Mr. Nobu’s Otherworld Chronicles

Now that I"m done with the seizure, let"s free all the captured people in the bas.e.m.e.nt.
Having come into the bas.e.m.e.nt, there"s barely any light, and the air kinda feels stagnated.
Light, Light, Liiiiiiiiiight!
As well as a light Wind Storm to replace the air!
I could hear confused voices of people, like "W-what!?", "Hiiii" in the jail that"s probably ahead. Ah, sorry "bout that.

A pair who seems to be a married couple, two general human women, and a parent and a child elves are held inside jail.

"I"m sorry if I surprised you. I"m not an enemy so please calm down. Could you tell me how you all ended up getting imprisoned here in turns?"

"W-we were held here because of our debts. But, I had paid it back. But then, the amount suddenly swelled up dozens of times higher because of interests... And then they dragged us here in the end."

"I was looking for work  away from home at Gramada. The job office offered me a place of work that seemed nice but then they carried me off when I got there..."

"Me was in similar circ.u.mstances myself. A trader-san who came by my village introduced me to this place for work, I was afraid I"d get sold off one of these days."

"...."

The parent and child elves keep their mouth shut. Well, guess it"s understandable. You shouldn"t take what someone said out of nowhere at face value.

"I"ll take you back to Gramada if you"re going back there. Would you like to come with me?"

After I said that, they were yelling in happiness, "Ooh finally, finally", or, "We"re saved now". Yet, the elves duo are still keeping silent. For now, I should get the four to the room where the girls are resting and then talk to these two elves.

"Okay then, everyone, please get away from the iron bars. I"ll break it with my magic."

I broke down the bars with pinpoint Flare Bombs one by one.

"I"m sorry, but please wait until I"ve recovered my mana. The people resting above are my friends, you can wait there with them."

After taking the four

there, I went back to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Thank you for waiting. I"d like to hear your wish, either going back to your hometown or something else, so it"d really help if you could talk, no?"

"...The looks in your eyes haven"t changed even though we"re elves."

They finally talked.

"No no, they did for sure. Though I"ve met a Half-elf before, this is my first meeting real elves, I"m pretty nervous here you see."

"*Giggle*, I"ve never seen someone this frank either. I understand, we will believe you. Either way, we don"t have any way to go back home without relying on your kindness."

The elf mother is called Dilitt, while the daughter is Tino. Apparently, a few years ago they were ousted from their village deep in a forest due to a certain reason. While they were just getting by living a simple life outside the forest, they were attacked and kidnapped by those guys. Normally, you"d think outward appearance doesn"t represent an elf"s actual age, but that"s not the case for the daughter. Tino-chan is truly as young as she looks at 10. Dilitt-san being 120 year old surprised me though!

Both of them are beautiful. Elf ears, blond hair, jade-like deep green eyes that feel like sucking me in. She"s quite well endowed too, you wouldn"t have thought she"s given a birth. It"s just, ah yep, let"s just say that a certain part is very similar to Eleanor-san"s. And just like her mother, Tino-chan is very lovely too.

"What would you like to do. I"ve heard that elves hate hustle bustle, but how about going to Gramada for now? I know a fair share of trustworthy people I could introduce you to work at. Ah, and don"t worry, none of them runs shady places."

"Yes please, we"ll be in your care. I will definitely repay your kindness."

"Haha, don"t worry about it. I was here mainly to save my important person myself, it was by chance I saved you guys."

"Thank you" "Onii-chan, thank you~"

OH, as expected of elves. Their smiling faces have quite the destructive force. Now then, let"s get away from here.

In the end, everyone ended up heading to Gramada. Fortunately, there"s

there"s a carriage here, so we"ll be using it until the cave. We"ll be staying there tonight. Gotta raise their spirits even a bit with a warm meal. The enslaved people also had similar circ.u.mstances when I asked them about it. Nothing I can do if they lied though. Apparently Mitama and Futsuno-san know someone who runs slave trading company, I"ll ask them how to free these people once we get back.

At the dead of night. I quietly slipped out and went back to the hill mansion.

Right after we arrived at the cave, I immediately prepared our meal. Everyone"s wariness had slightly waned while they were sitting around the hot pot. Especially the people who had been confined underground, they seemed really happy to finally have a warm meal after a long time. Afterward, everyone went to bed with blanket and stuff procured from the mansion. I"ve put up a wall at the entrance of the cave, so they can rest easy without a lookout.

And now here I am standing after slipping out when everyone was fast asleep.

"Well then, time for the final clean up. 『Earth Excavation (Dig)』!"

A hole opened diagonally. While reinforcing that hole with 『Earth Wall Reinforcement >』 I continue to push deeper underground.

"『Earth Excavation >』, 『Earth Wall Reinforcement >』, Dig Dag, Dig Dag, Digdag..."

I"m focusing everything into burrowing through the mansion"s ground. Since I"ve gotten used to it, my digging pace has increased as well.
Before long, a huge hole the size of the mansion has opened below the ground. I"ve also installed dozens of 『>』 on the huge hole"s ceiling.
Preparation complete.

And also, gotta take care of that one too.

The next morning, everyone were forced awake by some kind of tremor.
Having no idea what it was about, everyone was panicking but I appeased them and urged to continue our journey. It must have been a quake or something. Let"s hasten our departure just to be safe.

By the way, the idiotic brat seemed to

seemed to have died, as the slave crests on the five slaves including Kurei-san have turned gray. Since no one here is detailed about slaves, we"re leaving it alone as it does no harm anyway. Kurei-san herself earnestly apologized to Futsuno-san and Mitam to the point of spilling blood from her forehead. The two told Kurei not to mind it since she was a victim herself, but since she seems to have a strong sense of responsibility, it"s weighting her mind very much. Hope she doesn"t torment herself over it.

With Kurei-san as a coachman, the carriage is running towards Gramada. Apparently, the figure of me pulling the carriage looked silly after all. Tino-chan and Futsuno-san laughed their head off. Are they fine after laughing that much I wonder. I"ve told Futsuno-san and the others that I would tell them in details after we got back to Gramada. I didn"t want to talk about it on the carriage with other people around.

It took two days to arrive at Gramada since the carriage was pulled by horses. Considering the situation we were in, lining up here could turn out bad, so I went to the guard station to ask about it.

"Excuse me, could I have a bit of your time?"

"Yes yes, please wait a mo... Oh, is that you n.o.busadkun."

Oh? He"s Master"s subordinate! Glad there"s someone who can be reasoned with. Err, the name was...

"...That"s right, it"s Yukito-san!"

"So you forgot my name..."

Yukito-san muttered while looking a bit dejected.
Sorry, it was completely blank. I called you the Suffering Subordinate in my head.

"So you see, a friend of mine was kidnapped so I went out to save them, and apparently it was by a bandit gang."

"You just casually brushed that off, wait, bandit gang!? Wh-where is it!? How many of them!?"

"P-please calm yourself. We were able to escape with the help of my companions and the captured people. After our escape, the mansion we were in collapsed somehow. My guess is that the people inside are probably beyond help. Among the people who were captured, there were some who were abducted and forced into slavery, so I"d like to tell the situation to someone trustworthy ifsomeone trustworthy if possible."

"And so you came here..."

"Quite, I figured Master"s subordinate would be trustworthy, so I came to talk about it. Apparently, that bandit gang had various connections, thus I had to pick whom I"m telling this to."

Yukito-san is lost in thought with a doubtful look. I guess so, anyone would wonder if they could believe someone who brought this kind of story out of nowhere.

"I"d have to check with Captain Matuda just in case. Well, that person would probably just spout, 『Don"t worry about trivial stuff』. So then, could you take me to the people who were captured? I"ll send a messenger to call Captain here."

"If you"d please. They"re waiting on the carriage over there."

Yukito-san smoothly handled all the procedures. He did question everyone but only as a formality and quickly released them. The guards will take care of everyone who was captured except the elven mother and child. I would like nothing more since I could not possibly care for all of them.

I contemplated hard what to do about Dilitt-san and Tino-chan, but it"s for them to ultimately decide. Since she apparently can prescribe medical herbs and stuff, I wouldn"t mind them helping out the store too.

Unless there is a will, apparently when an owner died, the right to their slaves would be transferred over to the one who, excuse the wording, picked them up. In other words, me. I"m allowed to go back home for today, and to come back tomorrow to proceed with the procedure to free them. I"ve left some funds there, it should be enough to cover their daily expenses.

Afterwards, the guards launched an investigation on the matter.
They stopped by Pezun village once, and mysteriously the innkeeper there confessed himself that he had been a.s.sisting the bandit to trap adventurers and innocent people alike. Following his confession, the guards went to the mansion on the hill, but what left there was only a huge pitfall buried under rubbles and soil. The investigators could do nothing about it, thus they only took the innkeeper with them. Due to the many crimes the innkeeper had committed, he was to perform forced labor at the mine.
Man, that"s some real scary stuff.