The mansion was rather large. It wasn't the biggest estate in town, but I was still frustrated.

It seems like the bottom floor is devoid of people, so it made moving around easy, but this would only last a moment.

The servants were probably all out-cold upstairs, but the guards are likely to flood into the house.

There's also Ophryss's slaves that I don't know about. The two beastkin girls, and maybe more than that too?

Part of me has to wonder why she bothered with having two Slaves to a maid's job—but it's possible that the other servants are also slaves, isn't it? I didn't notice anything like a collar, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be anything hidden under their clothes. Besides, in my old world magic wasn't required to enslave someone.

Anyways, I try to retrace my steps after entering the mansion earlier, but as expected, my belongings have been moved, and what awaits me there are two warriors who instantly attack me. I haven't recovered much of my power though, so all I can do is repel them, and escape again.

Thinking about it, I haven't developed many ways to inflict damage on someone, have I?

I have my bows and dagger, but when those are taken from me, I only have my Wind Blades, and I haven't practiced them for a while, and their effectiveness isn't as great as a real sword. They can cut meat, but not very deeply, and even my aiming isn't perfect—it becomes mostly a hindrance to people in this world, who have an HP bar.

I need to find my dagger.

I searched the entire first floor, but I learned it wasn't there.

Thanks to my Aether Perception being at Intermediate Level 13, I should be able to feel the Space magic enchantment, so long as it's within 2 and a half meters.

As a result, I felt it for a moment, under my feet. So I spent quite a while looking for the entrance to the basement, before I finally found it as a hidden passage, powered by magic.

I'm lucky that Aether Perception is rare, or this sort of secret passage wouldn't have magic.

All this, while trying to avoid detection.

I've gotten great at manipulating sound, so all I need to do is shift sound I produce into a frequency humans can't hear, rather than trying to cancel it out all together.

The hidden passage seemed unguarded, so I easily waltzed into the basement, which seemed to be something like a dungeon.

From here, I easily found my belongings, behind a locked door. It's not even worth mentioning at this point, but getting passed the door wasn't a problem with a bit of magic—by that I mean that the door was now in splinters.

The room was an Armory of sorts, and after picking up my bag and cloak, I also found myself a better dagger, and plenty of spare arrows. I had hoped for maybe a magic stone, or something of that nature, but no such luck.

No potions either—sucks, because I want to restore my Aether already. It's slowly been rising, and is barley at one-third by now.

Escaping is going to be a pain, because I'm sure that woman has already gotten city guards to search for me. Maybe.

It would have been possible to escape, if I simply ran, but I wasn't going to leave behind my belongings.

Still, I wouldn't be in this mess if I agreed to work for her.

It's not like I completely lied to her, but it wouldn't be that hard for me to kill a complete stranger who's done nothing wrong.

Swallowing my morals and all, I feel like since coming here, it's not so difficult. Probably because of the impression I get, that this is a game-like world.

No, it's not that. It's because this is another world, and because the technology is so underdeveloped, I feel like I can simply "get away" with most any crime I can think of. Especially in this town, where practically everyone is guilty of something.

But still—I don't want to work for her.

I don't like the idea of being under someone else's thumb. It's quite suffocating.

Speaking of which—"Stop right there."

Peaking over my shoulder, I see a familiar girl twice my height—the slave cat-girl from before, huh? And she has a sword aimed at me.

Who is this girl, I wonder? I didn't even notice her until she was close enough to be picked up by my Aether Perception.

Doesn't that woman already have an adequate assassin?

"Funny that in a game of cat and mouse, it was a literal cat who caught me," I said. She didn't seem amused by my comment.

"It was clear you would have found your way down here. So I just waited for you."—a mouse trap, with food that the rodent is bound to want, huh?

"So you're not going to retort my cat comment?"

—No response.

"Are we just going to sit here, or..?"

"If you want to have a conversation, put on that collar," She said, gesturing at a stack of slave collars beside me. It seems they kept these slave collars here in the armory, and she probably took that into account when cornering me.

"A domesticated cat, getting their master a new pet, huh?" It's not like I was unaware of the possibility of a so called willing slave, but this is rather bothersome. "What if I just break your collar?"

"And what do you intend to do after doing something so pointless?"

"... Leave, and head for the Beastkin, of course?"

"You truly are a foolish child," She said, as she raised the sword in her hand up to my face. I don't think she liked that answer.

"I really can't understand a person who willingly accepts being little more than a toy, you know?"

—No response.

Well that's fine.

I gave a sigh, and merely waved my hand. A high pitched sound filled the air—so high-pitched that I couldn't even hear it—

"GYAHHHH!!!"

—but the girl in front of me was clearly suffering from the sound.

She had dropped her sword, and fallen to her knees as she tried to dispel the sound, so I approached her, and gave her a good, hard knee to the face. Even though I was a short a frail-looking 5 year-old, a hit from me was enough to knock her out. I made sure her heart was beating and—yep, she's alive.

And she still looks pretty cute with a busted lip...

Even though I couldn't hear the sound that was a pitch too high for humans, it would still be dangerous for my ear drums to be exposed to it. If you hear a loud sound, your reaction is to protect your ears—if you can't hear the sound, that's much worst.

I did manage to use a protective spell around my ears, but it's not perfect.

Leaving this girl aside, what about the little one? She's not here, but she should be within the house. A higher floor?

—Should I bother looking for her? She might be just like this one.

Well, there are a lot of cells down here, like it's some kind of prison—well it does look like a dungeon.

"Hey, boy, com'ere!"—Speaking of which...

"Yeah?" The person who called me out?

The little devil I was speaking about.

"Let me out of here. You said you'd free us, right?"

Looking into her cell, it looked like she was shackled to the wall. Was she being punished?

"What happened here?"

"You're that half-elf boy, right? Mistress Ophryss got mad at me and Thali for not telling her about you. Com'on, the keys are handing over there, just get me out of here!"

—What a stark change in character, once the older girl is out of the picture.

Well whatever, I do as she said, and opened up her cell. I take a look around to make sure no one else is around, and then quickly free her from her shackles.

"So? You don't seem to have the same attitude as that Thali girl—"

"Of course not!" She said, as if mad that I compared the two. "Tch, forget about it, and just take me out of here!"

"Sure, sure, Princess,"—another troublesome person.

Escape from this point was difficult.

Security was tightened, to the point that guards were already beginning to pour into the dungeon, after evaluating that I was no longer in the upper floors.

Now that I had my knife, and my mana had recovered to a little over a third, I was able to put up a fight, using the confined space of the dungeon, my small body, and great agility, to maneuver around people, and strike at their weak points.

I considered holding back, only cripling the people who came after me—but I decided that would be a mistake, and did what I had to, aiming to kill my targets.

When the two of us broke free from the Dungeon and reached the base floor, I applied a spell to the two of us—or rather, a "buff".

It had both my Stealth capabilities, and a Wind magic for boosting speed.

With that we were able to break free from the mansion.

Of course, we were intercepted a few times, but I managed to divert most people away, and even held back a Wind Mage.

Honestly, I don't want to put up with fighting through so many people.

So I put my best efforts into escape.

There was some difficulty, what with holding onto a little girl's arm—what was her name? Ah, she hasn't said yet.

Anyways, she seemed pretty excited by the whole thing, despite the high-speed travel, so at least I'm not scaring her.

Once we were clear out the door, I pulled the girl into my arms like a Princess carry, and hopped onto the rooftops, hoping to outrun my pursuers.

After various random turns, I couldn't detect anyone following us.

But just to be certain, I found an alley to hide in.

I don't know if anyone's still following us, but to make sure they can't listen, I applied a sound dampening spell around us.

"So? Tell me your story."

The golden-furred cat girl seemed to be quite excited, but she slowly began to calm down.

"Very well," She said before giving a smile. "My name is Sophinna Alenastra. You may call me Sophi."

"You're not just a commoner?"—Commoners and Slaves shouldn't have a family name...

"Of course not. I've played the role of a docile slave for too long," She said irritated. "I have a rather important heritage, you know? Those damn slavers mixed me up with some other poor child, and I somehow ended up being sold for a much lower price than I should have—but that's fine. The alternative would be much worst."

—"So who are you, exactly?" I ask, after digesting what she's said. She's not a princess, I don't think. Alenastra doesn't match any of the names of Royalty I read up. Some sort of lower noble, right?

"I am Sophinna of the Alenastra clan," she introduced herself once more, "A so called holy clan, if you will."

If I understood Sophi's situation correctly, it seems her family was a well respected one, for their connection to the Tigerkin's one God. More accurately, it's believed that the god in-question was an ancestor of the Alenastra clan, and that's how they've maintained this connection.

People can ascend to gods? What's this ridiculous notion?

I'll file the information away for later. I don't know if it's just a myth or not.

That said, because she was an important person's child, she was kidnapped, and held for ransom. However, they never intended to return her, and instead planned to sell her to some humans who were willing to pay a good price for something like a Shrine Maiden.

Somehow she was misplaced though, and was sold for less than usual. Either way, she ended up as Anna Ophryss's slave in the end.

There's some things she's not being clear about, but I decide not to ask too many questions. She seems to be quite smart for her age, and I'm curious about how long ago she was actually kidnapped, but I kept my silence.

"By the way. Why were you locked up, but not Thali?"

"TCH! That bitch, she pinned the whole blame on me. Said she knew nothing," Sophi complained as she stomped the ground.

"Whole blame?"

"Yeah, said that you were talking to me behind her back, and didn't know a thing about you. Tch... makes me want to slap her around a bit!"—this girl sure does smack her lips like that a lot.

"Out of curiosity... Are you the one with Status Analysis?"

"... So the Mistress told you that much as well. Yes, yes I am. And your stats seriously make me doubt you're a child." As she said that, she asked me a question, but...

Hah?

"Ah, sorry, I just spoke in my native language—don't mind it," she said after a moment of silence. "Lets go already."

Oi. That...

...

No, file that way for later. For now, we'll return to my "base".

After reaching my hide-out, I learned that Ophryss's men had discovered my hideout, so I abandoned my sweet garden.

It was a shame, but I had to abandon it, and began looking for a new place.

At that time, Sophinna made a demand—"Take me to Tola Kingdom, and I'll have you rewarded!"

"Hah?"

"I will not be living in a slum. I need to go home, and spread a message!"

"Ah, well. I did intend to head to the Beastkin region, but I have no means to reach it," I explained.

"It's fine. You're a thief, right? I know where Lady Ophryss keeps a stash of gold coins—I overheard the conversation. We can just take that, head west to the city Ocen, where we'll purchase a horse, and head south. On our way to Ocen, we'll have to avoid major routes though, because we'll probably be pursued."

"Hey, are you really a child?"

"Are you really someone who should be asking that?" She asked with her arms crossed.

Well, I couldn't retort that.

Author Notes:

Things happening. Not as exciting as some might have expected.

Pretty sure this isn't the last we'll see of Thali and Lady Ophryss.

That said, this Volume is reaching its conclusion soon.

As always, feedback and suggestions are always welcome.