Hajime becomes a Papa III
After receiving the telepathy from Shia, Hajime and Yue rushed towards the informed location. Being sent to the auction, there was no need to worry about Myuu’s life, but she must have quite the mental burden. Either way, they must rescue her quickly.
When they arrived at their destination, two huge men dressed in black was standing at the entrance. Thinking Myuu would be transported somewhere else if he made a commotion, Hajime moved to a back alley and used transmutation to infiltrate from the basement.
Accompanied by Yue, they moved quickly while using sign interception. It was truly a shame that there was no cardboard. As long as they have it, there would be no need to use sign interception skill…
Before long, numerous cages could be seen deep inside the basement. The only person who guarded the entrance was sleeping. They passed by the guard, and found around ten of human children inside who were cowering from the cold stone floor. Nine out of ten of these children were to be auctioned today.
In truth, because most humans were believer of Church of the Saints, it was forbidden to sell or turn humans into slaves. Even so, criminals among human race could become trade goods. It was okay to sell or enslave those who betrayed God. However, the trembling children before their eyes couldn’t have possibly fall into such circumstances where they turned into criminals. To begin with, human who turned into slaves with regular procedures would not be sent to an auction. As such, they have been captured and to be sold illegally.
Hajime went over to the cage and met the gazes of the the children who were frightened by the silhouette that appeared all of a sudden. He then asked them in a calm voice.
“Was there a child from Sea-dweller tribe here?”
The frightened children must have thought it was their turn to be sold, so they looked at each other, puzzled by the unexpected question. Myuu’s figure was not inside the cage, that’s why Hajime he asked the children. He wondered whether there was another jail or she had already been taken out.
The children stayed silent for a while, but when Yue squatted down beside Hajime, looked at them with gentle eyes, and muttered, “… It’s okay.”
They looked slightly at ease, and one of boy with age of around seven to eight years old timidly answered Hajime’s question.
“That’s, the child from Sea-dweller tribe was taken a while ago… Onii-san, Onee-san, who are you?”
It was as he expected, she had already been taken out. Hajime inwardly clicked his tongue and answered the uneasy boy simply.
“We’ve come to rescue you.”
“Eh!? You are going to rescue us!?”
Hajime’s words made the boy inadvertently shout, and raised an astonished and joyed look. His voice resounded well inside the dim basement jail. Although the boy panickedly covered his mouth, the guard heard him, shouted, “What’s with the commotion!?” as he woke up and trotted into the basement jail.
Thus, he found Hajime’s party and stiffened for a moment before shouting, “Who are you bastards!?,” pulled a dagger and attacked them. The children screamed as they imagine visions of Hajime and Yue collapsing after being stabbed.
However, it was something impossible for it to happen. Hajime casually gripped the thrusted dagger with his left hand, put his strength into it, and crushed the blade. Hajime opened his palm and dropped the blade’s fragments. The guard could not register what happened, he was dumbfounded for a moment, and cast his gaze down to the dagger on his hand, but he could only see the handle. Finally understanding what happened, the man turned pale and backed away while uttering, “Wh-Wh-.”
Hajime immediately grabbed the man’s head and threw him into the ground.
SQUIIIISH!
The man immediately died, accompanied with a raw sound.
“A guard should first ring the alarm.”
Saying such a thing with an amazed expression, Hajime who instantly killed the guard made the children pop-eyed in surprise. Without minding their gazes, Hajime used transmutation to disassemble the iron bars. In the children’s eyes, they saw the iron bars disappeared in an instant which made them stiffened, and their mouths were wide open with surprise.
“Sorry, Yue, but can I entrust them to you? Looks like I can’t do anything but rampage now.”
“Nn… leave them to me.”
“The security officers should arrives soon, too, so it’s okay to leave the children to them. The branch head, Ilwa will help us, too… Let’s leave the details to him.”
Yue was watching from a distance with a somewhat sympathized look. It was directed to the Guild Branch’s Head. Actually, before they came here, they had caught a suitable Adventurer to deliver the telepathy stone to Ilwa, since they thought to explain the situation to him. Status plate with “Gold”-rank was useful in such a time. Because after seeing Hajime’s color, the Adventurer stiffened for a moment and his attitude turned into a formal one… It was similar to how the Japanese greeted a Hollywood Star who came to the town. He even saluted as he agreed to listen to his request.
Incidentally, because telepathy stone could not be activated from Ilwa’s side, he was made to hear the report one-sidedly; about how they got in a fight against a huge underground organization, and that Hajime left the post-treatment to him which made his face turned white in his office.
Hajime once again transmuted a passage from the oubliette to the surface, entrusted the children to Yue, and quickly went towards the auction hall. At the same time, the boy from before called Hajime to a stop.
“Nii-chan! Thank you for helping us! You can definitely save that girl too! She was truly frightened. Even I couldn’t do anything…”
Apparently, this boy didn’t care Myuu was a demi-human, and seemed to have tried to encourage her. He was quite the spirited boy, though he himself was caught. Hajime patted the head of the boy who felt bitter from his powerlessness.
“Wah, wh-what is it?”
“Well, if you feel it was mortifying, then you only have to become stronger. Rather, there’s nothing but to do that. This time is my turn, but next time it’s your turn if something comes up.”
After saying so, Hajime quickly turned his heels and went out of the oubliette. The boy held his patted head in blank surprise, had sparkling eyes in next moment, and clenched his fists with a slightly manly face. Yue gazed at the boy with pleased gaze and took the children to the surface.
* * *
The auction hall was wrapped in its own bizarre atmosphere.
The guests in the hall were around 100 people. All of them were wearing queer masks, and no one was making any noise. They only quietly raised placards with numbers when the merchandise they want was up for auction. They hesitated to speak because they didn’t want to be identified.
Even those guest who were carefully trying not to let any sound out, involuntarily raised their voices when “that” merchandise came out.
What appeared was a little girl from Sea-dweller tribe inside a square water tank with a distance of two meters in all directions. She was stripped off her clothes, naked, and she shrunk her body as she held onto her knees in the corner of the water tank. Sea-dweller tribe could breathe inside water. It was the reason why she was put inside the water tank, to prove she was a genuine Sea-dweller. And maybe because she had escaped once, metallic shackles were put on her limbs. It was such a cruel sight for such small limbs.
The numerous gazes that frightened Myuu narrowed and began to compete. Her price went up at a ferocious pace. It was a one time thing, so they probably thought they would be able to buy and hid the Sea-dweller. It was possibly because they had yet to know the commotions that occurred in the daytime.
The noisy hall made Myuu shrink more and more, while clenching her hand that held a black cloth. It was Hajime’s eyepatch. When they tried to separate from Myuu, they were too busy trying to calm Myuu down and it was forgotten. Hajime remembered it later, and he wore a spare eyepatch.