+++ Prisilla's Perspective +++

I noticed Alfy wasn't around when I came downstairs from my cat nap.

Rafy was supposed to keep watch over him, but the rascal slipped by while she was waist deep into reading.

Gah, I swear that girl could finish books in the stomach of a behemoth.

Swift was honestly also supposed to keep a look out, but he ain't nearly as good at keepin an eye out when he's drinking. Humans I swear.

Truth be told we pinned a tracking tag on him, so we weren't really concerned... well, that's not entirely true: Sylvestra was worrying her pretty little head off, but we thought it was fine.

"It'll be fineeeee, comeee on, he's this a way." Swift slurred as he half-drunkenly lead us outside and down the streets.

"But... what if he's hurt, what if he's gotten into trouble?" yeah Sylvestra was a mess.

"The cities in the Avenstron territory are quite safe it should be fine," Donovan persuaded, "the gates are closed so he couldn't have left the city. Furthermore he's only been gone for a few minutes at the most. We will find him in no time, he couldn't have gotten far."

Donovan, ever the voice of reason.

"Sylvestra," Rafine began meekly, "I apologize, this wouldn't have happened if I kept a better eye on him."

"Yeah uhh," Swift slurred, "me toooo."

"Come on now, save the sorrys when we catch him." I purred.

Anyways we got a tad more worried when Swift kept walking for a few minutes but the hairs on my neck really stood up when we turned into the slaver's neighborhood.

It wasn't that slavery in its entirety was illegal here, it's just that this part of town dealt with the more... unscrupulous merchandise, no place for a toddler, how the heck did he even get here on his own anyway.

Ah wait.... it's starting to come together.

"Swift..." I snorted.

"Yeah, I know," he whispered as he sobered up. "Donovan. Prisilla and I will go on ahead."

"Wait, let me go as well!" Sylvestra cried.

"That's fine. Rafine and I will catch up."

As I stretched my legs I made a small verbal jab at Donovan: "Avenstron cities are safe huh?"

"I... sorry."

After the short exchange the three of us bolted off into the sour smelling district. We stayed in silence turning into alleyway after alleyway. I was surprised Sylvie wasn't screaming profanities at us, I guess getting married changes people.

Ah, dangerous topic, I should stop before I get too curious.

Couple more minutes later we rounded into a dead end.

"Swift are y-" but before I could finish Sylvie cut in.

"Swift if you've lost the trail to my baby, I swear you're not waking up with all your limbs intact." A dangerous glint reflected off her blades. Hooo boy, there was the Sylvie I knew and loved.

"I'm rather attached to my extremities thanks," he pointed downwards to the steel latch that was connected to a hatch to the city's labyrinth, I don't like where this is going. "Closest entrance to his location."

"Mmmmm, isn't going there without permission illegal or something." I leaned against my great sword, "but I doubt Sylvie will care at this stage."

"Swift." She gave him a dangerous look.

"Can we at least wait for Donovan and Rafine to show?"

"Swift." A low growl came out of her throat; I think my tail shivered a little there.

"Okay, okay, fine. Prisilla, can you stay here to let them know the situation?"

"Gotcha, good luck."

He started picking the lock, but Sylvie just sheared it clean off. He stared at the broken lock grimly for a second before swinging the hatch open and jumping in. Not a moment later Sylvie followed him down into the darkness below.

I sat down in the dingy alleyway and waited.

A few minutes later a panting Donovan and an out of breath Rafine came into my view. I gave them a small wave.

"What happened where are the two of them?"

I pointed at the open hatch.

"I see. Lead the way."

"Rafy, will you be alright?"

"Y-yeah... don't worry about me." she tried covering her face with her big hat, didn't work.

I sighed and scooped her up. She let out a yelp but didn't resist. With the little mage under my arms, I hopped down into the earthy tunnels of the labyrinth and began running.

If I remember correctly the reason all big human cities have labyrinths underneath is so the monsters have somewhere to form that didn't hurt them. See, Mother Nature likes all mana flow to be in equilibrium, but if you jam back a lot of living creatures into such a small area like kittens in a litter then one of two things can happen. Normally a lot of monsters spawn nearby to balance out the flow. However, since the city needs to protect the roads and merchants coming into it, they frequently clear out the nearby area so it doesn't happen.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Soooooo the negative mana from nature can build up into monster flood, which is bad enough already, or in the worst case....

The big bad mana gets concentrated into one monster.

We usually call those Demons type monsters.

I was part of the task force assembled to kill a small, wounded behemoth, which is a common one of those demon types, a while back in the Osignin Kingdom. It wasn't pretty and thinking about it makes my tail stand on end.

It killed three quarters of the force before we barely managed to bring it down.

So, the humans, being pretty clever, build large underground labyrinths before constructing their cities on top, allowing the monsters somewhere to go that won't damage their precious city.

Though this could all be avoided if they just lived more like us cat folk. Impressive uselessness is what I call their cities.

"You can put me down now." My thoughts were interrupted by an indigent huff from Rafine.

"Okay." I let her down gently and she patted the dust off her robe.

"How far?"

"We're close by, actually. They stopped moving right about," I turned the corner and swung open a large wooden door, "there."

I stopped, hit by an enormous stench of blood and sweat.

I knew it was something like this but the sight still threw me off.

"Why did you stop all of a sudden, wh-" Rafine stopped talking and just stared at the mess before my eyes.

About ten or so men of various races lay in pieces across the bloody floor.

I whistled.

"Prisilla, not the time." Donovan gave me a dark look.

"Sorry."

"We stepped gingerly over the mess of corpses and made our way to the door on the other side, the room that greeted us was so shockingly similar to the first that I did a double take.

"Our royal highness sure knows how to make an entrance."

"Prisilla, which door?" Donovan asked. This time there were a couple of doors on the opposite side.

"First one from the far left." I said and we made our way towards it.

It opened to a jailing room of some sorts. There were five barred cells on the far wall, one of them had a square hole cut into the bars, and a table with chairs in the middle of the room; a dimly lit by a lantern hung on the ceiling casting a gloomy light on the people in the room.

Sylvie lay knelt on the floor, bloody daggers at her side and her hands in her eyes. Soft sobbing noises echoed in my ears. Swift sat on one of the chairs, examining a woven sack with a frustrated look. Both of them were a little roughed up, but besides a large cut across Swift's leg they didn't seem too hurt.

A small girl with blonde hair in fancy, but torn clothing, lay shivering in the cells with cut bars, clearly frightened. A horned girl in rags sat in one of the others.

"Swift, report." Donovan ordered.

"Illegal slaver den, traded with prohibited races and illegitimately acquired slaves." He pointed to the two girls in the cells.

"Did you find Alfon?" Donovan pressed.

"No, his tracking tag was stuck to this sack," he threw the brown bag, sure enough it had a familiar piece of paper with the hunter's mark on it, "was in the room with the human girl."

"Any clues to where he is?"

"Sylvestra interrogated the poor girl, she's the daughter of one of visiting lords, house of Dale, knows nothing."

"And the other?"

"Outland race, doesn't speak common."

Rafine moved closer to the horned girl, "Let me try."

She knelt and they conversed for a short while before Rafine stood up.

"Her name is Ninamoritis of the Blackhorns, she was cast out from her village and left to fend alone before being caught by slavers."

"Cast out huh?" I muttered, staring at the two large white horns on the side of her head, "I'd love to teach her parents a thing or two."

Some people don't deserve to have children.

"None of them have even heard of Alfon." Swift shook his head and turned to Sylvie, "I... I'm sorry."

Sylvestra knelt motionless.

Donovan let out a long sigh, "Rafine could you treat Swift?"

Rafine replied by taking something out from her long robe.

"For the time being let's bring the girls with us. Prisilla, search the other rooms and see if any of the dead are on the bounty list."

"Alfy is missing and you're concerned with bounties?" A low but sharp tone came from Sylvestra, she raised her tear-filled eyes to look at Donovan.

Oh boy, this has suddenly turned really dangerous.

"Sylvestra, we have no leads. The best we can do head back to the tavern to ask around tomorrow. Returning a lord's daughter and getting rid of a criminal ring might give us enough leverage to mobilize the city garrison." Donovan reasoned, "I know you're upset but we'll do all that we can."

Sylvestra stared at Donovan.

Everyone watched in silence, the only sound was the creaking of the lantern that hung above.

One second passed

Then two.

Sylvestra grabbed her daggers and I nearly jumped.

The third second passed before she sheathed them.

Rafine and I let out a breath that we had been holding.

"I'm going to look around the tavern," was all she said before bolting out of the room.

I was about to follow her until a stiff order from Donovan interrupted me: "Leave her alone, its what's best for her right now. After we head back, Swift will arrange a meeting with the house Dale."

"Wait me? Wouldn't it be better if you went?"

"You can't move much with your leg in that state, the rest of us will be searching for Alfy."

"Oh, right."

"Donovan," Rafine called over the attention of our leader. "What about her?" She pointedly spoke about the horned girl.

"We can take her with us for now."

I clicked my tongue. I could smell a faint scent of something strange that the girl was suffering from something, I just hope this won't turn out troublesome.

Anyways, I finished collecting the heads of those I needed to in short time, and our party made our way back to the tavern without much conversation. Well besides Swift nagging me sometimes.

"Hey, Prisilla, can I touch your ears?" He coughed out as he leaned against me.

"You already have a cut on your leg, don't make me put one on your arm."

"Sorry, sorry..."

We made our way back to the tavern to find Sylvie sitting down on a bench outside, looks like the exhaustion has caught up to her.

"Ha," Swift stumbled away from me, "I'll take the girls, you guys make sure she's alright."

"You sure you can walk Swift?" I asked.

"I'll be fine, besides, if you guys don't calm her down, I'll be in a casket by morning."

Swift took the girls to our room while I locked the bag of heads in our enchanted chest. I got a couple of weird looks, must be the blood, I definitely need a shower after this.

I headed back outside to find the two coherent members of our party just standing there.

I let out a sigh, Donovan and Rafine were undoubtedly the smartest people in our party, but I swear they are so dumb sometimes.

"When did the two of you turn into scarecrows?" I sighed, and sat down next to Sylvie, gently patting her on her back.

"Leave me be." She managed to mutter out through her tears. She sounded dead tired, must done a few laps nearby while we were coming back.

"Sorry. Dumb cat here, don't really listen to instructions well."

I didn't leave, just kept sitting there, stroking her back.

All of us just sat there for a bit, until....

I smelled something.

Something familiar.

I stood up so rapidly that I nearly fell over and stared into the darkness.

"Yo," I must have had the biggest smile on my face, "Alfy you rascal, where you been?"

The three of them stared at me with the stupidest look, Sylvie in particular looked very dumb. She had snot coming out of her nose, one of the few moments she looked inelegant.

A toddler appeared into view like magic.

We all stared at him with various expressions. Relief, happiness, guilt, to name a few.

He clutched a box to his chest and even across the distance I could hear his soft whisper very clearly.

"S-s... S-saawwryy."

Sylvestra surged forward like a tidal wave and swept him up in a bear hug.

I was worried she might break the boy in two.

Donovan let out the biggest sigh and nearly destroyed the bench when he sat down.

I caught Rafine as she collapsed.

"Alfy, oh Alfy. I... I'm so glad you're alright." choked sobs came out of Sylvestra.

"Wahhhh"

"Would you look at that," I whispered to Rafine. "The kid is a crybaby after all."

Rafine jabbed me in the ribs.