Case 31: First blood.

Case 31: First blood.

Warning: Violent content.

*****

Although I said that I would assist in assassinating slave owners and dealers before, actually doing it is a whole different experience.

I've never killed a human before, for obvious reasons.

A lot of people would hesitate to end another sentient being, and that's totally understandable. But for me right now, it's just a matter of how I will feel when I do it, because I've already decided to help, and my decision will not change.

For me, a lot of problems can be easily solved by answering the question 'Is it worth it?' in my head. Do I want to see my people being enslaved? No. Do I want to prevent my people from being enslaved again? Yes. Do I want to save my people and help them get their revenge? Yes. Do I want to kill? Probably not.

So in the end, it is worth it? Absolutely. I want to free my people more than being able to avoid killing. So just do it.

Right now, the three of us and Isabella, together with the S.D. squad are in the meeting room of the basement underneath the residence.

Isabella is a veteran soldier, she became my nanny after she retired, apparently, she's a very strong mage.

She told us that after going after the trials of the slave dealers, the investigation team figured out that Marquis Eliot was one of the slave owners. This is pretty big, before, they had only rescued slaves owned by Barons and Viscounts, mainly because lower nobles had little means to hide their traces.

But a high noble is different, they're much more cautious with their actions, using numerous proxies to acquire slaves from dealers.

According to Isabella, there's an underground auction house dedicated to slaves in the capital, and almost every dealer sends the slaves inside the auction house to sell them, that's not surprising.

The bad thing is that we can't actually attack the auction house directly, because they keep the identities of the buyers anonymous, as long as they get the money, they'll sell to anybody.

That's why a lot of the big targets are still on the 'suspect' list, we have no concrete evidence yet.

But this time, the investigation team has directly witnessed slaves bought from the auction house enter one of the mansions of Marquis Eliot. It was pretty hard to follow the trails, they said, mainly because the proxy took various routes and changed vehicles several times.

Now, normally we prioritize rescuing elves first, the humans and other races are just the secondary goal, which makes sense. Fortunately, the elf slaves are not quite common, as we don't go outside the kingdom that often.

But anyway, this time the Marquis has bought three elves and a few other beastkin people, and we will rescue them tonight, together with the slaves inside his mansions.

''So, because the Marquis has two mansions, we will divide our force into two groups. One will infiltrate the mansion in which we saw the slaves being bought to, and the other group will be in charge of the Marquis's main mansion to check if there are slaves there or not.'' Isabella says.

''That sounds right, the Marquis is staying in the main mansion, and he has strong bodyguards with him almost all the time. So I'd suggest Her Highness the princess and the two ladies be sent there.'' Adam replies.

''Fair enough.'' I nod.

What he said makes sense, because we are generally stronger than anybody in this room, if we utilize our mana. So we will be the ones dealing with the tough guys if needed.

Immediately, everyone, including us, gets up and starts to follow the man, jumping over the wall.

Running through the hallway openly this time, a lot of workers and a few of the guards patrolling try to stop us, but the members swiftly hit them unconscious.

Before long, we reached the basement door located in a library.

Adam signals us to ready our weapons, and then he opens the door silently, revealing a stair downward that can probably fit 3 people at once.

We walk down stealthily, but also very orderly and fast.

''!!''

The scene before my eyes sent shivers down to my bones.

In a large basement, slaves in terrible condition are kept behind metal bars, a lot of them are beastkin, but there are some humans as well, and... Elves.

In one of the cells, a man is beating a naked female elf with a whip, and standing to his sides are two big men in suits. Outside of the cell are several more guards.

I can instantly feel my blood boiling, I take out both the Vector and the MP7 and aim at the group of people guarding outside one of the cells.

Accompanied by silenced shots, I dump the whole mag on them along with the members of our team, who are also probably very angry right now.

After the mag dump, only 5 or 6 mangled corpses are falling lifelessly down the floor, now drenched in blood. It looks like the two bodyguards inside the cell created a shield to block against our attack, not that we aimed inside the cell anyway.

''WHO!? WHO DARES TO DO THIS!'' The middle-aged man with red hair shouts.

Completely ignoring the man, I pull out my Desert Eagle with super APs loaded in and shot the two bodyguards straight in their heads.

BANG BANG

The bullets crisply break through the barrier, blowing the two heads apart, brain matter and flesh splashing on the middle-aged man's body.

''A-Ah....What...'' The man is stunned by the sight for a second, then he snaps out and starts to wield his mana from the gem on his necklace, condensing it into a pair of knuckles and charging towards us in rage.

''YOUUUU!''

Before he can reach us, Liana and Emy dash forward and cleanly cut off his two arms, leaving him to kneel on the floor.

I walk towards him, using ice magic to freeze his arms stubs, and legs, locking his body in place.

...It's time for the slow and painful execution.