Chapter 108
“Hey, hurry up and move it! We have to get it done today!”
“Ah, yes!”
Sold to the mines, Qasim was given the job of carrying the piles of raw stone out of the shaft on a wheelbarrow.
‘Damn it, why am I the only one in the coal mine!’
Qasim was frustrated.
He had volunteered for a special operation under Otto’s direct command to keep his skills sharp, but he hadn’t imagined he’d be the only one doing this menial labor.
‘I’d rather have been looking after Khamak, if I’d known.’
[Khamak] was the name of the black wyvern fledging that hatched in Qasim’s arms.
‘I’ll have to return back home as soon as this is over.’
Qasim decided to return to the Kingdom of Lota to take care of Khamak now that he was off the operation.
It was impossible for him to rejoin the operation now that he’s been sent to the mines.
Why?
Because Otto and his men would have already left for the operation.
Even if he went after them after work, he wouldn’t know where they had gone, so he had no choice but to return back to the Lota Kingdom.
“No!”
“Why are you so slow, there are still tons of stones to move!”
“I… I have a bad back….”
“Hey, I thought you said you were strong, but you can’t even carry those stones because you have a bad back!”
“…….”
“Tsk tsk. You’ll never win the love and respect of your wife with that, you’re not even a man.”
Qasim felt a surge of anger and wanted to beat the miner to a pulp, but he restrained himself.
Even though he had been sold into the mine, this was a ruse.
The last thing he needed was for any trouble to arise, especially if it reached the ears of their enemies.
Otto had sent Qasim to the mines for a reason.
“Grunt! Grrr!”
And so, without using any mana, he carried the chunks of stone, one after another, with nothing but pure strength.
*Rumble!*
Suddenly, the mine shaft vibrated.
“Huh?”
Qasim tilted his head at the sudden vibration.
“Aah, Run!”
“Hurry up and run!”
The miners frantically began to run out of the shaft.
“What? What?”
Qasim wasn’t sure what was going on, but on a hunch, he ran with the miners.
‘What?’
His ominous prediction became a reality.
*Rumbles, Rumbles, Rumbles!*
The mine shaft had begun to collapse from the depths.
“Holy shit!!!”
Qasim cast an acceleration spell on himself, pumped up his mana, and sprinted for the outside of the shaft.
However, he was working at such a deep level that it was impossible to escape the shaft.
“Aaaahhhhhhhhhh!”
Qasim screamed, trapped inside the collapsed shaft.
No, being trapped was hardly the end of it.
“Huh? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Qasim had fallen.
The ceiling hadn’t just collapsed; the entire shaft had collapsed, sending him plummeting into the underground level.
* * * https://galaxytranslations97.com/novel/i-became-a-level-99-vicious-lord/ * * *
Meanwhile, Otto’s men had been waiting for a considerable time after Qasim had been taken away, until they were called out by Argonne’s men.
“Attention, everyone.”
An employee of the <Labor’s Union> spoke.
“Is anyone available for a month-long business trip, with room and board and triple pay?”
Otto and his men raised their hands as if they had been waiting.
“Me!”
“If it’s for a month this winter, I’ll take it!”
“Use me!”
They were playing the role of laborers as skillfully and eloquently as anyone could.
That wasn’t really a surprise.
The Kuntachi House magic swordsmen had undergone a wide variety of training to ensure that they were well-equipped for any mission.
Among them was training in disguise, infiltration, intelligence gathering, and assassination.
House Kuntachi’s magic swordsmen were not called the elite of the elite for nothing.
“This is to establish a base for our newly formed mercenary organization. Security is important, so you’ll be sleeping on site for a month. You will wear an ocular blindfold while traveling to the site, and you will not be allowed to stay overnight. You can quit halfway through, but we won’t give you a dime.”
The subordinate of Argonne, disguised as a mercenary, explained the job description to the group.
“What the hell!”
Kairos exclaimed.
“I’ll take a hundred concessions that you can’t pay me a dime if I quit halfway through, but what the hell do you mean I can’t even go out for a night on the town, and how the hell am I supposed to feed my fox-like wife and my rabbit-like children while I’m working, in this cold winter? Shit!”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Argonne’s henchman replied as if it were no concern.
“I’ve left a deposit with the Labor Union, so if you leave right now, they’ll be sending over enough money to feed your family for a month. Of course, the money will not be considered wages.”
“Is that true?”
“We mercenaries aren’t fools, do you think you’d go to work without that kind of security?”
“Well, I suppose so.”
“Make up your mind. Do you want to go to the site of our mercenary base right now, or do you want to squabble over work that will come like a fish out of water in a drought?”
The three magic swordsmen of House Kuntachi slipped away.
“I can’t go for a month.
“I can’t. I don’t fancy staying.”
“It’s unfortunate. Tsk. I’m taking care of my sickly old mother, so I can’t be away for long.”
The three magic swordsmen, each with a plausible excuse, then slipped out of the Labor Union Building.
Their job was to pursue.
Their task was to follow Otto’s caravan and pinpoint the location of the Great Emperor Argonne’s tomb.
“Shit, there’s nothing I can do in a month anyway! All right, let’s go!”
Kairos made a snap decision.
‘Maybe it’s because he’s from the bottom of the heap that he’s so well suited to this role.’
Kairos was a former mercenary, someone who would have preferred to be known as coarse and crude.
There was no need to play the part of a rough and tough man hardened by hard physical labor.
“I’ll come with you.”
“I’ll go if you’ll take me, too.”
And so, thanks to Kairos’ enthusiastic performance and the appropriate push and pull of the magic swordsmen, Otto’s group succeeded in getting the job without raising a single suspicion.
If everyone simply said they were going to go along, it would have been suspicious, but everyone was so good at their roles that it passed without incident.
* * * https://galaxytranslations97.com/novel/i-became-a-level-99-vicious-lord/ * * *
After successfully landing employment, Otto and his crew were blindfolded and sent to the site to excavate the tomb of the Great Emperor Argonne.
The problem was, the trip took more than a day or two.
“… Should I just jump?”
On the third day, Otto seriously considered escaping.
A carriage, a means of transportation, is prone to shaking even when driven on well-paved roads, but driving on unpaved roads for three days straight felt like death.
“Oooooh!”
“Ugh!”
Even the magic swordsmen couldn’t stand the motion sickness and stuck their heads out of the carriage to vomit.
The thing was, they couldn’t even complain, least of all openly.
“Hang in there, everyone. It won’t be long now.”
With one of Argonne’s men in the carriage, they had to keep their mouths tightly shut.
Even grumbling had to be pretended, so it was better to remain silent.
The tortuous journey continued.
*Thud!*
The carriage stopped.
“You bastards! Get off quickly!”
“Get down quickly!”
“You have three seconds to get off, or I’ll kill you!”
The doors burst open and the heavily armed knights shouted profanities.
As soon as they arrived at the excavation site, their attitudes took a 180-degree turn and they began to treat the workers as slaves.
Of course, not all of them were Otto’s men, but….
‘These fucking bastards.’
As soon as Otto stepped out of the carriage, the sight before him enraged him for the first time in a long time.
The excavation site was in full swing, and the place resembled a living hell.
“You want to get fucked! Hurry up and get moving!”
“Hey, this guy is dead, take him away!”
“Those who don’t meet the quota today will be hanged!”
Argonne’s men whipped the laborers relentlessly, pressuring them and threatening them.
Even murder was being committed with abandon.
“You bastards! I’d rather you kill me! I’m suffering from frostbite, I can’t move a step, how can I work anymore… Gah!”
The laborer screamed in frustration, and was quickly decapitated and tossed aside.
‘They have no intention of letting them live. Once the excavation is done, everyone will be killed.’
Forcing people to work until they collapse from exhaustion, beating them, and killing them means that there is no thought of consequences.
Even the vicious salt plantation owners, who make the workers suffer a lifetime of labor and abuse, did not seem to be this evil.
But the viciousness and wickedness of Argonne’s servants was beyond anything Otto had ever imagined.
“Hahaha, you lowlifes.”
An old black-robed mage approached the pile of dead laborers.
“In life, you were worthless scum, but not in death. Rise, my servants.”
One by one, the dead laborers began to rise as the old necromancer chanted, wielding a skull staff that appeared to belong to a monkey.
“Gua… gua… guaahhhhh….”
“Grrrrr….”
The old necromancer turned all the dead laborers into zombies on the spot and manipulated them into servitude.
Zombies were perfect for labor, except for the fact that they moved slowly.
Why?
Because they require no upkeep.
Zombies don’t need to be fed, and they don’t need to sleep.
They can be worked around the clock until their flesh rots away and they become skeleton soldiers. ….
‘Argonne the Great… No, Argonne, you son of a bitch, are you a human?’
Otto was truly and sincerely enraged, realizing that the Emperor Argonne was even more evil than he had thought.
Stabbing Kairos in the back?
Or parasitizing a certain monarch and then stabbing him in the back?
Sure, it was dirty and despicable, but it could have been chalked up to ambition for continental supremacy.
But this wasn’t that.
Taking day laborers who were just trying to make ends meet, exploiting and abusing them, and if that wasn’t bad enough, turning them into zombies?
It was a vicious, vile act that even the devil himself would frown upon.
‘You sons of bitches. I will kill you all. Every last one of you.’
Otto shook with rage.
“Grrr… grrrr!!!”
Kairos’s body shook as his vision glazed over, his mouth foaming at the seams.
His rage had reached its limit, and it was clear that he was on the verge of losing his cool and exploding.
‘Oh, no!’
Otto quickly held Kairos back.
‘What are you doing? Get him!’
At Otto’s glance, the magic swordsmen grabbed Kairos by the arms and legs.
Camille even choked Kairos from behind.
“Hold on, please, hold on, just try, pleeeease.”
“Tsk, Grrrrrr, Argh!”
“I get it, just hold on. If you crash now, we’ll all die.”
“Whoo! Argghh! Grrrrrrr! ….! Ooooooohhhhh!”
“Crazy man, I’m just as pissed off as you are, so just close your eyes for once and hold it together.”
Otto had to whisper desperately, almost pleadingly, into Kairos’s ear.
If he couldn’t calm Kairos down somehow, the whole point of infiltrating this place would be for naught and they’d be surrounded by enemies.
And if that happened….
“Hey! What are you bastards doing right now!”
One of Argonne’s men noticed the commotion and started walking toward Otto’s group.
Chapter 108
“Hey, hurry up and move it! We have to get it done today!”
“Ah, yes!”
Sold to the mines, Qasim was given the job of carrying the piles of raw stone out of the shaft on a wheelbarrow.
‘Damn it, why am I the only one in the coal mine!’
Qasim was frustrated.
He had volunteered for a special operation under Otto’s direct command to keep his skills sharp, but he hadn’t imagined he’d be the only one doing this menial labor.
‘I’d rather have been looking after Khamak, if I’d known.’
[Khamak] was the name of the black wyvern fledging that hatched in Qasim’s arms.
‘I’ll have to return back home as soon as this is over.’
Qasim decided to return to the Kingdom of Lota to take care of Khamak now that he was off the operation.
It was impossible for him to rejoin the operation now that he’s been sent to the mines.
Why?
Because Otto and his men would have already left for the operation.
Even if he went after them after work, he wouldn’t know where they had gone, so he had no choice but to return back to the Lota Kingdom.
“No!”
“Why are you so slow, there are still tons of stones to move!”
“I… I have a bad back….”
“Hey, I thought you said you were strong, but you can’t even carry those stones because you have a bad back!”
“…….”
“Tsk tsk. You’ll never win the love and respect of your wife with that, you’re not even a man.”
Qasim felt a surge of anger and wanted to beat the miner to a pulp, but he restrained himself.
Even though he had been sold into the mine, this was a ruse.
The last thing he needed was for any trouble to arise, especially if it reached the ears of their enemies.
Otto had sent Qasim to the mines for a reason.
“Grunt! Grrr!”
And so, without using any mana, he carried the chunks of stone, one after another, with nothing but pure strength.
*Rumble!*
Suddenly, the mine shaft vibrated.
“Huh?”
Qasim tilted his head at the sudden vibration.
“Aah, Run!”
“Hurry up and run!”
The miners frantically began to run out of the shaft.
“What? What?”
Qasim wasn’t sure what was going on, but on a hunch, he ran with the miners.
‘What?’
His ominous prediction became a reality.
*Rumbles, Rumbles, Rumbles!*
The mine shaft had begun to collapse from the depths.
“Holy shit!!!”
Qasim cast an acceleration spell on himself, pumped up his mana, and sprinted for the outside of the shaft.
However, he was working at such a deep level that it was impossible to escape the shaft.
“Aaaahhhhhhhhhh!”
Qasim screamed, trapped inside the collapsed shaft.
No, being trapped was hardly the end of it.
“Huh? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Qasim had fallen.
The ceiling hadn’t just collapsed; the entire shaft had collapsed, sending him plummeting into the underground level.
* * * https://galaxytranslations97.com/novel/i-became-a-level-99-vicious-lord/ * * *
Meanwhile, Otto’s men had been waiting for a considerable time after Qasim had been taken away, until they were called out by Argonne’s men.
“Attention, everyone.”
An employee of the <Labor’s Union> spoke.
“Is anyone available for a month-long business trip, with room and board and triple pay?”
Otto and his men raised their hands as if they had been waiting.
“Me!”
“If it’s for a month this winter, I’ll take it!”
“Use me!”
They were playing the role of laborers as skillfully and eloquently as anyone could.
That wasn’t really a surprise.
The Kuntachi House magic swordsmen had undergone a wide variety of training to ensure that they were well-equipped for any mission.
Among them was training in disguise, infiltration, intelligence gathering, and assassination.
House Kuntachi’s magic swordsmen were not called the elite of the elite for nothing.
“This is to establish a base for our newly formed mercenary organization. Security is important, so you’ll be sleeping on site for a month. You will wear an ocular blindfold while traveling to the site, and you will not be allowed to stay overnight. You can quit halfway through, but we won’t give you a dime.”
The subordinate of Argonne, disguised as a mercenary, explained the job description to the group.
“What the hell!”
Kairos exclaimed.
“I’ll take a hundred concessions that you can’t pay me a dime if I quit halfway through, but what the hell do you mean I can’t even go out for a night on the town, and how the hell am I supposed to feed my fox-like wife and my rabbit-like children while I’m working, in this cold winter? Shit!”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Argonne’s henchman replied as if it were no concern.
“I’ve left a deposit with the Labor Union, so if you leave right now, they’ll be sending over enough money to feed your family for a month. Of course, the money will not be considered wages.”
“Is that true?”
“We mercenaries aren’t fools, do you think you’d go to work without that kind of security?”
“Well, I suppose so.”
“Make up your mind. Do you want to go to the site of our mercenary base right now, or do you want to squabble over work that will come like a fish out of water in a drought?”
The three magic swordsmen of House Kuntachi slipped away.
“I can’t go for a month.
“I can’t. I don’t fancy staying.”
“It’s unfortunate. Tsk. I’m taking care of my sickly old mother, so I can’t be away for long.”
The three magic swordsmen, each with a plausible excuse, then slipped out of the Labor Union Building.
Their job was to pursue.
Their task was to follow Otto’s caravan and pinpoint the location of the Great Emperor Argonne’s tomb.
“Shit, there’s nothing I can do in a month anyway! All right, let’s go!”
Kairos made a snap decision.
‘Maybe it’s because he’s from the bottom of the heap that he’s so well suited to this role.’
Kairos was a former mercenary, someone who would have preferred to be known as coarse and crude.
There was no need to play the part of a rough and tough man hardened by hard physical labor.
“I’ll come with you.”
“I’ll go if you’ll take me, too.”
And so, thanks to Kairos’ enthusiastic performance and the appropriate push and pull of the magic swordsmen, Otto’s group succeeded in getting the job without raising a single suspicion.
If everyone simply said they were going to go along, it would have been suspicious, but everyone was so good at their roles that it passed without incident.
* * * https://galaxytranslations97.com/novel/i-became-a-level-99-vicious-lord/ * * *
After successfully landing employment, Otto and his crew were blindfolded and sent to the site to excavate the tomb of the Great Emperor Argonne.
The problem was, the trip took more than a day or two.
“… Should I just jump?”
On the third day, Otto seriously considered escaping.
A carriage, a means of transportation, is prone to shaking even when driven on well-paved roads, but driving on unpaved roads for three days straight felt like death.
“Oooooh!”
“Ugh!”
Even the magic swordsmen couldn’t stand the motion sickness and stuck their heads out of the carriage to vomit.
The thing was, they couldn’t even complain, least of all openly.
“Hang in there, everyone. It won’t be long now.”
With one of Argonne’s men in the carriage, they had to keep their mouths tightly shut.
Even grumbling had to be pretended, so it was better to remain silent.
The tortuous journey continued.
*Thud!*
The carriage stopped.
“You bastards! Get off quickly!”
“Get down quickly!”
“You have three seconds to get off, or I’ll kill you!”
The doors burst open and the heavily armed knights shouted profanities.
As soon as they arrived at the excavation site, their attitudes took a 180-degree turn and they began to treat the workers as slaves.
Of course, not all of them were Otto’s men, but….
‘These fucking bastards.’
As soon as Otto stepped out of the carriage, the sight before him enraged him for the first time in a long time.
The excavation site was in full swing, and the place resembled a living hell.
“You want to get fucked! Hurry up and get moving!”
“Hey, this guy is dead, take him away!”
“Those who don’t meet the quota today will be hanged!”
Argonne’s men whipped the laborers relentlessly, pressuring them and threatening them.
Even murder was being committed with abandon.
“You bastards! I’d rather you kill me! I’m suffering from frostbite, I can’t move a step, how can I work anymore… Gah!”
The laborer screamed in frustration, and was quickly decapitated and tossed aside.
‘They have no intention of letting them live. Once the excavation is done, everyone will be killed.’
Forcing people to work until they collapse from exhaustion, beating them, and killing them means that there is no thought of consequences.
Even the vicious salt plantation owners, who make the workers suffer a lifetime of labor and abuse, did not seem to be this evil.
But the viciousness and wickedness of Argonne’s servants was beyond anything Otto had ever imagined.
“Hahaha, you lowlifes.”
An old black-robed mage approached the pile of dead laborers.
“In life, you were worthless scum, but not in death. Rise, my servants.”
One by one, the dead laborers began to rise as the old necromancer chanted, wielding a skull staff that appeared to belong to a monkey.
“Gua… gua… guaahhhhh….”
“Grrrrr….”
The old necromancer turned all the dead laborers into zombies on the spot and manipulated them into servitude.
Zombies were perfect for labor, except for the fact that they moved slowly.
Why?
Because they require no upkeep.
Zombies don’t need to be fed, and they don’t need to sleep.
They can be worked around the clock until their flesh rots away and they become skeleton soldiers. ….
‘Argonne the Great… No, Argonne, you son of a bitch, are you a human?’
Otto was truly and sincerely enraged, realizing that the Emperor Argonne was even more evil than he had thought.
Stabbing Kairos in the back?
Or parasitizing a certain monarch and then stabbing him in the back?
Sure, it was dirty and despicable, but it could have been chalked up to ambition for continental supremacy.
But this wasn’t that.
Taking day laborers who were just trying to make ends meet, exploiting and abusing them, and if that wasn’t bad enough, turning them into zombies?
It was a vicious, vile act that even the devil himself would frown upon.
‘You sons of bitches. I will kill you all. Every last one of you.’
Otto shook with rage.
“Grrr… grrrr!!!”
Kairos’s body shook as his vision glazed over, his mouth foaming at the seams.
His rage had reached its limit, and it was clear that he was on the verge of losing his cool and exploding.
‘Oh, no!’
Otto quickly held Kairos back.
‘What are you doing? Get him!’
At Otto’s glance, the magic swordsmen grabbed Kairos by the arms and legs.
Camille even choked Kairos from behind.
“Hold on, please, hold on, just try, pleeeease.”
“Tsk, Grrrrrr, Argh!”
“I get it, just hold on. If you crash now, we’ll all die.”
“Whoo! Argghh! Grrrrrrr! ….! Ooooooohhhhh!”
“Crazy man, I’m just as pissed off as you are, so just close your eyes for once and hold it together.”
Otto had to whisper desperately, almost pleadingly, into Kairos’s ear.
If he couldn’t calm Kairos down somehow, the whole point of infiltrating this place would be for naught and they’d be surrounded by enemies.
And if that happened….
“Hey! What are you bastards doing right now!”
One of Argonne’s men noticed the commotion and started walking toward Otto’s group.
