doing, pretending to enjoy wealth and glory. Damn…

After laughing, Pereyti glanced up at the sky and quietly urged us.

“We have no time to waste. We need to finish our business before the black market closes.”

“Right… let’s go.”

We moved deeper into the black market.

—

At the entrance of the black market, we devised a plan to use our time efficiently. With martial law in effect, we never know when or where military police might appear, so we aimed to complete our business as quickly as possible.

However, finding information about a vendor selling dark magic items in this unfamiliar black market proved challenging. Instead, we decided to put off information gathering and focus on what we could do immediately.

In that sense, the first up was Pereyti, the knight commander.

“I need to procure supplies.”

“You could just say we should buy some booze and cigarettes….”

“Go! Don’t belittle items that relieve the woes of those performing righteous deeds!”

“Where did this weird custom come from where you can’t even call cigarettes and alcohol by their names?”

Pereyti, having come to the black market to find ‘supplies’ for the knight order, set out to find a vendor dealing in alcohol and cigarettes.

It would be a stretch to even call them vendors since no suitable term came to mind—the term merchant hardly fit.

“Could you possibly tell me what you’re selling here?”

“Oh, I’m selling alcohol. Would you like to take a look?”

Finally, having found a vendor selling alcohol, Pereyti, with a formidable appearance, spoke softly to the vendor.

“Show me.”

The vendor pulled out a bottle from a worn and tattered bag. Scratches left where the label had been revealed that it was a cheap vodka popular in the empire.

However, instead of clear vodka, the bottle contained murky crimson liquid and some chunks floating inside.

“This is homemade raspberry wine.”

“Raspberry wine?”

“Yes. It’s made from wild raspberries gathered from the hills, using a family recipe passed down for generations. I guarantee the taste. I’ve brewed over ten bottles, and there are only two left now.”

“…Wild raspberries, huh. May I take a closer look?”

The merchant’s eyes were filled with doubt, but upon seeing Sir Pereyti’s imposing figure, it seemed he couldn’t think of any way to stop him.

Ultimately, the merchant, after a moment of hesitation, reached into the bottle and presented the pulp to Sir Pereyti.

With a sweet scent of alcohol carried by the winter breeze, Sir Pereyti stared at the substance in his hand for a long time before abruptly turning away.

As he approached me from a distance, Sir Pereyti strode confidently.

“What’s the matter? Is it not your purchase of raspberry wine?”

“That isn’t raspberry. It’s brambleberry.”

Brambleberry. At first glance, it looks indistinguishable from raspberry, but upon closer inspection, it is a fruit with clear differences — much like azaleas and rhododendrons.

And like the azalea, brambleberry is famously toxic.

Just like how one might eat azalea pancakes thinking they’re rhododendron, many people in this area mistook brambleberry for raspberry and perished.

If one were caught selling such alcohol brewed in the Empire, they would be apprehended by the police, but here, it’s the black market.

There is no law enforcement in sight, no regulations to conduct stability checks. It’s likely that most goods circulating around here were made in such a way. If the relevant officials from the Empire knew, there would be a serious uproar.

“You cannot buy a drink brewed by someone unable to distinguish between raspberry and poisonous brambleberry.”

“…Isn’t it better to not buy any alcohol at all?”

In any case, having sensed that acquiring alcohol in the black market today was futile, Sir Pereyti set out to find a vendor selling cigarettes.

However, obtaining cigarettes proved challenging as well.

“Cigarettes? How would you find such things in the North?”

The old merchant gestured to the items spread haphazardly across the floor. There lay crudely made hand-rolled cigarettes.

“All you can find here are these. The manufactured cigarettes are completely dried up, and all that’s left is this homemade kind.”

“What do you mean, the manufactured ones are dried up?”

“Tch… I mean exactly that. Where in this barren land would there be a cigarette factory? Hm? And the central government doesn’t send any. They pile up the smoking supplies with ammunition and leave cigarettes to freeze to death…”

According to the merchant, securing quality manufactured cigarettes in the North was as hard as plucking stars from the sky.

The military waging war needs supplies, and the Empire’s government controls resources for the troops in the North. Cigarettes were no exception. So how could one obtain cigarettes on the civilian market?

Thus, what one could find in the Northern black market now were either a few cigarettes distributed by the government or poorly made homemade ones.

“So, no chance of getting manufactured cigarettes?”

“If you’re truly desperate, you can try to get a job at the Military Government Headquarters. They occasionally distribute cigarettes there as well. But still, this is pretty good. Want to try one?”

Of course, even this homemade cigarette wasn’t a proper product.

I slowly inspected the cigarette offered by the merchant. When I looked at its contents, I was unsure, but as soon as I smelled it, my brows involuntarily furrowed.

“This definitely doesn’t look like tobacco leaves. What did you put in it?”

“Tea leaves.”

“Tea leaves…?”

What was inside was not tobacco leaves but tea leaves.

“It’s something called ‘Charus.’ It tastes bad and smells terrible, but it gives you the feeling of smoking.”

“…….”

This couldn’t even be called a cigarette. In the end, Sir Pereyti had to turn back without acquiring either alcohol or cigarettes.

Given the circumstances, obtaining cigarettes was impossible. Feeling the dire conditions of the Empire’s North, we joined Camila and Francesca, who were waiting by the side of the road, looking dejected.

“By the looks of your faces, things didn’t go well. Sir Pereyti.”

“…Hmm. It certainly wasn’t easy. I guess today isn’t our day.”

“Don’t be too disheartened.”

Francesca, wearing a cape, smiled brightly.

“Is it my turn now?”

Leaning against a quiet alley, Francesca began to share the information she’d gathered.

“It seems there’s a currency exchanger in this black market.”

The information Francesca gathered was regarding the currency exchanger.

According to the Empire’s laws, foreigners visiting the Kien Empire must report the amount of currency they hold to the authorities. In other words, if funds are brought into the Empire legally, the government could easily grasp Francesca’s financial situation.

Thus, Francesca wanted to exchange the alchemical gems she’d brought from the Magic Tower into the Empire’s Tacron currency, and her purpose for visiting the black market was to secure some funds.

I looked at Francesca leaning against the wall and asked a question.

“Have you found the currency exchanger?”

“Yes.”

“And the location?”

Francesca, who had been smiling brightly, shook her head with a hint of disappointment in her eyes.

“I don’t know the location. People wouldn’t tell me that far. Everyone seemed on edge and really guarded, making it awkward to ask.”

“Hmm….”

Certainly, even I would be cautious if a woman covered in filth approached me. Of course, Francesca’s beauty wouldn’t diminish even if she rolled in mud, but first impressions are important. No one would willingly help someone who looked like a beggar like Francesca did now.

But even in such situations, gathering information was my job.

Francesca pointed out the people who provided her with information about the currency exchanger, and I approached them to speak.

I offered them a cigarette.

“Why are you giving me this precious thing all of a sudden….”

“I’m just looking to ask something. Would you like to smoke a cigarette for a moment?”

“Uh, well. Sure.”

Having just walked around with Sir Pereyti, I had noticed that the situation in the North was dire. Even the common manufactured cigarettes were hard to find in the black market.

In other words, right now, a single cigarette was an incredibly valuable item.

Although people were suspicious of me for approaching them suddenly, as I offered them a cigarette in fluent Imperial language, they quickly opened up and began spilling the information they knew.

“There’s a currency exchanger in every black market. They switch valuable items for Tacron and can find decent goods for the Tacron you give them. Of course, not many people use them since they charge a hefty price. I’ve never seen anyone buy anything from that fellow.”

“They charge a hefty price?”

“Before the demon race overran, we would pay 3 Tacron for a single canned food item at the market. But those exchangers sell it for at least twenty times that. It’s rumored to be around 60 Tacron. They’re worse than the demons…”

Some seemingly useless grumbling information.

“Where do they spend all that money? Are there even places to spend money in the North?”

“I don’t know much, but I’ve heard they have ties to foreigners. They send the money they earn here overseas. Whether that’s true or not, I can’t say.”

“What’s their name?”

“I’ve never heard their name. In fact, I’ve never seen their face nor heard their voice. We only saw the green-skinned subordinates working for them. No one’s ever met the exchanger themselves.”

Valuable information nonetheless.

“But why are you looking for the currency exchanger?”

“Ah, my family’s sick, and I’m hoping to find a way to get some medicine. If I have enough money, I can get anything.”

“Medicine? In that case, it wouldn’t hurt to check out the exchanger. But you’ll need to bring a lot of money. By the way, how’s your family’s condition? Maybe it would be better to use that money to send your family south.”

“…South?”

“As I mentioned earlier, that exchanger sometimes takes people and sends them somewhere. Initially, everybody thought those who owed him debts were dragged away to die, but later realized they would be sent to a relative’s house in the East.”

“…Is that true?”

“It is. If you have relatives in the East or West, it might be worth a shot. I don’t know if he’s well-connected or has some military ties, but he manages to smuggle a person or two out of the North.”

“Where can I meet this currency exchanger?”

That last piece of information was quite valuable.

While I couldn’t ascertain the reliability, reasonable snippets of information were overflowing. After that, I wandered through the black market, met a few more people, and when I had gathered enough information, I rejoined my companions.

Thus.

“…Is this really the place?”

“If what people say is accurate.”

“……”

We arrived at the building where the currency exchanger was said to be located.

A shabby building located ten minutes from the black market. The wall had been completely blown down, possibly due to shelling, but there was undoubtedly a presence inside.

We stood in front of the dilapidated building in the gray city, ravaged by war. Its burnt and crumbling exterior looked tragic. At first glance, one could hardly guess the building’s original purpose, but the unmutilated paint and the magically inscribed structure precariously hung a sign that suggested this was once a hotel.

Sir Pereyti, leader of the Knights Order, scanned the surroundings with a cool gaze.

“It seems to be safe.”

“……”

I pulled out my pistol from my mud-stained coat.

*Clack,* the slide pulled back, and the brass shell settled into the chamber. Camila, watching from the side, swallowed hard.

After checking the condition of my companions, Francesca took a small, private breath before stepping inside.

“……”

In the shabby building located in the black market, the icy northern wind blew in through the open door, yet the warm air enveloping us made no one feel cold.

“…Hmm?”

With a small frame and pointed ears, green skin, and a wrinkled face, a goblin sitting at the reception desk looked up as we entered.

The goblin slowly appraised our appearance and flashed a sharp-toothed grin.

“Guests have arrived.”

 

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