I could see a hint of relief in the soldiers’ faces when they saw me. Slave hunters?! Slave hunters had shown up at a time like this?! You’ve got to be shitting me! Like I told the slave trader, I was in a bad mood. And I was going to destroy these bastards.

“No way!”

“Raphtalia!”

Raphtalia gripped her katana and took off running toward the source of the commotion.

“Filo! You go with Raphtalia and annihilate the slave hunters! Rishia, you see to the wounded and protect anyone that can’t fight. You soldiers go report to Eclair in the neighboring town!”

“Okaaay!”

“Fehhh!”

“That’s already been taken care of!”

That was a relief. They were handling the situation better than I would have expected. I chased after Raphtalia, who had run off into the distance. That’s when I noticed that the village was completely surrounded by slave hunters. There were ten slaves in the village. A good number of soldiers were keeping guard over the village, too. There seemed to be quite a few slave hunters, but it was impossible to fully grasp the situation in the dark of the night. That didn’t matter . . . We would do what had to be done.

“Struggling is useless!” yelled one of the attackers.

“Hiya!” Raphtalia shouted as she cut down the attacking slave hunter in the blink of an eye.

“Arghhh!”

Blood erupted from the slave hunter’s body as he crumpled forward onto the ground with a thud. I was only guessing, but he probably hadn’t classed up yet. Or maybe going up against Raphtalia’s katana would have been an exercise in futility even if he had already classed up.

“Let’s protect the village! Come on!”

I could hear Keel’s voice. She was armed, and it looked like she was fighting off the slave hunters successfully, along with the other slaves from the village. I had been a little bit worried, but it seemed like the slaves were holding their own. Perhaps being raised as my slaves had paid off. They had gotten about as strong as Raphtalia had been before she classed up. I wanted to believe that they would have no problem standing up to the likes of slave hunters or bandits in terms of abilities.

“So you want to fight, eh?! Then I won’t hold back! Gahhh!”

The slave hunter pointed his sword at Keel and . . . suddenly a hole opened up in the ground below him and he fell in, leaving only his head exposed. Just as I was wondering what had happened, Imiya’s head popped up out of the dirt.

“Thanks, Imiya!”

Imiya gave Keel a thumbs-up. So that’s what it was . . . Imiya had dug a pit.

“Gweeeeeh!”

Filo Underling #1 was helping defend the slaves and gave the slave hunter a fierce kick. The other monsters seemed to be putting up a good fight, too.

“Now!”