Ch15: Sneaking around, meeting two girls

Walking down the stairs, Caden thought about what to do next. 'Hmm, how should I go about this? There are a few options, like trying to walk silently, creep around and find the exit, before going back and helping all these women.' Hearing all these screams was starting to infuriate him.

'I could also look for a suitable pirate whose height is similar to me. It would be easy to change into his clothes and make a slime mask identical to his face. That would let me walk around and check what is exactly happening everywhere around.'

Having that thought, he reached the first basement floor where everyone was waiting for him.

"Guys, it looks like they are having a party out there." He started.

"I have an idea of how to explore this whole building to find the other slaves, but it must stay between us."

"Hmm.. Ok, I will keep my mouth shut." The first one to agree was Forland.

The rest also nodded their hands or showed thumbs up in agreement.

"Good. Now, I can easily change my looks to mimic another person. When I go up there, I'm gonna look for somebody close in size to me, most likely a pirate. When I find him, I will go back here to show you this temporary disguise." Said Caden.

"How will we know it's you and not some other pirate?" Asked Bonzo, gripping a gun hesitantly.

"We can make a password, like horseshoe." Answered Forland.

"Good idea, horseshoe it is. I will walk down here later and if you hear somebody walking down without saying horseshoe 3 times, then knock out the guy." He said, turning back to the stairs.

Going up again, Caden thought to himself. 'Hmm, it will be my first real battle with pirates. Fortunately, I trained with dodging and some punching after that incident in the village.'

Throwing some punches in the air, he moved around dodging imaginary attacks.

The gun slipped from his hand, but he caught it just in time before hitting the ground. 'Uff, better be more careful. One wrong move tonight and I can be dead.'

Normally thinking like this would make somebody more nervous, but for some reason Caden just got more excited at the prospect of fighting.

'Calm down Caden, now is not the time to act like a child.'

With that, he walked around as silently as he could. Scanning the hallways for a place to hide, he moved fastly between them.

Sometimes standing behind a corner, hiding behind some plants.

Going this way, he didn't see many pirates around. Only a few were standing guard, but they were already drinking big amounts of alcohol, swaying from side to side.

'Maybe they feel very safe here. Probably there are some sober ones outside. If that is the case, our operation will be much smoother than expected.' He thought, looking at one fat pirate with an eye patch trying to focus on standing upright, but secretly trying to look around. Seeing nobody, he every few minutes put his hand in his pants, taking a horrid looking bottle and having a swing from whatever devious liquid he had inside.

Wiping his bearded mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, he would smile like an idiot before going back to swinging, repeating the whole thing time and time again.

Behind him were pretty big doors with some artistic ornaments.

'They might have something valuable there, but now it isn't important.'

Ignoring the man, Caden walked in a different direction.

Going through the hallways, he approached doors after doors, putting his ear on them and listening for anything of value. Trying to open them, he found that most were closed.

'Maybe most of them prefer sitting upstairs.' He thought.

This mansion for some reason has the basement stairs in a completely different place than the ones going up. He already found those, being in the center of the mansion. The bottom ones were in the corner, at the end of a hallway.

Reaching already the 12th doors, he again tried listening. With his ear on them, he heard quiet sobbing from the inside.

Trying to open the door, he also found it to be locked. Picking the lock, he opened it a little, looking inside.

What he saw was a small girl sitting in the corner, holding her legs to her chest, burying her face in her knees. She quietly cried there. He went inside, gently closing the door behind him.

Silently walking closer to her, Caden observed her closer. She had light brown hair, with a pale complexion. She wore a maid-like costume, with small black shoes to pair with it.

Her hands up to her shoulders together with her legs were bare, holding some scars and other wounds.

As he walked, the wooden floor below him creaked, alerting the girl of an intruder.

"Ahh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I won't do it again! Please forgive me!" She cried loudly, putting her hands on her head and curling up into a ball.

Seeing this, Caden talked to her in a gentle voice. "Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not one of the pirates."

Hearing that, the girl looked up. There was almost no light in the room, the only one came from the windows.

"You really won't hurt me?" She asked, still curled up.

"Yes, so please calm down. I will do my best to help you."

"Mmm.. Okay." With that she calmed herself down a little.

"Little girl, what's your name? Mine is Caden, I'm 15 and I want to be an explorer."

"Umm, my name is Maya." She said. "I'm 6 and I want to go back to mommy and daddy."

"Ok, I will help you get back to them, but first can you tell me what you are doing here?"

"Mhmm."

Saying so, Maya described to him what happened to her, breaking down in tears every so often.

Around a month ago, she was on a ship with her older cousin and uncle. They were going back from her cousin's village to Maya's village.

Unfortunately, while on the way, they were attacked by pirates. Most of the people were killed, only leaving a few women and men.

Both Maya and her cousin weren't killed, but her uncle was. Her cousin was devastated to the point that she didn't react even after being taken on the pirate ship.

"It's like Leyla lost all her emotions! It was terrible."

After that the pirates took them all here, imprisoned the men and made the women work for them as maids or stress reliefs.

"At least that's what Leyla told me when I asked why do the women scream so much."

Caden patted her head, trying to calm her down.

"I understand now. Tell me Maya, do you know where I could find a pirate that is similar in height to me?" He asked, consoling the still sobbing girl.

"Hmm.. I saw only one that is similar to you." She said, before continuing. "I don't know where he is now, but Leyla should know. She knows this place like the back of her hand already."

"Can you take me to her?"

"I can show you where she is most likely staying."

Turning around and crouching, Caden looked back at Maya before saying. "Hop on my back, I will be your mount for tonight."

"Really?!" She asked, before climbing on his back.

"Yay, go my brave steed, go!" Said Maya, pointing at the door.

Seeing how she brightened up, Caden slowly and carefully walked out. Seeing nobody around, he whispered to Maya. "Where should I go?"

"Up to the second floor." She whispered back, hugging his neck.

"Ok."

Holding her legs under his arms, he went on and up. Reaching the second floor, he again asked for directions with Maya telling him new ones. The cycle continued for a while, before they arrived in front of some old looking door.

Listening to Maya, he got closer to the door. Standing in front of it, Maya knocked in a peculiar pattern. Three fast knocks, followed by a single one, before going back to this time four consecutive knocks with less power. Finishing the secret knocking, she waited eagerly for something to happen.

In a moment, Caden heard footsteps from the inside, getting closer to the door.

It opened, showing him a woman, hidden under a bunch of clothes or rather, rags. On her head was a hood, with only the eyes visible, which were emerald green. On her mouth was some kind of cloth, hiding everything below her beautiful eyes.

Seeing Caden she got surprised, before noticing Maya on his back.

"Maya, what are you all this time? I was looking for you." She said, indifferent to the man in front of her.

"Cousin Leyla, I was punished earlier and locked in a room."

'A rubber room.' Caden had a random thought.

"Well, it's good you are back. Now, who is the young man whose back you are using?"

"Hello, I'm Caden. Right now, me and other slaves are trying to get out. Would you be interested in joining us?" He asked.

She got silent for a moment. It's hard to tell what she's thinking with that cloth masking her face, but before Caden got sidetracked, she responded.

"I am." She said. "We should leave right now. I see you have a gun, that will make this easier."

"Yes, now can you tell me where I could find a pirate with a similar height to me? Maya said you would know that."

"The one you describe is on this floor, room 239. I don't understand why you want to know this, us three could run away right now." Said Leyla with a cold voice, not changing at all since the start.

"Us three? No no no. I'm gonna help everybody I can to run away. That's what I agreed upon with my friends who are waiting for me right now." He answered.

"Yes cousin, we can't leave the other girls here! We must take them with us!" Said Maya, shocked with her cousin's idea.

"Ok then. Should I wait here, or maybe show you to the room you want to find?"

"Let's leave Maya here." Said Caden, putting the girl down. "Please show me the room, it will be much quicker this way. Maya, please stay here like a good girl and wait, ok? It might get dangerous for me."

"Hmm.. Ok, I will stay here. Come back quickly!" She said, going into the room and sitting down on the only furniture there, a single bed.

With that, Leyla showed Caden the way to his objective. She said that he won't find almost any pirates walking around, since they are either having their way with helpless women or they got drunk to unconsciousness.

"Is there some kind of party right now?" He asked, looking for any additional information.

"Yes, there actually is. Tonight Kaeru told us to organize a banquet for himself. Apparently he found some amazing treasure while sailing on the sea a week ago. Yesterday he came back looking different than before, having green hair and some different skin colors on his back." She said, not changing her tone even once.

"Anything else changed about him?" He asked, finding the information a little alarming.

"Well, I saw him catching and eating an insect, which he never did before. That would be all, I think."

Going back to silence, Caden thought about what she said.

'This Kaeru, he might have eaten a devil fruit. From that description, it might have been a zoan. The question is what kind? Green color and eating insects, it might be some kind of lizard.'

After a moment, he gave up on thinking deeper. 'Well, there is no reason to worry about it right now, I won't know what he is until I face him anyway.'

With that, they finally arrived at their target. Checking the door and finding it locked, Caden again got down to do what he did best the past day and unlocked it.

Slowly opening them, he peeked inside. In the back was sleeping a pirate, looking more like a normal street thug.

Confirming with Leyla that he is the one, Caden went slowly inside. This time to make sure that the floor won't creak under him, he coated the bottom of his shoes with a thin layer of slime.

He did that with his other hand while opening the door a moment before, since for now he can only make slime with his hands.

Reaching the dude, he didn't recognize him. That is normal, since he was sleeping at the time, but this man is the same young thug that was admonished earlier and had to carry Caden to the cart.

He looked at the sleeping man, remembering his face, before putting his hand on his own face.

In a moment, some slime emerged from his fingers, sliding onto his face in the right places. Ten seconds later, there stood a man looking extremely similar to the one still sleeping. To make sure that his cover won't be blown, Caden struck the man fastly on his cheek.

Looking around, he found some stuff to tie the man up, like a rope and some smaller cloths. Putting the cloth in his mouth, he tied his face up before moving to his hands, binding them with the handcuffs which he took from the basement.

Looking to the side and finding the thug's clothes, he changed into them. Looking around, he found nothing else of interest.

Leaving the man behind, he went out.

Leyla was again motionless. Thinking about it he still told her that he's Caden and this is only a disguise, getting nothing back from her.

With a sigh, he told her to just go back to Maya and wait until a guy named Bonzo comes here with other prisoners. After that he asked her to help them with finding other women around that need help and to stick with him together with her cousin.

Seeing as she left, he went down again. This time he didn't bother with hiding, just openly walking until he arrived at the basement stairs.

Walking down, he said loudly "horseshoe" three times, before reaching everybody.

Seeing him, they stood up. Some in surprise, others with readiness to escape, ignoring Caden's looks.

"Guys." Started Caden. "Let's do it."

~2416 words