The merchant Rudy considered himself to be blessed.

As the third-born son of Viscount Maggio's noble merchant family, he couldn't inherit the household, but he had been raised without suffering discrimination at the hands of his parents and two older brothers. He had received the same high-level education as the first and second sons and had been prepared to become independent from an early age, as he couldn't inherit the household.

And so once he became an adult, Rudy began to gather experience as a merchant. He had received a one-off support fund from his family to become independent and had experienced various hardships to get to where he was today.

This was now his third year as a merchant. His business had succeeded to a point where he was deciding whether he should use the money he had saved to buy a carriage and invite other merchants to form a caravan, or settle down somewhere and open his own store.

However, Rudy had been captured several days ago and thought his luck had run out.

He had hired E-class adventurers as escorts, but they had been killed by the sheer numbers of a bandit group with twenty members. He regretted not hiring more escorts, but it was too late now.

He had his goods and money taken, and when his life was next, the words he had shouted were「My family will pay a ransom for me!」It was the worst way to beg for his life.

But dying proudly was not a merchant's job. He would cause trouble for his family, but he had to do whatever he could to survive and rebuild his business. He could repay the ransom his family had paid for him by earning more money through that business.

It would be best if a group of adventurers or knights appeared gallantly to exterminate the bandits, rescue him and return his stolen goods and money. But the world was apparently not such a nice place.

As he thought that, a sound reached the ears of Rudy, who had been living a simple lifestyle in a dark, damp dungeon.

『Has someone come underground?』

Rudy, becoming aware of the soft sounds of someone coming down the ladder, lifted his body from the crude, slightly smelly blanket to peer through the wooden bars, but it was pitch-black and he couldn't see anything.

If it were one of the bandits coming down, there should be a candle and signs of living magic. He had thought it was just his imagination, but he could hear the footsteps of someone steadily approaching.

Those footsteps stopped in front of his prison. However, in the darkness, he still couldn't see anything.

「W-who is it?」

In response to his high-pitched, fearful question, a voice came from towards the ground.

「Ah, I apologize. I had not realized that it is dark down here.【Demon Fire.】」

Whoosh. A blue, fist-sized flame lit the dungeon.

「?! A g-ghost?!」

Standing in front of Rudy's eyes was a small infant with disheveled white hair and candle-wax-like skin, wearing rag-like clothes.

Rudy had assumed that this lifeless-looking figure must be an Undead child that had been killed by the bandits and come back to haunt this place. He clutched his blanket tightly and began to tremble.

「... No, I am alive.」

TLN: Vandalieu is speaking rather politely to Rudy, compared to the tone of his self-monologue.

When Rudy screamed, Vandalieu had wondered『Can this person see spirits too?』But when Vandalieu realized that it was he himself that had scared Rudy, he lowered his shoulders. He thought that Rudy shouldn't be so afraid of him when he had come down here to help, and sullenly put his own appearance out of his mind. He gathered his thoughts again and continued.

「I have taken care of all the bandits that captured you. And as you can see, I am not an adventurer, but a Dhampir.」

As Vandalieu spoke with a disinterested tone, Rudy began to gradually calm down. But he realized that his position hadn't changed for the better and his face turned pale.

「A Dhampir... so does that mean you're going to kill me?」

Dhampirs. In the country that Rudy was born and raised in, they were treated as monsters and targets of extermination. The priests of Alda in particular did not hesitate to label them as special kinds of Undead.

Therefore, it was not just a matter of Vandalieu not feeling any obligation to rescue him like an adventurer or knight would. It was highly likely that he would be silenced now that he had seen the Dhampir's face.

However, the Dhampir child before him shook his head.

「No. If you are willing to stay quiet about me, I have no intention of killing you.」

「R-really?」

「Yes. You were captured once by bandits, but you succeeded in escaping during the conflict with another bandit group. Please spread that story. Please do not say a word about me to anyone.」

Rudy was only half-convinced. Though it was understandable, as from his point of view it was as if he had met a virtuous devil.

Vandalieu himself actually knew that it would be better to silence the merchant. But he had a reason for not killing Rudy if he could help it.

『I want to make my normal activity as good as possible. For the future.』

That was his simple reason.

It was fine to kill bandits for his own protection, as nobody would consider it a crime even if he were to kill every last one in all of Lambda. However, killing a pitiful victim like Rudy for his own protection would be the act of a fiend.

Vandalieu thought that this kind of behavior, even if nobody found out about it, would have a terrible influence on his own personality.

His uncle's family who had mistreated him on Earth, the terrorists who had used a bomb to blow up both themselves and the ferry, the researchers in Origin who had performed human experiments on countless humans including himself - all of these people were simply evil lunatics in Vandalieu's eyes.

He couldn't become an evil lunatic like them.

Because he hated them, he felt that he didn't want to be like them. But even more importantly, Vandalieu wished to live the happy life that he had never had a taste of on Earth or in Origin. This was to make that wish come true.

A prosperous, comfortable lifestyle and warm relations with the family and friends around him. Could an evil lunatic build and maintain such a lifestyle?

And though it was still about half a century away, one day Amemiya Hiroto and the others with cheat-like abilities would be reincarnated here. If he turned to evil, it was likely that they would purge him in the name of justice.

Because of their cheat-like abilities, Vandalieu had the feeling that even if he left no witnesses, they would somehow dig up and expose the crimes of his past. There would probably be some of them who could read a person's mind or see into the past or otherwise expose his crimes directly, and they would be very skilled with magic.

Therefore, Vandalieu wanted to avoid having to kill victims like Rudy.

「If that is all, then I understand. Since I am not an adventurer or anything.」

And fortunately, Rudy wasn't a fanatical worshipper of Alda, so he accepted Vandalieu's conditions and chose to live.

The other wise decision that Rudy made was not to look down on Vandalieu because of his age. He was fearful and careful of this child whose height did not even reach his own waist.

With that said, it was the natural response for Rudy.

Vandalieu's mature tone that didn't match his appearance and the ominous aura that he was giving off. It was clear that he was not just an infant.

With a clank, the padlock was removed with the key that the bandit leader had been holding. Now that Rudy was free, he gave a sigh of relief, but -

「Ah, if you tell anyone about me, I will send evil spirits after you. So please do not change your mind.」

With a pale face and chattering teeth, Rudy nodded in response to the threat that Vandalieu made just in case.

Rudy climbed the rope ladder to the surface and shuddered violently as he saw the bandits' corpses on the ground, the blood-covered Undead and Bone Bird who was now covered in pale, bluish-white light after increasing in rank, letting out ominous cries of joy.

And then he swore that he would definitely keep this a secret, even if he was offered a mountain of platinum coins.

Rudy drank the alcohol that the bandits had been drinking to mask his fear as he retrieved his belongings that the bandits had stolen. In addition, he had been told「I can't use living horses」so he had been given the bandits' horses. And then he tied the wagon taken from other bandits to the horses and left.

He was traveling alone with no escorts, but Vandalieu had exterminated all of the bandits that had made this area their territory, so as long as he wasn't unfortunate enough to encounter a group of Goblins, he would be able to reach his destination.

He had unexpectedly received horses, so now he would be buying a carriage, forming a caravan of merchants and expand his business, but this was irrelevant to Vandalieu.

Vandalieu spent the remaining time until daybreak to replace the chipped bones of the Undead with spare parts: the animal and human bones that he had been collecting up until now. He also played with Bone Bird, who had increased in rank and gained the ability to fly with its new spirit wings and buried the dead bandits. And then he slept soundly until noon.

He left Bone Man and the others to see Rudy off.

No matter how much of a stranger Rudy was to Vandalieu, he thought he should at least do that.

And then Vandalieu woke up and ate the bandits' leftovers for lunch.

On his menu was salted meat, bread and cheese. There were dried vegetables in place of a salad, and a soup with salted fish. For dessert, he ate fruit that he had obtained from the forest.

「Even bandits eat better than I do...」

As he ate, Vandalieu realized this and became a little depressed.

After having attacking bandits and taking their food, his dietary situation had improved significantly; he no longer had to eat the hard, smelly meat of raccoons and foxes. However, when he had tried to use the Cursed Tools and Undead cookware to cook the food, it hadn't gone well.

The Cursed Tools had been made by evil spirits possessing them and were monsters that moved on their own, but they had no strength or dexterity. Because of that, they weren't suited for cooking.

In that case, it was possible to have Bone Man do it, but the spirits inhabiting him were not that of humans, but of small animals such as insects and mice, so he didn't understand the concept of cooking. When ordered to「cut the vegetables」, he had swung his sword at the vegetables with full force, cutting straight through the chopping board.

The fact that he had learned to use a sword and bow was more than enough development for him.

As for Vandalieu himself -

『No! To be cooking when you're only one year old! What will you do if you burn yourself?!』

「But Mom, I think directly eating dried meat and burnt bread is bad for a one-year-old child's digestive system. Though I have several times the jaw strength of a regular one-year-old.」

『No means no! What will you do if you burn yourself?!』

「... I'll use water and【Heat Leech】to cool it down.」

Since the Death Attribute was the opposite of the Life Attribute, he was bad with things like healing. He did have an ability that could heal, but it was a strange one that only worked for「healing fatal wounds and serious illnesses, but not injuries that do not endanger one's life.」

If he burned his whole body, he could heal it, but if he was burned just enough to form a scar on his hand, it would be hard for Vandalieu to heal it with his current abilities.

『Then you can't!』

「Alright~」

This was probably because Darcia had thought「I have to be careful not to let him get burned while he's still a small child」while she was alive. This notion had possibly gone a little wild after her death.

But Vandalieu had only just turned one year old and his arms and legs were short. There was definitely the risk of an unexpected injury if he tried to use a pot, so Darcia wasn't wrong to warn him.

As a result, Vandalieu was now heating water using embers created by having pieces of firewood rubbing against each other, and having the Undead add broken bread and torn pieces of dried meat into it. This had become his daily meal.

The taste was... well, better than raccoon and fox meatballs.

「It's fine. Once I grow up, I'll earn a lot and hire a skilled chef to make me delicious meals every day. Err, more importantly, today's harvest is...」

First of all, there were the bandits' weapons. All of the other bandit groups that he had defeated earlier had been using handmade spears made by attaching knives to the ends of wooden sticks, and their clubs, bows and arrows were all of low quality. But this group wasn't called the biggest bandit group just for show. Every one of them had been using good weapons.

They were made with normal iron, but they weren't the inferior quality made by just pouring molten metal into a cast, no. These had been properly forged by a craftsman. And although some of of them had become chipped over time or broken by Bone Man and others in the fight, some of the bandits had been killed swiftly without the time to retaliate, so their weapons were still spotless.

The same applied to the leather armor the bandits had been wearing. Compared to the leather armor of other bandit groups, which had been repaired over and over, this was still in very good condition.

They had surely attacked the wagon of a weapons merchant previously.

There was also the treasure in the carriages. He had returned all of Rudy's belongings, but there was still a considerable amount left in the three-horse carriage.

There was about 50,000 Amid in money and a small amount of accessories, though it was hard to discern their exact value. There was also a small pile of a high-quality cloth with a pretty color and two barrels of seemingly high-quality wine. In addition, there was the sugar, which was a valuable ingredient as it was not produced in the country of Mirg.

Finally, there were the bandits' spare weapons and food.

Including the carriage, all of this was likely worth more than 200,000 Amid. It would be about 20,000,000 Japanese yen if converted, and although it was a lot of money, it was not quite enough to be called a fortune. However, looting that much money in this area where the only town around was Evbejia was quite a feat.

TLN: Roughly $175,000 USD

Though in this case, instead of praising the bandits for their skills, it might be more appropriate to blame the ineptitude of the guards.

『With that said, everything other than the food is useless for me.』

Vandalieu would still have no opportunity to spend the money, and trying his best to make clothes out of the cloth had ended in the rags he was wearing right now. As he was unable to fully utilize the treasure the bandits had gathered, his situation hadn't changed.

But Bone Man could use the weapons and armor and the leather armor could be taken apart to make defensive gear for Bone Monkey and Bone Bear.

However, with this amount of treasure, the problem was how to transport it. He had given all of the horses to Rudy and only the carriage itself remained. Even if he wanted to have his Undead to pull it, the carriage would have to be altered.

Vandalieu had an idea.

「Now then, who should I get to do it?」

As Vandalieu murmured and looked around at the spirits around him, there were not only the spirits of the bandits who had just died. To his surprise, the spirit of a thin middle-aged man whose appearance from when he was alive was preserved stepped forward.

『Please allow me, Sam! In my lifetime I held the posts of caretaker of horses and coachman for a nobleman. My skills in handling a carriage are second to none!』

It was fortunate for Vandalieu that the spirit of Sam, who had apparently handled carriages during his lifetime, had not moved on yet. The fact that his spirit had maintained his appearance from while he was alive without needing Mana supplied to him meant that he had considerable emotional strength as well.

In a way, Sam's spirit was the greatest find out of all the treasure here.

『Vandalieu-sama, you have avenged myself and my daughters! My daughters, who were treated as playthings and then killed! In our gratitude, my daughters and I will serve you for the rest of your life!』

The two spirits standing behind Sam with their heads bowed were likely those of Sam's daughters. Their burnt, black bodies were barely recognizable as those of women, so Vandalieu couldn't be certain.

The bandits had probably gone too far using them as playthings and they had become unsellable, or perhaps the bandits had no connections with any slave traders. They were likely killed for one of these two reasons.

From the fact that the spirits of the bandits were trembling as Vandalieu looked at them, this was probably correct.

「Well then, I'll leave it to you, Sam.」

Firmly deciding that he would use the bandits' spirits until they were no more, he sent Sam's spirit to the carriage.

「Get up.」

As Vandalieu gave this command and poured Mana into the carriage, it began to creak.

「... Go forth.」

And with those words, the carriage's wheels began to turn, even without the horse that was normally essential in its function. Seeing this, Vandalieu gave a satisfied nod.

「Making a Cursed Carriage with Sam, success. With this, I've gained a method of transport as well. Well then, I'll have it run Goblins over to level up on the way back to the forest.」

Two days later, the highway patrol stepped into the bandits' base after receiving the information from Rudy, but all they saw were the piles of dirt where the bandits had been buried and the beasts and Goblins that had dug them back up greedily.

Tracks made by the wheels of a carriage continued off outside, but they assumed that these were those of the bandits that had been victorious in this conflict and didn't bother investigating any further.

The commanding officer of the patrol tilted his head when he realized that there were no hoofprints accompanying the carriage's tracks, but it wasn't something worth mentioning in his report.

Baronet Bestero had been in a good mood for the past year.

After that witch had been caught and executed, only good things had been happening. Yes, the High Priest and his men had occupied the forest for the next two months and three hunters had gone missing, but those were trivial things.

Though the Dhampir's corpse had not been discovered, its death had been accepted and Bestero had received a medal from the king of Mirg. WIth that, the scorn from the feudal lords of the surrounding areas that he was merely 『the feudal lord of a countryside with no redeeming features but its wine』had been drowned out.

Even this year's wine and the grapes that were used as ingredients for it had turned out well, and the bandits that had caused headaches and threatened the public order had been dealt with near the beginning of summer.

He was a little dissatisfied that it wasn't resolved by the highway patrol, protege knights or even adventurers. But the bandit problem had been a serious one, so he was happy that it was dealt with, even though it had been done through disputes