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Same as the two chapters 211, this isn’t a split chapter, but two chapters with the same number.

“At any rate, what were you doing just by yourself in a place like this?” the coachman asked me, after the carriage had been driving for around five minutes.

That’s kinda hard to answer…

“Oh, erm, I suddenly got the urge to… well… subjugate some magic beasts.”
“So, you went hunting magic beasts for a change of pace, or something, and then got lost here, is that it?”
“That’s about it.”
“Hmm.”

Phew, looks like I managed to convince him, somehow. Nevertheless, it’s nice of him to start the conversation. Makes it easier for me to ask stuff.

“Erm… What are you transporting in this carriage?”
“Right, you probably realized it if you saw them, right? It’s beastfolk slaves.”

Beastfolk… I did think the ears of those girls weren’t normal…

I involuntarily frowned at the word “slaves”.

“Are you the type to sympathize with slaves?” he asked.

Has my face cloudin’ over been that obvious? Perhaps thinkin’ like that isn’t a good idea in this world?
Those were my thoughts, but that didn’t seem to be the case, judging from the man’s expression.

“Well, yes,” I admitted.
“Gotcha, people like you are a minority in this country. Try not to show that face too often, it’ll make people look at you funny. Still, I get the feeling, you know? Since I’m part of that minority, too.”

Then why’s he transportin’ slaves…?

“Now you’re probably asking yourself, why I’d be moving slaves, don’t you?”

Gah, he read me like a book.

“To be honest… Yes.”
“As I thought. It’s because I have no other choice, it’s my job. Transporting slaves pays more compared to the stuff I usually carry. It’s to make a living.”

He has no other choice if he wants to make a living, so he reluctantly transports these girls?
…I can’t blame him… can I?

“Slaves are bought and sold, and as for what they’ll go through afterwards… Just thinking about it makes my heart ache. Especially girls of the age as the ones in the back. I’m afraid I’m getting used to that, too, lately.”
“I see…”

While we were talking like that, the carriage horses suddenly let out a sound that was unlike a typical whinny, and came to an abrupt stop.
Seems like somethin’ spooked ’em.

The horses (or horse-like animals) were definitely scared of something.

“Hoh… Hoh… What’s wrong? Is there something again?”

From the bushes at the side of the road, three goblins like the ones earlier and one that was a size larger jumped out.

“Wha-!? One of those…” the coachman grew pale, “that can’t be happening?”
“These guys look like trouble.”
“That goes beyond just ‘trouble’, you know, that’s the boss of the goblins around here. The Don Goblin¹… a D-Rank magic beast… Damn, do your job, you stupid barrier!”

The Don of the Goblins… that sure sounds dangerous. That we’d be this unlucky. What should we do…?

…Come to think of it, I did get some SKP and STP from that level-up earlier, didn’t I? I got myself a cheat skill, so I better put it to use here.

I opened the status screen. My points had increased by 50 due to the level up², so I had 547 SKP. I allocated 500 points into God of Fire, bringing it to the first stage. Then, I invested 15 points into Fire Magic, getting it to max level, and learned the magic Fireball³.

I got no clue how strong it’ll turn out, but… gotta try it at least.

“W-What should we do?” the coachman asked. “Should we flee in the opposite direction?”
“No… please wait a moment.”

I thought “Fireball” in my mind.
Well, it’s probably dangerous, so let’s not make it appear close to the carriage… For now, I’ll only make a single, normal sized Lv5 Fireball.

It immediately appeared a short way ahead of the carriage. It was an absurdly large Fireball.
That’s about as large as one of these exercise balls⁴, right?

This was the first time I saw this magic⁵, but I understood that it was clearly abnormal.

“Wha-…!? What the hell… is that…?”

Due to the shock, the coachman broke into a falsetto. Moreover, I could also hear scared voices from the girls in the back.

Then… let me see, I’m supposed to fire that thing at the goblins, right?

I shot the Fireball at the group consisting of the Don Goblin and his cronies. The enormous ball of flames crashed into them, causing a small-scale explosion.
…Crazy…

My body grew warm. I had level up.
Does that mean I defeated them?

I peeked at my status screen for a moment.

Huh… my Martial Arts skill has gone up before I knew it. Maybe because I threw those goblins?

Also, looks like I can evolve Fire Magic. I better not do that now, but let’s give this evolution thingy a try once my situation is more stable in the near future. I’ll also decide what to do with my STP and SKP later.

“What… are you?” the coachman asked me. “I mean, if you have such strong magic, why didn’t you use it from the start?”
“I was almost completely out of MP.”
“Oh, in that case, it couldn’t be helped.”

For some reason, the coachman got off the carriage and started collecting the corpses of the magic beasts.
Come to think of it, I feel like he did somethin’ like this too, earlier. Each time he finished off a foe, he was messin’ around with some bag, wasn’t he?

“What are you doing?”
“Huh? I’m collecting the remains of the magic beasts, and their magic cores. You can turn them into money. Well, it was you who defeated them, so they belong to you, but it looks like you don’t have a magic bag, so I put them in mine, you see.”
“Oh, thank you very much.”
“No worries, just give me some of them later… At any rate, I’ll need to report about the state of this road’s barrier at the public office, what a pain.”

We immediately got onto the carriage again and departed.

TL notes:
The coachman turned out a surprisingly nice person, so it looks like Shuu gets a bit of a grace period to get stronger and ask about the world, before encountering people that most definitely will not agree with his views about slavery.

Also, I guess the cheat ability didn’t turn out to be a trap for wasting SKP. For comparison: When Alim fought the big black dog in chapter 11, he was level 5 and it was a very close fight, even with improved magic. Here, a level 2 Shuu just casually oneshoots a D-Rank monster plus three E-Ranks with a single Fireball. And that’s with the cheat skill only at stage 1, so it’ll get even crazier.

1. And now I’m thinking of a goblin dressed like some gangster.
2. That doesn’t sound right. Even if he only got the exp of a single goblin, that should have gotten him to level 3 with his 5x exp modifier (assuming a goblin gives as much exp as the rabbit that attacked Alim in chapter 5).
3. It was “Flame Ball” in Alim’s chapters, so this is either the author, once again, being inconsistent with names, or the skill being modified by God of Fire, changing the spell’s name in the process.
4. The original is バランスボール (“Balance Ball”). They’re these rather large balls to do various exercises with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_ball
5. The original is “my first time seeing magic”, but he used water magic in chapter 206, so I changed it slightly.