Kartan Cleanup

As the Freebird party was led to another building in the city where bandits had been keeping kidnapped victims, Morgana followed them closely from behind while happily playing with her daughter.

Their contrasting moods made the bandits around them confused, as nobody had ever seen two people look so happy in Kartan.

When they arrived, the man that had been leading them giggled, saying they didn't know who they were messing with, but the teenagers were determined to keep going and become like their big sister.

Binding the man, the Freebird party barged inside by knocking down the door, alerting the group of bandits.

The teenagers used their newly acquired skills and experience to beat the bandits that tried to stop them. Meanwhile, Morgana sat on the side of the battle nonchalantly and began feeding Selene some fried rice with a big smile on her face.

Out of the dozen bandits that the teenagers were beating, one noticed Morgana and her daughter on the side happily sharing their meal and decided to go for the attack.

However, Morgana kept Selene's attention with a sweet smile and waved her hands behind, pushing the man away with an invisible force back into the target range of the Freebird party and making him cough blood in the process.

"Hmm? What was that?" Selene asked her mother.

"Nothing, just a little insect trying to bother us," she replied with a sweet smile as she kept feeding her spoonfuls of fried rice.

"Mom, is that lady okay?" Selene asked, looking at the dark shaman unconscious next to them.

The trickster nodded. "Of course, she is going to be fine. We are going to take care of her, right?"

"Right!" Selene replied with a smile and a mouth full of rice.

A few moments later, the Freebird party was done with their battle, and all of the bandits had been seized and defeated.

In their basement, they found a group of twelve people that had been kidnapped and were waiting to be transferred to the slave auction of Kartan.

"Slave auction? So most of the kidnapped end up there?" Conrad asked one of the victims.

The man nodded, saying it would take place the next day and that they were sure that the government officials were participating.

"So, the government of Kartan knows about this?" asked Angie with frustration.

Morgana, who had been hearing the entire conversation, chimed in:

"It is because of the government that Kartan is what it is. It's always been like that.

We can take down the Duke, but another one will take his role later down the line. That is the cycle of chaos of this place…" she said, but her explanation proved too abstract for them to understand.

"Even if that's true. We are already here. We can't just leave them alone…" said Conrad, making Morgana smile.

'That's pretty much what I thought when we arrived…' she thought.

"Very well then. Let's crash their party!" Morgana exclaimed before laughing.

"And umm. What do we do about these guys?" Angie asked, pointing at the bound bandits on the side of the room.

They knew that turning them in to the authorities would not work since they were all working together, but killing them seemed too heartless for the teenagers.

The trickster pondered different options. She could ask everyone to leave and kill all of the bandits while nobody was looking, as she had no remorse for taking their lives.

However, she could tell that the teenagers were looking for another solution besides murdering them all.

"How about we put them to work, then?" Morgana said before explaining her plan.

She remembered that certain countries used their criminal prisoners to work in mines, so she thought they could find a similar job for the bandits.

There were a total of fourteen bandits, except for their leader, who was absent talking to the organizers of the slave auction.

Morgana's plan was to dress like a slave and infiltrate the event while the Freebird party joined as her seller.

"What!? You want us to go in like we are going to sell you!?" Angie asked.

The trickster, going into more detail about her plan, said that people who went to the auctions were appraised at the entrance and given a mask to cover their identities.

If Morgana showed up as a buyer, the event would instantly get canceled just because she was a trickster. However, if she acted like a powerless slave that was getting sold, nobody would suspect a thing.

"And what do we do with these guys for the time being?" asked Kaede as she stared at the bandits.

"Let's just keep them locked in here for now, and we can pick them up after we are done," replied Morgana with an evil smile, making the bandits freeze.

Kaede nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. "It's only fair, I suppose," she said, slightly imitating her big sister's wicked smile.

The bandits expressed their discontent about being locked up in their own basement, but Morgana, leaving Selene on the side, approached them and looked down on them with a cold stare.

"You are lucky even to be alive right now. Do any of you want to change that?" she asked the group of bandits with a severe expression that sent chills down their spines and made them look away from her gaze.

While chaining down the bandits to their own dungeon, the leader arrived yelling and looking for the culprit that took down the door to his base. However, he was received by Morgana and Selene, playing in the living room without a care in the world.

"Who the hell are you!? Where are my men!?" the bald bandit leader asked.

The trickster slowly stood up and told Selene to go to her siblings for a moment, to which the little girl nodded with a smile and adorably skipped her way deep inside the bandit's base.

"Hey! Where the hell do you think you are goi-" the man tried to speak, but his words were cut short as Morgana was suddenly standing in front of him, gripping his cheeks with force.

"Stop talking, okay? I have some questions…" said Morgana with an evil smile as the bandits' leader's eyes filled with horror.