She scoffs, some of her worries visibly leaving her body. “The fact that you can already crack jokes is a great sign. How are they?”
I sigh, “bad. Four in the late stages of pregnancy, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least eight of them are knocked up. Two totally crippled and three basically mentally unavailable, the rest can barely walk.”
She shudders at my report and clutches her hand into fists. I decide to speak up to calm her nerves. “There’s nothing we could’ve done better. For now let’s focus on the present. I will keep them company while I ask you to take the valuables we choose to the hidden spot where I hid the merchant’s stuff before.
I don’t know how the nobles are in Aldoria, but I can see a situation where they claim ownership over this lair and its contents, so we better be safe than sorry. Make sure that you leave the crates with little value to make it believable that we didn’t take anything.”
Despite what her physical appearance might suggest, Ayame is both stronger and faster than me, so this way of dividing the work is actually better for the both of us as she doesn’t have to spend time tending to the miserable women.
She nods, accepting my proposal.
I walk to the entrance of the cave and quickly find a barrel with river water inside. It’s not fresh at all but to my great sorrow I can’t conjure water out of thin air as of yet so this will have to do. I grab the barrel and lift it above my shoulder to carry it more comfortably and then I walk back to the released prisoners.
When I enter the chamber I’m greeted by Elise and two other ladies out of the five women that can actually more or less function as human beings. The two with amputated limbs are completely out of it, while out of the three previously unresponsive ones I can see a woman showing signs of returning consciousness.
I see ‘Pumpkin’ hugging her mother while both of them are wailing uncontrollably and the mother attempting to comfort her child with warm words, which seem to fall on deaf ears. Sensing my arrival she turns towards me and asks, “do you know if Cedric, my husband…?” She leaves her question unfinished, but I don’t need a linguistic degree to get her meaning.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, my lady. He didn’t survive the goblin ambush. I’ve been told that they found him on the road leading to Aldoria next to his pillaged carriage.” I see no issue with revealing this fact, as it is well-known that he was the figurine supplier, so it’s not strange for me to know of his name and fate.
This new information causes Pumpkin’s wailing to reach new heights as she basically becomes a banshee, after which she breaks down completely. Her mother fares only slightly better. I can’t do much for them so instead I focus on Emily, who is also crying after seeing the state of this family.
“Emily, have you checked on their injuries?”
She nods after wiping her tears, and reports to me their initial findings. The results are pretty much what I’d expected.
“I see… I hope that a healer can help all of you recover. For now, drink from this water barrel.”
She and the others do as told and after they are done we help those that can’t function properly enough to fight their thirst on their own.
I glance at the pitiful, unresponsive ones and play with the idea of merciful execution in my head but ultimately decide against it. I don’t know how potent a good healer’s capabilities are. For all I know all ten of these women can rejoin society with no physical or mental scars as early as tomorrow, in which case I would just be a dumb murderer and possibly prosecuted…
Even if healing magic isn’t as potent, which I believe to be the case as the previously described scenario would make no sense whatsoever even for this world, a hostile person can still call me out on unjustly murdering these people. I will just leave it to the authorities. I don’t feel good about prolonging their suffering but a few hours won’t change much in the grand scheme of things.
Emily walks up to me and asks, “did you defeat all those monsters alone? Where are your companions? I hope no hero sacrificed their lives for us broken peasants and merchants…”
What a kind and sincere woman. Hearing her depreciate herself and the others as such makes everything even more tragic.
“One of them went back to Aldoria to call for help, the other is waiting outside… I apologize in her place, ladies, but she spent the last year of her life unjustly captured so I don’t wish for her to see what’s in this chamber… Even if it makes me sound heartless, I can only say that I’m sorry for my rudeness.”
She hurriedly raises both of her hands defensively, “oh no, not at all! I understand completely. No one should be subjected to even seeing this room and our states, let alone right after suffering for such a long time.”
I smile at her appreciatively and we spend the next hour or so chatting in the breeding chamber while trying to tend to the injured. Well, all of them are injured, me included, so it would be more accurate to say that we tend to the critically injured.
After the hour mark passed, I went to check on Ayame and received confirmation that she’d finished her task. She then ensures me that since the ladies have been calmed down, cleaned up and somewhat tended to she can bear their sight without any mental difficulties, so I walk back to the breeding chamber and begin escorting them to the outside world.
Ayame greets them with sincerity in her tone when they come out of the room of horrors. We find a nice patch of grass to sit on, where Ayame and I spend the next few hours chatting with Emily and a few more of the less hysteric/brain-dead ones.