Chapter 293 : Divine Might (1)
Chapter 293: Divine Might (1)
"Azadi, if we let them live as you suggest, they will continue to come here and attract merchants. But will that wealth really be ours alone? Have you forgotten who accompanied them to Merv?"
"...They came with the Majid Family of Samarkand, my lord."
"Indeed. Then which family would gain the greatest wealth?"
"...The Majid Family."
When the cautious Azadi answered correctly, Arslan nodded and spoke.
"If Samarkand prospers, then even if our Merv grows, we will inevitably face danger. That is the way of the world. Remember that well. While it is important for us to gain profit, what matters more is ensuring that our rivals gain nothing at all."
"I shall engrave my lord's teachings upon my heart."
"I trust that a wise one like you will not forget."
Azadi bowed and asked another question.
"Then is the attack on them also meant to keep the other families in Merv in check?"
"Hahaha. As expected, teach you one thing and you understand two." Arslan laughed heartily.
Their purchase of all the goods at such a high price followed the same logic.
They couldn't allow other families to acquire Eastern goods that traded at high prices. If any other family in Merv gained even slightly more wealth than them, it would pose a threat to the Omar family.
"We don't know when those people will leave Merv, so inform Zafir."
At the Family Head's command, Azadi answered with his own deduction.
"Since we must conceal our traces, I shall tell him to secretly leave Merv at dawn and wait."
"Hahaha. Do so. If we make it look like bandits killed them in the desert, no one will ever suspect us."
Azadi paid his respects to the Family Head once more and took his leave.
Arslan watched Azadi’s retreating figure as he went to find Zafir and sank into his own thoughts.
Zafir.
Arslan Omar's most trusted nephew and Merv's greatest warrior.
He was a talent who would become the Great Warrior (محارب عظيم) of the era with just a little bit more training. A position that exists only in the entire Muslim territory.
If such a Zafir were given over a hundred soldiers, dealing with a mere fifty or so infidels and recovering the money would be child's play.
Therefore, what Arslan contemplated was something further in the future.
'After recovering the money and selling the Eastern goods to gain even greater wealth, I will gradually devour Merv.'
His first goal was to transform Merv from a city governed by a council into one ruled entirely by the Omar family.
And someday, if Zafir broke through his limits and became the Great Warrior,
'Hehehe. Then even Nishapur would not be beyond reach.'
Arslan harbored very grand dreams.
He wasn’t content with merely being called “Family Head," he wished to be called "Sultan."
He believed that if he could seize control of all the east with Nishapur and Merv as his base and establish the Omar Dynasty, the title would not be out of his reach.
***
By sunset, Il-mok and his party closed their stall.
Thanks to that massive sucker. No, thanks to the generous customer, Il-mok had managed to sell all his goods at once and earned a massive profit.
Since it had gotten quite late, they first returned to the lodging they had secured in advance.
"Since we've come into a large sum of money, it would be wise to rest while taking turns standing watch."
"I've already arranged the order, so please don't worry, Young Master."
After a brief conversation with Ouyang Hyeok, Il-mok headed to his assigned room.
He slept like a baby through the night under the protection of the Black Tiger Corps members and headed to the market again the next morning.
With some of his goods from the Central Plains sold, he now wanted to see if there were any goods worth taking back to sell in the Central Plains.
'I need to find things that can be stored long-term and would sell for a high price in the Central Plains.'
He focused on those two criteria as he wandered the market for a while.
And then a peculiar sight caught Il-mok's eye.
There are people tied up in chains and someone shouting in Arabic standing beside them.
Some of those tied-up people looked like nomads, some like the Arabs, and there were black people mixed in with them. They even have some fair-skinned, blue-eyed Westerners.
He had a rough idea of what this place was, but Il-mok asked just to be sure.
"They're slave traders."
The expected answer came back.
The moment he heard that answer, funnily enough, the first person who came to Il-mok’s mind was Wi Jin-hak.
No, he doesn’t want to sell his Eldest Brother into slavery.
He just recalled the exhausted and bloodshot eyes that his Eldest Brother sported from overwork.
Since Il-mok had already been thinking about the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's shortage of talented people, Wi Jin-hak naturally came to mind the moment he spotted the slave traders.
As someone from the modern era, he wasn't without reservations about slave trading.
‘But it’s not like I can start a human rights protest in the middle of the Middle East.’
Reality was reality.
In fact, he thought it might be better for those being sold as slaves if he were the one buying them.
Considering the treatment he had experienced from the Muslims along the way, it seemed unlikely that these slaves would live decent lives if sold to them.
So Il-mok fell into thought.
'Hmm. If the Silk Road trade takes off and brings in good money, it could definitely help the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult grow in the future.'
If they could earn good money traveling between the Central Plains and the Western Regions, buying rice and food in the Central Plains and purchasing slaves in Islamic territory to secure talent might help sustain the Cult's excessively rapid growth.
With that big picture in mind, Il-mok headed toward the slave traders.
Nomads, Muslims, whites, and blacks alike. Among them, Il-mok didn't even glance at those who appeared to be Muslims.
This wasn't due to Il-mok's personal preferences.
In the first place, most of the slaves here were men.
Especially for the blacks and whites captured from the distant West, most female slaves were sold at the western port cities.
Il-mok's reluctance toward Middle Eastern slaves who were likely Muslims stemmed from a certain prejudice.
Strangely, the first thing that came to his mind upon seeing Middle Eastern slaves was ‘refugees.’
Muslim refugees to be exact. A subject of much debate even in the modern era.
Thanks to the incidents he had experienced while traveling the Silk Road, Il-mok was worried.
He worried that if he bought them, Islamic doctrine might spread within the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
‘The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult is already batshit insane as it is, and if it's combined with Islam’s radical doctrine…’
The image of Allah's magic wand evolving into the Heavenly Demon's magic wand flashed through Il-mok's mind, and he quickly shook his head.
(TL Note: Allah’s Magic Wand is a Korean slang for RPG. Yes, I’m not kidding or lying. I stumbled upon this slang after reading one of Genesis’s former projects and was quite speechless after discovering that.)
'Ugh.'
That would create a monster that should never exist.
***
After completing his transaction with the slave traders, Il-mok continued wandering the market in search of goods to sell in the Central Plains.
After a brief haggle and a few purchases of spices and such, Il-mok and his party left Merv around noon.
Their party swelled again and reached the headcount of seventy because of the slave Il-mok purchased at the market.
Between the spices and various other purchases, more than half of the gold and silver they had earned the day before had disappeared.
But he felt no regret.
'After all, the purpose this time was to open up the trade route.'
Next time, they would probably bring even more goods. Naturally, he expected the money earned would be even greater than this time.
Il-mok was unaware that his goods had sold for far more than the market price.
They crossed the desolate landscape where only yellow and sparse green mixed together with the horizon, save for the mountains visible in the distance beyond the open view.
Il-mok steered his camel toward the rear.
There, the slaves were being transported in the now-empty carts and wagons.
"Ohalak, please translate for me."
Il-mok approached the group where the nomads were gathered and spoke.
"It may be hard to believe, but if you work for us for just five years, I promise you freedom after that."
As someone with reservations about human trafficking, Il-mok wanted to free them immediately, but this was not an easy matter.
One way or another, he was in a position where he needed to secure manpower.
'In five years, things will be better.’
Children were currently being educated throughout Xinjiang.
By at least five years later, children who had completed the middle school curriculum would emerge, and from then on, there would be no need to secure talent this way.
But even after Ohalak translated Il-mok's words, the nomads' reaction was lukewarm.
Their eyes were all clouded from the start, and the atmosphere suggested they didn't really believe Il-mok's words.
"Tsk."
Having been captured and sold as slaves, it would be hard for them to trust others.
'Well, they'll gradually adapt as time goes on.'
Since he intended to keep his promise, he decided to let it go for now.
"The problem is over there..."
Il-mok turned his head to look at another set of wagons and carts.
That was where the blacks and whites were gathered.
While he could communicate with the nomads through Ohalak, how was he supposed to communicate with them?
After pondering for a moment, Il-mok soon used the brush and ink he had brought for emergencies to scribble something on a piece of bark.
—Can you speak English?
(TL Note: The sentence above was written in English in the raws, hence the bold marking)
When Il-mok held out the bark with the writing to them, the eyes of several dazed slaves widened.
When a few whites who seemed to recognize English suddenly started shouting, Il-mok let out a light sigh.
"What are they saying?"
He had roughly expected this, but it was hard to understand.
Just as the language of the Joseon era differed from modern Korean, the same also applied to English. The pronunciation and meanings differ greatly in the era. Some of them even seemed to be shouting in some other European language rather than English. He couldn't even begin to guess what they were saying.
Instead of trying to communicate, Il-mok scribbled on the bark again to simply express what he wanted to convey as briefly as possible to avoid any misunderstanding.
—If you work for 5 years, you can be free.
"!!!"
Several people started shouting something again.
"Are you saying you'll free us after five years?"
"Does that mean you'll send us back to our homeland!?"
It might have been a very important matter to them.
"What are they saying?"
As expected, Il-mok couldn't understand their words.
"Whew. I'll have to teach them our language first."
Communication would be necessary before he could assign them any work.
"Black Tiger Corps members, from now on, each of you will pair up with one of them and teach them the basics of our language."
Hearing Il-mok's instruction, the Black Tiger Corps members divided their roles in an orderly manner.
Twenty took on the role of guarding and watching the surroundings, while the remaining twenty approached the wagons and carts, each selecting one person and beginning to speak to them.
Just then, the observing Jin Hayeon approached Il-mok and asked.
"Young Master, when did you learn the language of those Westerners?"
She had been thinking about this question ever since he scribbled in English.
"I learned it in Gansu Province. One of the miscellaneous books I found and read in the marketplace was about the language of Westerners." Il-mok answered without a change in expression.
Although she had no memory of ever seeing Il-mok reading such a book, Jin Hayeon accepted it and moved on.
Because of what she had observed of Il-mok so far, her first thought whenever he did anything was simply, 'As expected of the Young Master.'
"I never imagined the Young Master was planning something so grand."
Hearing Jin Hayeon's unexpected words, Il-mok tilted his head in confusion.
"My grand plan? What do you mean?"
"Buying those people, learning the Westerners' language, and now teaching them our writing. Isn't it all part of a grand plan?"
"......"
Il-mok almost asked her what kind of bullshit she was spouting, but he held his tongue.
"Aren't you discontent with merely returning to the Central Plains and trying to spread our Cult's teachings to the entire world, Young Master? So you decided to learn the Westerners' language so you can spread our Divine Cult’s teaching to those Westerners."
Jin Hayeon explained the bizarre ‘grand plan’ as she understood it.
"During this journey to the Western Regions, I feel like my eyes have been greatly opened. I never imagined so many countries and cities existed in the world. While everyone in the Divine Cult dreams only of reclaiming the Central Plains, I can only admire the Young Master's wisdom in looking further ahead."
When Jin Hayeon uttered words full of faith that didn't match her impassive face, Il-mok let out a wry laugh.
'The whole world dyed in the colors of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. What a terrible nightmare.'
It was a scene that made him dizzy just imagining it.