Half an hour had gone by with Charlotte knocking on the market's door. Yet nobody would open, and not a peep was heard from the other side. Frustrated, the leopard woman told the other girls to stand a few steps away from her. Then, taking out one of her many elemental swords, she gripped it tight with both hands, and an aura of cold quickly surrounded it.
The passerby stared at her, but nobody dared to say a word or even stop to watch. They knew better than to meddle in the business of the Greenhorns, and so, simply watching from a distance, they awaited the strike from the sword.
"AGHHH!" Right as she was about to swing it, the door's window opened. "About fucking time you opened that shit!"
Holding back from striking the door out of its frame, Charlotte sheathed her blade and looked right into the woman's eyes.
"What do you want, Charlotte?" The woman complained, her voice carrying a hint of anger.
"My nephew was here, wasn't he? I just want to get him out of that place," Charlotte replied, leaning towards the door's window.
"Yeah, and I should allow you in just because you lost your little lamb?" Narrowing her vision, the woman hissed at the leopard woman. Her fine snake-like tongue slithered out as a warning, but as Charlotte reached for her blade again, the woman quickly withdrew her tongue. "Whatever, and who are they? Those two behind you."
Setting the blade into its sheath, Charlotte turned her head and gestured for the two to come closer.
"That's Audrey, Freya's step-daughter, and this one's Roxanne, she's friends with Rudy." As she looked back at the woman behind the door, her sharp eyes were glaring at the two. "Just open the door now."
"Whatever," looking up at Charlotte again, she closed the window and opened the door instead. "Go on, sister, you might need to hurry downstairs before he gets himself in trouble."
"Sister?" Audrey mumbled, shifting her gaze to Charlotte's back.
Heaving a sigh, the leopard woman scrunched her nose while staring at the lizard woman in front. As for the reptilian herself, she simply put on a smile and explained to Audrey something that she was better off not knowing, ever.
"You didn't know, did you? Charlotte, Freya, and I–amongst many other demi-humans in this town, share the failed duke's blood. Bastard children, they call us sometimes, but I can't even be mad since they're right."
"What failed duke?"
"Oh gosh! You don't know anything, ahaha~! Now that's quite the treat," clapping her hands, the woman hissed and smiled at Charlotte. "Trying to hide the family heritage, are we? A bunch of loose-kneed men slinging their dicks wherever they can."
"Shut up before I force one of my blades down your throat," Charlotte retorted, but in response, the woman simply opened her mouth wide to reveal a stretch unlike any human.
"I'm a lizard demi-human, you dunce, I can swallow your blades and shit them out by supper."
"Aunty…what's going on?" Beyond confused by their interaction, Audrey gulped heavily. "Can we just go and get Rudy. I don't really want to talk or hear about all this right now."
"Yeah," pushing her half sister to a corner, Charlotte started leading the group downstairs. "Just stay behind me and don't wander."
"Bye-bye, big sister~ I hope you find him before he accidentally knocks up one of his aunts down there!" Laughing in the background, the lizard demi-human, Hissy, closed the door to the market.
As soon as the door was shut, the staircase was taken over by darkness. Conjuring light through her staff, Roxanne helped the group safely make their way downstairs. And much like Rudeia, their first impression of the underground market left them with a streak of blush and overstimulation from all the chatter and chantings.
Unfortunately for them, however, right around this time, Rudy was being led by a beastman down a dark path. Walking through many curtains and snarling sounds along with cries, the hero was being led by the beastman to the only place he could get someone innocent to have his first time. The working gals of the market would've sucked him dry of everything he had, and not in a way that he would've liked.
"Here we are," running a golden baton along the bars of the many cages lined one after the other, the beastman turned to address Rudy directly yet again. "Slaves of all kinds, and most importantly, fine virgin women. Don't trust me? Just touch that seal on that lock."
Despite being unable to see most of the inhabitants of the cage, Rudy could faintly make out a glowing silver seal on one of the locks. Reaching out to it, he pressed his thumb against it, and in a moment's time, he saw a person's life flash by. Coming to his senses a second later, he peered into the cage, and as the salesman lit a crude lantern hanging from the cage, the face of the poor woman became visible.
Sobbing in a corner in torn clothes and a bundle of messy hair was a fine-looking woman with cuts and bruises everywhere. And from what Rudy had seen, she once had a fiancé, a fiancé who used to be a drunk, and in his drunkenness, he'd gambled everything away, even her.
"Wh-why would you show me all that?" He asked the beastman.
However, looking at him as if he were insane, the man responded with a nonchalant demeanor.
"What? You're gonna trust me on my word that she's a virgin? I showed you her life story so you could confirm every step that she has taken. Did you see her doing it with another guy? No? Then there's your reason because nobody would trust me otherwise." Knocking on Rudy's skull, the beastman smirked. "You need to start thinking, little guy. Anyway, do you fancy her or not? I can give you a good deal if you take her away right now."
Taking a step away from the man with his face contorted with a mix of emotions, Rudy could feel his chest tighten.
"And people buy them even after seeing what they've been through?"
"Of course, what else would you do with them?"
"T-that's monstrous!"
Scoffing at the youngster's wild words, the beastman rolled his eyes and took a step closer to him. Planting a finger against his chest, he scrunched his long nose and whispered.
"The moment you set foot in here, you little rat," poking his finger against Rudy's chest, the man held the urge to slap him. "The moment you got in here, you had a plan, did you not? Whatever it may have been, did you think it would be fulfilled without exploiting someone? That woman at the door, she's not there to judge people by their appearance, little boy. She's there to protect them from the knowledge that everything that they have comes from someone else's sacrifice. Now…"
Pushing him away, the man asked one last thing.
"Would you buy her or should I wait for some other monster to come here and take her with them?"
Being called a monster was one thing, but to see that crying woman coming up to the cage's bar and looking at him was something else entirely. From the way their conversation had gone, she'd grown some faint hope in her heart to be set free, and with that glimmer held in her eyes, she reached out of her cage and begged him.
"Please, buy me…"
"I…" But of course, having neither the courage nor the gold, the hero in the end had to leave.