Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Do not trust prostitutes, please! part

“Now, tell this young man what you told me”

“Yes, madame Bianca”

Kaya bowed politely in front of her and stood besides her.

“I was there that day, when you came to save that young brat. He went to the mayor’s house to turn himself for assaulting you. After confessing the mayor made him go out and he discussed with me what kind of penalty should he give him. Of course I asked him to be severe, as I always do, and he was considering exiling him to the forest. But then, just when he was about to pass sentence, you came and said all about your plan right in front of me, I couldn’t believe my luck. You told Karl all about madame’s Bianca’s plan and how you intended to raid her place once she raised the prices”

Madame Bianca had a smirk the whole time and laughed at the mention of Ryu’s intention to raid her place.

“Now that’s what I call a bold move mister cook, to this day I still cannot figure how exactly did you intend to raid my place. I even considered letting you do your move before taking you, just to satisfy my curiosity”

She sneered exaggeratedly.

.....

“About that, Hiraku’s group...”

Ryu tried to speak, but he was cut short by her.

“Yeah, yeah, that group is now officially dissolved. There’s nothing they can do to save you. Even better, now that the mayor is dead and even his eldest son is dead, I’m the only one who can rule over Ironwoods. Things went better than expected I must say”

“You do love hearing your own voice a lot, don’t you?”

Ryu scoffed and, for the first time, madame Bianca dropped her fake smile.

“How dare you, you insolent brat, I should kill you right where you stand right now”

Ryu flinched after hearing her, but tried to keep his bold attitude. He’s been trying to figure a way out of this situation the whole time, but even Kaya was stronger than him and madame Bianca was surprisingly strong. Now the only thing left for him was to try and talk his way out.

“Please excuse my rude behavior, I’m just frustrated because you beat me at my own game”

He sighed as he took the document and signed it.

“I’ll spare you the punishment this time, only because you act so obedient, but the next time I’ll flail you myself”

“Thank you, madame Bianca”

“Aren’t you a good dog, don’t worry, I’ll treat you well”

She leered at Ryu making him shudder.

“Both of you, follow me now and keep quiet”

Ryu and Kaya followed madame Bianca to the brothel’s main entrance. Before her guards brought Ryu she was informed that a small crowd was starting to gather at the brothel’s doors and she needed to go calm things down. While she was still alone at her office, she found out the perfect way to calm the people and take out her rival at the same time.

When she reached the entrance she noticed that all of her guards, except for those she sent to the tavern,. where busy trying to control the crow that grew in size by the minute. It was late and some of them were holding torches, there was no better stage for the play she was about to perform.

“Everyone silence!”

Shouted the captain of her guards, the one that brought Ryu, but the crowd only went quiet after they saw madame Bianca.

“My dear clients, I know your suffering and it pains me to see you like that. The hunger you feel, all the suffering you’ve endured is not a coincidence but the scheme of some greedy people with no scruples and now I stand before you to reveal the culprits identities”

Ryu was beyond shocked, he thought for a second that she was talking about herself and that she was going to reveal herself in front of everyone. But, of course, she had no such intentions. All she wanted was to keep people calm until spring so her fiance would finally come for her.

“This year has been the hardest so far and we’ve all suffered greatly and just so happens that the Silver goddess tavern, as they call it now, flourished more than ever. As i said before that’s no coincidence, I know this because I ordered my most loyal guard to investigate the matter. Please dear, care to explain what were your findings?”

The captain took a step forward and spoke loudly so everyone could hear him clearly.

“We did our best to investigate the matter and found out that the problem wasn’t that we lacked hunters nor that our population was too great, but that someone was buying everything from the food suppliers as soon as it they got it, before even reaching their counters. Madame Bianca has been struggling to stock her place and that’s why she was forced to raise the prices, so I questioned the merchants. Every single food supplier kept quiet, it didn’t matter if we tried to bribe them or threaten them, they didn’t tell us a thing. So today I kept watch over the Silver goddess tavern and found out that they were hoarding all the food inside their storage”

The captain said in a monotone voice as if he was reading it, when in truth he had memorized it from before but he feared to make a mistake since madame Bianca would punish him.

“That’s a load of bullshit!”

A voice could be heard from amidst the crowd, a redhead girl with shoulder length hair and a very sizeable bosom walked forward.

“Don’t believe a word he’s saying! he...”

Rina tried to explain, but the guards pushed her giving madame Bianca a chance to speak again.

“If that’s not the truth then how do you explain this?”

When madame Bianca said that words, two guards came pushing a handcart with some difficulty over the snowy road. It was filled to the brim with sacks of food.

“That’s not ours! We didn’t even have enough food for ourselves!”

Rina yelled desperately. Everyone at Ironwoods knew her, she didn’t have a kind personality and only had a good attitude with customers that behaved themselves, but no one thought her capable of hoarding food just to get more money.

“Do you deny having food then? Captain, were you able to bring everything?”

“No madame, there were two sacks that we couldn’t fit in the cart”

They blatantly lied in front of everyone making everyone murmur and leaving Rina incapable of speaking, all she could do was cry. It wasn’t sadness but pure anger and despair.

“Now that our dear mayor Karl has passed away, we don’t have someone capable to pass sentence, but mister Ryu has come forward and confessed everything to me, in hopes that the people of ironwoods would forgive them if they became my slaves. It moved my heart that someone innocent who’s only blame was to fall for the charms of a greedy and evil wench, so I agreed to intercede on his behalf”

She took a few seconds to look at the crowd’s outrage, they even surrounded Rina and started insulting her, yet no one dared to harm her since Anne, Helena and Dylan protected her. Madame Bianca took this opportunity and pointed her index finger at Rina.

“This woman hoarded all the food in Ironwoods, despite knowing the harm she was causing to us. She even dared to feign worry and despair for the less fortunate. You all know I did my best to save as many of you as I can, yet my purse and supplies are both limited and I can’t take responsibility for feeding everyone”

She wiped a fake tear from her eyes.

“I don’t ask you to forgive her for what she has done, but if you find it in your heart to let me pass sentence, I’ll enslave her and make sure she atones for her sins... As a compensation, I promise that I’ll let any man to use her freely any time you come to my brothel”

When she spoke that words every single man, young or old, thought the same thing. Even in Ryu’s mind, dirty pictures of a specific kind of punishment started filling his imagination, yet instead of desire all he felt was concern.

Everyone was staring at his girlfriend with a new set of eyes and they drew closer to Rina step by step.

“Don’t you dare come closer!”

Anne screamed, but instead of stopping people in their tracks as she expected, it was as if someone signaled the start of a race. Anne was getting ready to kick the first one who came closer to oblivion, when a petite woman stood next to madame Bianca and tugged on her dress.

“Not now dear”

She said without even looking at her, she was too focused on how the events in front of her were developing. The reason she owned a brothel wasn’t just because she used to be a prostitute, but also because she enjoyed inflicting pain into others.

Madame Bianca licked her lips when she saw the crowd surrounding Rina, when Ayumi couldn’t stand being ignored anymore and signaled Hiraku, who shot a flaming arrow just in front of Rina.