玉蒲团之云雨山庄

---Inside The Illegal Slave Site, Astellia and Arkansas border branch---

"Oi, Raff. You got the boozes?" A man with a scruffy voice asked his colleague. His right eye is patched, and there are scars on his arms that are bare because of his sleeveless clothes. It\'s visible that the man had his share of experience in bloody fights.

"I got them, I got them. Seriously, this is why people with such huge and intimidating look like you are annoying. You can\'t help but get suspicions when you\'re out, after all. Here," The man that has a smaller build than the eye-patched guy threw the bottle of booze on his hand while complaining.

"Shut up. Without people like me guarding, dangerous sites like this won\'t stand for long, you understand?" The man opened the bottle roughy and gulped the booze down vigorously.

"Barbaric just like your barbarian-like look, eh? Well, by the way, the girl we got this day was really great, huh? Not just her, her mother is great as hell as well,"

"Yeah. I saw a glimpse of her, and damn. The mother of that girl is a damn beauty, her body made me want to pounce on her immediately back then. I can\'t wait for the time we catch her as well, I want to have a taste," With drool falling from his mouth, the eye-patched man imagined doing his way with the woman inside his mind.

"Of course, you can\'t. You\'ll break her if you do so. We won\'t be able to sell anything and the boss will kill us if you do that, you hear me?" Replied the normal-looking man. He\'s the one that went undercover as a normal villager in the village in order to look for potential \'products\' for the slavery to sell. By acting as an aspiring merchant with his kind-looking face, the number of women of various ages he had tricked into slavery was a considerable amount.

"With the situation in the Astellia Kingdom like this, people like us sure get a lot of leeways to play our games around. The nobles are using their knights to fight between-"

*Knock!* *Knock!*

"Ah. It\'s the guys guarding outside. Ask them what they need, it\'s not the time to change shift yet," said the eye-patched man, annoyed.

"Yeah, yeah. If you asked them yourself, they won\'t dare to disturb us again though~" The man tapped the eye-patched man\'s shoulder and went to the passage.

The sound of his footsteps slowly gets into the distance, and then he asked.

"Code?"

"Village. Product. Received," Another scruffy voice responded.

(Hm? That\'s a new voice. Was he sent by the boss from the other sites?)

"Hm? Is that so? Come in,"

The sound of the door gets opened, but it took a while before the sound of incoming footsteps appeared.

(Hm? He\'s not alone?)

The eye-patched man furrowed his eyebrows as he heard the sound of many footsteps approaching.

(Did I make a mistake? No, I didn\'t break any of the products and our sales are going around decently. So why are-)

As the eye-patched man stands and turns his back while wearing the friendliest smile he could muster, he sensed something incoming in his direction through the air.

(What is this? A bag? No, a ball?)

The man caught the thrown thing, and his brows twitched when he sensed the warm liquid flowing to his hands.

"Raff. What is... This...?" The eye-patched man widened his eyes when he realized what is he was holding.

"R-Raff!?" The man instinctively threw the head while his hand reached towards the sword on the table, but it was already too late.

A girl with a small build dashed into him with great agility, and-

*Slash!*

A single clean and swift spinning slash towards his neck. The girl skillfully landed on the ground together with the sound of the man crashing to the table.

"They\'re quite sloppy despite of the well-structured kidnapping operation, huh?" Alice uttered indifferently as she swings her sword, getting rid of the blood on it.

"You said that, but this man is quite a veteran, you know? If we didn\'t take him by surprise, he would make quite the problem and stall us," said Emilia as she pokes at the man\'s thick arms.

The scruffy voice that answered the passcode of the entry is Lyan that had stolen the memory of one of the guards that had gotten half-killed by Hobu and his shadow servants. After the man opened the door, Surena swiftly killed him without letting him make a single sound, mercilessly beheading his head.

"So this is a sort of waiting room? Then the slaves must be kept beneath this door. Seems like there are lots of people inside," Surena points at a rather big door.

"There is no response from the other side. Looks like things get rough rather commonly here. But it was a good thing for us, the acid ants had already found and waiting to ambush at the hidden exit on the other side. Feel free to go wild," (Lyan)

"That\'s what we want!" (Emilia)

Emilia warms up her mana as she smiles confidently. Her eyes seem to turn into lioness-like predator eyes, searching for blood. She shifted her gaze to the others one by one, and after a single nod, she rushed to the door and-

*Boom!*

The slammed the door with her body and sent it flying. The other valkyries together with Hobu, the shadow servants, and Grimclaw also follow suit swiftly and the massacre of the slave dealers started. While for Lyan, since his glaive is not suitable for such a cramped place, he\'s holding his sword while searching for a coffee brown hair girl.

"W-Who are you-"

"M-Monster!? T-There\'s a lich!!"

"A shadow monster! There\'s a shadow monster!! Run!!!"

"To the emergency exit!!"

The slave dealers started to get engulfed in fear because of the massacre unfolding before them. They are prepared for a sudden attack or infiltration by knights or mercenaries, but getting attacked by a shadow goblin lord and a deadlight with a terrifying appearance is not something that they are anticipating.

The brawny men and ruthless-looking men immediately break the ranks and run for their lives, but their speed can\'t match the speed of the valkyries, the shadow servants, Hobu, and Grimclaw.

"W-What are these ants!?"

"J-Joe got melted by those acids!! A-Avoid those acids!! They are dangerous!!"

"D-Don\'t be absurd!! Look at their number!!"

The men that went to flee from the emergency exit they\'d prepared in advance ended up in an even sorrier state than the others. Dozens of people ended up becoming a hot soup for the acid ants and the acid ant queen to devour.

"U-Uwaa!! D-Don\'t kill me!! P-Please! I-I beg you! I\'ll give you anything you want!! I\'ll gi-ought!" Lyan strangles one of the slavery dealers\' man\'s neck with one hand and lifts him up with ease.

"Yeah, yeah. Now tell me, is there a girl with coffee brown hair you just caught this day? If you tell me, I \'might\' spare you, you know?" (Lyan)

"T....T.....here...." The man painstakingly points at a certain cage with his trembling hands as foam starts to gather in his mouth.

"Oh. Thanks. You can question him now, Surena," Lyan threw the man to the wall beside Surena and went to the cell the man pointed.

The cells are well-maintained, the inside of the slaves\' room is rather clean, and the men guarding the place were actually rather well-trained. If it was the soldiers of a certain noble or normal-quality knights raiding the place, they might get into trouble and couldn\'t finish all of them as easy as Lyan and the Valkyries.

(This one... Huh?) (Lyan)

"P-Please help me!!" A sweet voice appeared from before him.

The cell door is closed and locked, but Lyan could see a girl with a bruised cheek holding the cell with eyes full of tears. The expectation and thrill of getting saved are obvious in her eyes, and after looking at the girl\'s hair color and face, Lyan was convinced.

"You\'re Nia\'s sister, right? I was sent here to save you by your mother and little sister. Go several steps behind," Lyan made a gesture with his hand to instruct her to retreat several steps.

"R-Right," The girl obediently retreats, but she can\'t help but tilt her head when she saw Lyan holding the cell\'s door bars with both of his hands.

*CRANK!* *CRANK!*

"E-Eh...?" The girl uttered dumbfoundedly because of the scene before her. With just two attempts of pulling, the door of the cell got opened forcefully by him to the point that it broke.

"Yup. Come here, you\'re safe now," (Lyan)

___________________________________________________________________________

Name: Lyan Arkanium Evocatore

Occupation: Mythril-ranked Mercenary

Money: 3,797,710,950 Elnes / 3797 gold 71 big silver 9 big coppers 5 coppers

​ Weapon: Magic Glaive, 1 (Decent) One-handed Sword, 2 (Good-Quality) One-handed swords, 1 (Decent) bow

Equipment: Black leather cloak, Leather Armor, Breastplate, 2 Health Potions, 2 Poison Vials

Grimoire\'s Companions: 8 High Spirits, 3 Valkyrie, Shadow Goblin Lord (Lv. 5), Papilio Slime (Lv. 45), Galewing Butterfly (Lv. 45), Rock Golem (Lv. 50), Deadlight (Lv. 63), Moonlight Butterfly (Lv. 45), Ice Golem (Lv. 50), Acid Ant Queen (Lv. 9), Magma Bear (Lv. 1)

Grimoire\'s Army: 6 Shadow Servants, 800 Skeleton Army