Chapter 109:
Going Undercover
THE CRIMSON VOW’S FIRST ATTEMPT at a rescue had ended in a happily ever after (for everyone except the villagers and Lilia—or rather, Sherry’s—family), but Mile longed for more. Tens, hundreds of times now, she had played out a scene in her head in which she gallantly rescued a tormented beastgirl from slavery, whereupon the girl would fling her arms around Mile, clinging to her bosom with joy. She had even thought of the exact wording of how she would write out such a scene in a novel.
This current endeavor was meant to be her vengeance against the universe for letting the Servants of the Goddess steal all the juiciest parts of the rescue when they had helped save Faleel, the little beastgirl who worked reception at the inn, from that evil religious cult.
And yet.
And yet…
Mile, like Pauline, now desperately hoped that the next noble they encountered would be a wicked one. Mavis wasn’t exempt from this desire, either, aspiring to play the role of a knight in shining armor, saving a captive maiden from a villain.
The four of them were really all of the same mind, even Reina. If not, they might not have accepted Mile’s proposal for this job without a second thought.
“All right,” Mile announced. “Stealth time, snake formation!”
The other three nodded.
“We were let off the hook last time because the count was in a good mood, and Mile got along with him, but we can’t expect our good luck to last forever,” said Reina. “Today we’re facing a treacherous viscount, so it’ll be a huge mess if we slip up. Mile, we’re counting on you to make the decisions here, so don’t let us down!”
Mile was a bit too dangerous a wild card when given completely free reign, but when they needed to establish a set course of action, she was the ideal one for the job. She was an excellent hunter—skilled at getting things done, if nothing else. Besides, the other members of the Crimson Vow were quite familiar with her invisibility field by now, so they were not worried in the slightest. They knew that their tagging along would only slow her down, and they had no doubt in her powers of espionage. It was truly their trust in their friend that put the rest of the Crimson Vow so at ease.
***
“I’m going now,” said Mile. The other three nodded.
They had reserved a room at an inn early in the day, and it was now only just a little before the first evening bell. Simply sneaking around was one thing, but there was no point in trying to gather intel when everyone in town was fast asleep, so Mile chose the time just after dinner, when the manor servants would have finished most of their duties and been left a bit of free time, to make her move.
It was around this time when all but the guards and scullery maids would be at their leisure, enjoying a short respite before it was time to retire for the night.
From the store of maid outfits she had in her inventory, Mile had selected the one that most resembled those worn by the maids in this region and put it on. Why did she have so many maid outfits in there, you ask? Well, a lady does have to have her fancies…
She’d chosen this outfit instead of the leotard she usually brought out for stealth missions with the thought that a young girl wearing a maid outfit might escape immediate suspicion, even if her dress was slightly different from the house’s uniform or her face was not a familiar one. Anyone seeing an obvious intruder would probably scream on the spot, but the latter was more likely to prompt rumors and speculation—perhaps that she was a messenger from another household or someone who had just started work there and had not yet been provided the standard outfit. More importantly, it had occurred to her that if she had the opportunity to speak with any little beastgirls, wearing something too strange might put them on edge…
Thus attired, Mile cloaked herself in her invisibility field and snuck onto the manor grounds, though perhaps “snuck” was the wrong word, considering the fact that she merely strolled on in—albeit invisible to everyone else.
Okay, now if I was a little beastgirl, where would I be? Mile wondered. Even if she was kidnapped into slavery, she’ll probably be treated outwardly as a “live-in servant with prepaid wages”… If they actually treated her like a slave, they’d have to keep her locked away in some dungeon, or risk a scandal. Any member of the manor staff with half a heart would deliver her to the authorities if they came upon an illegal slave in the household, and a young beastgirl no less. Any less charitable staffers would immediately sell that information to some other noble house with a grudge against their employers… At any rate, they’d never let any of their employees get their hands on such potentially life-threatening dirt. I’m pretty sure they’d just tell the child that her parents had sold her to them and treat her like any other servant until she got a bit older…
There were, of course, those in any world who would not wait for a little girl to grow up, but Mile knew little of such matters.
Depending how young she is, they probably won’t have her serving or washing dishes…
This was less a question of causing a scandal and more due to the reality that, physically speaking, her hands and body would be too small to carry plates full of food. Not only would she not be especially efficient at cleaning, but it would also be difficult for her to avoid getting in the way of the other servants or breaking dishes. It would be the adult staffers who would be berated for ruining good food, and the food served in a noble’s manor did not come cheap. No one would want to be held responsible for wasting it.
So, around mealtime, you would probably find a young girl in…
There she is! A little foxgirl!
Mile spotted a fox-eared girl of four or five in a room clearly set aside for other young servants. Granted, the foxgirl was clearly the youngest one present. The others were mostly around twelve or thirteen. Any younger than that and they wouldn’t be especially useful in terms of labor, nor would it look very good for the household to have true children on staff.
So, the fact that they would pay all that money just to get their hands on a little beastgirl can only mean one thing… They’re fellow appreciators!!! Still, it’s one thing if she’s being cherished the way Lilia is, and it’s fine if they’re treating her like a normal servant, but if they’re abusing her in any way…
She would never forgive them. Mile’s eyes told a violent tale.
Presently, the girl was alone in the room, all of her roommates perhaps still busy with serving the master’s dinner. After dinner was through for the aristocrats and they moved to take their tea, the servants would begin their meal, at which point the girl would probably be called away as well.
If they don’t call her, and this girl is left alone to eat hard, stale bread or sent to bed without dinner at all…
She would never forgive them. The people would know of their sins! Such was the phrase that popped into her head.
There was no time to approach her at the moment. It would be mealtime for the servants soon, and her roommates could return at any minute. Their meals were probably taken in shifts, not all at once, and there was no telling whether this girl’s turn would come sooner or later. She might get pushed to the end of the line because she was no help or made to eat early and sent straight to bed because she was a child; or inversely, she might be shown the kindness of going last, so that she could eat from whatever was left over at her leisure.
For now, it was best that she merely continue gathering information. And so, Mile decided to simply keep watching.
***
I couldn’t find out anything at all… Mile groaned internally, gripping her skull.
Her frustration was inevitable. There was no way that the servants would spontaneously start discussing “How is everyone treating the little beast girl?” or “What’s that girl’s employment status?” when the little girl had already been there for months. It was equally unlikely that any members of the nobleman’s family would bring up the topic out of the blue. And it certainly wouldn’t be any use observing them with guests around, as they would inevitably gloat about the presence of this rare beastgirl and give some carefully crafted spiel about why she was present.
I guess I will just have to ask her…
No matter the circumstances, if this was another case where the girl herself said that life here was better than it was back in her village, then Mile would stay out of the whole thing—though whether the parents of this abducted girl would be equally amenable to doing so was another story. However, the parents were not the ones who had hired Mile. And if the girl were to be dragged back against her will, that would be tantamount to another kidnapping—a crime, a felony even. Given the status of the Order of the Crimson Blood—or lack thereof—the guild would not be there to back them up in any altercations.
Of course, it would have been another matter entirely if this were a legitimate job brokered through the guild and accepted by the Crimson Vow, a registered party. There were some steep drawbacks that came along with the benefits of working under a false identity…
***
The servants went to bed early. They would be up the next morning at the crack of dawn to start their work, and staying up late into the night would only be a waste of lamps and candles. There was little that could be done in the dark of night besides sleep.
Thus, once the second evening bell rolled around, everyone began putting out their lights and tucking themselves into bed, talking with their roommates as one by one they nodded off or heading to their own rooms with a brief “good night” to their companions. For the Crimson Vow, this was about the time of night when Mile would be telling her stories. They could stay up as late as they wanted, as it cost them nothing to keep the lights on a little longer.
Okay, everyone’s asleep! Better use a little sleep spell just in case…
Mile unleashed some sleeping magic on one of the servant rooms. Rather than use an area spell, she stopped by each bed one by one, leaving a single inhabitant of the room unaffected. Then, she enveloped this individual and herself in a soundproof sphere.
“Shurana? Little Shurana, wake up please,” Mile whispered into her ear.
“Mm? Huh…?” the girl replied sleepily. It had not been long since she had fallen asleep, so she was still at her most fatigued. While she had replied, she was clearly not yet truly alert—her eyes barely opened, and her lids were so heavy that they looked as though she might close them again at any moment.
Mile decided to cut right to the chase. “Do you want to go back to your village?” she asked. Until this matter had been cleared up, their conversation was not going to go anywhere. If Shurana wished to remain here, the same way that Lilia (read: Sherry) had, then Mile would simply take her leave and return to the other three. This was what the Order of the Crimson Blood had decided ahead of time.
Hearing Mile’s question, Shurana’s eyes opened wide.
“Are you here to rescue me?! I’ve been waiting for someone to come! Oh, oops…!”
She quickly clapped her hands over her mouth, realizing how loudly she had shouted. It was a small, four-person room. Causing all that fuss would immediately alert the others…
“Oh, don’t worry. I used a sleeping spell on the rest of them, and there’s a soundproofing barri—uh, I put some magic around us that keeps all the sound in.”
“Ohh, you’re a mage?! They actually hired a powerful mage to save me! Wow-wee!”
Shurana was trembling with excitement. This seemed like an overreaction, but in fact, her surprise was quite understandable. Naturally, some mages existed among beastfolk, but the numbers were relatively low compared to other races, and those who could use magic in battle were even rarer. In other words, there were incredibly few beastfolk who would take up work as a soldier or mercenary or hunter based on their magical skills alone, and the cost required to hire such a person for such an individualized mission would likely be staggering…
And yet, someone had paid all that money to bring her, a girl, back to the village. It was no wonder she was so thoroughly impressed.
This misconception was, of course, squarely Mile’s fault, thanks to what she was wearing upon her head: a set of homemade cat ears. Shurana could only assume that Mile was a beastfolk mage that the villagers had scraped together the funds to hire. No human, let alone members of other races, would take on the ridiculous task of rescuing a beastgirl from a noble’s manor at the rate of pay that a poor village would be able to offer—not once one considered what dangers would arise during the rescue itself and all the potential complications that might come after. The only ones who would ever accept such a job would be the Goddess herself or her servants, or some idiotic beastfolk… In this case, even the term “idiotic” would be kinder than such a misguided individual deserved.
Excluding the highly improbable possibility of a deity or angel taking interest in the situation, that left only the rare beast mage who might accept this job at a low fee for the sake of rescuing one of her own. One could assume it was because Shurana believed Mile to be one of her own kind that she trusted her so unconditionally. She would probably have been a bit more suspicious, otherwise.
In any event, it was obvious from her reaction that Shurana had been dreaming of an escape and had no intentions of remaining in this place if she could avoid it. For her part, Mile was a tad relieved that this had not been yet another fool’s errand. Though everyone was on board with the current operation, as someone who was technically employing the others she could not abide the waste of everyone’s time.
Incidentally, the pay Mile had offered the others for this job was three days of magic and sword coaching. This, of course, was gentler to the others’ senses of pride than forcing them to accept money from a friend.
Mile was a little stunned to see such a different reaction from Shurana compared with Lilia, especially since they did not appear to be much different in age.
They look the same age, but maybe she’s older than Lilia, so she has better judgment? Or is it just because one of them gets to be a rich boy’s playmate, and the other is a lowly servant? Or is it because she’s aware that in just a few years she’ll be forced into a different kind of “work”?
Naturally, there was not a soul who would go to the expense of obtaining a young beastgirl specifically with the intent of using her as a normal servant. Being too rough with her as a child could easily result in her death or at least serious injury, which would be a waste of an investment. While she was young, she would probably be assigned only simple manual tasks. And when she did get older…
Plus, there were certain sadistic fiends who reveled in seeing the despair on a young girl’s face when she had been, until not long ago, living a normal life with her family and friends before being snatched away and treated as a slave.
“Do you want to stay here? Or go back to your village?” Mile felt the answer was clear, but she asked just in case.
“I want to go back to the village!” Shurana immediately replied.
She seemed like a smart girl. She had to be aware that a penniless beastgirl like her would be easily spotted and captured again on the double, so instead of trying to flee, she had probably been biding her time, merely pretending to be pliable and obedient.
Hm… Now what do we do? Mile sunk deep into thought. We could all confront the viscount tomorrow, but he would just claim that Shurana was a normal “employee” whose wages just so happened to be paid fifty years in advance, and there are no obvious signs of mistreatment on her. He probably already even has false documents…
It was incredibly simple to forge a document in this world. Literacy levels were low amongst the populace, so it was common even for one’s signature to be nothing but X’s and O’s.
Yet Mile could not bear the thought of leaving behind this child who now stood before her, certain that this was her moment of rescue, eyes glittering with hope.
Hmmm…
Mile thought, and then…
“Would you come with me?”
“Yes!!!”
***
“What were you thinking?!”
“Mile, there’s a certain order to things…”
“Mile, this is a bit much, even for you!”
Mile and Shurana returned to the Order of the Crimson Blood’s inn under the cloak of her invisibility field, slipping quietly into the room. Naturally, the others were incensed.
“Can you imagine the commotion when her roommates wake up tomorrow morning and don’t see her there?! That was why we agreed we would either take her back right out in the open, or if we couldn’t, sneak in and get her right after everyone else had gone to bed, so that we could get some ground between them and us during the night! Why would you do something so reckless?!”
Reina’s rage was understandable. If they were going the surreptitious route, the plan had been for everyone else to make their preparations to leave and wait outside the entrance of the town, while Mile snuck in to take Shurana, to buy themselves a bit more time before anyone realized she was gone.
“Well, what’s done is done. We’re on a tight schedule now, let’s hurry up and skip town,” Mavis directed, taking charge. “Reina, Pauline, get dressed! Mile, write a note for the innkeepers. They should be fine if we just explain that, since we already paid our bill, we didn’t want to wake anyone when we suddenly had to leave during the night. C’mon everyone, hurry up!”
With that, she began changing clothes, after giving Shurana a quick pat on the head to soothe her obvious nerves at the sight of Reina’s anger.
However, despite all her expedience…
“Mavis, are you done yet?”
“J-just a moment, okay?”
Thanks to all the armor she had to don, it always took Mavis the longest to get ready…
***
“So, what do we do now?”
“Our initial plan was to punish the viscount, wasn’t it?”
“Weren’t you saying you were going to make a big production out of it?”
The others heckled Mile as they walked beneath the stars.
“L-Listen, a lot was happening!” she protested.
“Well, I mean, it’s good that you got her away safely, but how do you plan to punish the viscount?” asked Mavis, easing into the conversation to take some of the heat off of Mile and to put Shurana at ease. The viscount was a natural topic of conversation, now that they were some distance from the town—after all, they would need to decide on a plan sooner rather than later.
“About that…” The next words that came from Mile’s mouth sounded as good as if they had been sent by a goddess. “I don’t think we need to bother.”
“Huh?”
Reina and Pauline were speechless, and although Mavis protested, she did not seem particularly surprised. Either she had expected Mile to say this or else she felt the same way.
“Well, I mean, our duty—or rather, the job that I hired you all for—was to rescue the little beastgirls. I don’t really think there’s any reason to have a showdown with a lord, or wreak havoc amongst his subjects, or just generally cause mayhem… We already caught the kidnappers, and the intermediary merchants are—well, they’ll be dealt with in time. Just to be sure, we’ll stop back by that town on the way home. If they somehow weaseled their way out of punishment, we can land the killing blow ourselves. All of that means that, at the very least, the kidnapping pipeline has been cut off. We’ve destroyed everyone but the buyers themselves. As for them, well, I’m sure they knew exactly what was going on when they made their purchases, but thus far, they’ve just been treating these kids like live-in servants with ‘prepaid’ wages. They haven’t been abused or outright treated like slaves or anything…”
“Making them an innocent third party, more or less?”
“If they insisted that was the case, we’d have no way to argue with them.”
Just because someone called themselves an innocent third party didn’t mean they were truly innocent all around. It only meant that they were unaware of any suspicious circumstances. In the same way that someone who unknowingly purchased stolen goods wasn’t complicit in the crime itself, a normal, well-intentioned buyer who was ignorant of the criminal circumstances surrounding their purchase had to be considered innocent in that aspect, even if they were a villain or a sleazebag noble. Case in point: the count who had taken Lilia in.
As Mavis and Pauline had previously explained, there was nothing technically illegal about paying money to obtain a child as an indentured servant.
“But what if they didn’t just happen to purchase these children through an intermediary but actually gave those intermediaries advance orders to get their hands on the beastfolk children?” Reina asked.
“Well, obviously they would be complicit if they explicitly said ‘Go snatch me a child,’ but it would be hard to prove that,” Mile explained. “They could claim they asked to be introduced to any young beastgirls who ‘just so happened’ to be interested in a term of indenture, and that they said nothing about actual kidnapping. The perpetrators themselves were the only ones who got something out of this for free. The intermediaries and the nobles paid their fair price, regardless of what that actual amount was or how wildly off it may have been from market rates…
“Both the merchants who allege that they were just forwarding a recommendation for a worker and the nobles who insist they simply took someone in with a few decades’ wages paid in advance could pass themselves off as guiltless third parties. I mean, with the kidnappers, we caught them red-handed and on our country’s soil, so they really have no way to defend themselves. But we only know that the intermediaries were involved because of the testimony we got from the kidnappers, so while they’d be arrested if they crossed the border into our country, we don’t really have the authority to threaten them here. Their actions have no bearing on the laws of this land, nor are there any extradition agreements in place. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with us enacting punishment on those filthy merchants, given what we clearly know about them…”
Any actions the Order of the Crimson Blood took would be vigilante justice. They were enacting retribution on their own terms, without any legal basis—and in that regard, they would be not much better than a lynch mob. Even if such a thing were the will of the people, it was still clearly illegal.
“Seems like this is a complicated one…” Mavis muttered, ever the good, lawful knight.
Reina had no such qualms. “If we get caught, that is.”
Still, this was Mile they were talking about. Her idea of a punishment was probably just making a big show of the merchants’ wrongdoing and then making them take responsibility for their actions, which wasn’t unreasonable.
“It’s fiiiine! Don’t sweat the details!” Mile chimed in.
“This is more than just a detail!” Mavis protested. “This is the main subject!”
Mile, however, did not seem to care. She usually tried to follow the rules of whatever place she visited. Whenever Reina got too hotheaded, or Pauline devised a scheme that was just a little too wicked, Mile was there to keep them in check. She followed her own ridiculous moral rules, which were incomprehensible to the others and held no water in this world, such as “satisfying the conditions of legitimate self-defense” or remaining faithful to the “Rules of Engagement.” As long as it didn’t cause any huge issues, the others just went along with her whims, whether they understood them or not.
Normally, the thought of vigilante justice would never even cross Mile’s mind. Normally.
“They are just little girls, though…”
“Yes, and beast-eared girls at that…”
“It looks like our hands are tied here…”
This was inevitable. Reina, Pauline, and Mavis knew this with every fiber of their beings.
“But if Mile says that she’s willing to let the viscount go, that’s fine with me.”
“Yep, I have no objections.”
“Yes sirree Bob, sounds good to me!”
Mile’s heart warmed at her teammates’ consideration as all of them agreed to back up her selfish decision. Pauline even went so far as to jokingly use a phrasing she had picked up from Mile’s stories, just to emphasize how much this did not bother her.
“I guess we’re going to have to leave this mission open-ended…”
Shing!
Mile’s eyes suddenly glittered—a mark of her spotting a punchline. As soon as she noticed this, Mavis’s face crinkled in grim anticipation.
“Time to tie up those loose ends! I’ll do it myself!”
Shurana, meanwhile, only stared, not having the slightest clue what was going on…
“Okay, team. Next up, we’re off to the home of the merchant who purchased little Salisha!” crowed Reina.
“All right!!!” the other three cheered, right fists pumping into the air.
***
“So we booked this inn and did some investigation into the merchant house in question. The result of which is…”
“They’re as filthy as can be!!!”
Indeed, based on both the house’s reputation in town and the girls’ own investigation—which they’d conducted by posing as customers—the merchants in question were nothing but the most stereotypically corrupt capitalists. In their day, the Crimson Vow had encountered plenty of upstanding merchants, as well as plenty of horribly corrupt ones. There was the merchant they had dealt with in the rock lizard incident, not long after their graduation from school. There was the merchant who had tried to leech off of them while they were hunting those lizards. There was the merchant who had tried to ruin the small-time Aritoss company. And there was the merchant who had betrayed Reina’s friends, the Crimson Lightning, and the one who’d had Pauline’s father killed and taken over his shop.
Okay, so perhaps most of them had been at least slightly questionable. And the merchants here were cloaked in the same utterly villainous aura.
“So, the problem here is…”
“Yeah?”
“There are no eyewitness reports of any young beastgirls!”
The reason for buying a beastperson young was to domesticate and train them in obedience from an early age so they would be more compliant. It would never do to overwork them from childhood and have them die an early death. The Crimson Vow reasonably assumed that these girls would be treated like typical low-ranking indentured servants, as had been the case with Shurana. And yet, there had not been a single sighting of any beastgirls around town.
A young girl would never be expected to do heavy manual labor in a warehouse or engage in other punishing behind-the-scenes work, which would be akin to throwing her onto a battlefield. Even washing was out of the question, as her hands would be too weak and small, and her arms too short to reach the clothesline. At best, she could be expected to do a bit of cleaning, or work as a chef’s assistant, peeling potatoes and chopping onions and so forth.
All of which meant that the girl would be working alongside plenty of the other servants—which, in turn, meant the staff, as well as certain guests or customers, would be aware of her existence. And yet, the Crimson Vow had not heard a single mention of a local beastgirl, whether from the customers or from the young female employees who Mavis seduced—er, questioned.
“D-don’t tell me that he’s already finished having his way with her, and now she’s somewhere six feet under!” said Mavis, paling.
Pauline shook her head. “That’s impossible—Mile’s still calm. You know that girl never lets her guard down. I’m sure she’s using her search magic to scan for any signs of life, and keeping an eye out for anyone who’s hurt or sick and on the brink of death, so we can probably assume things aren’t that dire. Still, chances are high that the situation here is pretty different from Lilia or Shurana’s… Right, Mile?”
Mile fell silent and gave Pauline only a solemn nod. Seeing this, a look of worry spread across Shurana’s face. Reina patted her on the head. Shurana looked up at Reina, her eyes teary.
Jealous, Mile piped up. “Reina! How could you steal my thunder like that?!”
“Way to ruin the mood, Mile,” Mavis sighed, leaning into the drama.
“Anyway, we’ll check back tonight,” Reina continued. “Mile, no going rogue this time! Find out what’s going on in there and report back to us, then we’ll pick a course of action! Oh, but you can get in contact with Salisha and find out what she wants, so long as no one else finds out. We actually won’t be able to make any further plans without knowing that anyway. Got it?”
Mile nodded.
***
Once night fell, Mile set out. The other three waited at the inn with Shurana.
It was difficult to predict when Mile might return, depending on whether her chance to speak with Salisha came after everyone else was asleep or sooner. Regardless, they would have to decide on a course of action by the end of the night. Depending on the results of Mile’s mission, they would either get moving first thing in the morning or perhaps wait until the next evening. Either way would give them the necessary time to make any preparations needed.
Even if their discussions ran long and they had to move first thing in the morning, the Crimson Vow would be fine operating on minimal sleep. Staying up for a day or two was nothing to hunters. They frequently ended up in situations where they might have to press through a dangerous forest or enemy territory without rest, or run for extended periods of time while defending a merchant caravan from assailants or monsters, regardless of whether it was noon or night. So far, the Crimson Vow had not had to deal with that sort of thing, but they had the proper training just in case.
The truth was that they usually only took comparatively easy jobs on that front—or, more to the point, work that was incredibly difficult for other parties happened to be easy for them. It wasn’t that the party avoided difficult work. It was just that other parties did not have inventories or portable toilets and baths or barrier spells with alarm capabilities.
To put it more plainly, other parties simply didn’t have the innovation known as “Mile.” That was the only difference.
Invisibility field activate!
Mile began shifting into stealth mode as she approached the home of the merchant in question. She did not activate her anti-sound barrier at this time, as it would only render her unable to hear any noises or conversation outside of it, which would be quite inconvenient for her. Nor did she bother with any magic that would mask her body heat, as she was not going up against any snake monsters or snake-type beastfolk—not that the latter existed. Her scent was of little concern, either.
Indeed, as far as animals went, humans were relatively simple creatures…
As before, she had donned an appropriate disguise, cloaking herself in the sort of garb your average shop employee or courier might wear. Even if it did not match the attire of this shop’s staffers exactly, it was still inconspicuous enough that someone would just assume she was a messenger from another shop and not immediately sound the alarms. That was on the off chance that she was even spotted in the first place. Only Mile would go to such lengths in these situations. Of course, she had no idea that the others wondered how it was that she could be so diligent in these matters and completely overlook far more fundamental things.
Okay, snake mode activate! Not that I have any cardboard boxes here…
Mile snuck into the merchant’s home in the same way she had infiltrated the viscount’s keep, only to find…
Nothing?
When she first came to scout the shop, Mile had detected a beast-like presence in the vicinity, and while she had been relieved to sense no injury or weakness in this person, she had not pinpointed an exact location. She figured there was no use in worrying about that if they weren’t going to be breaking in immediately.
Of course, she was quite capable of pinpointing the assumed beastperson’s exact location if she wanted to. But it seemed a bit like cheating to do so immediately. If a young beast-eared girl was in danger, Mile would not hesitate to intervene at once, but in this case, the situation did not seem quite so dire. Pulling out all the rule-breaking magical stops whenever she felt like it would not be within the bounds of behavior for an “average, normal, everyday girl.” At least, that was Mile’s thinking.
Still, she could search for the girl or simply wait around at the servants’ dining area at dinner time to spot her. Or else, she might linger until she saw someone carrying away a portion of leftovers more meager than the rest of the servants would receive and follow them.
In the meantime, Mile loitered around the mansion, making rounds between the storefront itself, the offices within, the storehouse, the employees’ living quarters, and the quarters of the merchant’s family. Finally…
They’re utterly irredeemable!
Based on what she overheard from the clerks, the head clerk, and the president himself, this business was involved in fairly illicit—no, in fact, criminal—activities, and it was clear that they were habitual swindlers. Not only were they crooked in their business dealings, but they were also engaged in violent criminal activities, working with the likes of street thugs and ex-hunters who had been booted from the Guild.
Threats and extortion against suppliers. Arson and looting of the factories of rival companies. Of course, the merchants were merely pulling the strings. Publicly, these would be crimes that were perpetrated by “unknown thugs,” who had nothing to do with them.
With plenty of time on her hands and the knowledge that crimes were being perpetrated, Mile decided to rifle through their documents. She soon found the company’s safe, which was so poorly hidden it didn’t even take magic to locate it. They had employed the most basic trick—a safe hidden behind a painting. Of course, while putting something behind a painting or wall scroll was pretty commonplace in modern-day Japan, it wouldn’t be so surprising for someone in a world without TV or comics to actually think, “Bwa ha ha, they’ll never think to look here!”
And, obviously, cracking the safe was—for Mile and the nanomachines—as easy as taking candy from a baby. This world’s technology was not advanced enough to produce anything particularly secure, although in truth, even a modern-day Earth safe wouldn’t have stood much of a chance against Mile and her “assistants.”
Mile: “Do it!”
Nanomachines: YES, MA’AM!
That was all it took.
Well, I guess my Corrupt Merchants collection is complete! This ticks off all the special achievements, too, so that means a one hundred percent completion…
As a precaution, Mile shut the safe as soon as she had taken the documents out, huddling with them in the corner of the room beneath her invisibility cloaking and sending out regular checks with her search magic so as to be aware of anyone approaching.
Huh? What’s this? Slaves? And this many?! It’s not just beastfolk—they have human slaves here! They aren’t just buyers… This is like Grand Central Station! So that’s why the slaves are hidden away from prying eyes. They’re going to be sold off again soon…
It seemed they had made it just in time, before Salisha was sold off elsewhere. Of course, even if they hadn’t made it in time, the members of the Crimson Vow would have put the screws to the shop owners and find out where she had been sold—thereby adding one more corrupt rich person to their hit list.
Okay, now to just put these back in the safe…
It would cause quite a panic if the owners found their hidden documents had gone missing. Plus, if Mile were to turn these papers in to the authorities, that would mean answering a lot of questions about how she had come by them. Worse still, you never knew if some higher-up might be in on the whole thing and might just confiscate the documents and capture the Crimson Vow instead. For all these reasons, it was preferable that the captive Salisha be safely recovered and that these documents be left in the safe where Mile had found them.
Oh no! The staff have already started eating…
Mile suddenly realized that perusing the documents had taken a bit longer than she had anticipated.
Crap. I figured I’d follow whoever was taking food to Salisha. Given the circumstances, there’s no way she’d be allowed to eat meals with the other servants.
Instead, she would just have to keep searching around the manor.
Oh, forget it, this is boring. Magic time!
Goodness, Mile, whatever happened to that desire to do a good old-fashioned search without relying on magic? If the other members of the Crimson Vow had been present, they all would have rolled their eyes.
Indeed, Mile was driven about the things she was driven about…and otherwise, she was incredibly lazy.
Hm? Oh, she’s close. She’s right under my nose, but I don’t see her anywhere… Oh, wait! She’s underground!
Mile’s face twisted in vexation.
I suppose common sense would dictate that if someone were trying to keep a young beastgirl away from prying eyes in a manor of the rich and powerful, she would be kept in the basement…in a gorgeous room, a fluffy paradise where she could be loved and cherished! Ugh, this is my life’s dream—er, no, wait a freakin’ minute!
Mile was incensed. Even she was not that far detached from common sense.
There must be a trapdoor somewhere… Aha!
With her search magic, it was simple to locate a void beneath the floor. Obviously, the part closest to her would be the entrance. Once she had found the door, the primitive lock, which again had neither complex mechanisms nor electronic components, was no match for Mile’s lockpicking prowess (read: raw physical strength). Of course, as with the safe, it would have been even simpler to merely ask the nanomachines for their help…
When she was sure the coast was clear, Mile quickly opened up the trapdoor and slipped inside. Even if she herself was invisible, it would still look strange if the trapdoor was to suddenly open and shut all on its own.
A little room at the bottom of the stairs with nothing in it… And one door that leads farther inside. Well, I guess this isn’t some grand underground dungeon. If you dug out too big of a space without the appropriate physical calculations, it would just collapse under the weight of the structure above it.
If it had been up to Mile, she would have planned things out carefully, using reinforcement magic on the walls and ceiling, putting up support beams and the like. Even in this world, professional architects and carpenters would have taken such things into consideration during the design phase.
But that did not appear to be the case here. The room was warped and disproportionate, the walls pocked, and the ceiling curved. No matter how you sliced it, this had been a slapdash job, probably orchestrated by a bunch of amateurs. It certainly didn’t look like the sort of basement that had been dug out before the rest of the building was built, but instead, one completely retrofitted—a room dug beneath an existing structure.
Pondering this, Mile proceeded down the stairs, toward the singular door in the room. Other than the rats and bugs on the other side of the door, her search magic only picked up a single sign of life. There was no need to keep watch on a little girl who was locked away all alone, it seemed. She dropped her invisibility so as not to alarm the girl, and opened the door…
Before her was a little girl, around the same age as Shurana, with a pair of large rabbit ears atop her head. Though it was unlikely she would have been looking toward the door already, she seemed to have sensed movement—perhaps thanks to her rabbit heritage—and was staring right at Mile. Clearly, it was a reflex, as she quickly averted her eyes and looked silently to the floor, rather than react to this new arrival.
Mile gave an internal huff of annoyance. You’re supposed to say “Who’s there?” Mile thought. If you don’t, how can I respond “A robber”?!
The girl did not appear to pick up on Mile’s irritation. A moment later, Mile herself had moved on. Never mind that! She’s got bunny ears! Bunny ears! No, wait, never mind that, either! What the hell is wrong with me?!
Putting aside her many conflicting desires—temporarily, though certainly not for good—Mile trembled with rage, her eyes opening wide. Between herself and the rabbit-eared girl was a wooden lattice. Beyond it was the girl, a threadbare cot, and a tiny table and chair she likely used for her meals. In other words, this was no better than a prison cell.
The cell looked big enough for several occupants, but the girl was the only one there. There were probably usually other slaves in here as well, and Mile had just so happened to come when this girl was the only one. It wasn’t the only cell, either. There were several more, standing empty in a row. This was very clearly a way station for slave traders.
Slaves were likely sent here from recipient firms like the first merchants the Crimson Vow had questioned, who hired the actual perpetrators and then sent the slaves out to various destinations.
Softly, Mile muttered, “They won’t get away with this.”
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