Not wanting to face him

"...do... do you think we are in trouble after all...?"

"We must be... why would he want to talk to the guard in charge of us...?!"

The girl with the long fringe asked fearfully and the fearful one bit her lips and trembled nervously.

"...why do we have to get Lithsar too, though...? Is she in trouble too...? Eh...? No way... did she mess with mister Viria and made him angry...?!"

Kirri covered her mouth nervously before flinching in gasping in disbelief.

It seemed that all three of them were similar to Viria in assuming the worst-case scenarios as their initial response...

They were worried but ended up going along with Viria's request, and exactly an hour later the three of them, the gold-haired female prisoner, Lithsar, and one of the few female guards in the prison dungeon, the one in charge of the juvenile section, Emerant, all gathered in front of the restaurant run by the well-known snitch working with the guards, Chux.

"...I only hope that I will not have to add anything to your crime list..."

Emerant crossed her muscular arms under her petite chest and frowned at the anxious girls. With a short braid of hazelnut-brown hair she and a masculine jaw pushed forward aggressively, she looked especially threatening that day.

"Calm your tits, flatty, I bet it's nothing bad."

"Am I supposed to believe the words of a cheap slut who shakes her ass at first brute who roughs her up?"

Lithsar scoffed, shaking her head at the unnecessarily confrontation-oriented guard, but got ridiculed and mocked back right away.

The most annoying part for Lithsar was that the guard wasn't even particularly wrong.

At her core the gold-haired young woman was submissive and liked being controlled and handled roughly - she wouldn't end up in the Prison Dungeon if she could help herself following the strong and imposing men!

"At least you know your place. Now, maybe you know what those three got in trouble for? The guy who wanted to meet him here is under Bossac's protection, so I would prefer not to stick out my neck if those brats really messed up..."

Emerant breathed through her nose aggressively before turning to the side and asking while looking out for the bloody-black-haired young man's appearance.

"That's the weird part... I was under the impression that ma... that that man was quite protective of those kids. He seemed to have more trust in them than anyone else, at least in terms of helping him sell the materials from the monsters he killed."

Lithsar furrowed her brows and made a sour expression biting her lips tongue and correcting herself before saying something potentially problematic.

"He is quite a special case. That whole Viria is a son of a rich family – but he allegedly raped some girl from some way more important family. Although, if that was actually the case, he would not end up on this floor."

Emerant revealed with a sigh without looking at the other girls who all looked stunned.

"Hmm? What, he didn't tell you?"

The guard noticed the silence and glanced over her shoulder before asking in surprise.

"Well, I'm not surprised, the rich boy must be boiling over, having to serve the sentence for something that someone from his family did. It's not even uncommon practice though– although it is the most popular amongst the lower nobility – when the head or heir messes up, they make a relative the scapegoat and go about their day without a care in the world."

Emerant shrugged her shoulders, leaving all the other girls looking at each other unsure what to think anymore.

Whether she did it intentionally or not, the guard ended up cutting any conversation until the arrival of the blood-black-haired young man.

"Huh? Am I the last to come...? Kind of boring."

Viria showed up a few minutes later and his words of greetings weren't ones that someone would typically say when arriving at the meeting spot.

"..."

Emerant didn't say a thing, only raising her brow and seizing up the young man while Kirri, Tir, and Laor all fidgetted awkwardly not knowing how to act around Viria after learning the reason for his sentence.

"Boss~! We... Hngh...!"

"..."

Only Lithsar's face lighted up with excitement at the sight of him and she trotted over to welcome him, but once she was within the hands reach of the young man, he clenched his left fist causing the gold-haired woman to stop right in her track and step back clenching her stomach in panic.

"...I see that you all had a talk... we can call the whole discussion off if you feel like you don't want to deal with me anymore. I am going to eat something, follow me if you want."

Viria's cold glare moved from the humbled Lithsar to the female guard he did not recognize and finally to the three kids who all looked away before his presence grew quite terrifying and he breathed out dismissively.

This time, his bad habit of assuming the worst-case scenario certainly was spot on and he could easily tell it by a single look on the faces of the three kids that normally were hesitant but otherwise friendly with him.

"..."

Being treated like that upset him. A whole lot. Honestly, if he wasn't as famished as he was, he would not care about messing up the entire floor and just go let out some steam in the monster spawning ground – or even check out the boss monster area, as long as the creature would be respawned as it usually took a week and Viria didn't bother to check the rotation.

"Boss..."

Lithsar gulped down her saliva – her initial confusion after hearing about the rape accusations that caused Viria's sentence was merely caused by the utter shock that someone was so stupid as to not check how the young man actually was.

And now, after being glared at and filled to the brim with fear for her life, she could catch a glimpse of truth through her overbearing infatuation and felt a tinge of worry.

The man in front of her wasn't a herbivore nor was he a shy and innocent virgin like the other girls at the Bathland of respite gossiped about...