Chapter 11

  Border Checkpoint

  Duke Deokk's army may not have bothered to clear out the rubble from the bandit camp but they were still delayed by the avalanche blocking the road and trail near said camp. The tens of thousands of soldiers is far, far too large a force to even remotely travel the animal trail Allura's team went up in order to trigger the avalanche and bypass the bandit camp in the first place.

  “Sire! If we have to clear all this rubble and debris anyway, wouldn't it make sense to at least check the bandit camp for anything useful?”

  “If we were dealing with ordinary circumstances, even with Beast-kin commandos, I'd agree with your proposal, Soldier! But we're not dealing with circumstances even remotely ordinary. We have good reason to believe we're dealing with both a Traveler and a Beast-kin Dungeon Boss. Going through that bandit camp without careful preparations, and maybe even with them, is almost certain to be an exotic form of suicide. We don't know what nasty little bits of Traveler tech might be in there! And let's not get into the fact that the bandit camp had the Black Viper flag! The rubble could well be the only thing keeping ancient horrors from breaking into our world, yes the bandit clan does have evil summoners who have a penchant for forcefully bringing over all sorts of nasty things to do their bidding, and no, you don't want to know how they do that! We focus on going after the group we're chasing, and maybe, just maybe, we can get the group to help us deal with the clan in exchange for certain favors. That will be all, Soldier!”-Deokk.

  “By your will, Sire!”

  The army spent most of the day trying to clear the rubble and the sun was almost completely over the horizon into dusk by the time they had a clear path, the rest of the time before dark was used to build a make-shift camp, with strict watches and large, well-trained patrols. At the very crack of dawn, the camp packed up and began moving again.

  Meanwhile, Allura's group managed to reach the border but there is no convenient forest, wilderness, or blind spot that any of the team could pass through, not even in single-file. The border is guarded by a heavily armed wall with a walkway allowing soldiers to patrol in pairs, archery towers with numerous archers of all stripes, and gun ports with what looks like cannons behind them. A river crosses before the border wall, and a drawbridge lies in front of the gate through. There's no telling exactly what's on the other side of said gate.

  “Okay. We need options. Maybe I can fly over the wall, but I definitely cannot carry all of you with me. In theory, I, or rather, my friend, can absorb all the sentries' attacks, mundane or magical, but not only do I have a limiting range of a 3 meter radius around me, far too small for all of us, but if those guys realize it doesn't help to deal with living beings, they could take us out with a swarm of common rats, never mind magical constructs like golems. No telling if The System will consider them 'alive' for our purposes. We can't use the avalanche trick again because not only is the wall too far from the base of the mountain, but there's a river in the way! An avalanche would have to be truly cataclysmic to overcome all that. And as for going around in some way? No time!”-Allura

  “We could use a nice distraction.”-Wolfman

  “Interesssting. Do you ssseee a rampaging dragon anywhere? I sssugesst we disssguisse our sssselvesss!”-Snake-kin.

  “As if we've got disguises all laying around somewhere! And even then, we have these lovely little bits of jewelry!” the [Criminal] slave decries as he points towards his slave collar.

  “Hang on. We can work with that! As it just so happens, we do have disguises laying around, armor from the soldiers in the mine we escaped from are right here in my blueprints list!”

  “That's nice and all, but how are we going to disguise our collars? Even the lowest level of [Appraise] or any magical tool that can do the same would see right through your plan.”-[Debt] slave.

  “Yes. That's where things get a bit DANGEROUS. I can remove the collars by breaking them down, but the cost in MP is extremely prohibitive, and if I fail or am interrupted, the consequences are death. Plus, I can't even try unless I get fully informed consent from the slave in question. So consider your next decision long and hard...”

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  “We'll do it!” [Criminal] and [Debt] slaves shout in unison.

  “You DO realize that if I fail, the penalty is DEATH, yes?”

  “I think I ssspeak for all of usss when I sssay that we'd all take the risssk rather than being little more than walking, talking, flesssh golemsss for the rest of our livesss!”-Snake-kin.

  “What kind of cost are we talking about here? Can we all get our collars off once we pass the gate?”-Wolfman.

  “1000 MP per collar. And no, my max MP is 3100.”

  “Blimey! 1000 MP! That's the output of a grand ritual put together by a dozen mages! And your MAX is now 3100?!” [Debt] slave.

  “I AM a Traveler, you know.”

  “Yeah. I've heard stories of Travelers that had MP pools so vast we couldn't even measure them!” [Criminal] slave.

  “Alright then. What do you need us to do?” [Debt] slave.

  “I'm going to need a (somewhat) safe place to do this, and everyone else watching out for enemies, man or beast, no offense, because once I start, I can't stop and I won't be able to do anything else. Any interruption, and whoever I'm working on, dies. I only have once chance at this.”

  “Yeah. This isn't a good option, but it's the least bad of what we have to go with, and we'd better hurry. Time is decidedly not on our side.”-Allura.

  They all backtrack to a crevasse in the mountain where they won't be seen, and Jade uses a building blueprint to produce a make-shift shelter where they can get to work.

  Half an hour later...

  System Notice: Blueprints [Slave Collar (Criminal)] and [Slave Collar (Debt)] acquired. Remaining MP 950/3100

  “And THAT was nerve-wracking. I had to go and brute-force several 'anti-theft' protections that threw out [System] errors as I tried to dismantle those slave collars. I suspect that The System was actively helping me the first time and I'm never going to succeed at brute-force removal of these damn collars ever again! Are you two alright?”

  “Cough, cough. I'll live.” Says Ricardo, the former [Criminal] slave. “I actually blacked out a few times there, and I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of coughing up blood and bile!”

  “I don't ever want to go through that again! The System kept giving me warnings about that damned collar being about ready to literally explode several times! And my head felt like it was being squeezed like a grape in a wine-making brewery! Wait.. Do I have blood coming out of my eyes and ears?!” Suzie, the former [Debt] slave.

  “Yesss! I can now sssseee why the Traveler did not want to messss with thisss!”- Snake-kin

  “Now that the unpleasant stuff is out of the way, here's the disguises, one suit of plate-mail with the Deokk crest for each of you, Suzie and Ricardo, custom sized to fit perfectly, presumably. Before you get changed, we do need to work on our cover story.”-Allura.

  “Yes. Even with Deokk uniforms, it's not likely they'll let us through just by asking nicely!”-Ricardo

  “And we'd never make it through with force!”-Suzie

  “Well, fortunately, we have this!” Allura whips out the ledger from the mine, showing all the customers to whom the ore was sold and some of them were indeed in the Holy Kingdom. As already revealed by Baron Royce, every shipment of ore had slaves being sent with it. Unfortunately, the ledger only has a name or a company. It does not list their city of operations nor directions to get there. “Do any of you know where we can find any of these guys from the Holy Kingdom? It doesn't have to be too specific, a general area will do. The further away from the border, the better. Gives us more time to sneak in and disappear before somebody gets wise to us.”

  “Well, if it's distance from the border you need, I'd recommend using Archbishop Ferdinand on this ledger as your 'buyer.' He's not the furthest but he's far enough that it would take weeks by horseback to get to him and his name has enough pull that the guards wouldn't dare hold up an order with his name on it, without damn good reason. Add in the fact that his name's on this list in the first place...”-Ricardo

  “Okay, and how are we going to explain the lack of escorts?”-Wolf-man

  “Easy. Tell the truth. We tell the border guards that there was a Black Viper base on the way here and the rest of Deokk's forces are dealing with it while we went on ahead.”-Suzie

  “Yesss. That might work, but what about the invoissse! Surely the guardsss would want to ssssee one?”-Serpent-kin.

  “Just a moment. Jade? Oh. Got it!” Allura whips out a perfectly written invoice, signed with Baron Royce's signature, stating the delivery of the slave group to Archbishop Frederick. “Now, there's just one thing left.” And Allura puts on a [Slave (POW)] collar. “This is to complete the charade. It's inactive, but I'll pretend to follow orders. Based on one of my class skills, it's going to take the highest order of [Appraisal] to realize my [Profession] isn't actually [Slave (POW)]. Now let's get this show on the road, while we still can!”