“Bwaha! Don’t resist if you want them to live!! A good deal, right? Be sure to behave yourself!”
Spit flew from the man’s mouth as he shouted while the other men started to smirk as they draw their weapons and gradually shrink their encirclement.
As the distance between myself and the other men shortened, the corners of the large man’s mouth began to raise as he was assured of his victory.
The moment the men were about swing their weapons, I used 【Dimensional Step】 to transfer behind the large man.
I grasped the man’s head with both hands and twisted with all my might.
There was a dull sound of bones breaking and the man was now making eye contact with me.
The man’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment as the muscles beneath his neck gave out, his pants darkened with waste, and the children fell from his arms.
His body fell to the floor like a doll that had been smashed against the wall.
The girls freed from the chokehold coughed for a bit before they looked up at me in fright.
“Close your eyes for a bit. The scary men will be gone soon.”
“Kyun.”
I softly patted the heads of the two five or six-year-old girls, who had to see Ponta around my neck, before giving me a nod and covering their eyes with their hands while calmly sitting down on the spot.
“Shit! What did you do!?”
The men that had been smirking just a second ago as they surrounded me were now shaken and trying to figure out what happened.
I took advantage of their confusion and struck down the closest men.
I swung my fist with explosive force into the man’s face and chest, and the resulting sound of bones shattering caused the others to scream.
Not even ten seconds had passed before the heads and chests of the remaining men were all completely deformed.
I had thought that a battered corpse would have been better than a bloody one, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
When I returned to the girls that had kept their eyes closed as promised, I whispered to avoid startling them.
“It’s alright, you can now open your eyes. The scary men are gone.”
Inside I was sneering at myself for saying that while wearing a feather decorated ogre mask, when I heard familiar voices from behind me.
“Arc, we’re finished over there. The next area should be the only place left, right?”
“Arc-dono, sorry for making you wait.”
The introduction of Ariane’s masked form frightened the girls, but when they saw their stealthily dressed, cat-eared brethren, they calmed down again.
“Once things are finished here we can escape with transfer magic.”
I spoke my confirmation while opening the large door that led to the last area of the building.
The nice looking furniture and the table surrounded by chairs gave the place the atmosphere of a small, clean residence.
It must have been a conference room used for business negotiations.
While I looked around the room, the two little girls peeked through the door before entering the room.
Chiome entered after the two, followed by Ariane while I brought up the rear.
After opening another door, we followed a long passage when we started to smell something rancid.
The room at the end of the passage reeked of sweat and dried grass, and was filled with almost completely nude People of the Plains and Mountains chained to the wall.
Many of the women here had bulging stomachs that indicated a pregnancy and all of them were frightened the moment they saw me.
The girls ran up and tearfully embraced two different women that were both dressed in rags and had large stomachs.
This couldn’t be anything but a breeding pen…
They were impregnating these women to sell the children as slaves… I doubted the practice would be very profitable, but judging by the scale of this company it’s likely that this was a small, experimental farm.
There was no way to not feel nauseated after looking at this.
“Ariane-dono, could you please see if you can find them something to wear.”
“……Yeah, I got it……”
When I called out to her, a speechless Ariane quickly left the room in search of something to dress these poor women in.
Chiome frowned and had to close her eyes and calm herself down before she started to speak in her usual, monotonous voice
“I know how to pick locks, let’s hurry up and get away from this place….”
“Alright.”
Chiome kneeled down in front of one of the women’s fetters before taking out a set of small metal tools from her breast pocket. After fiddling with the keyhole for a moment, the fetters came off with a ‘Gachari’ sound.
Following her example, I cut the chains of a nearby dog-eared man with my sword. Since it was difficult to use a two-handed sword in such a situation, I was thinking about getting a sharp dagger.