Everything was already over by the time I went through the door. Even though it was very dark, I managed to discern the intruder’s silhouette, struggling to free themselves from Wico. Annoyed by the thief, she calmed them down with one short sentence.
“I’m rank 6.”
The trespasser stiffened and lost any will to resist, letting themselves get caught on the spot. I spoke next.
“Good job, master. Let’s go inside, we don’t want to make a fuss on the streets. Let’s light a candle since it’s so dark.”
Wico nodded and carried her prey as if they were weighing nothing. Once inside, I gave her the candle and she lit it with electric sparks coming out of her hand. It was practical to have someone with lightning affinity in our group.
This allowed us to get a better look at the invader. She was a feline woman smaller than me but taller than Wico, with brown fur all over, triangular ears, and a long tail. Her rank was 1, a sorceress with water affinity. She also looked around, trembling as she realized that Wico hadn’t lied about her rank.
“P-please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry. I apologize.”
“Hurt you? Why would I do something so troublesome? I’m just going to kill you.”
My master was as brutal as ever.
“No! Please don’t kill me! I’m sorry! I’ll do anything!”
Wico smiled and turned toward me.
“What should we do, Tila? Kill her? Or do you want to play with her?”
Selva suddenly looked at me with a frown.
“Come on, master. Even if she did something wrong, I still wouldn’t rape her.”
“…C-can men rape women?”
We all looked at the interrupting feline woman before resuming our discussion.
“If you claim she attempted to kill you, you could make her your slave, you know?”
“What would I even do with a slave stronger than me? Let her assassinate me in my sleep?”
“Well… You decide what we do with her. I don’t care either way.”
I didn’t know why I was given the responsibility when she was the one who caught her but I wasn’t without resources too.
“What do you think, Selva?”
“I’ll leave it to you.”
My hope was quickly extinguished. My two travel companions were useless. I focused on the trespasser once more.
“So, what were you trying to do?”
“T-that’s… Well…”
Wico raised her fist.
“Speak or die.”
“I was trying to steal some of your goods! I didn’t think you’d all be sleeping here! Why aren’t you sleeping in the inn!”
“Calm down. Why did you target us?”
“I, I saw you arriving in the village from afar, and…”
“And you thought we would be easy targets.”
“…Yes.”
“Do you live here?”
“N-no, I live in Alfiro.”
“What was your plan after stealing from us?”
“I just wanted to get a few of your iron ingots, run to Alfiro, and sell them there.”
That made sense. With each iron ingot worth almost one gold in Geola, she could have made a lot of money in Alfiro with that little theft. We might not even have noticed the change. And here I had been wondering if I was doing something useless by being so careful. This proved once more that one should never let their guard down in this world.
While I was lost in thoughts, Wico grew impatient.
“Let’s end this quickly, I want to go back to sleep.”
“Fine.”
I crouched in front of the woman and took her shin in hand.
“Look at me in the eyes.”
She trembled but didn’t dare disobey. I was now progressively getting used to the outer world’s folks and could read them a little bit better, even though it was far from how well I could read humans. I focused on her eyes, which were said to reveal everything about a person, and searched for clues.
My point of comparison was the pickpocket children in the slums. While they were committing a crime, their eyes were still relatively pure. They were doing it to survive and believed they had no other choice. This woman, on the other hand, was a completely different story. Her eyes were dirty and impure, full of schemes and vile thoughts. It was obvious she didn’t need to steal to live but was doing it anyway. My verdict was a no-brainer.
“We’ll take all her current valuables and hand her to the village chief tomorrow morning. They’ll deal with her.”
“N-no way…”
The woman looked shocked but no one cared. We took any money and items she had on her, which wasn’t much, and tied her up so strictly that she couldn’t move a centimeter. After that, we placed her in the carriage and Wico put herself next to her.
“You move, you die. You make any noise, you die. Understood?”
She couldn’t even nod but her eyes told us she had gotten the message. I put myself on Wico’s other side, away from her, and Selva took her usual sleeping spot.
We found her in the same position in the morning, a few hours later, and immediately headed to the village chief’s house to hand her over. The woman looked troubled by the unexpected gift but had no choice but to take care of it after listening to the circumstances. None of us asked what her fate would be and we departed after eating breakfast at the inn.
The weather was clear on our last day of travel toward Alfiro. Since we were now getting closer to a major city, we met other travelers and merchants quite often. The road was also much better maintained here, though still not on the level of Geola’s roads.
Wico and I continued flirting whenever we could, enjoying the thrill of not being noticed by Selva. The incident during the night was soon forgotten, replaced by Wico’s erotic stories or talks about the kingdom, its culture, and even some of its history. As expected of someone who had lived for so long, she knew a ton of interesting trivia, and had even witnessed some of the most recent historical events in person.
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