Chapter 195

Chapter 195 – Bear-san Saves the Other Children

When we asked the toad man where the other children were being held, he just told us to look for them ourselves .

Eleanora-san was mad that he refused to cooperate, but we had plenty of ways to look for them .

I could use detection magic or have Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear sniff them out . Just as I was about to tell that to Eleanora-san, a short-haired maid in her early twenties raised her hand .

「I know where the children are . 」

「Ruufa!」

The toad man scowled at the maid, but Eleanora-san just doused him with some more water to make him shut up .

「You know where they are being held?」

「Yes, because I prepare their meals for them . 」

「Ruufa, you know what will happen if you betray me, don’t you?」

「Please, stop making your crime worse . I will properly atone for mine . 」

「Don’t you dare . Who do you think is paying off your parents’ debt after they ran off and left you with it?」

「You, Gerardo-sama…」

「What do you think you are doing, then?!」

As the toad man cried out, Eleanora-san summoned a big tide of water and completely soaked the toad man with it .

「Ranzel, would you mind covering up his mouth with something? His breath stinks, and I can’t stand it anymore . 」

「Eleanora, you…!」

Ranzel-san covered up the toad man’s mouth with some cloth as instructed . The toad man groaned for a while but eventually went quiet .

「Emm, Ruufa, right? Just ignore what Gerardo said . You’re saying you can take us to where the children are?」

「Yes, I can . 」

Eleanora-san took a quick glance around her before turning to Ranzel-san .

「Ranzel, ask the servants how many of them are missing and their names . Then, once Cliff arrives, leave this place to him and go search the residence for those remaining servants . 」

Once Eleanora-san finished giving orders to Ranzel-san, she turned to me .

「Sorry, Yuna-chan, but could you come with me?」

I didn’t mind, so I nodded .

「Also, it would be really helpful if you could leave one of your bears behind to act as a guard . 」

「Sure . Swaying Bear, please stay here and make sure they don’t try to escape . 」

Swaying Bear cried softly in reply .

「What about you, Misa?」

「I will go with you, Big Sis Yuna . 」

Misa said, grabbing onto me .

「That’s fine, I guess… but promise me that you won’t stray from Yuna-chan’s side, okay?」

Eleanora-san pushed Misa onto me, but it wasn’t like I really minded .

I lifted Misa up and put her onto Hugging Bear’s back .

「You’ll be safe here . 」

Misa nodded and grabbed onto Hugging Bear tightly .

「What a gentle bear . 」

Ruufa-san was surprised to see Hugging Bear letting Misa ride on it, but there was clearly some fright in her expression .

「It won’t do anything as long as you don’t try to harm it . 」

「I wouldn’t do something scary like that . 」

Still, it was okay to be less nervous about it .

Ruufa-san then started to lead us down a hallway .

Both Cliff’s and Gran-san’s mansions were quite big, and this one was no different . There was no way all of these rooms were being used .

「Eleanora-san, is the kidnapping of these children not going to be considered a crime?」

「The problem is that their parents have signed a contract that allowed Gerardo to keep their children . 」

「So, he’ll be considered innocent?」

「Hmm, not quite . It’s a difficult situation . Of course, from my point of view, he committed a crime . However, if he really does have a contract in place, he might legally be in the clear . Sometimes, merchants do hand over their children as collateral when they are loaned large sums of money . Still, in this case, it’s obvious that they were threatened to do it . 」

「So, this should be considered as a crime, then . 」

That was all I needed to know .

「Yes, the possibility of it being considered a crime is quite high . We have yet to get a full statement from the parents . It’s still possible that they indeed made an agreement with Gerardo and did pass their children to him willingly . I don’t really mean this, but before you came along, it was better to side with the Salbert family rather than the Faren Gramm family . Even now, it all depends on the contents of that contract . 」

She was right . If they sided with the toad man rather than Gran-san, it was possible for them to earn a lot more money; more than enough to change their minds .

Still, what did she mean by ‘before I came along’?

The way she put it, it sounded like I was responsible for the downfall of the toad man’s noble family .

「Your expression is telling me that you don’t quite understand why . If you didn’t go to the capital and bring Zelef here, Gran-san’s party would have failed . Then, they wouldn’t have resorted to kidnapping Misa, and you wouldn’t have raided the mansion, meaning we wouldn’t be in this situation . Not to mention, if you didn’t drop by the capital, I wouldn’t be here right now . You’re the cause of all of this . 」

When she put it that way, it really did seem like everything had happened because of me .

「If so, then it’s all thanks to Misa for sending me an invitation to her party . 」

I praised Misa, who was comfortably riding on Hugging Bear .

If Misa hadn’t sent me an invitation, I would never have come here .

Going out in the world and meeting people had quite the impact on things . I would have never experienced something like this in my former world where I would surely still be a hikikomori .

「Ruufa-san, why are you working here?」

Ruufa-san seemed like an upright person, so I found it weird that she would work for someone like the toad man .

「My father left me with a big debt, and I’m trying to work it off . 」

「A big debt?」

「Yes . My father was a merchant and needed money to run his trade . Gerardo-sama lent him the money he needed, but the business ended up failing, making him lose all the money as a result . To prevent my father from running away, Gerardo-sama took away my citizenship card and made me his hostage . My father worked as hard as he could, but it was not an amount that could easily be repaid . Then, one day, my father went to buy some things from another town and never returned . So, I had to start working for Gerardo myself in order to pay off the debt my father had left me with . 」

What she just told us was inexcusable .

「Eleanora-san, couldn’t she just have the card reissued?」

「Well, if this was a normal case of where the card was lost or stolen, she would just have to pay a fee and get it reissued . However, her card was taken by a lord of the town, so things aren’t that simple . 」

Eleanora-san said with a slightly surprised expression .

「I think you should already know this, Yuna-chan, but you need a citizenship card or guild card to go in or out of a town . If you get your card taken away by the authorities, you will be unable to leave the town you’re in . 」

「So, getting the card reissued is not an option for her because of her debt?」

「Yes . Gerardo most likely made it so that she cannot get it reissued to make her unable to flee the town without repaying it . 」

「It couldn’t be helped . My father borrowed money he couldn’t return and then ran away, so there’s no way Gerardo-sama would just let me go . 」

「Still, that’s not…」

「My father was just a terrible businessman . 」

Ruufa-san answered bluntly, making everyone go quiet . All we could hear were the footsteps of Eleanora-san and Ruufa-san .

My Bear Shoes made no sound, of course .

Hmm, I couldn’t hear Hugging Bear’s footsteps, either . Were its feet as soft as mine?

We headed into what appeared to be a secret garden area where Ruufa-san took us to a building that looked like a small storage shed .

「From inside this shed, there are stairs that lead underground . The children are down there . 」

Ruufa-san used a key to open the door and led us into a small room .

There were many tools inside the room, ranging from cleaning supplies to pots as well as random things I had never seen before .

Ruufa-san proceeded to pull a rug off the floor and revealed a hatch .

She then opened the hatch, revealing stairs that led underground .

「The room is underground to prevent sounds from leaking out . 」

Since there was enough space for even Hugging Bear to pass through, we all went down together .

「Is this a dungeon?」

「Yes . I myself have been held down here when my father was still in town . 」

There was a hallway at the bottom of the stairs, with about five doors on each side .

Ruufa-san finally stopped at one of the doors .

「This is the room . 」

She unlocked the door and opened it wide so we could see inside .

There were three children: two boys and one girl . They all looked like they were in the early years of elementary school .

「Ruufa-san?」

The eldest of the group, the girl, spoke up .

「Everyone, someone is here to take you away, so you can come out now . 」

「We can leave?」

「Yes . 」

「Is nobody going to hit us when we try to leave?」

「Yes, you don’t have to worry about that anymore . 」

Eleanora-san and I both flinched at what the children said .

That toad man had told us that the children hadn’t been harmed in any way .

「My name is Eleanora . Your father asked me to bring all of you back home . You don’t have to worry about getting hurt anymore . 」

Eleanora-san kindly explained the situation to them .

However, the children weren’t looking at Eleanora-san but rather at me, who was standing behind her .

「Bear-san?」

The children approached me but noticed Hugging Bear behind me when they reached the door .

「…?!」

They fell on their butts in shock, but the girl didn’t waste any time and stood in front to protect the boys .

Only then did they notice Misa on top of Hugging Bear .

「There’s a girl on top of the bear…」

「It’s not scary . Hugging Bear is really nice . 」

Misa tried to reassure the children and hugged Hugging Bear .

「This bear will not harm you so you can feel at ease around it . 」

Thanks to Misa and Ruufa-san, the three of them calmed down a bit .

「Okay, you three . Please join Misa on the Bear-san and we’ll get you out of here . 」

I gently spoke to the children to get them to ride the Hugging Bear .

However, four children turned out to be a bit too much for the size of its back, so we had the girl walk instead .

The children were afraid at first but calmed down with the help of Misa . In no time, smiles appeared on their faces, and we embarked with Hugging Bear leading the way .

Following behind everyone, I overheard Ruufa-san whisper something to Eleanora-san .

「Please check the other rooms afterwards . I believe the keys should be in Gerardo-sama’s room, so please search there first . However, please, please, don’t bring the children with you as you search . 」