"And again another explosion."

For a brief moment, Selestian's shapely and strong legs lost their balance and that was due to a strong tremor. But she was more than ready, so before falling to the ground she manages to compose herself.

They were visible as a pile of small pebbles accompanied by sand began to fall from the top.

With total calm and balance, Neledia kept watching the ceiling of the guitars. "The foundation is starting to crumble." From her place, behind everyone, he could realize that this fact was not good. "It seems that the fighting outside the base is intensifying much more, that's bad, at any moment the whole base could come down, we have to hurry up or we could be buried."

…

A few moments before, the boys dodged a small magical beast that simply inhabited the area, it was a "Centipede Hunter" with a body about eighty centimeters long and strong fangs, more than ready to inject them with poison.

The strange thing was that the centipede, instead of wanting to attack them, seemed to be desperately looking for some hiding place. It was like something really bad would happen.

Mathias jumped around the Centipede Hunter and, immediately after, resumed the path. His face looked serious and that contrasted greatly with his person.

"I know what's weird for me to say it, but I'm quite worried." He said as he continued to advance, always by the side of his best friends.

"You're not the only one, Mathias." Sebastian also felt the same way: "The possibility that something too bad will happen has me worried."

Christopher nodded at Sebastian's mention.

Mathias continued with his line of thought.

"Do you think that if empires go to war it will affect us?" Maybe Mathias was quite a joker and sometimes he appeared to be someone without much knowledge, the reality was different.

When the situation required it, he went from being a joker to a serious and quite intelligent person, "and in what way would it affect us since we are neutral? we do not belong to any empire."

"And that's precisely what would bring us the biggest problems." The idea given by Christopher was accepted by Neledia who silently came after all of them. Christopher continued with the idea to be broadcast. "Since we do not belong to any empire, we could be considered as people without rights. Maybe they want to hunt us down and use us as part of their army or cannon fodder, or maybe they won't use us as some strategic point which in the future..."

"Be attacked by enemies." Neledia completed the idea before Christopher finished it. "In the end, if you look at it that way and add those probabilities, one way or another, then we could be involved as another battlefront."

"Isn't everything that's already happening to us enough?" Anita sighed and stepped aside so as not to crash into a stalagmite: "Now maybe we should fight in a war that isn't even ours."

"That's politics, they force others to fight while they watch us die." In fact, what Selestia mentioned is an indisputable truth, no matter what world you are in.

"But, leaving that aside," Selestia shifted her attention to the sides, also to the floor and ceiling, observing absolutely everything. "It's amazing what these mercenaries have done down here, they even have paths, they sure used earth elemental magic... I wonder how long have they been living under us?"

"If you will allow me, Lady Selestia," said a woman approaching her, if Christopher had been around, he would have recognized her as the woman he had seen the day he had left Roger and Macky at the medical center to have their wounds treated, and he had only seen her once.

That day she was quite wounded, although her wounds were somewhat superficial and only needed to be stitched up.

But now it was different, everything comprising the woman's right eye and some of the cheekbone on that side was burned by what seems to have been a magical fire attack or perhaps some magical technique capable of doing that.

Currently, she was bandaged and enduring the pain.

"You, you are the adventurer I saw when I left the hospital," said the beautiful Elf, that day Selestia had also seen her because the woman took a long time that day, and all because of a certain lack of supplies.

For a very brief moment, Selestia looked directly at that side of the face that was now hurt, and despite being blindfolded, it was more than obvious that the woman lost her eye.

The woman recognized Selestia's curious look and knew she wanted to know about her wound. "This wound was caused by a mercenary. They attacked me with a magic attack, it was quite painful."

"I was engaged in combat against one of these slavers, and by surprise, one of his companions burned my face by launching a magical attack of fire. I even hurt my ear, I can still take it, at least until the mission is over.

"Ah! by the way" the woman smiled at Selestia quite kindly "my name is Araiel, I am very happy that you remember me, Lady Selestia, that day I went to have some wounds that had been caused by a magical beast stitched up, but I was able to take care of that."

Araiel smiled with some bitterness because she remembered the precise moment when she was attacked and a chill ran down her spine. It must not be pleasant to feel how your eye and something on your face burn.

But she decided to continue with the important thing and follow the same train of thought: "Answering your question, it is believed that these mercenaries have been here building the base for at least a year. We just never noticed, they were really very prepared."

"And you're not wrong," Neledia thought from her place, until her ears twitched and moved to the side.

-Hmp?-

“¡WAIT!" the shout at the top of his lungs came from a beastman belonging to the reptilian clan.

Round eyes and the iris torn ovally. Greenish skin stretching quite a bit towards black. Wearing battle armor. His forked tongue protruded from the oral cavity from time to time.

This was a person, a beastman belonging to the reptilian clan, a snakeman.

From experience, everyone knew that if someone on a mission shouted that, no matter who it was, they had to obey. They all stopped ipso facto, watching the beastman.

"What's going on?" asked Neledia, quite nervously, "have you felt something?"

The snakeman's forked tongue protruded for a few seconds from the oral cavity, before hiding again. The snake man opened his palm, kneeling on the ground and proceeded to touch it.

Snake-beastmen have the very useful ability to feel the vibrations coming from the ground with their bodies, and something had caught his attention. Their expressionless eyes widened, reptiles tend to be incredibly serious, always being calm and appearing totally serene.

Or so everyone believes.

But here, the face of that beastman of the reptilian clan was indeed seen to death. Everything lasted much less than it seems.

He inflated her breasts and, "BANG!"

He shouted to the four winds.

"What did he say?"

"What's going on?"

"Another explosion?"

"We must cover ourselves"

In fact, no one thought about these things or anything like that, what's more, doing that at this time was total stupidity and lack of seriousness and experience, plus it would take too much time.

If someone who is able to feel the vibrations on the ground shouts "explosion", you just cover up and that's it! as everyone is doing right now.

Everything began to shake and extremely abruptly, there was no time to perform magic or anything. They simply threw themselves on the ground covering themselves as much as they could.

Behind the stalagmites, behind some rocks or in some holes.

Others covered their companions and an example was Christopher who had thrown Diana to the ground and set out to protect her with his body, it was more like an impulse that came from the bottom of his being.

Sebastian had done the same with his beloved Elf and she did the same with him. Both were lying face down very close to each other and covering their heads just like Mathias and Anita did.

The strong shaking raised dust and even rocks which now rocks fell to the ground, some reached the others causing them some damage. And this is what brings us to the present day, where Neledia observed the surroundings and the ravages of the explosion that occurred outside the base.

"LISTEN EVERYONE," Neledia shouted, drawing the attention of everyone present, "LET'S SPEED UP THE PACE, AT ANY MOMENT THE BASE COULD GIVE WAY AND WE WOULD BE BURIED ALIVE. WE HAVE NO CHOICE, LET'S PUT ASIDE THE SURPRISE ATTACK, JUST RUN OVER AND KILL ANYONE WHO TRIES TO GET IN OUR WAY."

Some were sweating, but analyzing the situation and uniting with what Neledia had said it did have plausibility.

"LET'S RESCUE ANYONE WHO IS STILL ALIVE, LEAVE BEHIND ALL THOSE WHO ARE DEAD, WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GIVE THEM ANY KIND OF BURIAL, THERE IS NO TIME."

Nobody said anything, nobody complained or anything like that. They just turned on their feet and started running at high speeds.

…

"You don't think that at any moment everything will fall apart." A female member of VARANUS asked.

"Yes," replied another.

"And then?" said a third, a man.

"Don't talk nonsense," added the fourth.

"You know well that, if we abandon our post, VARANUS will kill us and it doesn't matter if we do everything possible to escape" they all sighed when the fifth of them spoke "the best thing would be to be on the lookout in case everything starts to fall..."

In slow motion, all of them could see the moment when a long needle passed by and embedded itself forcefully and abruptly in the trachea of the fifth of the guards who guarded the area.

Causing it to fall head-on.

"What happened?"

The first woman looked at where that attack came from, only managing to see four people, two humans, a demihuman, and a beastman running towards them, crossing in front of each other at high speeds.

They carried knives, daggers and even a personally made fan by hand.

Without giving the guards even a chance to hesitate, these four proceeded to liquidate them all. They didn't try to fight in the slightest, they went straight to kill them.

"DON'T LET THEM PASS." One of the guards could not even finish giving his orders, when the woman in that group of four assailants was already making a horizontal cut, using her personalized fans with the edges as blades.

On the other hand, the demi-human threw his blades, hitting the guard's arms squarely, disabling them and later slitting his throat at the time of making a horizontal cut.

The other human male simply buried his blades right in the heart area of the last woman of VARANUS.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

And finally, the beastman pierced the guard's eyes, reaching into his brain.

Everything happened in harmony and totally in unison, the bodies fell almost at the same time and competed for which of them filled the environment with more blood.

It's amazing how coldly they murdered their opponents.

The four are adventurers from Gignit who on countless occasions have had to fight for their lives against powerful magical beasts, strong and cruel mercenaries, slave hunters and perhaps even some Daemon who has escaped from Daemon-Land.

It is not being used to it, but when they had to act they did it, when there can be no survivors they did not leave anyone alive.

No one stopped to congratulate them or say that it was a good job, there would be time later, but for the moment the mission and the current objective was everything.

They simply passed by and made their way through the large cave that led to what appeared to be a clearing, but quite large.

Without any problem here you could have some good banquets. It wasn't as big as the previous rooms, but it was still very big.

Tables and chairs are observed across the width of the cave, they even saw something that seemed to be a stage with blood staining all over the floor.

Strands of hair were scattered throughout the area. Mathias was able to visualize and distinguish what appeared to be the ear of some beastman or demi-human from the canine clan lying near him.

Chairs were shattered and hundreds of broken glasses were scattered on both the floor and tables. There were also hundreds of spoons, knives, and forks, all strewn on the ground and many bloodstained slavery necklaces.

The place was quite similar to some seedy bars that proliferated in the lower areas of the cities. But this bar place had nothing, even a seedy bar looked so much better.

Attached to all the tables and to the floor and even to the counter are strong chains, and many of these chains held blood-soaked slavery necklaces.

Many of these necklaces had no one on them, only the blood stains were observed. But others were being used today, both men and women, all dead and yet their bodies were still shedding blood.

"It seems to be very recent," Araiel commented, analyzing the location and the color of the blood, "I could tell that his last moments alive were when the attack began."

Neledia looked down, looking at a werewolf, a little younger than her, but unlike her, he looked too skinny.

Apparently, the werewolf led a life of very poor nutrition. He had no eyes, his ears were torn off, limbless and even tailless.

Selestia looked rather sad, not taking her melancholy gaze away from the poor, shattered werewolf "how much you must have suffered before you died, I hope you can rest in peace now." Selestia knew how hardy her race was, so she was at least alive for a while before she perished.

In that area they found a pile of corpses of humans, demihumans, beastmen, dwarves, and even some Elves and small magical beasts. Men and women, males and females lying on the ground, with the damn collar imprisoning them.

Selestia and other Elves watched sad and shattered all the deceased Elves, all of them in a severe state of malnutrition, extremely thin and surely without any strength, "how horrible," said an Elf closing her eyes and shedding a tear, for this race tends to be very close, "starve... it's such a painful way to die..."

"Slowly you run out of strength, the hunger you feel when you are awake is a real hell, your stomach hurts so much that you even vomit blood..." said one of the many demihumans who was chosen for this mission and who looked at the Elf dying of grief.

Selestia looked away at him, finding eyes so full of pain, but at the same time it was as if she truly understood the pain of starving.

"Lady Selestia, I know what it feels like to be starving, when I was still a slave... That cursed man who claimed to be my owner, greatly enjoyed making us starve to the point of vomiting blood. He even made us fight to the death over a measly piece of bread... I just hope the Elf is resting in peace."

Selestia nodded, looking away from where her brother and her fiancé were, both looking at the ground or rather at the one who at this moment should be sleeping in the arms of mom or dad, who when the sun rises only radiates happiness and sweetness, who should have as maximum responsibilities to study, eat healthily and have fun.

Both were observing a small half-human girl belonging to the feline clan, a half-human lynx.

Her eyes were softly closed, as if he appeared to be resting, but the blood under his head suggested the opposite.

She was imprisoned by the slavery necklace and chained to one of the many tables that could be seen in the place. The demi-human wore rags, but at least and unlike the other slaves who were almost completely naked, the girl was completely covered.

She didn't have a single mark on her body, nothing visible that betrayed the apparent abuse by someone else, even so it was so sad to see her in that way.

For a few moments, Christopher could swear to see Macky there, lying on top of broken glass and dead. He couldn't help it, for some reason that little demi-human girl reminded him so much of the sweet and spoiled Macky : "poor thing, she must have suffered too much."

The marks of shackles located in the ankle area were now visible, leaving evidence of inhumane treatment and a possible life full of pain and suffering. "I'm so sorry I didn't get there sooner."

It wasn't his fault that he hadn't arrived earlier, he had nothing to do with it, but still something inside him tormented him with the same question that he unconsciously asked himself "What if he had arrived earlier?" no one really knew, not even himself.

He bent down to at least caress his head, surely no one has ever patted him sweetly, "surely your teacher has never treated you well, it is likely that everything you have received was mistreated."

Even if she was already dead, at least while her body was still warm, I wanted to give her some affection, unless that inert body felt what it was like to receive some love.

"Please little one, go to heaven and rest in peace."

-COF COF COF-

They couldn't believe such an event, Christopher and Sebastian, their eyes only reflected how surprised they both were.

-Agg uuggg COF COF COF-

The little demi-human girl, the one who should be dead right now, was still alive.

Having regained consciousness, she had also recovered all his abilities and among them those of feeling pain, he began to writhe on the ground moaning in pain with a sharp thread that represented the voice. She didn't have enough strength to scream.

The commotion was such that even some of those who were close to them came to see if they could lend a hand.

"SHE'S ALIVE!" exclaimed Christopher, smiling as if he were a little boy again.

Happiness flooded him as the girl began to breathe harder.

She and without opening her eyes touched the necklace located around her neck and with some desperation tried to take it off.

"NO, WAIT!" shouted Sebastian, holding the little girl's hands stopping her before she committed a real stupid thing "if you try to take it off that will hurt you much more" for nothing in the world would I say that the necklace was capable of killing her.

"Qui-who are you...?" the girl opened her eyes, seeing herself surrounded by a lot of people and very close to her two humans who were smiling at her.

Fear and fear did what they wanted with the integrity and very existence of the little girl. Crying was present as she panicked and tried to back up, only to a point because the chain did not allow her to go any further.

"No..." She took a defensive position, defending herself with her weak and small hands "hu-hu-human" The little half-human covered her head and trembling with fear shed more tears that only represented the pure fear that hit her "please don't hit me anymore, it hurts a lot!"

The hearts of both boys exploded into pieces, dying of real sorrow at what the girl implored.

"What did they do to her?" they both said in unison, watching the girl spasm only out of fear, while covering herself so that she would not be hurt.

The boys could not approach her, they barely tried and she cried harder and trembled with real panic and terror. They decided to stop trying because they only caused her to suffer much more.

"Lord Christopher" called a semi-human woman of the feline clan, cat.

She was watching each of the girl's reactions as those two tried to help her and gave a small sigh "I know they both have very good intentions with her, but please stop now because they are making her cry."

"Let me take care of her," the demihuman flicked her ears indirectly, saying, "I'm a demihuman too." "It's remarkable how extremely afraid he is of humans and this would be a bad time to cause him more suffering."

"Yes," replied the young Lord, "I'm sorry for causing so much inconvenience," getting up, he turned around with his best friend, but not before looking one last time at those two.

"Little one" the woman called her, hearing a voice that this time was feminine got her attention, but she still refused to look at it "don't be afraid, look at me, I'm a demi-human."

With total softness, the woman took the girl's hands in an attempt to get her to look at her while she gradually penetrated the defenses put up.

Slowly curiosity overcame fear, the girl opened her eyes and there she saw a person just like her, with ears and a tail "you see, I'm like you, I'm also a semi-human. So you can trust me, I won't hurt you. Please tell me what happened to you? Why are you tied up here?"

Somewhat doubtful, the girl looked down again.

"Don't be afraid, I promise no one will beat you, so tell me everything."

The girl tightened the fabric that covered her again, "the master hurt me. I was very hungry and wanted to eat the teacher's friend's food while he wasn't looking at me, but then he saw me and told the master."

More tears slipped down the girl's tender and wounded face. "The master got angry with me and beat me a lot, until I fell asleep."

"You wretch, you have beaten her unconscious."

"How would anyone be able to starve such a little girl and then beat her to death, and just for being hungry and wanting to eat."

"They..." The girl pointed towards the humans who were in the surrounding area.

She approached the arms of the Demihuman woman fearfully trying to protect herself in them by hugging her "they are looking at me, do they also want to hit me?" the girl curled up to the breasts of the demihuman, she looked at her with so much sadness because she felt in her own skin how the girl did not stop trembling.

"Please" I couldn't even open my mouth from crying so much, I had too much in my throat "don't let them hit me, it hurts when they hit me."

The others only managed to see how the demihuman hugged the little girl so tightly, trying to stifle the crying that came out of her.

"It's a shame that we can't do anything," said Christopher.

"I know," Sebastian continued, approaching his other friends who were helping by searching the surroundings, "that's how these disgusting criminals are."

"HERE'S ONE" the first slave sentenced to a life of rape was found.

The girl was barely able to stand "my vagina hurts" she kept saying that she felt too much in her intimacy, how much abuse she must have received to reach that point.

She was marked with so many scars, one eye bandaged while the other did not give off the shine of a person, it was a dead look.

The girl was just staring into space.

"More are coming there," Selestia commented next to Diana, watching the next ones.

Men and women alike, bathed in scars and bruises. Their very look and the way they walked denoted nothing more than that they were heavily abused.

Some rooms were empty, but the others were occupied and in all of them they were the so-called people not suitable for sale.

Humans and demihumans led in quantity. Being followed by Beastmen.

Not even women of the race of men have been saved, there must be more than one fetishist who feels pleasure in having sex with them. "They don't care if you're a beastman anymore, as long as you have a hole, these bastards will have sex with that person."

And the people did not stop, one by one, they were more than they thought.

They even managed to rescue a total of ten Elves, four men and six women.

Bathed in wounds, this is something that attracted attention. There wasn't a single "sex slave" who wasn't marked by wounds, it was like causing wounds to him was a kind of fetish.

The horrible wounds on the backs showed a lot of abuse and beatings by what could have been a whip. The women had wounds coming down from the face, from the nostrils the stains of dried blood were obvious.

"I'll go with Selestia," Sebastian said, quickly setting off for his beloved.

Selestia was shocked to see her own race in such bad condition. Sebastian would be a small support that he would now have, he did not hesitate to hold tightly the rough but beautiful hand of his beloved.

"They don't seem to be our Elves," Christopher commented, the statement might give some airs of belonging, but it wasn't the case, he simply said it because he was part of Gignit: "they sure got caught somewhere else."

"It's painful to see them," Anita said, "for some reason I can't get the image of Selestia being imprisoned by these disgusting criminals out of my head..."

"Me neither," Christopher replied with a sigh, "but it's all in your head, let's just focus on helping."

"Neledia," someone from afar called, "that door over there seems to connect with a corridor and at the end of a last room, I think more slaves might be locked up there."

"You're right," Neledia said very seriously, "it would be best to send a group, but..."

She looked around, most of them were working and carrying out rescue activities, investigating the rooms. "I won't be able to send many, we already have too many things to carry around, each one already has something to do and the others must watch."

Neledia focused her gaze on Christopher and the others.

"I have no choice, even if I reduce the response range to possible enemies, we really need to investigate that area..." Neledia started to think and analyze the whole situation trying to create another plan, but so much pressure had her with too much stress "I doubt very much that there is still someone who is hiding, please do so."

Inhalo and quickly called his team "guys, I have a special mission for you, so quickly come here."

Just ten seconds were more than enough for them to meet at the call of the leader.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully" Neledia looked up and called the person who had informed her about the discovery "we have discovered some things, that door there leads to a corridor that ends in what seems to be a larger room, I want you to accompany him and help everyone who is there and kill any enemy you meet.

"Is it just us?" asked Anita.

"Wouldn't we need more people?" Mathias joined her.

Selestia nodded.

"I'm sorry, that's not possible" Neledia went straight to the point, short and concise she didn't go around "we are too small a group, if something happens, we could have a too bad time due to lack of people, the most I can do is send you ... I trust you, guys, do it as soon as possible because once we finish here I plan to leave this place, so don't delay."

"Trust us, leader" Mathias clenched his fists lifting the spirits of the others, they looked at each other and nodded.

"You will be the leader of this small team." Neledia delegated the responsibility to the young adventurer and he nodded. On his neck he can be seen with the plaque that made his rank clear: BRONZE.

He really was strong, at least much stronger than everyone in this small group.

"Once you have done a complete sweep of that area, come back as soon as possible, remember..." With her cold eyes, she looked at the integrity of everyone present, "You don't have much time and my biggest priority is to get all these slaves out of here, as soon as we have freed the last one we will leave..."

"Understood," said the young leader, now looking at the members of his team: "Lord Christopher, Lady Selestia, boys." They nodded at him, "I hope you have no problem receiving orders from someone young like me."

"Please don't say that," Christopher said, "just by looking at your adventurer's badge, BRONZE rank, we already know you're superior to us."

"So just tell us the orders and we will act without hesitation," Selestia added.

"Excellent," replied the young leader again, now looking at Neledia, "then, we are leaving, we will do everything possible to return as soon as possible."

He didn't give any more time to say goodbye, they turned and quickly headed towards that door.

He was really confident, but the drops of sweat that slipped from their foreheads hinted at the state of nervousness they were in.