Food.

Ryuu instructs Akeno to burn the two demon corpses into ashes, and he cleans around the shop with Zoro to remove any of their evidence before they sneak out of the shop.

"Akeno, send out your familiars again to find other stores where we can find some food."

He ordered Akeno as they traversed in the alleys using her sneak ability.

Akeno nodded and sent forth the imps to different paths in search of suitable shops, while Zoro carried Alisia on his back comfortably.

A few minutes later, one of the imps found a spot, and Akeno conveyed it to Ryuu before they made their way towards it.

"Here's the plan, Akeno will be the first to enter the shop and use her hypnotic abilities to confuse the enemy. Then Zoro will attack and knock them all out. Understood?"

Ryuu briefed about the new plan as he trusted Akeno would not unnecessarily kill the demons, unlike Zoro.

"Yes."

"Um."

Akeno and Zoro nodded as they reached the place where the imp was waiting for them.

It was a bigger shop than the one they had previously raided, so Ryuu became more serious.

"Zoro, leave behind Alisia to me. I think there'll be more demons in this shop than the previous one."

Zoro looked over at the little girl on his back and nodded before putting her on the ground.

"Stay here, okay? I'll defeat those hateful demons and come.", he patted the girl's head softly.

Alisia nodded as she went behind Ryuu, who called her over.

Seeing the sad face on the little girl, Ryuu kneeled and soothed her.

"Don't worry, Alisia. Big brother Zoro is very strong, and he'll teach those bad demons a lesson."

Alisia looked over at Zoro, who was nearing the shop's door, and her eyes sparkled.

"Will he win?", she asked cutely.

Ryuu grinned and patted his chest.

"With me as his boss, of course, he'll win!"

Alisia turned to look at Ryuu and tilted her head.

"You're Boss?"

Ryuu stood up and he rubbed his nose.

"I'm not as strong as the two of them, but I am kind of their boss for now."

"Ryuu-sama, we're going in.", Akeno said while holding the knob of the back door of the store.

Ryuu turned serious and placed Alisia behind him as he nodded at his two summons.

"Begin."

At the drop of his words, Akeno turned the knob and quickly sneaked her way inside the shop with Zoro following a step behind her.

Ryuu stood at the door and peeked at the scene inside.

Three demons were chilling in the shop without any customers in sight.

They looked behind at the backdoor, which suddenly opened and stood up in shock when two strangers, especially humans, rushed in.

"Quick, Akeno!", Ryuu shouted.

Akeno dashed towards the demons who were looking around for their weapons and used her hypnotic magic to freeze them.

The demons paused whatever they were doing as a thin purple fog covered their bodies.

"Handle them, Zoro!"

Jumping towards the hypnotised demons, Zoro unsheathed one of his swords and hit the back of their necks with the blunt side of his sword.

"Thud."×3

The demons fell down one by one and became unconscious.

"Good. Now check around if there are any other demons left in the shop."

Ryuu walked into the store along with Alisia and surveyed the shop, satisfied that the two of them did everything correctly.

Zoro and Akeno walked together around the shop and found two more demons resting in a different room, which they easily knocked out.

When they came back to the main hall of the store, they found Ryuu and Alisia with bags of food in their arms with smiles on their faces.

Ryuu pointed at the counter of the shop and said happily as he took out something like bread from the bag.

"Good job there. We finally found some food rations."

His words delighted Akeno and Zoro, who hurriedly moved towards the counter and ransacked the place.

The three of them picked up several bags of food, Akeno even instructed the familiar imps to take some, and they left the shop after she altered the demon's memories of them.

While they were rushing back towards their temporary hideout, Ryuu remembered they had to raid one more shop for his mission to be completed.

"Wait, guys, we're not done yet." Ryuu stopped the others when they had almost reached their abandoned building.

"What do you mean, Ryuu? We already got sufficient food for us, right?", Akeno asked in question.

Even Zoro looked confused as he held back his hunger to ravish the bags of food in his hands.

Ryuu thought for some time and came up with a quick reason.

"You're right. We have sufficient food for us. But what about when we grow in number? I'll be Summoning more people like you in the future, and we'll also be saving the other slaved races, so gathering more food while we're at it will be beneficial for us."

He didn't hold back and said everything in one go, as he was afraid he would die for not completing his mission.

Zoro and Akeno glanced at each other and shrugged as there was nothing for them to argue about when they were saving food for the needy people.

Zoro placed his bag down and smirked as he released some bloodlust.

"Alright, let's do it then. How many shops are we raiding? Five? Ten? I'm fine with it even if we're going for fifty shops!"

He placed his hand over his sword, ready to steal everything from all the demons who were bullying little kids like Alisia.

Ryuu broke into a sweat listening to Zoro's declaration and waved his hand to calm him down.

"No, no, fifty is too much. We'll raid only one shop for now. We can then continue tomorrow as we've not eaten a single thing from yesterday."

Zoro scratched his head as he couldn't figure out what his summoner was trying to convey.

But then he shrugged, thinking maybe Ryuu was right, and he was the one who was dumb and couldn't see the bigger picture.

Akeno, on the other hand, had a thoughtful look in her eyes but she didn't raise any voice.

"Sure, you're wish. Maybe you have a better plan, I guess.", Zoro said.

Ryuu sighed and turned to Akeno, asking her to send her imps again.

Alisia just watched their interaction as she tightly held a small bag of food, her tummy groaning in hunger, but she patiently waited for them to do their work.

While Akeno sent the imps to search for another shop, they entered inside their building and stored the bags in a safe place.

"Ryuu, the imps found a shop nearby. But... it's kind of strange there.", Akeno muttered after they exited the building.

Ryuu didn't mind and replied.

"This is a demon's world. Of course, there'll be many strange things here. Come on, we can have rest after this last time."

He asked her to guide the way as everyone followed behind her towards their last shop for today's raid.

Crossing the paths in the dark alleyways, the group walked for about ten minutes and reached a fancy-looking shop without any people near it.

They arrived behind the shop building and looked for a backdoor but couldn't find any.

"Hmmm, this shop is truly strange. There's nobody moving around the shop and it also seems there's only a single door at the entrance."

Ryuu said with a frown.

He contemplated about the matter and decided not to raid this shop from the dangerous vibes the strange fancy shop was giving.

"Akeno, are there any other shops nearby? I don't think we should take a risk here...."

As he instructed her to find other shops with the help of her imps, the entrance door of the shop suddenly opened up.

The group turned their head curiously to look at the strange shop and widened their eyes in shock when a chained human walked out with a trash bag in his hands.

The man looked old enough to be called a grandpa, but he was carrying a bag five times larger than him as his legs trembled in pain.

Akeno and Zoro tightened their fists in anger when they saw the condition of the poor old man, who had hollow eyes, parched lips and whip scars all over his body.

"We have to save him.", said Akeno with a sad face.

Zoro nodded while getting ready for some action as he patted Alisia who was hopefully looking at him.

Ryuu glanced at his summons and rubbed his head, not minding solving some trouble in the middle of his mission.

"Get ready to raid this shop then...."