Wind stung my eyes as I fell through the floor. Narrowing my eyes, I gazed at the seemingly dark abyss below me.

'Oh right, I don't actually know how high the fall is...'

Although I could reduce my speed with [Wind burst], doing so would cause a loud sound and thus, attract very unnecessary attention. As such, I agglomerated Lightning mana on my fingertips and—

[Lighting spear]

—Shot a small [Lightning spear] toward the ground. As the spear travelled through the darkness, it lit up the surrounding areas, just enough for me to see some wooden ceiling beams. Grinning, I grabbed onto a beam as I fell past it.

Hanging onto the beam and staring at the spear of Lightning, which flew through the air for more than a dozen seconds before lightly charring the floor, I heaved a sigh of relief.

"Good thing I found this beam. My legs would definitely get crushed if I fell all the way..."

And the beam that I held one wasn't the only one. There were many other beams that spiraled down to the floor like a very, very shit staircase.

"How impractical... What did I even expected from a bunch of slavers?"

Sighing, I dropped down from beams to beams and eventually reached the floor. As soon as I did so, my attention was drawn toward a cage nearby; one that stunk of dead bodies.

Furrowing my brows, I got closer to it and used [Spark]. As the cage was illuminated, even I had to hold in the urge to puke.

Children strewn dead on the floor, some half-decomposed, some were fresh corpses, others were but a pile of bones. But it was the living children that was the source of my nausea. They... devoured the corpses of the other children hungrily, as if they had been left without food for days on end. Bits of flesh and blood spewed out every time they sunk their teeth into the corpses. They were so absorbed into committing acts of cannibalism that they didn't react to me; that was, except for one.

"Y-You are..."

I swallowed my urge to puke and smiled at the human boy with purple hair and blue eyes wearing clothes that were closer to rags than actual functional clothes.

"I'm Saint Theodore VI, and I'm here to rescue you."

"A-Ah...!"

The boy - very obviously Jacob - trembled in happiness as tears welled up in the corner of his eyes. Normally, I'd have scoffed at such a reaction but... considering the shithole he had been living in for god knows how long, it was understandable. But before I rescued him—

"Wait for me a bit, okay? I need to check for traps first."

Actually... I didn't need to check for traps, as I was pretty sure that the fall I had just experienced was already a trap. Thus, it was just an excuse for me to obtain more information about this slave ring.

Unaware of my thoughts, Jacob sniffed and wiped the tears on his cheeks with a hopeful look on his face. "P-Please come back soon..."

Nodding, I explored the remaining of the dark room. Well... after 10 minutes of searching, it was safe to say that the room was empty save for the cage... and a table put against a wall. I made my way toward the table, the wooden floor creaked as I did so. Holding my finger over it, I saw some kind of parchment on top of it.

'If my hunch is correct then... Aha!'

===

Clients:

-Lex Jasv: Friday, 1 dragon girl, 1 phoenix boy, 2 rabbit beastkins (any gender) [Main estate of house Jasv]

-Keen Lito: Thursday, 2 human girls (age under 8), 1 wolf beastkin boy [Warehouse of house Lito right outside Kerudark]

-The governor: Tuesday, 1 human boy (the purple-haired, blue-eyed one in the lower floor named Jacob specifically; client's request) [Fercs street, abandoned estate of the fallen house Fenine]

P/S: Ask the governor for more assistance when you deliver the child to him.

===

It was indeed a list of people that the slave ring probably had to deliver the children to within this week.

'Tuesday... that's tomorrow! But abandoned estate of the fallen noble house Fenine? Isn't it Evelyn's old house?'

Couple with the fact that the Void lords were definitely in that same estate, I could only come to the conclusion that [Despair] needed Jacob for some reasons.

And there was a problem with the actual person who ordered for Jacob - the governor. I was sure that [Despair] wasn't the governor, and [Jealously] wasn't either. That could only mean one thing.

'Either they replaced the governor with someone else, corrupted the governor, or bribed him.'

Every one of these guesses were bad beyond imagination. As such, I decided that I'd—

"Haaaah... why do I even need to feed these kids..."

Suddenly, I could hear the sound of a wall rumbling, followed by a tired sigh. Startled, I ran up the nearest wall and hung onto a ceiling beam. Hiding myself in the darkness, I watched as the one who sighed - a human man - walked up toward the cage with a bucket full of spoiled porridges.

Stopping in front of the cage, he raised the bucket up and splashed it onto the kids.

"Okay children! Here's your once-every-three-week meal!"

The children either hungrily licked themselves, pounced on one another, or simply tried to eat the porridges that was spilled onto the ground. Every child in the cage did that, that was, except for Jacob, who was glaring hatefully at the man.

Feeling his gaze, the man frowned. "What are you looking at?"

In response, Jacob spitted in his face. "Disgusting! To reduce children to flesh-eating messes of hunger, have you got no shame? You will definitely pay for this when the Saint rescues me!"

'Hey! Are you trying to expose me here?!'

Unaware of the fact that said Saint was watching him, the man wiped the spit on his face with a sigh. "We've been through this already. Last time, you said that a Hero was going to rescue you. Now you tell me that a Saint is going to? What's next, a God? Goddess?"

"But a Saint really will—"

"Shut up!" The man's temper suddenly snapped. Grabbing the thick bars of the cage with his hand and baring his teeth in anger, he spoke with a hoarse voice, "Do you know why I cut off my ears and tail?" He said as he showed the two scars on his head.

"..."

"It's because I wanted to become perfect like humans. So stop with that delusion of yours before you ruin the perfect image of humans in my mind!"

Before he could continued, a fan suddenly whooshed through the air, hitting him square on the back of his head. Massaging his head in pain, he snapped his head around and glared at the one who threw the fan.

"Which bastard—"

But upon realizing who did it, he quickly calmed down and stuttered, "M-Madame!"

"I've already told you, it's 'Boss,'" spoke the boss, an Elf woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, and revealing clothes.

"R-Right! Boss, why are you here?"

"To check up on our goods, obviously. This time, the governor himself ordered from us. I have to make sure that everything's perfect."

That was the last thing that I heard, as I fell into deep thoughts soon after.

'They're weak... I can kill them both without breaking a sweat right this instant. But...'

I decided not to do so. Why? Well, this was the perfect opportunity to strengthen Arthur's forces and mess up the lightbulb's plans at the same time!

'If the lightbulb is going to make me experience despair, then I might as well fuck up her plan by fixing Evelyn!'

Praising myself for coming up for such a perfect plan, I waited for the two slavers to leave the room before climbing up the beams. As I got to the ceiling, I tapped on it exactly 10 times, and I was now back to where I was when I first came inside this building.

Upon seeing me, the Elf child from before exclaimed, "Ah! It's you again!"

I quickly turned around and shushed her. "Shhhh... don't make a noise."

Nodding, the Elf and everyone other children inside the cages kept there mouth shut.

Seeing this, I couldn't help but to smile bitterly as I thought about the thing I was going to say next.

'Come on, it's just a few children, no need to feel sad for them. Besides, I'm going to free most of them anyway.'

Gathering my courage, I spoke with a regretful tone, "Sorry... the slavers, they are just... too strong for me to handle."

Before the children could fall into despair once more, I hurriedly continued. "But! I can still save you all. I just need to call my friends over to help me. I'll be back in under a day... And, try your best to not get dragged away and sold until I get back, okay? I won't be able to help you if that happens."

Without waiting for anyone to answer, I quickly left the building before the guilt of lying to a bunch of kidnapped children could catch up to me. I immediately dashed into another dark alleyway upon leaving the building. Throwing the dark suspicious robe back inside [Alternate storage], I let out a tired sigh.

"Let's go find Evelyn quickly and end this."