Chapter 485: Chapter 485 - Hideout(Part 1)
"Hm...? Hey, what’re you still doing up? Can’t sleep?" Muttered Celes with a yawn, as she sat up groggily, before scooting over and draping herself over my back, peering over my shoulder as she yawned again.
"Yeah, I wasn’t feeling all that sleepy. Sorry if I woke you," I replied with a smile, patting her head softly.
"It’s okay...so, what are you doing, anyway?" She asked me, as she sleepily nuzzled my neck.
"Just looking around with World Map, I was feeling kinda bored."
"M’kay...oh, if you’re bored, wanna have sex?"
"Maybe after you’re fully awake, you still look half-asleep," I responded wryly.
"Sure," She mumbled, before clamping her lips around my earlobe, lightly nibbling on it.
"H-Hey, that kinda tickles."
"Mm."
It’s now been about a year since I reincarnated into this world, and I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to my new life and routine at this point.
Celes and I have continued living in the same cave, and we haven’t had any incidents at all since we fought that Unique Monster.
Things have been pretty uneventful, we’ve continued conquering Dungeons every now and then, but we haven’t encountered any people in ages.
The last time was shortly after we ran out of the booze we got from those bandits, Celes wanted to get more, so we staked out one of the cities, before attacking a wagon carrying a large amount of alcohol and stealing it all for ourselves.
To be fair, the wagon belonged to a corrupt Noble who was known to steal from merchants by threatening them and then selling their wares as his own.
So, the booze was fair game, we only stole what was already stolen, so it cancels out. Double negative is positive, that’s just math.
Anyway, it was several barrels worth of liquor, it’s lasted us quite a while, but we’re now down to about half a barrel left.
We did keep an eye on that city through World Map after we stole the booze, and while the Noble did put a bounty on whoever stole it, since no one had any idea who the culprits were, nothing really came of it.
When we stole the booze, Celes and I knocked out the driver of the wagon and the party of Adventurers serving as bodyguards, none of them saw our faces, they were all out cold before they even knew what was happening.
We’re going to need to restock soon, and it shouldn’t be too tough. Security around that city had been tightened for a while, but it’s been several months now, and things have died down.
"Hm? Hey, look over there," Celes suddenly pointed at my World Map display.
I glanced at the spot she was pointing at, a random area of the forest we were in, with a dim, fiery glow shining out through the trees.
"Huh, that’s new. Let’s take a look," I remarked, zooming in.
"Looks like bandits, from the same group we got our first batch of booze from, The Marauders!"
"Oh? I only see one carriage this time-...no, wait, it looks like a cage. And there are people inside, all woman...looks like they’re transporting slaves this time," I replied with a grimace, as I zoomed in closer.
"They look like Adventurers, based on their outfits, and they’re all asleep. I’m guessing they must have been drugged or something," She nodded, before adding, "What should we do?"
"Let’s follow them. We’ll keep our distance and use World Map to track them, and have them lead us straight to their hideout."
"Yeah, sounds good. I bet they’ve got a ton of stuff stored in their hideout," She responded with a gleam in her eyes.
"I’d be surprised if they didn’t."
"Mhm...hey, turn on the audio, it looks like they’re talking."
"Yeah, alright," I remarked, before turning the audio on.
"...-crazy how easy that was! I guess I’m just that good-looking, they couldn’t resist me!"
"Heh, you lucky bastard. This is a hell of a haul, we’ve got some real beauties. I bet they’ll fetch a high price."
"Man, can’t we have some fun with them before we sell them off?"
"If any of them are virgins, we’ll have to keep our hands off. Virgins sell for a lot higher, after all. Any that aren’t virgins are fair game."
"Yeah, the boss will be pissed if we deflower a virgin."
"Ugh, these guys are gross," Frowned Celes in disgust.
"Yeah, they’re pretty vile. We’ll be doing the world a favor by killing them," I replied in agreement, before adding, "Do you recognize any of those Adventurers, by the way?"
"A couple of them look familiar, these two. They’re both Nobles too, and they’re pretty awful, they were among the many who ridiculed me. And looking at the other four, and how high-quality their gear is, they must be Nobles too. They look pretty young, so I bet they must be rookie Adventurers," She surmised as she took a close look at the unconscious women in the cage.
"I see. Based on what the bandits are saying, that one there must have pretended to be an Adventurer and used his good looks to woo them into forming a party with them," I decided with a grimace.
"Yeah, he probably got them alone somewhere and knocked them out somehow. They’re in for quite the unpleasant surprise when they wake up," She nodded, looking a bit conflicted.
I think I get it, she was treated like crap by the Nobles among the Adventurers, so she probably doesn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for them. At the same time, these women are in for a horrible fate, she’s probably got some mixed feelings about this situation.
"I get how you must feel, but you don’t even know most of these women, right? Of course, we have no obligation to save them or anything, but it feels kinda icky to just leave them at the mercy of the bandits."
"Huh? Did you read my mind or something? And, yeah, I guess you’re right...and the two I recognized, while they did mock me a lot, they didn’t really do anything beyond that. Okay, we won’t go out of our way to save them, but if they end up getting saved as a consequence of us taking down the bandits, then so be it," She replied with a shrug.
"Yeah, that works for me. Alright, let’s head out now, shall we?"
