The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 62

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Empire’s Supreme Commander Has Returned — Episode 62

“Damn, these bastards know how to live well.”

Delram let out a hollow laugh as he surveyed the mountain estate.
For a Human Trafficking Ring stronghold, it was remarkably luxurious.
It must have been some noble’s country villa once.

Of course, it had been abandoned ages ago and now looked like hell.
The windows were all shattered, and vines choked every crack in the walls.
The gang had simply restored the villa and made it their home.

A wooden palisade was driven into the earth around the front gate.
Judging by the height, it was meant to defend against monster attacks.
Delram vaulted over it without effort.

“Who in the hell—”
“Shut your mouth.”
“Ahhhhh!”

The moment he cleared the palisade, he came face-to-face with a thief scratching his belly.
Without even drawing Tarbing, Delram kicked the man’s legs clean off.
A few more rushed at him, but it hardly mattered.
He left them all in the same condition.

Delram pushed deeper into the compound.
He moved without hesitation, as though he knew exactly where everything was.
And in truth, he did.

Delram had spent decades rolling through battlefields.
He had perfected the art of interrogation.
Add to that Brynand’s gift for reading truth from lies.

With these two tools, there was nothing he couldn’t extract.
The traffickers had likely been driven half-mad.
Tell a lie, and he’d know it instantly, as if by divination.
Stay silent, and he’d break every bone in your body.

‘Here it is.’

Delram headed for the top of the mansion.
The former master’s quarters were still in decent repair.
Sound doors, and a floor matted with hide-work.

The furniture and objects within were well-crafted.
Without question, this was the chieftain’s chamber.

Bang!

Delram strode to the wall of the master’s chamber and drove his palm against it.
At the moment of impact, his Aura flared outward, maximizing the destructive force.
The brittle wall fractured in a radial pattern and crumbled.

Inside was a wooden strongbox.
The chieftain’s hiding place for valuables.

“Not as much as I’d hoped.”

Delram muttered to himself as he inspected the contents of the chest.
A handful of luxuries—gold coins and jeweled ornaments—were all that remained.
So it was true, then: the Human Trafficking Ring had been dormant for about three years.
Still, even this modest haul was enough to boast about in most circles.

“Master…?”

As Delram tossed the treasure into his pocket dimension, he heard a sound.
A woman stood in the doorway, her clothes still rumpled from sleep.

She wasn’t alone.
Three others followed, one by one.
Three women and a man.

What they wore could scarcely be called clothing—mere rags.
Yet their faces were of a beauty rarely seen in this remote place.
Looking at their utterly submissive expressions, Delram found he didn’t even want to speculate on what horrors the gang leader had inflicted upon them.
Uncharacteristically, Delram spoke as gently as he could manage.

“I’ve come to free you.”
……

But how long had they endured this?
He’d expected them to leap with joy; instead, their reaction was sluggish, delayed.
Fear crept into their eyes as they stared at him, one step behind relief.

Delram clicked his tongue and gestured for them to follow.
Once he’d gathered them in the main hall, he headed alone toward the basement.

The darkness reeked of mold and rot.
Oak barrels were stacked throughout; this had once been a wine cellar.
They’d been arranged deliberately like a maze—a trap to prevent escape.
What waited at the end was easy to guess.

A small wooden door, as expected.
Delram pressed his face against the bars of its grate.
Six men and women huddled in the corner came into view.

“…Ah!”

They startled at the sight of him.
All wore the garb of travelers and the poor—those without coin.
Most likely they’d been abducted while heading to the city for work or some other opportunity.

Fortunately, they seemed largely unharmed.
Profound exhaustion marked their faces, but no visible wounds.

Not out of mercy from the Human Trafficking Ring, of course.
Maintaining one’s merchandise was a merchant’s fundamental principle.

“W-who are you?”
“I’ve come to free you.”
“Ah… Oh, God!”

He’d spoken the same words as before, yet the response was entirely different.
At his words, they broke into sighs of relief and tears.
Hope bloomed in that small room, filling it completely.

Delram rapped on the door to quiet them.
Then he spoke calmly.

“Now, I’m going to ask each of you one question at a time. Answer carefully. Let’s start with you in the green dress.”
“Me, you mean?”
“Are you connected to the Human Trafficking Ring in any way?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just answer yes or no.”
“N-no, I’m not.”
“What about you next to her?”
“I’m not either.”
“And you?”
“I’m not either—cough!”

The man answering suddenly clutched at his throat.
Blood spurted from between his clenched fingers like a spring.
Delram had severed his larynx with the Wind Blade.

He tried desperately to staunch the flow, but it was useless.
The thrashing man soon went limp, all strength draining from him.
His eyes rolled back white, as if expressing some grave injustice.

“What kind of game is this?”

The atmosphere inside the room froze in an instant.
Through it all, Delram’s irritated voice cut through the silence.

Delram had encountered men like this more than once or twice.
It was always standard procedure: plant an informant.
They would pose as fellow victims, lying in wait to block escape routes before they could form or prevent the merchandise from being damaged by unexpected suicide.

“Don’t be alarmed. That man was also a human trafficker.”
“But, Hanson was…”
“Stand back, all of you. I’m breaking down the door.”

Delram examined the wooden door.
It had been reinforced beyond the original frame—quite thick.
The lock and the iron chain binding it weren’t rusted; they were new.
Cutting through with a low-grade Aura would take ages.

He considered using Imidr, the Spirit Bow, but abandoned the thought immediately.
Its penetrating power was so formidable that even a slight miscalculation could cause catastrophic damage, so he needed to find a key instead—

‘But I have just the thing for this.’

Delram fitted Tarbing into place and raised both hands.
Eyes closed, Delram sank into deep concentration.
Spirit Power flowed freely, tangible as if touched by hand.
Owl appeared overhead, eyes already closing in focus.

Whoooosh—

The concentration of human and spirit was no idle gesture.
Wind coalesced into a sphere before Delram’s hands.
In appearance, it resembled what he had used before.
That sphere that had detonated into dozens of Wind Blades.

But this time was different.
Instead of exploding, the sphere began to spin.
At first slowly, then faster and faster with each passing moment.

Roaaaaaaaar!

The dust piled everywhere around him was drawn into the sphere.
Tiny pebbles, splinters of wood fallen from the barrel—all of it.
The moment they touched the sphere, they crumbled to powder and vanished.
The suction force was that tremendous.

What emerged was a wind vortex, fully formed.
A triangular whirlwind spun with terrifying ferocity.

“Aaahhh…….”

Between the roar of the wind came a distant, muffled scream.
It belonged to the people trapped beyond the door.

They had retreated to the far end of the room, pressing themselves flat against the wall.
They had no idea what was happening outside.
But the sound of the wind alone was enough to send dread crawling down their spines.

“Wind Vortex.”

Oddly, Delram’s voice remained crisp and clear as he extended his hand.
The wind vortex surged forward, following the gesture.
What should have come next was a tremendous explosion—

Crunch-crunch-crunch…….

But that wasn’t what happened.
Instead came the grinding sound of something being pulverized, and everything around them turned a hazy white.

The white cloud was finely ground sawdust.
The wooden door that had blocked their path was already gone.
Delram wrapped wind around his mouth and nose as he complained.

“Ugh, that’s rough.”

Ever since Owl consumed the Demon Heart and evolved.
Delram had been able to use several additional Spirit Magic techniques.
What he’d just done was one of them.

[Wind Vortex]

A wind that grinds everything to dust through tremendous rotation!
The main weakness had always been that, despite its sharpness, Owl lacked raw destructive power.
This was the result of Delram’s careful deliberation to overcome that limitation.
The effort he’d put in had certainly paid off in the potency.

‘But it burned through half my Spirit Power in a single cast.’

And on top of that, it took too long to conjure.
There was no way he could use it reliably in actual combat.
He’d be better off channeling Spirit Power into Imidr and firing it instead.

Still, seeing the potential made him feel satisfied.
If he fed Owl a few more Demon Hearts?
Both the casting time and Spirit Power consumption would likely drop significantly.

“Hack, hack!”
“Over here?”

Delram called out to the five men and women who were coughing frantically.
The middle-aged man was the first to regain his composure.
The man introduced himself with a respectful bow.

“Th-thank you for saving me! I am a humble merchant by the name of Medex. Would you grant me the honor of knowing your name?”
“Ah, I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I am―”

Delram smiled wryly and spoke.

“The second-generation leader of the Human Trafficking Ring.”
“Ahhhhh…….”

Such was the world’s cruelty made flesh.
Medex’s last hope shattered entirely.

* * *

The full moon hung bright in the dead of night.
Delram drove the carriage alongside the merchant Medex.

“Wipe that frown off your face.”
“…Yes.”
“So why did you have to draw the lucky slip in the lottery?”
“…….”

Of course, driving a carriage on such a dark night was dangerous.
But if what they were about to do was discovered, matters would become far more troublesome.
For both the sellers and the buyers alike.
So they had no choice but to meet like rats in the darkness.

“Mmmmm…….”
“Those wretches at it again.”
“Shall I go silence them, sir?”
“We’re almost there. Let it be.”

The wheels of the carriage ground over gravel.
Along with that sound came muffled, suppressed moans.
The voiceless screams of gagged trafficking victims.
Today’s merchandise, as it were.

Delram had always believed in making full use of human resources.
So he had decided to recycle even those thieves whom he would normally have executed by severing their heads or crippling them by cutting their tendons, leaving them to crawl for the rest of their lives.
As slave candidates.

The plan was simple.
The commander had offered several posting sites to choose from.
Delram had selected three of them, and one happened to be nearby.

The city of Gules.
The reason he had chosen it―

‘The slave merchant who sold Tas’s family lives here.’

Tas himself did not know the full truth.
All he knew were two things.
That the city where he had been imprisoned was called Gules.
And the face of the slave merchant.

Delram was in the process of training Tas properly.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, he would likely become quite an impressive knight.

And why wouldn’t he?
Delram had given him an advanced Mana Formula, whip technique, and on top of that, talent and mental fortitude.
With all that combined, it seemed stranger that he wasn’t growing stronger.

But what if, later on,
a slave trader showed up and caused trouble?
If Tas spread word that he was a Bloodline Successor?
It wouldn’t be impossible to contain, but it would certainly become a nuisance.

‘So I should find them first and deal with them.’

At this point in time, it didn’t seem likely there’d be another demon.
It was more convincing to think that one wandering through dimensions had simply drifted by chance into the capital, rather than the future having changed.
Even Bishop Nuark agreed with this assessment.

So the demon investigation wouldn’t take long either.
Since there wasn’t one anyway, a week should be enough to wrap it up quickly.
Then I could use the remaining time to deal with the slave traders.
That’s what I thought, but…….

‘They’re connected like this.’

The Human Trafficking Ring walked right into my lap.
They said they were doing business with the slave traders of Gules.
In three days, on the night the full moon rises each month.

So Delram came out personally.
To make contact with the slave traders under the pretense of a transaction.

“Ah, I can see light over there!”
“I have eyes too. Lower your voice.”
“My apologies…….”
“You were supposed to be a merchant’s aide? Where’s your composure?”

Delram rebuked Medex while scanning the area ahead.
Faint light beginning to show between the branches of trees.
There was no reason for travelers to camp this far from the main road.
It naturally led to one conclusion: slave traders.

Sure enough, the carriage came to a stop.
A man sitting by the campfire spoke bluntly.

“You’re here. Why so late?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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