Sugar Rush (4)

“Ugh. The smell of smoke. Are you mixing tobacco with weed? Ever heard of ventilation?”

“What? What the hell?!”

“You little punk!?”

The plantation owners were startled by the unexpected intruder.

Around the clubhouse, they had stationed skilled mercenaries, as well as large, strong, and talented laborers—those with a knack for martial arts.

They even had guard dogs, making this place like a fortress no rat could sneak into. And yet, this young man had just walked in, bold as brass?

“Are you all children of darkness? Let in some air and light, for heaven’s sake.”

The young man opened a window. Light from outside flooded into the clubhouse.

In the shadows, they were men with the power to name even the king of Vthuma. But under the light, they were nothing more than corrupt, bloated old men drunk on indulgence.

“How rude.”

“Step back, master.”

The servants who had caught the blasted door stepped toward the young man of the Messenger Clan. Their movements made it clear—they were skilled fighters.

“This is the clubhouse of the Bell Hoda Sugar Consortium. Only those of high status may enter.”

“You who broke down that mahogany door will pay for it with your life.”

“After we take one of your ankles, we’ll set the hounds on you and play for a long time!”

The servants drew their weapons as they spoke. Hidden within gentlemanly walking sticks were blades—cane swords.

“Oh, stylish.”

The young man from the Messenger Clan admired their weapons.

“It’ll look even better with your blood on the blade!”

A servant shouted as he swung the cane sword…

The young man lightly extended his hand and flicked his middle finger. Normally, flicking a hardened metal weapon with a fingernail would hurt your finger. But…

–Pak!

The blade snapped in the middle and went flying. Then the youth’s hand coiled like a snake, wrapping around the servant’s arm and tossing him effortlessly.

“Ugh!”

The servants were momentarily flustered. The man from the Messenger Clan had flung their companion directly toward the sofa where the plantation owners had retreated.

Should they protect their masters? All of them? Or just the ones who paid their wages?

As they hesitated and rushed out to catch the flung servant, they all tumbled down together.

“Hm, the cane swords are cool, but they’re thin and lack durability. I’d like one myself, but they’re not exactly practical.”

“You bastard!”

Another servant leapt forward. All the clubhouse servants—male or female—had to be strikingly attractive. The largest and most muscular among them, also the most experienced, charged at the young man with lightning-fast punches.

‘Our head servant is stronger than most cell sword mercs!’

‘He once killed a drunkard with a single punch…’

That’s what the other servants were thinking—but the Messenger Clan youth easily blocked the blow and, with the same arm, flicked a jab into the servant’s face.

It was a light hit with no shoulder or body weight behind it… Yet the brawny servant suddenly crumpled to the floor.

“Guh?! M-Move! Come on, move!”

He grabbed his leg and shook it with his own hands in distress. He was conscious, but his body refused to respond.

“Urgh…”

The servants instantly realized that this intruder was far superior to them.

“Now then, shall we have a little chat?”

The young man of the Messenger Clan looked around at the plantation owners.

“A chat?”

“Even if I killed you all right here, someone else just like you would replace you. That’s why I’d rather talk.”

“……”

The plantation owners were surprised that this Messenger Clan man, contrary to expectations, wanted to speak.

“I know my petitioner recklessly disgraced you and picked a fight. And I know you want to crush her with force. That’s your way of maintaining order, isn’t it?”

“Y-Yes, that’s right.”

The plantation owners were briefly taken aback by the young man who seemed to represent their stance—but then they smiled.

It had always been this way. The sugar plantation owners of Bell Hoda were immensely wealthy. Even nobles and priests fawned over them to gain their favor.

Was this Messenger Clan youth flattering them too? If so, it was worth talking.

“So? What kind of deal are you proposing, Messenger Clan?”

“I want to resolve the petition. If I can persuade you to accept my petitioner’s demands, both you and I can walk away satisfied.”

“And how will you persuade us? What conditions will you offer?”

“If you abolish slavery, there’ll be no need for conflict between you and my petitioner. She’ll be satisfied too. How about it?”

“Pfft. Are you out of your mind?”

The plantation owners burst out laughing. But the young man remained serious.

“Slavery is banned under the Emperor’s edict and the laws of the Eight Kingdoms. Abolishing it now and obeying the law won’t harm your dignity. On the contrary, you’d be praised as merciful.”

“Do we look like fools to you?”

“Praise like that isn’t worth a single coin!”

“Think about it. Is it really a loss to stop hiring slave hunters and maintaining private armies, and instead pay the freed slaves wages?”

“We have to keep our private armies regardless. Why do you think nobles respect the vast wealth of our enterprise? If we didn’t have private troops, the king and the nobles would snatch everything away.”

“Training and feeding soldiers costs money. And you can’t just let them sit idle. If they have nothing to do, they’ll test whether they can seize your wealth with their own blades. So you need to give them work. Capture slaves, manage them, and use the profits to fund the army.”

In short, they couldn’t trust the king or the nobles, so they maintained private armies. And they couldn’t trust their private armies, so they upheld slavery.

“We’re not just capturing innocent people for fun. We’re doing this to protect immense wealth, to preserve our independence—for our survival and freedom.”

“Ah, I see. So to protect your wealth and your freedom, you steal others’ freedom and turn them into slaves. How noble indeed.”

“We’re different from them.”

“Different how?”

“They don’t deserve freedom. We do.”

At that, the young man from the Messenger Clan smirked.

“What a revolting pile of nonsense. We’re called Kingslayers because we’ve killed nobles who spewed that kind of filth. I’ve heard enough of those idiotic lines to wear my ears down—so you lot, who aren’t even nobles, should at least spare me.”

“Then negotiations are over?”

“No. There’s still room to negotiate.”

“Room for negotiation?”

“Yeah. Abolish slavery and pay wages. Then we, the Messenger Clan—Aragasa—will help make sure your plantations don’t fall into the hands of nobles. There’s no need to keep your bad reputation alive by feeding a bunch of useless private troops. I promise this in the name of Azadine, Second Messenger of the Imperial Envoys.”

The young man from the Messenger Clan, Azadine, made his offer. But even this proposal sounded laughable to the plantation owners.

“Hahaha. What a joke. You Messenger Clan folk dare to lay hands on our Bell Hoda sugar?”

“Countless kings and nobles have coveted Bell Hoda’s sugar. And now you demand we hand it over while trampling our pride? Speaking as if you’re doing us a favor?”

The plantation owners mocked Azadine’s offer.

These were the very owners who had rejected even the king’s troops when they came offering protection for the sugarcane farms and sugar factories.

And now the Messenger Clan wanted to be the guardians of the Bell Hoda Sugar Consortium? How could that be a basis for negotiation?

“You seem a bit smarter than that girl to have come here to talk, but you’re still a fool. No soul, no brains—is that it?”

“Hm? You really think my offer’s that bad? You might change your mind after seeing what’s coming…”

Azadine shrugged.

At that moment, the clubhouse door was blown off its hinges. The remnants from when Azadine had first kicked it in were now scattered again.

Through the completely shattered door, a group of figures appeared.

A dwarf carrying a blunderbuss, a young human male with sword and shield, an elf woman with blue war paint on her face, and a gaunt human man wielding a long staff entered.

They were the adventurers the plantation owners had hired.

“I tried to avoid coming into this clubhouse, if possible.”

The elf woman wrinkled her nose and waved her hand in front of her face, clearly repulsed by the smell.

“Bear with it, Veldras. Our employers are in danger. Think of the bonus.”

“But if that’s really the Second Messenger, we need to be careful. Even if only half the rumors are true, we’ve got a monster in front of us.”

The dwarf gunner warned his comrades and leveled his blunderbuss at Azadine.

“Ah…”

“The cell swords…”

The servants were relieved at the arrival of the mercenaries.

Servants in the clubhouse weren’t allowed to be armed. At best, they had kitchen knives.

Even the cane sword the head servant had used had been snapped by Azadine in an instant—so the arrival of properly armed mercenaries was a welcome sight.

But Azadine gave a disinterested warning to the mercenaries.

“You point that barrel at me, and it’ll be dangerous. That gun could hit your employer too.”

In truth, Azadine was also tense. He couldn’t afford to underestimate a firearm.

‘I only saw one fired from a distance during Envoy training…’

Just as Azadine braced himself—

“Employers, over here.”

A young masked human woman had slipped in through the window and was now pulling the plantation owners toward the wall.

The whole point of Azadine’s dramatic door-breaking entrance had been to draw attention to himself and make it easier to extract the plantation owners later.

Now that the owners were clear of Azadine, more adventurers began to flood in.

–Step, step…

There were even footsteps from the ceiling—some of the adventurers had apparently climbed on top of the building.

The clubhouse was now fully surrounded.

From the roof, adventurers tore open sections of the ceiling, aiming crossbows downward and ready to strike at any moment.

“We’ll help too.”

As the servants stepped forward, the mercenaries waved them off with arrogance.

“Stand down. Your loyalty is commendable, but it’s time for real killers to do their work.”

“You’ve got some skill, sure—but you’re no match for warriors who truly intend to kill.”

The mercenaries from the Cell Sword Guild boasted as they pushed the servants aside.