Pawahara Seijo no Osananajimi to Zetsuen Shitara, Nanimokamo ga Umaku Iku Yō ni Natte Saikyō no Bōke

[The Axe Saintess is Everyone’s Mother?]

The next morning.

With what Arca’d said last night in mind, we went around the town, asking about the bandits.

The merchants who were attacked naturally had nothing but abusively disparaging remarks about them, but the residents’ opinion of them was surprisingly not bad.

That was because, they shared the food and other stuffs they had robbed to other residents.

It seemed that there was an extreme gap of inequality between the rich and the poor in this town, and as such, many people had been relying on their help to survive.

Still, that didn’t justify their stealing other people’s properties.

Well, they might have a compelling reason behind the act, but if we wanted to know the truth, asking the perpetrator directly was the only way.

She didn’t seem to be a bad person, anyway.

I mean, she was a saintess.

…….

No, I took that back.

Whether she was good or bad, she being a saintess had nothing to do with it.

My childhood friend was a tyrant despite being a saintess too, after all.

“Slave market…?” Anyway, as we were asking around, we came to hear about the ‘slave market’ that was being held secretly in this town.

Slaves. They were people who literally had been deprived of all human rights.

“Yeah, you heard that right. I have no idea how they are procured; they might’ve been abducted from somewhere or sold by their families because they were struggling to put food on the table— the hell I care. But around here, human trafficking is an everyday thing, and lots of people came for that specific purpose. Want me to introduce you? For a fee, of course.”

“No, I’d like to refrain from that sort of thing.”

“‘s that so? Well, feel free to contact me whenever you change your mind.”

Let’s put aside the fact that Magmell was about to hit the man who left while waving his hand lightly with her staff.

Most likely, this was what Ophir meant by ‘everything isn’t as it seems on the surface’.

The reason being, Ophir and her gang seemed to always attack the venue on the days that the slave market was held.

The bandits were mostly children, too; there was a possibility that they were slaves originally.

“Honestly, what’s the deal with that man!?”

“Well, calm down. He’s just an intermediary. He likely doesn’t have a hand in anything further than that.”

“But that’s still bad! I almost couldn’t hold myself back from beating him up!”

Yep, I knew.

I was the one who was pinioning you so that you didn’t attack him, after all.

“Fumu, this place looks like a prospering commercial city at first glance, but behind the scenes, human trafficking runs rampant, huh. Everything surely isn’t as it seems on the surface. It is possible that the merchants from yesterday are also in the same industry.”

“…Yeah.”

It appeared that the problems of this town were rooted deeper that I’d initially imagined.

“Anyways, let’s go see Ophir again. We’ll decide our course of actions after that.”

“Ahh, got it.” “Yes, I understand.” Arca and Magmell nodded.

Leading the two, I then decided to look for the ruins in the desert where Ophir and her gang was said to be using as their hideout.

◇ ◇

“…The hell ‘re ya guys here for?” Ophir said while leaking killing intent and pointing her Holy Axe at us.

A little less than 10 children were hiding in the ruins behind her, seemingly frightened.

Ordinarily, it would probably take a considerable amount of time to find their hideout.

But I could fly.

So, by flying around the desert, looking for any structures that seemed to be ruins, I’d managed to locate their hideout in no time.

Anyways, there would be no discussion or shit with the situation being this tense.

So, as we’d planned, Arca raised the prepared bag of food and said, “Well, no need to put your guard up, Axe Saintess. I just came bringing you some supplies out of concern. We’re both a saintess, after all. Don’t worry, they’re not poisoned. Incidentally, there’s no one tailing us, either. We flew all the way here through the harsh desert, after all.”

“…Humph, who cares about that. If yer lyin’, I’ll just have to kill everyone that comes. —Come. I’ll lead ya to our place.”

Looked like the first contact was successful.

Leaving the negotiation to Arca was a great decision.

“The children seem very fond of her, don’t they?” Magmell said with surprise, looking at Ophir walking with children following in line behind her.

But it was as she said, Ophir seemed to be quite liked by children.

After all, as soon as Ophir had gone their way, the eyes of the children hiding in the ruins had sparkled and they all had immediately rushed towards her.

They must have a lot of faith in her.

She was like, yes—

“—Their mother.”

“—Wha!? W-who do ya say is their mother!?”

At that moment, Ophir looked back with bright red face.

She was surprisingly sharp-eared.

But it seemed that the children received it favorably.

“Ya~y, Ophir, our mothe~r!”

“Ophir is our mothe~r!”

“Ya~y! Y~ay!”

“S-shut up!? D-don’t get ahead of yerselves, ya brats!?” Ophir yelled, hiding her embarrassment.

……Huh?

She was kinda cute, wasn’t she…?