I have some unfinished business to settle with those slave traders.

One hour. One more hour to reach our destination.

The pine forest wasn't small enough to be crossed on foot, so much to my dismay, we had to return to the unicorn to reach the slavers' camp. Fortunately, the journey was much shorter than before, so the discomfort didn't last long. Following the merchant's directions, the magical beast stopped on a small hill, just a few hundred meters away from the camp. Up there, hidden in the vast vegetation, we could clearly see everything.

The camp wasn't nearly as small as I imagined it to be. It was far, far bigger than that. How many tents were there? Three hundred? Four hundred? It looked more like a camping site for an army than a simple slaver camp. I expected a few dozens of slavers, terrorizing maybe twenty, fifty slaves at most. But there clearly wasn't just fifty slaves. There were thousands of them, all untied, uncuffed, but all wearing the same locking steel collar, preventing them from running away.

Shit. And here I was thinking that I just needed to charge in, get rid of the slavers and free Axis' parents. Among all these people, it's already hard enough to spot the slavers, so how am I supposed to find his parents? It's as bad as finding Wally. I guess it's going to be a little more complicated than I initially thought…

"Cotton," I called out.

Cottontail immediately jumped out of my cloak, landing right in front of me as she looked up at me with expectant eyes.

"Can you transform?" I asked.

The little fox nodded. Light erupting from her body, Cotton changed back to a human.

"Alright."

I turned to Axis. The boy was frozen in terror at the sight of the camp. He too, probably imagined that it would be smaller. But now that he could see it with his own eyes, he understood that it was a suicide mission. There would be at least a hundred slavers here, supervising the camp. If we wanted to free his parents, we would have to defeat them all. We might even have to face all those slaves, who had no choice but to obey them. And that, for only the three of us, was impossible. At least, that is what he thought.

"Axis," I brought him back to reality, "I'm going down there with Cotton. You stay here."

"What?! Why? What are you going to do?"

"First, I'm going to locate your parents."

The boy furrowed.

"How? The moment you approach, they'll attack you!" he exclaimed, his eyes tight and worried.

"Axis," I called, "what do you think of me?"

"Huh?" The boy tilted his head, wincing at my random comment.

"How do I look?" I clarified my question.

"You look… pretty?" he hesitated.

"And? What else do you notice when you see me?"

"Ummh… Your eyes. They're golden."

I directed my gaze to Cotton.

"What about her?" I asked.

"She's also pretty," Axis noted, "she's a cool-looking demi-human with two tails."

"Right?" I smirked.

The boy frowned even further, still not understanding my point.

"What do you think our value is to slave traders?" I continued.

Axis raised his eyes, pondering.

"I guess you would be pretty valuable?"

"So what do you think is going to happen if they find us, Cotton and I, all alone and helpless in the middle of nowhere?"

Finally understanding where I was coming from, his eyes enlightened.

"They're going to capture you!"

"Exactly."

But Axis didn't approve of that plan.

"You're going to let them capture you?!"

"Axis, if we want to locate your parents, we need to infiltrate that camp," I explained. "And the best way to do that is to let ourselves be captured."

"But they're going to enslave you!" he opposed. "They're going to put that slave collar on you and you won't be able to go against them anymore!"

"It's alright, I have a plan."

The boy frowned, not entirely convinced.

"You do?"

Not really. It's just an assumption, but it's a relatively safe one. Cotton is a spirit. As a spirit, she can't be bound by a simple collar. And even if she could, as my familiar, as long as our [Contract] is effective, she can't enter another contract, not even a slave-master one, so she should be safe. As for me, well… I'd like to see them try. It's certainly not a magical item that will bind my will. My [Authority level] is way too high for that.

"I want to come with you!" Axis demanded.

"No," I flatly refused, "you're staying here."

"Why? I can help!"

"You can't. You'll be in the way. Besides, they might not even want to capture you," I explained. "Cotton and I may have some value in their eyes, while you are but a simple human boy. You're frail and small. They might think that you're not even worth feeding and then they would just kill you on spot."

Axis flinched at my harsh, but fair remark. Frustrated, he clenched his fists and bit his lower lip.

"Then I'll stay here and keep watch…" he muttered.

"Yeah, you do that," I patted his shoulder, "and if something happens, you take the unicorn and run back to safety, okay?"

The boy shyly nodded, clearly not pleased with the idea.

"Until then, I have one instruction," I said, "and that also applies to you Cotton."

As Axis looked up at me, an eyebrow raised in curiosity, Cottontail simply nodded with her head.

"From now on, no matter what happens, do not address me by my real name," I demanded. "From now on, call me Aileen."

If anything happens, I need to be able to disappear. I can't let anyone track back the incident back to me. So just for the next few hours, I'll stop being Lynett. Just for the next few hours, I'll go back to being Aileen.

"Alright…"

Having made sure they both understood my order, I gave Axis and Cotton one last meaningful look.

"Shall we go, now?"

I have some unfinished business to settle with those slave traders. A business going back over fourteen years ago.