Anna was not surprised by our little thunderstorm ahead of schedule. The news was already known to every single living soul within the ruin. Or at least the ones who weren't busy tormenting or persecuting helpless slaves or even reading some strange and disturbing porn book.

Cmon, everything turned out to be closely or loosely related to sex in this damned place. Or was it for the whole planet? Anyway, the first group we took off guard was actually reading the latest hentai based on the way too famous Stockholm syndrome, or how to make a miss fall in love book.

That one was very well drawn and very detailed. Well the girls were, but that doesn't mean everything, overall quality wasn’t that bad. But man what a bunch of poorly quilted plots. Other than my own unofficial porn story saga, I’ve never seen anything with such a display of different tags and sequence staging them one after the other.

Bah, I probably needed a larger sample to form an opinion, I Would look into it in more detail after I gather the 368 first volume.

Anyway, other than this smalle treasure which had been lost by their rightful former owners in their panicked attempt to flee and that I picked up on the floor out of pure good conscience and consideration for the local pollution, we, or rather, Lily and Alev duo had another fateful encounter and found another kind of jewel.

While I was busy guarding the rear and keeping the potential stalker at a good distance, they found a slave that appeared to have escaped Anna’s scheme aiming to safely gather them out of our way.

From what I could understand, Alev stumbled into an odd sub-gallery whose entrance was naturally concealed and barely visible. Thinking that it might pose a threat and fearing an ambush, she carefully went to check if anything would actually put us at risk and found herself facing the lustful aggressors that were about to dig in and start their meal.

There were 3 of them besieging and molesting the girl, when Alev interrupted just in time and cut their fun short. She interrupted them just in time and as such prevented the poor slave from becoming their food.

Moreover, seeing that their victim was only a trembling child, and because this story hadn’t fallen down enough to let something like that happen, she made cave paintings out of their blood before Lily invited herself to the party and made flesh sculptures from the remains.

I only barely had time to notice that something was wrong, it was all over before they could recover from their surprises and I could inquire about the situation.

Luckily for us, It seemed that this marked the end of our trouble, and since the quota of idiots and cliché had been reached, we thus resumed our march without further incident, and could even finally team up with Anna not far from our final destination.

She was waiting for us ahead of the men’s jail, and had the intelligence to prevent the information of our escape from reaching the few guards around.

Thanks to her foresight and help, we then took over the place without effort, Anna having once more demonstrated her qualities and sharp decision making ability.

Running in a panic she informed the guard of our imminent arrival before sneaking a deadly blow as Alev and Lily were launching their attack.

It saved us some precious time, I mean, it recovered a portion of what we had lost for stupid and egoist reasons, and we could partially barricade the tunnel thanks to the hardworking girls’ and just free startled men’s conjoint effort.

Against my expectation and to my greatest regret, Anna didn’t have the time to set up the traps at all, I wished half would be ready, and had hoped for at least a third, but she had her own predicaments, making her, on the contrary, late on schedule.

It is a pity, because it is in them that resided all our chances of an easy and inexpensive victory in energy, if not human life. We wouldn’t be able to use them and we now had to rely solely on our endurance in the incoming battle, furthermore, we had lost all hope to cause chaos with their activation.

Bah, nevermind, some were still usable as it and could be thrown instead, it would not cause as much confusion, but the damage would be the same, if not greater, as long as none of them end up between our lines. Moreover, there will surely be other ways to impact morale, at worst I was the girl to boost our own, and perhaps I may even convince some to distract the enemies.

“Don't mope Anna, that is not your fault, even if we weren't the most rigorous and we wasted time on a certain repressed homosexual that deserved hellish punishment, we are still way ahead on schedule.”

“But that doesn't change my share of responsibilities! If only I hadn’t spent the early morning looking for something that I had lost and that I could’ve searched for yesterday…

You know what, I should still have some time left, I’ll set up the nearest ones. At worst, if they’re already besieging the gallery, I’ll tell them I hid myself and escaped, then join hand with Lucas instead.”

Anna was behaving in a guilty manner and argued with us to let her finish what she hadn't even started.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“No, we need you here, the girls are exhausted after this run, far more than anticipated. Apart from us four, nobody else can put up a proper fight, the men are équaly diminished and even if most are adventurers, they are mostly low rank, they won’t last for long.

Don’t forget that they won’t hesitate to kill the males unlike the women. We have too much need for you, not to mention that Lucas is presumably not yet there. If you’re caught in the act, or if they didn’t believe your lie, you would be done for.”

And that would put our plan at risk. If she was suspect, so Lucas, her order’s giver, would be.

“How am I supposed to be useful? I can fight but I don’t think my presence can be a game changer. ”

“I dunno, help distribute some water and the little stuff we have, and take care of managing the men and women and recording their physical condition for Lily to help recover a little faster those who need it. It may be interesting to put the youngest ones aside, as far as possible from the fights, they have seen enough and I don’t want them to be further traumatized than they already are.

Anyway, I’m not gonna let you put yourself in danger just so you can avoid moping over something so trivial as discussing the ressposabilité over our change of plan.”

Anna seemed taken aback by the seriousness of my response and the number of things I had effortlessly mentioned and in which his help would be welcome

“... you’re right… sorry, my reaction was inappropriate, I shall do as you said. Still, I apologize for the traps and I will be responsible for anything that might happen due to their absence until the end. If there were to be deaths, it would be my fault.”

“Oh! Come one, and what are you going to do if something goes astray? get yourself judged? get yourself stoned?! Who's gonna act as my maid in the future if you’re hurt or in jail ?”

“But I can’t just ignore my faults and responsibility!”

“Nah, I’m saying that as your current master, and as the hero, if anything goes wrong it would be my responsibility, not yours, it would only mean I wasn’t strong enough to overcome the adversity. So don’t take it at heart,do your job, and let me do mine.

Moreover Lily has already become attached to you, she's probably seriously considering whether she should let you in as a full member of the harem or not, and I don't think I can prevent her from tricking me to agree to it, so you just have to selfishly start acting like you were already part of it.”

“You really mean it??? Did she already acknowledge me and think about accepting my request? Is this serious information or are you giving me false hope?

…

Err, I mean, doesn't that bother you? Really? ”

“gushbpgizjgsdl ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!” They actually started negotiations already and without asking my opinion furthermore? and me in all this? Do I at least have the right to a veto? Could I have one per year perhaps? I think I’ll need this much if I don’t want to end up marrying an entire asylum worth mentally ill women!

“Ahem, sorry, I’ll make it again, I meant to say something more like ‘Wha– I… but– how… huh? Um… er… wait– You can’t be… I mean… I didn’t? I suppose?’ but it doesn't bother me, I suppose?’ "

Well… At least Anna was kinda normal, I guess? I could have had worse for a 3rd contender to the title. Someone like this princess for example…

I will have to take precautions and discuss it with her. I can’t let her be manipulated in turn by this scheming princess, if she were to trick me afterwhat, it would be too late by then.

“... So you were just spouting nonsense and hit on the mark… Well, at least I suppose that your words about Lily liking me were true and that I shouldn’t worry too much about it. Sorry I didn't want you to hear it from me, I thought you knew…

Well, too bad, regardless, the rest didn’t concern me anymore, and neither do you since you yourself admitted that you couldn't stop her from tricking you. <3 hehe On that I'll let you explain yourself to her, I have a ton of work to do thanks to you.”

“W–Wait!!!”

“Yes? If you have anything to complain about, Lily said you had to contact your first wife rto take back the harem management rights from her.”

“Ah!??? Pardon me??... no… this is neither the time nor the place, I'll see about it later, I just wanted to ask about the thing you had lost. Did you find it? Was it important? ”

What could possibly be important enough for her to search for the whole morning? A trap? Perhaps a bomb? No she shouldn’t be stupid enough to use one underground. So what could it be…

I admit that curiosity to know is itching me, or rather, the need to forget what I just learned about tooke the upper hand over the seriousness of the situation.

“Mhhh, Yes, kinda, I didn’t find everything I was looking for but I guess, I've found the most important ones. It wasn't essential, but it was still important and it concerned several things that should have been together and might come handy.”

“Then all the better, I won't need to console you in the end, well, it's not like I could have done much, except maybe give you the porn book I found on the way here… Hey, while I'm at it, do you have any knowledge about a book named Stockholm syndrome, or how to make a miss fall in love, I have heard about it on multiple occasions now.”

“Oh? I didn’t think that you had such an interest in books, yes, It turns out that I was the one who found it and published it under an assumed name… Wait, don’t tell me… are you the porn you were referring to…”

“That’s right, I’ve found a fan made hentai based on this very book, and I was curious.”

“I’M GLAD!! Thank you, hero! I thought I had lost him forever! You just took a weight off my shoulders for sure. It wasn’t that important, but it's from a good friend of mine and he sent it for review. It's worth a fortune since it’s unpublished content, moreover I would’ve hated to have to wait for its official release.”

God, I’d like to ask, why after so many chapters, I keep opening my mouth and asking for things which should never be revealed to the world.

THE HECK! I hope, nay, I wish, that the rest is much more important than she makes it seem, or I will regret having unconsciously accepted the fact that she would surely soon become my wife.

Please tell me she wasn't looking for her favorite magazine, her fat material collection or something like that…