yemalu

"Quickly! Freeze the water before she escapes! Mermaids would definitely sell for a lot here!!"

Well… If the drawing of weapons was not proof enough that they were up to no good, those words definitely confirmed it.

Delmare must have come to the same conclusion as well since she started singing without any warning right after that.

Taking a moment to listen to the song, I realised that it was supposed to be a love ballad about the two of us. She was basically professing her love for me and the promises of a love filled life we would have together.

The moment her melody reached the slavers, they quickly stopped whatever they were doing to stare at her. Even the ones that were running to her had slowed down to a stop to listen to her song.

Even I got lost in her song for a while before coming back to my senses.

No, the reason why I got distracted had nothing to do with her magic, her singing was just that good.

Like look at her! She had her eyes closed and was fully concentrating on her song, her hands clasped in front of her chest while her tail would dip in and out of the water from time to time. Her poise was firm and regal, as though she was a top class vocalist performing at a grand theatre.

How could anyone not have their breath taken away by such a sight?

After I came back to my senses, I went around to start subduing the slavers who were stuck in their trance of listening to Delmare\'s song.

Leaving the slaves alone, I made use of my [Shadow Glide] to move through the crowd of slavers quickly and knocked them out one after the other. I wasn\'t gentle with them since they were intent on hurting Delmare, so I didn\'t feel bad even if some of them fell face first onto the ground.

Soon enough, all the slavers were knocked out and properly tied up using one of their own ropes, leaving me free to enjoy the rest of Delmare\'s song in peace.

Her song reached its conclusion as she sang about the two of us swimming off to the horizon towards the rising sun, her voice fading away as it ended.

She breathed out before opening her eyes, only to see me seated in front of her and clapping enthusiastically.

The serious look she had quickly broke apart as she blushed and covered her face with her hands, "Tha… Thank you, Aster… I--"

She was interrupted by the cacophony of screams coming from the slaves.

"Ahhhh!! I must have her!!"

"Let me get to heeeerrr!!"

"The goddess is calling to me!! I must get to heeeerrr!!"

"Uooooo!! Seeeeggggsss!!"

Ah… I honestly forgot that the slaves would be affected by her singing as well… At least I didn\'t free them first so they weren\'t able to do anything except scream from where they were at the moment.

Ummm… This is clearly a spell that affects their mental functions so maybe a quick zap with an Electomancy spell might fix them up?

I went towards them and singled one of the stronger looking ones and used a quick [Static Shock] on them.

The Nekomata I zapped jumped and seemed to be a little confused about what was going on until he recovered.

"E… Eh? What was I? What? Who are you?! What… What did you do to my friends?!"

Oh~ Looks like it works, then I guess I just have to spam the spell and return the others to their senses.

I then repeated the spell and helped the other captured people come back to their senses, all of them a little disoriented but otherwise unharmed.

"Aster… Umm… Wouldn\'t hitting them on the head have been enough to wake them up?" Delmare asked after I was just feeling proud of my work.

Eh? Really? Oh… I think I vaguely remember that being a solution too… Whoops.

Oh well, at least it still works right?

I then went ahead to pick up Delmare in my arms and carried her over to the captured people, giving them enough time to recover their bearings.

"Hello everyone! Are you all awake yet?" I greeted them cheerfully.

One of them strained against her bindings to turn towards me, "Who are you?! Are you the bastard that is going to buy us?!"

Ah, it\'s that Aoi girl that I used to check the stats of in my attempt to figure out if these guys were bandits or not.

Since the others were keeping quiet and letting her speak, I assume she might be their de facto leader here or something?

I stepped to the side to reveal the slavers who were all tied up and unconscious, "If I was planning to buy you all, do you think I would have knocked these guys out?"

There were a few murmurs amongst them but the Inugami girl who spoke against me continued, "Ha! You think we\'re naive or something? Obviously you just double crossed them to avoid paying for us! You Mahun nobles are all the same!"

I tilted my head at her, "Ummm… I\'m not a Mahun though?"

To show that I was telling the truth, I revealed my wings and tail for them to see.

Although it\'s also a fact that I\'m part of the nobles in a Mahun Kingdom but I don\'t think that fact would help my case here…

The girl quickly changed her attitude, "Ah… I… I\'m sorry. Then… You saved us?"

"Before I answer that question… I need to know why you were all captured in the first place?"

The girl lowered her head, "We were taken of course… From our village by those slavers…"

I frowned, "Eh? The slavers can just go into villages and capture people to take them as slaves?"

My question made everyone look at me weirdly, like I just asked them if the sky was blue or something.

"You\'re a Meslatar too… Have you been living under a rock all this while?" She asked me.

I puffed my cheeks at her, "If you want me to leave you here with the slavers all you need to do is ask, you know? Had the slavers not attacked us first, I would have just left all of you here on the assumption that you were all bandits that were captured to be sold as criminal slaves."

"Ah… Umm… I\'m sorry, please don\'t leave us… Umm… Did you really take out all those slavers by yourself?"

I suppose they were so distracted by Delmare\'s song that they didn\'t notice me.

I nodded at Delmare who was still in my arms, "I had help of course, Now you might want to explain your circumstances quickly before I conclude that you\'re all really bandits."

"We are not bandits! These slavers came to our village and took us from our homes to be sold to the sick and twisted nobles of Lehcarouc Kingdom! We did nothing wrong!"

"Hmm… But why? I thought that slavers don\'t do that since the two kingdoms are at peace?"

"Proper slavers wouldn\'t do it perhaps… But these guys aren\'t the proper ones… They are akin to bandits themselves! They raid villages across the border to take us away from our homes to be sold to the nobles!"

I took a look at them, only just realising that not all of them were young and there were some people in the group that were clearly in their middle ages.

I cleared my throat, "Umm… No offence… But why would the nobles buy you? Wouldn\'t they prefer to have trained slaves or even more skilled slaves instead?" I asked.

"It seems like you really don\'t know about this… We won\'t be used as regular slaves but more of entertainment for those nobles…"

"What kind of entertainment?"

She shuddered, "The kind where they see how long it would take for them to break you through torture or even how long you can survive in a small arena with some monster that they managed to catch…"

Ah… So it\'s that kind of deal… I guess that explains why these slavers are hiding in a cavern like this instead of above ground… I guess they also only move during the night where it\'s dark and harder to be spotted and sleep in the morning to avoid anyone from catching them too.

I then nodded at their ropes, "Just to check… If I were to free all of you right now, you\'re not going to attack us right?"

The Aoi girl narrowed her eyes at me, "What do you want in return?"

"Eh? In return? Err… Why do you assume I want something in return?"

"Not to sound ungrateful but… Normally people don\'t go around freeing slaves without expecting a reward of some kind. So what do you want?"

Err… I could name one Off-Worlder who sort of did that, though I guess the return he got was forming a bandit group so let\'s not mention that.

I gestured to them, "I don\'t mean to point this out but… I don\'t think there\'s anything you can offer me in return for freeing you, can you?"

Unexpectedly, the girl blushed and the others started whispering amongst themselves.

I was about to ask what they were discussing about when the girl suddenly looked me in the eye with a determined look.

"Fine! Free us! In return… I\'ll… I\'ll be your slave!"

Eh?