The Slave Girl Pt.II

'Ulva?'

She responded with a nod.

'Ok, Ulva. I'm going to have to ask you some questions. Can you answer me?'

Once again, she slowly nodded.

'Ok, good. First of all, do you know where you are?'

She shook her head

'Ok, don't freak out, but you're in Larm right now.'

The girl slowly looked around the cave, then she let out a sigh. It was like she was relieved. Honestly I expected her to be filled with a sense of dread or something close. Wait… Was she happy that she was in Larm? Didn't she realize that this was a no-human zone?

'Wait, you're not scared?'

She didn't respond.

'You do realize that this is Larm, right? You know, the forest with dangerous monsters that could chop of your head in one bite or rip out your guts, poison you, shred you to pieces and- Ou!'

"Not helping!"

The spider king rammed into me and I fell. When I looked at the girl she was a bit shaken. Probably by what I said.

'Hehe, my bad. Sorry about that.'

"Moving on, why are you here, little girl?"

The spider king asked in my place with [Telepathy].

"I- I was running away."

"Running away? From what?"

"S-slave traders."

Slave Traders!? So they exist in this world? I thought they wouldn't since Gorm said humans and demi-humans lived peacefully. Then again, it's not like he himself had really visited human cities, huh? But, Minerva's dad was an adventurer right? Then something must have changed in these past years. Yeah, maybe slavery must have become a thing. Still, why would they enslave another human girl when there were demi-humans? Did she come from a poor background or something?

I sat while thinking it out. She must have come here because she thought it was better to die in this forest than to suffer at the hands of slavers, right? I didn't know how it went in this world, but even I wouldn't want to be tortured or sold.

'Ok, ok. I get it now. So you're a runaway slave from a nearby kingdom or city, right?'

I asked and she nodded

'Do you have any family we can take you to or something?'

She slowly shook her head.

'Like no parents, siblings or relatives?'

She then grasped the ends of her filthy rags while shaking. She was forcing words out of her mouth. Then I saw a drop of a liquid fall on to the ground. Then another, until it was like waterworks. She was crying.

"M-my parents… T-they s-sold me."

I didn't know why, but that got me pissed off. Something inside me clicked, almost like I knew the feeling, but my parents never abandoned me. Ah, it was one of those things where you read a book and got really immersed into the character's point of view, you know? Like a book where the protagonist has shitty parents and you hate them almost as much as he does.

'It's ok. Stop crying. You can stay with me for a while until we can help you.'

Her tears were still flowing and I didn't know what exactly to do to calm her down. I had put myself in quite the situation. I approached her and put my wing over her head, patting her. Thanks to [Size Manipulation] was now bigger than her. Normally, I'd be half her size.

'Come on, big girls shouldn't be crying. You're like what? 14? 13? 12?'

It took a while but she finally stopped with the waterworks and was sniffing now.

"Four… teen."

'She's fourteen? Ah well.'

I just patted her on the head.

'Don't worry. You've got me watching over you. You are going to be alright, ok?'

I tried for a smile with my beak. Obviously that didn't work.

"Hey, Hinotori. You sure that's ok? Won't the Tyrant of the West be angry?"

The spider whispered to me.

'Naw.'

"What do you mean, naw?"

'I mean "naw". Nothing will happing. Don't worry about it.'

I mean, what reason would Minerva have to kill a dhampyr?

STATUS

[Name: Ulva

[Species: Dhampyr Level 13/50

[Status: [Hungry]

[Age: 14 years

[Rank: C

[Race Rank: Tier 2

[Titles: |Of World|, |Man Eater|, |Man Slayer|, |Night Walker|

[Blessings: -

[Level: 13 Exp: 5/3,000

[Health: 1000/2000 Stamina: 2400/2400 Strength: 200 Speed: 520 Defense: 133 Dexterity: 156 Intelligence: 40 Luck: 45

[Skills: [Fang Protrusion], [Rock throw], [Blood Sucking], [Lamprey Form], [Night Vision], [Heat Vision], [Blood Vision], [Blood Hound]

And she was even above me in terms of rank. She was practically stronger than ninety-nine percent of the entire invasion-prevention unit.

"What about, oh that's right, the freaking war that's going to take place in 6 days?!"

'Um, something will work out. It always does.'

"And you're the one leading the west against the east?"

'Ok, I will admit, I feel a bit offended by that, however, I'm thinking about it as of now.'

The spider let out a sigh then headed towards her private chambers. I followed behind her while dragging Ulva along with me. I didn't know why, but I simply couldn't stand to see Ulva get killed or going back to the slave traders. It just wouldn't sit right with me. Also I got that she ran away and all, but how did she get this far into the forest? I was not sure there were any cities nearby. According to the agent the nearest kingdom was about a two week journey from here.

I then got to know Ulva more. It took a while but she explained that she grew up in a village somewhere, but one night the village was attacked by a demon or monster. She said she had no real recollection of that night, but the next morning she saw litters of the villagers' corpses spread around the village. Obviously this ended up leaving her village poor and she had been struggling with her parents to make ends meet. So one day her parents suddenly sold her to slave traders for some money and ever since she had been moved from city to city on sale, until last two nights when some guy attacked the slavers and freed her and all the other slaves. She ended up in the forest and had been roaming for the past two days without having anything to eat. So we fed her some fruits and fish from the river below.

Afterwards I explained to them why I would be taking her in and none of them had any complaints. I was really surprised. No one voiced any objections whatsoever. Also I had the sprite make some clothes out of leaves for Ulva. Her rags were too filthy. The sprite had to bathe her as well. Apparently it was no problem for her.

The next day was spent with us walking back home. I left the explanation of the current situation to the sprite who left off earlier. The rat man said he was heading back to oversee the preparations for the event. Leaving me with Ulva. She was actually a good kid. Albeit shy, but none-the-less a well-mannered kid who for some reason couldn't irritate anybody. I mean, the girl didn't even resent her parents one bit for what they did to her. She was truly an angel.

I ate flaming deer and got no skills whatsoever. Damn it, that [Fire Force] and [Throttle] looked like really good skills too. That fight was not an easy one and I got nothing really beneficial out of it.

So now we were heading towards Diane's tree. At first I wanted to go to the cave to let Ulva sleep there, but then I thought about it again and realized that it might not have been the brightest of ideas. Not Minerva's cave obviously. The goblins'.

Thankfully, Diane decided to take Ulva in without much problem. I told them I was going to get a meal for Ulva and weirdly enough Ulva shouted something about working hard. We just ignored her and Diane made her get into her tree.

While out hunting, I ran into Minerva. It was written all over her face that she didn't want to see me. I mean she even told me that she had replaced me with a slime. A bloody slime with no good stats whatsoever. Of all the insults, that one was by far the most offensive.

I tried to patch things up though by asking her if she would like to hunt with me. For a moment, I thought she said yes, but when I told her that I was looking for something big for Ulva and I she just changed her mind and said she wasn't interested in hunting with a weak creature. The nerve of her!

I ended up having to go searching for dinner on my own. Truly a pain in the butt. I went hunting for some rabbit for Ulva. It took quite a while because most of them were asleep. I got two for her, then after that I searched around and ended up getting a lone timber wolf. I didn't really care about them since they had refused to help us. I dragged the items back to Diane's tree. I myself was feeling quite hungry.

I myself had forgotten one itsy bitsy detail. Dhampyrs didn't normally eat raw food, right? I was sort of used to it, but what about Ulva? I mean, I didn't know how exactly what dhampyrs needed, except blood. To my surprise she wanted to gobble down the food like some sort of beast. Probably because she understood that birds couldn't cook. She was just a darling. Luckily, Diane revealed that she knew how to cook so that night was spent eating a good meal.

I was about to leave Ulva with Diane that night, but Ulva looked very scared when I told her that, so I ended up sleeping next to her. She was shivering. It was probably too cold for her, so we huddled together and slept. No, nothing happened. It was just an older brother sleeping next to his little sister sort of situation.