Chapter 594: The Illegal Slavers
I learned the girl was named Aliesie and she was fourteen.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked while crouched behind some boxes.
Emilia nodded, “If there’s one thing I know about illegal slavers, it’s that they hate it when their merchandise runs away.”
“And… Why? Aside from them losing money of course.”
She gestured to us, “Because those they caught would definitely rat them out which might even jeopardise their entire operation.”
I peeked over the boxes at where we had left Aliesie, who was visibly afraid despite agreeing to be bait to draw out the slavers.
Since we don’t know where their base was, we were hoping that if we were to leave her out in the alley here, they would recapture her and bring her back to their base.
Of course the girl wasn’t willing to do it at first and I wanted to suggest using a Shadow Guard to impersonate her instead. But Emilia went ahead and told her that she could find her way back home if she wasn’t willing to help.
I didn’t think that she would be that ruthless but I guess it’s a business transaction for her where the girl helps us and Emilia would guarantee that she will be able to go back home to her parents after this?
Without much choice, she agreed to be our bait in order to draw out those slavers by pretending to have fallen unconscious in the alley at the end of her blood trail.
In the end, she didn’t even need to try that hard since she did indeed lose quite a bit of blood and she had fallen asleep soon after laying down for a while.
We did have to tear off bits of her clothes and use it as a fake bandage to wrap around her side after soaking it with some of the blood she had dropped along the way to make it seem like she was still hurt.
Honestly, I still think it’s better to just make use of my Shadow Guard for this in case the slavers decide to just off her there and then, but Emilia assured me that they would not do that.
I’m not sure where she gets that confidence from but I trust her in this at least so I’ll just play along.
The rest of the girls were also hiding behind me, all of us crowding behind these four boxes stacked on top of each other to hide ourselves.
We waited for about ten minutes or so before we heard footsteps coming from where the trail of blood originated from and soon, two hooded Mahuns came running and stopped when they saw the unconscious girl leaning against the wall.
“There’s the fucking bitch… She really can run huh?” One of them muttered.
“Huff… Huff… That fucking useless… Trash… She should have just obediently… Stayed with the rest…”
“Man… I told you to train your running for situations like these didn’t I?”
“How… am I supposed to know… There’s bitches like this who can still run… After getting shot in the side?”
“Then maybe you should shoot her in the leg next time.”
“Can’t… That might actually… Cripple her…”
“And shooting her in the side wouldn’t kill her?”
“Shut… Shut up and get her… I don’t want to explain to you my choices…”
“Sure, sure.”
The hooded man who wasn’t out of breath went to the girl and knelt down in front of her, checking whether she was still alive.
“Hmph, seems like she’s just passed out. I’m surprised she didn’t bleed to death.”
“Are you… Huff… Dumb? She already tied up… Her wound…”
“Huh… You’re right. Guess we are lucky. Think we can still sell her like this?”
“Hmph… Of course. Do you know how many perverts there are out there who would pay for someone like her? Lots of them. We can already say that she’s really durable and sell her like that.”
“Hmm… Fair enough. Let’s just bring her back. Shall I carry her or shall you? Maybe you an take this opportunity to train your stamina.”
“Fuck you.”
The hooded man then picked Aliesie up and draped her over his shoulder before turning back, presumably to bring her back to their hideout.
I gave the other girls a nod and we started to follow behind them, making sure that we stayed out of sight of the two slavers in front of us.
It wasn’t even that hard because they chose to use the main road instead of the alleys where we could simply blend in with the crowd. I’m guessing most people wouldn’t even pay them any attention because they would think the girl they were carrying was simply another slave because of the collar on her neck.
They eventually went out of the main Market Street and down one of the smaller roads that led to a small open space behind a few buildings where a camp of sorts seemed to have been set up.
And when I say camp, I mean several tents and cages were set up there.
In that space, there were several other hooded figures also gathered there which I’m guessing were their comrades.
“Took you two long enough,” One of them called out. “Did you guys trip over and fell into a ditch somewhere or something?”
The man that had been huffing groaned, “Shut up, you weren’t the one chasing after her.”
“Whatever, just put her back where she should be.”
The two slavers brought the unconscious girl towards one of the larger cages before tossing her in, revealing the cage to be full of girls also around Aliesie’s age.
No doubt these guys were after a specific type of slave they wanted to capture and sell.
We hid near the turn of the alley and I counted fifteen of those slavers, three times our current number.
I looked at the others and all of them nodded at me.
Yep, even with our numbers disadvantage, we could still win against these guys.
Lisa looked at me, “So what’s the plan?”
Odeta raised an eyebrow, “Eh? Aren’t we just going to charge in there and just kick everybody’s ass?”
Delmare quickly scribbled in her notebook, ‘They might hurt the slaves and use them against us.’
Odeta waved her hand dismissively, “Bah! We can just go in and wipe everyone out before they can do anything! I’ll even jump in front of the cage to stop them from reaching them!”
Emilia pointed at the other side of the square, “There’s more than one cage, if you didn’t notice…”
Odeta puffed her cheeks but said nothing more.
I thought about it for a moment, “Hmm… Is there actually a need for us to do this ourselves though? Couldn’t we just inform someone and have them send some guards after these guys? We wouldn’t even need to fight them ourselves right?”
Emilia immediately rejected the idea, “No way! That would mean we wouldn’t be able to claim the reward for defeating them either! We’re already splitting the reward five ways here!”
Oh… We get money from this? I didn’t know that.
I shrugged, “Fine then… In that case, should I just call up my summons and have them drop down on top of them? Easy peasy.”
Now it was Odeta’s turn to reject the idea, “But Sister Aster… I wanna fight too…”
Right… Looks like I have various demands to fulfil for this…
“Hmm… In that case, I think we can do a distraction to get them to focus somewhere else while we secure the ones captured in those cages first… Maybe…”
Lisa quickly raised her hand, “Oh, me!! Pick me! Pick me!! I’m great at distractions!!”
As though to prove her point, she started jumping up and down to make her boobs bounce enticingly.
Well, she definitely has a point there… But I think I’ll need something a little more just as a backup…
“In that case… How about Lisa and Delmare work as the distraction? Both of you will walk in and get their attention while the rest of us will… Oh, these roofs look climbable, we can drop down from above once they are focused on you two.”
Delmare tilted her head and scribbled on her notebook, ‘How should I distract them?’
I pointed to her legs, “Just show them your tail on ‘accident’ and they’ll probably be rushing to try and catch you just for that.”
She must have remembered that time we had ran into slavers during one of our dates and she nodded to show that she understood.
“I’d thought that you would want her to sing,” Lisa commented.
Delmare answered for me, ‘I don’t want to sing for people like them.’
“Hmm… Understandable.”
I then looked at the other two, “Once they are distracted, Emilia and I will secure the cages while Odeta goes directly for them and wipe out as many of them as you can. Once we start, Lisa and Delmare can join as well, alright?”
The four girls gave me affirmative nods.
Alright, let’s start the rescue, people!
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