“Get out of the way!”

Aguil quickly passed through the corridor, threateningly pushing aside the employees coming from the opposite direction.

The employee who had been following Aguil cautiously stopped in his tracks and pointed to the end of the right corridor.

“There! She’s over there!”

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

“Move aside! I’ll catch her!”

Pushing his subordinate aside, Aguil chased after the long hair with thunderous steps. He was already furious and thinking only of catching whatever he could. In the midst of this, a runaway slave had appeared, perfect for venting his anger.

‘Huff, huff! But why is she so fast?!’

The woman fled with her long hair fluttering, seeming just out of reach. In normal circumstances, this might have been suspicious, but Aguil didn’t think deeply about it.

‘Next time, I’ll have to tell them to give more of the drug.’

Even after being given a mind-dulling drug, she was able to run away so energetically.

He turned another corner of the corridor. Now the fleeing woman seemed to have tired, as the distance between them had shortened considerably.

Aguil shouted in an arrogant voice.

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

The woman glanced back briefly, confirming Aguil was following, and picked up speed. Aguil took this as a sign of fear.

Aguil’s speed increased, and he reached out towards the long hair.

“You damn wench! How dare you try to escape when you can’t even go far?!”

He thought he should make an example of her to the other slaves. With that in mind, he grabbed her hair forcefully. It was then that the woman’s scalp came off effortlessly.

“Aaargh!”

Aguil screamed as he saw the scalp in his hand.

It was then that he felt something was off.

If the scalp had come off, there should be blood. It was a horrifying thought, but a logical sequence. Yet what he held in his hand was completely dry, without a single red mark.

Aguil realized a bit late that what he held in his hand was a long-haired wig.

Aguil slowly raised his head.

The woman’s hair, now without the wig, was very short and red.

No, now that he looked closely, it wasn’t even a woman. He had thought the body was just sturdy, but up close, the shoulders were broad and the build was larger than his own, impossible to mistake for a woman’s physique.

The red-haired man who had been wearing the long-haired wig turned around. The process of turning around was brief. But to Aguil, it felt strangely long.

“Hehe- Surprised, Deputy Chief?”

The corners of the new recruit’s mouth turned up widely as he turned around. It was that new recruit who had been larger than himself.

Now that he looked closely, he noticed thick, hairy legs under the skirt. The sleeves of the dress were so tight they seemed ready to burst at the slightest flex.

The sight of a man larger than himself in women’s clothing was even grotesque.

Aguil panted as he observed all this up close.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? That there was a superior who always wore a scary expression.”

“You, you, you!”

“He’s looking for you, Deputy Chief. With an even scarier expression than usual.”

Aguil instinctively felt it. That he needed to run away. Before he could act on it, Bart grabbed his face tightly with both hands.

Aguil struggled as he saw the bearded face up close.

“Help, help…!”

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

Aguil fainted.

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

I held Penny’s trembling hands tightly.

“It’s okay, Penny. Let’s get out of here together.”

“Can, can I really leave? Can I really get out of here?”

“Yes, of course. We’ll take everyone here with us.”

Only then did Penny stop crying. Her eyes fixed on me quietly.

“So, what’s your name?”

I was about to answer reflexively but closed my mouth. But no alias came to mind, so I had no choice but to use my old name.

“I’m Ril.”

“Oh, Ril… hehe. That’s a pretty name.”

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

‘One, two, three…, ten, eleven.’

Among them, there were six boys and five girls.

Most of them looked to be my age or younger. That meant there were many young children.

It made my blood boil to think they had been locked up in this warehouse to be sold.

‘What should I do?’

It was impossible for me to help these children escape undetected on my own. But I couldn’t think of anyone to ask for help.

The only one that came to mind was the silver snake I had come here to find.

‘The silver snake has invisibility abilities, so…’

But I hadn’t found the silver snake yet and didn’t know where it was.

‘There were two more warehouses earlier.’

I planned to check the cage where the silver snake had been first.

Maybe it was still there, invisible to others due to its concealment ability.

I looked around. I saw a small window lighting up this dark warehouse.

‘That’s the only way.’

The man from earlier would be guarding the door outside, and I couldn’t think of any other way out of this warehouse besides the door or window.

It was small, but fortunately just big enough for a child like me to barely squeeze through.

Conveniently, there were several empty boxes stacked next to it, which could be climbed to reach the window.

I climbed onto one of the boxes below the window. Penny urgently grabbed the hem of my clothes.

“You’re, you’re not going to leave alone, are you?”

“No, Penny. I told you, didn’t I? We’ll leave together. But for that to happen, I need to go out for a bit…”

“No! I want to go too. I, I want to leave too!”

When Penny shouted, the other children gathered around the boxes.

“Me too, I want to go too! I don’t want to stay here anymore!”

“Why are you trying to go alone, why!”

The surroundings became noisy. I came down from the box in a hurry, flustered.

“Everyone, be quiet…!”

I felt anxious. Outside, they probably hadn’t noticed yet that a child like me could escape through that window.

That’s why they left the boxes stacked like this under the window.

‘We can’t arouse suspicion…!’

But if they found out I was planning to go out the window, they would remove the boxes, and in the worst case, they might tie up all our hands and feet.

“Someone else might come, so everyone shush.”

“Then why are you going alone? I want to go too!”

“But not now. If we all go out now, we’ll get caught right away…”

“Don’t lie! Some older boy said that too earlier.”

‘Older boy?’

One child shouted in a voice full of distrust. I looked at the boxes stacked high under the window.

Now that I looked closely, the boxes were stacked just high enough to reach the window, too perfectly to be a coincidence.

‘Someone escaped before us.’

I didn’t think badly of the child who escaped alone. In a situation like this, it would have been hard enough just to save one’s own life.

Of course, they couldn’t have taken such young children with them to survive.

‘It’s not an atmosphere where they’ll easily trust.’

Perhaps because they felt betrayed once, the children were now blocking the boxes with both hands.

Chicken-pea-sized tears fell from their eyes as they looked at me. They couldn’t cry out loud for fear that someone might barge in, as I had warned earlier.

‘What should I do?’

I bit my lip. If I stayed here too, the outcome was set. We would all be sold at auction.

But even if I took the children out through the window as they wanted, it was still a problem.

‘There are too many, we’ll get caught right away.’

I couldn’t think of any solution. Just then, a shadow was cast through the window. All the children’s eyes turned there at once.

“Big brother!”

“It’s big brother!”

“Shh.”

A boy squeezed through the window. Ignoring the stacked boxes, he landed directly on the bare floor.

Seeing this, I couldn’t help but be surprised.

‘Did he just jump down from that window?’

It was a window at an impossibly high height.

‘He doesn’t seem to have magic either…’

My curiosity about the boy had to be put aside for a moment.

Because behind the boy, I discovered a cage I hadn’t noticed before.

“Big brother!”

As soon as the boy landed on the floor, the children rushed towards him.

He seemed to be the oldest among the children in the warehouse.

He was a bit shorter than Clemens. Probably about 7 years old.

His eyes were a deep golden color, in contrast to his dull brown hair.

The boy wiped the eyes of each crying child and said,

“I told you to wait, why are you crying? …Don’t worry. I’ll make sure we get out.”

As he comforted each child one by one, the boy raised his head. Our eyes met as I stared at him.

“Who’s that?”

“She came in earlier, her name is Ril.”

It was Penny who answered for me, having stopped crying as soon as she saw the boy. The boy got up and walked towards me.

“She came in here?”

“Yes, the scary man in front let her in earlier.”

As Penny explained, the boy’s eyes narrowed as he examined me.

“You…”

Just as the boy opened his mouth, I approached the cage I had noticed belatedly.

The empty cage was tightly locked with a padlock.

Of course, there was no need to lock an empty cage. It was clear that something had been confined inside.

However, even up close, nothing was visible inside. It was natural for others to think that the snake inside had escaped.

I stared intently into it. A faint silver light seemed to shimmer, barely visible.

‘It’s the silver snake.’

I let out a sigh of relief without realizing it. I reached my hand towards the cage.

But before my hand could touch the cage, it was yanked back.

“Ah!”

“You, come with me.”

It was the brown-haired boy who had brought the cage who grabbed my hand.

The boy separated me from the children. He dragged me to a corner of the warehouse.

“Let, let go!”

“Who are you?”

The boy asked in a small, low voice.

His attitude towards me was markedly different from how he spoke to the other children.

His eyes looking down at me were full of suspicion. It was an attitude full of hostility to anyone who saw it.

“How did you get in here?”

The boy examined the hoodie I was wearing. What I was wearing was a dark navy hoodie that didn’t stand out.

It was because of this clothes that the other employee earlier had mistaken me for a runaway slave. From the outside, it looked like a ready-made garment that could be commonly bought.

However, this clothes only appeared that way, but in reality, it was a very expensive garment personally made by Madame Basil of the shop that had made my dress last time.

“How did a child like you get in here?”

Just by looking at the hoodie, the boy immediately realized. What my identity was.

Soon he spoke coldly.

“You’re not the type of child who would be captured and brought here.”