Chapter 929: He Should Have Ran
I very quietly and secretly indicated to Katsuki that I wanted to speak to her in private while Mary was creating the portal to send the slave girls back to the store.
"Katsuki… Don’t make it look obvious but I think the Off-Worlder has transformed himself with Somatomancy to infiltrate the slave girls… There’s one more person as compared to before.
Katsuki discreetly peeked over to the slave girl group before turning back to me, "I see. I shall deal with it, Mistress."
Oh~ How reliable Katsuki! As expected of my personal maid~ In that case I’ll leave this to you to deal with~
I then watched her move towards Mary to supposedly inform her about it.
Well… Most of the slave girls were still unconscious anyway and only a handful of them had woken up at this point.
I recognise all of the ones who had woken up so the guy was most likely pretending to be unconscious right now.
I wonder why he would even choose this way to escape from here since, as I had said, he could have just teleported far away instead of just staying here.
The only reasonable explanation I could come up with was that either he couldn’t do it for some reason, which I would suspect it’s due to the runes or something, or that he has some other plan in mind which required him to follow these slave girls.
Could it be? That he was going to try and pass himself off as a slave girl to get closer to them as someone in the same situation and then get his harem that way?
I really don’t think that was possible since that plan sounds absurd by itself but hey… We’re dealing with an Off-Worlder who thought he could make a harem by kidnapping the slaves thinking they would be grateful for being kidnapped so anything is possible.
Thus, I felt that it was a good idea to make sure he doesn’t know that we were on to him in order to capture him before he could run away.
One of the newly woken up slave girls turned to us, "Umm… What’s going on now?"
Katsuki took up her role of going to explain that we were teleporting them back to the slave store for the third time, my Inugami maid having to explain to each new group of slave girls that woke up.
The slave girl then predictably turned to me and ended up being the seventh person to ask me the same question that the six before her had.
"Erm… Would Mistress like to take me as a slave?"
And then Katsuki would once again say the same thing that she has told the girls before her where she stands protectively in front of me with her arms crossed and looking at the slave girl with a clear aura of superiority.
"Mistress already has me as her slave. She is not looking for more."
Surprisingly, all the slaves who heard this all looked her up and down for a second before giving up as well.
I don’t know if this was just a slave thing but they all came to the same conclusion as the red haired slave did, where they could somehow tell the level of devotion Katsuki had from me with just a single glance.
Seriously though, did they all go to the same school to stud-- Oh wait… They definitely all got trained within the Republic of Modgnik so of course they had the same ’school’.
Guess that explains it…
Mary finished creating the portal and a circular hole opened up in the air before the Trasif maid stepped aside to gesture at it, "Please go ahead. This portal will transport you directly to the slave store. Please help wake up the rest or carry the ones who won’t wake up inside."
What a diplomatic way for Mary to put it…
Because I’m quite sure she already knew that the guy is masquerading as a slave girl within the group despite the fact that I haven’t told her about it or she most likely overheard me telling Katsuki from where she had been standing with her superior maid hearing skill.
How was I sure about that? Because the very next moment, she picked up one of the supposedly unconscious slave girls by the ankle and dragged her over to the portal like she was just a sack of potatoes.
The supposedly unconscious slave girl woke up pretty quickly and was looking around in a panic, "Wha… What the?"
Without even a moment’s hesitation, the Head Maid went ahead to toss the slave girl into the portal without mercy. She even threw her in such a way that she ended up cartwheeling into the portal which made me snort a little from amusement.
Obviously the other slave girls had no idea why she was being so rough with one of them and started shaking the others awake in order to prevent that from happening to them.
The ones who only just woke up didn’t even get an explanation on what was happening before they were shoved through the portal by their colleagues under the watchful eye of Mary. Find exclusive stories on NovelBin.Côm
Only when they had all disappeared inside the portal did we step up to it with Mary bowing to me, "Please rest assured, Young Mistress. That Off-Worlder will be taken care of thoroughly."
As I thought, she already realised who it was…
In that case…
"Can I watch?"
Mary tilted her head slightly at me, "I do not think it would be that interesting, Young Mistress. But I will tell the Marchioness of your interest if you want?"
"Eh? You mean Unerolia right? Oh right, she said she wanted to question him… Yeah, let’s do that."
"As you wish, Mistress."
We walked through the portal after the slave girls and I found myself at where Mary had said that they would be teleported to.
And by that I meant that we were now inside the slave shop that Unerolia had brought us to before. Inside the exhibition hall.
Incidentally, it seems like the place had been emptied out and only guards remained here in preparation of receiving the slave girls.
Guess Mary or Mother must have told them to expect us ahead of time for them to arrange this, which also explained why Mary needed longer than normal to prepare the portal.
She was waiting for these guys to be ready huh?
The guards immediately took charge of the situation and called out to the slave girls.
"Alright! Everyone, we’ll need you all to report to your handlers right now for a checkup! Do report if you’re feeling unwell or if you’ve been mistreated in any way while you have been taken! There’s healers prepared to aid any ailments and we have already prepared food and drinks for all of you so you can take them after your check up!"
Oh look at that, I’m pretty sure that Off-Worlder’s mind is being shaken after seeing such great care being shown to the slaves whom he must have thought were being mistreated.
And from how the slave girls were just taking this in stride and barely showing any surprise, it’s clear that they were used to such treatment and they weren’t just doing it for show.
Now where’s that ’girl’ Mary threw through the portal?
Oh, I didn’t even need to look that far because the other girls immediately went towards the guards who were supposedly their ’handlers’ and only a small group of five slave girls remained in the centre of the room looking confused.
Four of them must have been slave girls that the guy kidnapped from another slave store while the last one was the one that Mary had thrown through the portal.
The guard that had been doing the announcement saw them and added, "For those who don’t belong to this store, come over here and let us know which store you belong to and we’ll send you back."
Four of them stood up and went over to him with the last girl only joining them a second later.
But before that ’slave girl’ could reach the guard, a hand rested on her shoulder and pulled her back, turning her around to reveal that it was Unerolia standing behind her.
Oh, I didn’t notice her at first because she was wearing a mask that hid her identity.
At this point, she’s pretty much confirmed that she’s most probably the owner of this place already, hasn’t she?
She gave that girl a fake smile, "Oh my, oh my, Don’t you look like a charmer~ How about I take you in myself to take care of you, hmm? What do you say? You don’t have anywhere to go right? Just follow along and I’ll make sure to personally care for you~"
"Eh? Ah… Umm… There’s no need… I mean…"
"Nonsense~ Just follow me right here~ Let’s go now~"
I watched as the Marchioness dragged her away by the shoulder with that same fake smile on her face.
Alright… Does that mean I get a show to watch?