A Slow Life

It's been 2 months since the demon-human war ended. Even though the government of both kingdoms tried to keep it a secret, rumors were spread that a single mage who wore a wooden mask stopped the war and defeated the demon lord.

Apparently, people started calling him 'the masked mage' and he became a topic of discussion among the public.

Yes, there were people who thought that this was a fake rumor and that this person doesn't exist but the majority believed in him.

After the war he was never seen anywhere, well, that was because the person behind that mask was somewhere else enjoying his slow life.

---

The doors of the adventurers guild opened as a person entered inside. He had dark cyan-colored hair and was wearing a black cloak. One could not see his face clearly as it was hidden by his cloak.

He was the person behind the mask of 'The Masked Mage', his name was Haruto.

When he stopped the war, he left the capital city of the Ronze kingdom and is now living in a village located on the southern outskirts of the Ronze kingdom.

He walked to a wooden counter where a girl who wore a type of green and white uniform was standing.

She was the girl who manages this office of this guild.

Haruto stopped before the counter and pulled out something from his pocket. He put the thing he pulled out on the counter; it was a wolf's ear, a monster who was lurking in the nearby areas.

"You completed a hard quest all by yourself again," said the girl.

"Yeah, I managed somehow," replied Haruto.

The girl took the piece of the ear as the evidence and handed him a pouch of silver coins.

He took the money, turned back, and left the building without saying anything else.

"He works alone and still he's able to complete such hard quests," said a boy who was in the building; he was also an adventurer.

"He is such a reliable person," said a girl who was with that boy.

"Isn't he also kind of cute, you can't see his face normally but yesterday I got a glimpse," said another girl while she blushed; she was also with that boy.

Those three were the part of a party; a boy and two girls, a thing you would call the starting stage of a harem.

"Huh! I'm also a reliable person, I think I'm not as powerful as him but still, you can rely on me!" said the boy when he felt the possibility of losing his harem.

Both the girls looked at him with suspicion!

The seeds were planted and this little harem was on its way to destruction.

***

After taking the money from the quest, Haruto was on his way home. There was not a stone road, just a little path. From the looks, you could say that this place will be placed between the line of a town and village.

Haruto entered his home; it was a small inn. As he was inside his room, he used [Dimensional magic] and tossed the pouch of silver coins into a small portal.

Then he threw himself on the bed and closed his eyes.

"It's been 2 months, huh, nothing major happened. Was Aki just toying with me?" he mumbled.

The warning Aki gave him to be careful with the gods was still in his mind. He didn't want anything like that to happen but there was also a part of him that wanted something to happen.

The reason being that if there will a chance of something big happening to him then he won't be able to put his guard down and relax; which was a thing he wanted to do the most.

After all, if something happened and he took care of that then there won't be anything left to worry about and he would be able to relax for real.

His eyes were closed and he was mentally tired, it wasn't long before he fell asleep.

***

Somewhere in the jungle between the borders of the Ronze kingdom and the Einzbern kingdom, a long carriage was moving. It was going towards the Ronze kingdom.

It was a rectangular boxed type carriage and it was being pulled by two horses.

Inside the carriage were some children and a girl. Their hands were tied with a thick rope and there were marks of being beaten.

There were both boys and girls among the children; they had long pointed ears, indicating that they were elves. The other girl was big in age; probably a girl in her teens was human.

She had long silver-colored hair and beautiful red eyes while her skin was on the fairer side.

These children and the girl were kidnapped by a group of bandits and this carriage was taking them to their base.

The group was these bandits were popular recently, they even looted villages that were not in touch with the government. Their main business was trading the children of elves in the slave market.

They were sold at high prices, even more than human slaves. Because they were from a different species, they were shown no sympathy and were treated like animals.

An example of this was that after an elven girl was captured in the slave market and crossed the age of twelve, she could be used for sexual purposes, be it for sex slaves, working in bars, or whatever.

Buying young elf girls was a thing in which even rich nobles were involved. Slave trading was a whole system that consisted of thieves to even some members related to royalty.

It was the dark side of the human community.