“Move out of the way!”

Aguil hurriedly stormed through the corridor, forcefully shoving aside employees coming from the opposite direction.

A hesitant employee, who had been trailing behind Aguil, stopped and pointed towards the end of the corridor on the right.

“Over there! She’s over there!”

Aguil swiftly changed direction. Sure enough, he saw the back of a woman with long hair, running away at the end of the corridor the employee had pointed to.

“Move! I will catch her!”

Aguil, who had pushed his subordinate aside, chased after the long hair, thudding along. He was already angry, just waiting for someone to snap at. It was the perfect opportunity, as a runaway slave appeared right at that moment.

‘Heck, why is she so fast?!’

The woman seemed to be barely staying ahead, her long hair flying as she ran. Normally, this would have made Aguil suspicious, but he didn’t think too deeply about it.

‘I’ll have to give her more drugs next time.’

Even though she’d been drugged to cloud her mind, the fact that she could still run like that amazed him.

Once again, he turned a corner in the corridor. Now, the woman seemed to have tired out a bit, the distance between them was noticeably shorter.

Aguil yelled in a cocky voice.

“If you stop now, I’ll spare your life!”

The woman, glancing back and seeing Aguil coming, sped up. Aguil interpreted this as fear.

Aguil sped up even more, reaching out towards her long hair.

“Damn wench! If you can’t go far, why even try to run?!”

Intending to make an example for the slaves, Aguil harshly yanked at her hair. At that moment, her scalp peeled away effortlessly.

“Aaaah!”

Seeing the scalp in his hand, Aguil screamed.

That’s when he felt something was off.

If her scalp had been torn, there should have been blood. It was a gruesome thought, but logical. But what was in his hand was dry, without a trace of red.

Aguil belatedly realized what he was holding was a wig.

Slowly, Aguil looked up.

The hair on the woman who had been wearing the wig was exceedingly short, and red.

No, she wasn’t a woman at all. Though he had just thought she was sturdy, a closer look revealed shoulders too broad and a body too large to consider feminine.

The redhaired man, who had been wearing the longhaired wig, turned back to look at him. The turnaround was brief, but to Aguil, it felt strangely elongated.

“Heh heh—surprised, Deputy Chief?”

The corners of the mouth of the new employee, bigger in size than himself, turned up.

Aguil noticed for the first time the hairy, thick legs sticking out from beneath the skirt. The sleeves of the dress seemed like they would burst with just a bit more muscle flexing.

The crossdressing figure of a man larger than himself looked grotesque up close.

Aguil gasped for air as he saw all this up close.

“I told you before, didn’t I? You have a boss who always walks around looking scary.”

“You, you are, you are!”

“That boss is looking for you, Deputy Chief. And he looks even more terrifying than usual.”

Aguil felt it instinctively. That he had to run. But before he could act on it, Bart gripped his face with both hands.

Aguil struggled as he closely observed Bart’s bearded face.

“Save me, save me…!”

Before he could finish his words, Bart headbutted Aguil’s forehead.

Aguil passed out.

The crying girl’s name was Penny, and she was the same age as me.

I tightly held the sobbing Penny’s hands.

“It’s okay, Penny. Let’s leave together.”

“Can I, can I really leave?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll take everyone here with me.”

Only then did Penny stop crying. Penny’s eyes quietly met mine.
“What, what’s your name?”

I almost answered carelessly but closed my mouth. No alias came to mind, so I had no choice but to say my old name.

“I’m Lil.”

“Ah, Lil… hehe. Pretty name.”

After calming down Penny, I counted the number of kidnapped children.

‘One, two, three…, ten, eleven.’

Among them, there were six boys and five girls.

Most of them seemed to be around my age or younger, meaning there were many young kids.

I shivered at the thought that they were kept here to be sold.

‘What should I do?’

Escaping with these children without getting caught would be difficult. And no one immediately came to mind to ask for help.

The only person I could think of was the Silver Snake I had come to find here.

‘Silver Snake has stealth abilities.’

But I hadn’t found Silver Snake yet and didn’t know where it was.

‘There were two other warehouses earlier.’

I planned to look in the cage where Silver Snake had been.

Maybe it was still there, hidden from others’ sight using its stealth.

I looked around. A small window lighting up this dark warehouse caught my eye.

‘That’s the only way out.’

The man from earlier would probably be guarding outside the door, and no other way out of this warehouse occurred to me.

It was a small window, but luckily it was big enough for a child like me to squeeze through.

Boxes piled up next to it seemed to provide a way out the window.