Volume 2, Chapter 3 – The Captive Girl

“Chris-san, it’s inside that building.”

The building was about a five-minute run from the count’s mansion.

It looked like a warehouse, with a clearly shady, intimidating giant of a man standing guard.

“Understood. Then, let us proceed.”

We boldly approached the building from the front.

“Huh? The Saint and a Holy Knight? What’re you doin’ here?”

“Saint Fiene-sama has sensed some evil presence within this building. We wish to perform a Purification before any harm comes to the town. Would that be acceptable?”

“Hah? …Ain’t nothin’ like that here. Get lost. We don’t need no Saint’s power.”

Hmm, suspicious. This guy definitely knows something and is hiding it.

“I see. Then we have no choice. We shall force our way through!”

The right hook Chris-san suddenly unleashed struck the man’s jaw perfectly, and he collapsed from the single blow.

“Now, let us proceed.”

“Y-yes…”

——In this country, are Holy Knights not held accountable for assaulting civilians?

And then, Chris-san moved to open the door… no, she kicked it down.

With a loud crash, the door broke and flew into the interior.

That’s right. This person is ridiculously strong against anyone who isn’t a ghost. She did take down nearly 20 bandits by herself before.

“Wha—! Who the hell are you? It’s a raid!”

Eh, ‘raid’? Like yakuza or something? Well, they definitely don’t seem like people doing anything legitimate.

“Hey, get the clients outta here quick. We’ll hold this one off.”

Huh? Did we just stumble into some kind of shady deal?

“You won’t get away!”

Chris-san charged in at a speed too fast for the eye to follow, and in less than a minute, she had knocked out all five of the intimidating men with a one-sided barrage of punches and kicks.

“There it is!”

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Chris-san kicked down another door further inside.

Once again, the door flew off spectacularly, hit the far wall with a loud bang, and fell.

That room had a single staircase.

“Now, let us proceed.”

For some reason, Chris-san seemed unusually cheerful as she practically skipped down the stairs, so I quickly followed.

The bottom of the stairs was a prison.

A straight corridor had iron bars lining both sides, with several rooms partitioned off behind them.

Inside those cells, young women in shabby clothes were chained up.

They all wore the same drained, lifeless expression.

“Hey, hurry up!”

“Ugh…”

Looking toward the voice, I saw a hooded man pulling on a chain extending from the shackles of a similarly hooded, short-statured girl.

“This is a command. Follow me silently.”

“…Yes, Master.”

At the command, the girl replied in a suddenly emotionless voice and obediently began walking behind the man.

“You scoundrel!”

Chris-san closed the distance in an instant, drew her Holy Sword, and severed the chain the man was holding.

“Whoa! Who the hell are you!?”

“My name is Christina. A Holy Knight who serves the Saint.”

Saying that, Chris-san kicked the man squarely in the stomach.

Taking the full force of Chris-san’s kick, the man flew backward and slammed into the far wall.

“You there, are you alright?”

“……”

The girl didn’t react and simply began staggering toward where the man had fallen.

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“You! Wait!”

“……”

“Chris-san, that girl’s condition is strange. Has that man done something to her?”

“!”

Looking toward the man, I saw him scrambling to his feet.

Then he suddenly dashed off to the left and vanished from sight.

“Stop!”

Chris-san ran after him, and I followed.

The direction the man fled led to an upward staircase that connected directly to the outside.

“Fiene-sama, my apologies. I let him get away. That man even had a horse prepared for his escape.”

“It can’t be helped. Let’s go back for now.”

As I turned my gaze back toward the stairs to return, the girl from before came staggering up them.

“Hey, you!”

“……”

The girl still didn’t answer Chris-san’s call. She stepped outside through the doorway and looked around.

Then, with those drained eyes, she looked at Chris-san and asked in an emotionless voice.

“Where is my Master?”

“…Forgive me for a moment.”

Saying that, Chris-san began lifting the hem of the girl’s dress.

What is this person doing all of a sudden!?

“H-hey? Chris-san? We’re outside, you know?”

“As I suspected. Fiene-sama. It seems this is a place for illegal slave trading. Please look at this.”

Saying that, Chris-san showed me the girl’s stomach.

There was some kind of mark inscribed just below her navel.

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“This mark on her stomach is called an Enslavement Curse Mark. It’s a vile dark art that uses a curse to make the victim unable to disobey the commands of their designated master.”

Ah, I see. That’s why her behavior was strange after receiving the command.

“If it’s a curse, then can’t we free her with a Dispel Curse spell?”

——Dispel Curse. Enslavement curse, vanish!

A faint light enveloped the girl’s body, and the Curse Mark on her stomach cleanly disappeared.

“No, this curse is—”

“See? It’s gone. Good thing it didn’t leave a scar behind.”

“Huh?”

Chris-san’s mouth was opening and closing wordlessly.

The girl was doing the same.

Opening and closing her mouth in surprise.

Watching them, I remembered the two goldfish my class kept in elementary school.

Yep. Exactly the same.

“Kyaaaaaah!”

And then, the girl screamed.

“S-sorry!”

Chris-san hurriedly lowered the dress she had lifted up.

The girl slumped to the ground. In the process, the hood she was wearing fell off.

What appeared from beneath it was a truly beautiful girl with green hair, golden eyes, and very long ears.

“Ah.”

“Um, are you… an Elf, perhaps?”

The girl nodded slightly.

“W-well, for now, let’s hand those men over to the guards. And we need to help the other women too.”

“Leave it to me.”

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“And, you, the Elf, could you come with us for a bit? We want to free the others too. Once we’re done, we’ll make sure you can go home.”

“…Yes.”

The girl replied in a faint voice and returned to the dungeon with us.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Are you alright?”

Entering the prison Chris-san had destroyed, I called out to the women.

They looked at us with drained expressions but gave no reply.

“Forgive me for a moment.”

I lifted the rags one of the women was wearing and checked her stomach for the Curse Mark.

“Ah, as I thought, you’ve been placed under an Enslavement Curse. I’ll dispel it now.”

The light of the Dispel Curse magic enveloped the woman, and the Curse Mark vanished.

Then, an expression returned to the woman’s face.

“Th-thank you. Who are you?”

“My name is Fiene Argentata.”

“This Fiene-sama is the Saint.”

“Saint-sama! To think Saint-sama herself would save us…”

Chris-san looked even more pleased with herself than usual at the woman’s joyful voice.

“I’ll go dispel the curses on the others.”

It looked like Chris-san was about to launch into another round of aggressive Fiene praise, so I hurriedly moved on to the next task.

In the end, there were five young women imprisoned in this dungeon.

I dispelled the Curse Marks on all of them and used Cleansing Magic to clean their dirty clothes and bodies.

Perhaps because they were considered valuable merchandise, it seemed no violence had been used against them; the fact that none of the women were seriously injured was the one silver lining in this misfortune.

Having thus freed the women who had been enslaved, we restrained the rough-looking men who appeared to be involved with this base and took them straight to the guard station.