The former captives slowly started to open up and talk about their situation. About half of them were from the village, the others had diverse backgrounds. Some were travellers who were arrested and enslaved with made up charges. Two were adventurers who were invited, drugged and then captured.

Lucy transformed back to her humanoid form. She knew some of the captives and told them her story. It helped put everyone at ease. I still had snacks and drinks on offer making the journey a lot more pleasant.

We had reached the castle rather quickly with our powerful bodies. The return trip was a lot slower. It took over an hour. I would need to extend Shani’s summoning again soon. The elemental seemed to have a lot of fun and showed no sign of wanting to leave.

It was late afternoon when we came back to the village. Emma and Iris greeted us. Interestingly, there were three young women following our maid.

“Attention!” Iris called. I looked curiously at the three women who tried to stand straight. Two seemed to be catkin and the third was a wolfkin.

“My lady, I found some recruits. They agreed to enter your guard and if they show promise they could become maid knights in the future!”

“Good job!” I praised her.

“Introduce yourselves!” She ordered.

First was the catkin with black hair and fur.

“I am Myla, my lady.”

Next came the second catkin. Her hair was white and her fur had black stripes, like a white tiger.

“I am Kade, my lady.”

The wolfkin had white fur and black hair.

“I am Arlie, my lady.”

Interestingly, all of them had yellow eyes. Their clothing was a bit ragged, something we could fix in the next city. Most importantly, they all sounded determined.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Welcome! Iris has a lot of experience, she will teach you well.” I said. “Now introduce yourself to Lucy.” I pointed at my girlfriend who was still conversing with some of the freed captives.

“Yes my lady!” They all replied.

Iris looked pleased, nodded at me and led them towards Lucy. I turned towards Emma.

“We dealt with the baron. I have no idea how the Empire will react. With the civil war it’s hard to say. But you are all still welcome to join us. We are not just looking for soldiers. People can keep their jobs and just work in my county. Also, I have a large storage to help transport goods. And we just liberated some wagons.” I pointed at them.

“You freed the captives, that will convince a lot of them. And Lucy’s presence will help too. I suspect most will accept. How soon would you leave?” Emma asked.

“Maybe in a day or two. We would not want to linger too long.”

Emma nodded and moved on towards the freed prisoners. There would be quite a few happy family reunions soon.

I stood there and watched until Lucy joined me.

“Ready to go home?” I asked her. “I am sure your parents are worried.”

“Yes, let’s go!”

Back at Lucy’s parents home we found that Minerva had been busy. Somehow she had assembled a big outdoor grill made of stone. Preparations for a feast were clearly underway.

“We should have gone hunting. That grill is big enough for a bear.” I said.

“Wait, there is something you don’t have in your amulet? I would have expected you to just pull out a monster corpse.” Lucy teased.

Monster corpse? I had to admit that my storage was vast. I probably forgot about most of the things in there. Did I have a monster corpse from the game? And would that be edible? Hm. Was there a monster one could loot whole and later turn into a dish?

I rummaged through my magical storage until I found something. I retrieved the corpse of a creature similar to a buffalo. It was a bit smaller, had orange fur and black horns.

“That should be edible. The meat is supposed to be spicy.” At least according to the description in the game, if I remembered it correctly. “You know, I totally forgot about that. Good thing you reminded me.” I smiled at her.

She rolled her eyes.

“Big sis is back! Did you punish the mean baron?” We heard Ben shout. Then he ran over to us. He stopped when he saw the flaming buffalo. “What is that?”

“This is dinner!” I announced. “And your sister punished the baron. He won’t hurt anyone anymore.”

Lynn and Alister followed Ben. They were relieved to see us return unharmed.

“I was worried when we saw the castle explode…” Lynn said.

“I told you I would blow it up mom!” Lucy complained.

“And nobody was hurt in the explosion! Because we slaughtered them all before! Muahahah.” Shani added, helpfully.

We all stared at the elemental.

“Sooo… I have a flaming buffalo for dinner!” I tried changing the topic. “It’s perfect for the large grill.”

“Where did you get that?” Ben asked.

“I do carry a lot of things around in my magical storage…”

“Can I have a magical storage too?”

“Once you are a bit older!”

He pouted.

“It’s good that you are back safely.” Alister said. He looked at Ben. “Maybe it’s best if you skip the details of your trip for now.”

“Yes. Let’s focus on the feast!” Lynn agreed. Then she looked at the buffalo. “I will need help preparing that.”