Chapter 6: The Dealer
“Give Soara back to me!”
Abyss pleaded. In the dimly lit room, two suspicious figures wearing black masks stood before him.
Behind them lay Soara, unconscious.
Soara was a human woman, while Abyss was a demon man with silver hair and green skin.
“Well, you see, we didn’t really want to do this,” said the shorter, stockier masked figure in a fluent manner. From the voice, it seemed to be a man.
“Personally, I think forbidden love between demons and humans is quite admirable. However, I couldn’t help but worry about what might happen if either the human side or the Demon King’s army found out. So, as an outsider, I thought I might be able to lend a hand.”
Abyss, a demon, and Soara, a human, had met by chance in a human country occupied by the Demon King’s army. They had secretly nurtured a love that transcended species.
However, when the couple was having a secret rendezvous, these two masked figures suddenly appeared and kidnapped Soara. Abyss was then led to this room.
“Then why did you kidnap Soara!?”
Abyss raged. It was understandable. There was no way he could trust someone who claimed to want to help but resorted to kidnapping.
However, Abyss had already tried to fight the masked figures and realized that force was useless. The slender masked figure, who had remained silent all this time, had utterly defeated him.
“Now, now, please calm down,”
the stocky masked figure spoke slowly in a gentle voice. Of course, in this situation, it was unlikely that anyone could remain calm.
“If you just listen to one request of ours, just one, we promise to release Soara safely. After you fulfill our request, we’ll even take both of you to a safe place. A place where neither monsters nor humans frequently visit. Isn’t that a good deal?”
“A request? You’re human, aren’t you? What do you intend to make me do?”
“Well, you see, I’ve always wanted to build a good relationship with the members of the Demon King’s army. So, I’d like to introduce our product to your acquaintances, or rather, have them try it out. Of course, we’ll provide it for free initially. If they like it, we can discuss payment for future purchases.”
As he spoke, the masked figure pulled out a bottle containing a purple potion.
“What is that? Is it poison!?”
Naturally, Abyss was on guard.
“It’s not poison. It’s like a nutritional supplement that relieves daily fatigue. It has the effect of elevating your mood and removing exhaustion. We’ve made it specifically for the members of the Demon King’s army, so we guarantee its effectiveness.”
“…So you want me to make my comrades drink this?”
Abyss didn’t believe a word the masked figure was saying.
“That’s correct. Don’t worry, it’s completely harmless to the body. I’m sure they’ll like it.”
“Even if you try to do business with us, we don’t have any money!”
Abyss retorted defiantly.
“There’s plenty of money left in the occupied territories, isn’t there? You can collect that and bring it to us. We’ll also accept anything of value – art pieces, items, weapons, armor, anything goes.”
In short, they’d take anything that could be turned into profit.
“You scum! You’re trying to extort valuables from the lands we’ve occupied!?”
Abyss glared at the masked figure with contempt. A human trying to steal the property of other humans. Even to Abyss, this seemed like a despicable act.
“It may be worthless to the Demon King’s army, but it’s valuable to us. I believe it will be a mutually beneficial transaction.”
The masked figure didn’t seem to care about Abyss’s provocations at all.
Abyss glared at the masked figure for a while, then dropped his shoulders.
“…Fine. But you promise, right? If I keep my end of the bargain, you’ll release Soara?”
“Of course. Trust is the most important thing in business, after all.”
The slender masked figure thought,
(“I wonder where the trust comes from in this sequence of kidnapping, assault, and threats?”)
Of course, the stocky masked figure was Trao, and the slender one was Rio.
They had infiltrated the Demon King’s army’s occupied territory to promote the purple potion.
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After receiving a makeshift item bag filled with a large quantity of potions, Abyss hesitated for a moment before heading to the castle where the Demon King’s army was stationed.
He decided to give the potions to comrades he wasn’t particularly close to, but not so distant that a gift would seem strange.
“Try using this potion,”
Abyss said, handing a potion to one of his colleagues. This colleague was simple-minded and a wolf beastman, not of his own species. That’s precisely why Abyss chose him as the recipient of the potion.
“What’s this?”
the wolf beastman asked, examining the potion he had received with a puzzled look.
“It’s a potion that elevates your mood and relieves fatigue. It’s quite good.”
“Have you tried it?”
“Yeah, I’ve tried it. It makes you feel good.”
This was a lie. Abyss hadn’t dared to try it himself, so he was using this wolf beastman as a test subject.
“I see.”
The colleague didn’t seem particularly suspicious and drank the potion in one go after opening the bottle.
Abyss watched nervously.
The colleague remained silent for a while, but gradually his eyes began to sparkle.
“This is great! It feels like power is welling up from all over my body! I feel like I could start running right now!”
The wolf beastman clenched his fists, feeling the surging power.
His tension was clearly abnormal, but at least he didn’t die, which made Abyss breathe a sigh of relief.
Seeing this, other colleagues gathered around. They were of various species, including demons and beastmen.
“What are you guys doing?”
“Oh, this potion Abyss gave me is amazing! It makes me feel incredibly good!”
The wolf beastman answered with an ecstatic expression.
“A potion? Is it that good?”
Seeing this, the other colleagues seemed to have become interested as well.
“Yeah, it really lifts your mood!”
From Abyss’s perspective, his mood seemed way too elevated, but the other colleagues seemed to take it in a positive light.
“Oh? Abyss, do you have any more of that potion?”
“I do.”
Seizing the opportunity, Abyss took out potions from the item bag and started distributing them to his other colleagues.
The colleagues who received the potions used them and praised their effects, and soon the purple potion became the talk of the town.
The next day, when his colleagues demanded more potions, Abyss said,
“These potions are made by humans, and it takes money to produce them. So if you want new potions, you’ll need to bring me money.”
The colleagues began to enthusiastically collect money and demand more potions.
They started ransacking houses in the occupied territories to find money, extorting gold from humans they encountered, and bringing anything that seemed valuable to humans.
By the way, Abyss wasn’t the only one who became a potion dealer. There were several other monsters who were coerced into becoming dealers, and the purple potion spread rapidly throughout the Demon King’s army’s occupied territories.
After the potion became widespread, there were plenty of willing dealers, so Abyss’s lover, Soara, was released, and the couple was provided with a secluded place to live.
Rio had been worried that they might be killed to silence them, but Trao kept his promise.
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