Handing everyone a pair of flimsy masks to cover their mouths, Aura wore one on her own and stood before the girls to explain their plan.
"Keep your hand on your mask. Do not breathe the sleeping poison, because if you do, consider yourself dead, because the moment those goblins wake up again, they're going to be confused and attack everything and everyone." Looking over at her master, she passed the baton for him to speak.
Glancing across the girls' faces and their plump forms, Zephyr knew that he could not afford to lose such fine specimens, not when they had such potential to be much greater if placed under his guidance. Besides, if they lost them to a goblin, Aura would probably kill every living goblin of their world just out of spite for losing potential harem members for her husband.
"The goblins probably have the men separated from the women, but sometimes they keep them together if the men are related to the women. Consider it their sadistic way to torture both parties, but as this is not the case right now, we need to search by their hatchery, that's where they must've kept him."
"Alright then, let's go before the poison wears off!" Charlotte commanded, but before she could take another step, Zephyr held his right hand up to halt her.
"Another thing." Gesturing for her to back off, he stared at her sharply. "I cannot fight them, nor can my slave, so we're not going to try and save everyone. We don't have that kind of time. Ten minutes at most, so for now, forget that anyone else in there is alive, consider them dead. We're just here to help your friend stay alive and not die in the process ourselves."
His words cut the girls deep, and their hands reached for their hearts. Feeling heavy at the thought of leaving countless women to a wretched fate–even though they possibly could've helped them escape–made them put themselves into the shoes of those unfortunate women. Left in some beast's cave and walked by on by a band of potential saviors.
'Gods…That's horrible!' Roxanne thought, and the other two felt pretty much the same.
"Now, we need to get moving. Follow Cecilia, she's studied the habits of these monsters." Snapping out of their heads as Zephyr spoke again, the trio shook their heads and steeled their hearts. And with Aura leading the way with a burning torch, they covered their mouths and followed her just as they'd been asked.
Cecilia led the group with her mouth covered with her hands, even though she was immune to such low-grade poisons. Zephyr did the same to keep up appearances. As the group passed a few different routes that branched inside the dungeon, the others began to feel a little dizzy and had to cover their mouth harder with their hands than before.
"Usually they keep the hatchery as the last room, so we might not have much time to escape," Aura whispered, and her voice echoed in the smoke-filled dungeon.
Following her further and further into the cave, the girls noticed many rooms filled with young human and demi-human men and women. Some were still attached to their goblin aggressors, others were half alive, half dead, with their limbs cut off into stumps. Noticing the girls stopping at the horrific sights, Zephyr stopped for a moment and stood by them.
"They cut off their limbs for meat and also to prevent them from trying to escape. A torso is what they need to procreate anyway, so that to them is about making the most of their situation."
"We should…"
"No," calling out before Roxanne could finish her sentence, Aura reminded. "We do not have time! Now get moving before they wake up!"
Flinching at her words, the trio couldn't bear to look at the victims of the goblins anymore. Slaughtered, defiled, and treated as cattle, to meet such a horrific fate was a thing of nightmares, but in that moment, it lay right in front of their eyes.
Covering their mouths with their hands even harder, both Audrey and Roxanne tried to hold back their tears. Charlotte felt devastated by the sight as well, but having seen worse in her adventuring days, she handled it much better than the others.
"You can't save everyone…" She muttered to herself and continued with the search.
Passing by many more branches of rooms filled with victims and who knows what kind of horrors, the group eventually was led to a small crevice beyond which lay a small wooden door. Crouching by the entrance, Aura peered inside and saw numerous men with gutted bellies as well as a handful with only their limbs tied.
"There it is," getting up again, she turned around. "Someone needs to crawl in and pull him out."
Already struggling to squeeze themself in the crevice, the girls were barely managing to prevent their breasts from crushing their ribs in. And so, looking at each other, they had no clue who could even make it inside, until finally, the only man in the group decided to speak up.
"I'll go, but you guys better be ready to run out as soon as I pull him out." Given the fact that a man's hips and chest weren't as pronounced as a woman's, Zephyr knew that his merchant boy body was their best bet.
"Thank you so much." Said the girls right as he got to his knees and began crawling in through the small door. Once inside, the fiend looked around in the darkness and noticed the hero tied up with thorny vines around his hands and legs. His clothes were already off, and collapsed near his feet was a goblin dressed like a shaman.
Getting closer, he noticed that the beast had a knife in his right hand, and the other was inches from the hero's groin. Putting two and two together, the fiend figured that the goblin was about to castrate the hero right when the smoke had sneaked in.
"Just in time, then." What fun was stealing from a man who could not even be considered one? With that in mind, he was glad to have made it in time. "Time to leave, little hero."
Quickly cutting the thorns that tied him to a root of a tree that was sticking out from the wall, Zephyr let the thorny vines remain on Rudy's limbs so that his body wouldn't move much as he was dragging him outside.
"Get away from the dungeon and run to the entrance already!" Making that announcement, the fiend waited for the rushing footsteps before simply cutting a way through the walls with his sharp nails.
Picking the hero up on his shoulder like a sack, he walked out of the room and made his way towards the entrance. And during that brief way back, he learned everything that there was to know about the hero, and also imparted to him a little curse.
'The Curse of the Cucked', but what exactly that does will only be revealed with time.