Hello Parchments and Followers of Justice, Mr.Bones bringing another chapter of my fanfic.
Here we will have discoveries, action, disappointment, understanding and learning.
If you like it please share it, thanks.
With you.
The One Who Came Back
Chapter 23: Attack and Rescue
"How are we going to do this? The windows are bricked up, I think the only way is to break down the front door."
"I have a better idea, Night Manager. Fly."
Inta watched as Entoma soared higher and higher into the sky. With her vampiric vision, he could see her from kilometers away.
"What does she think she's doing...oh!"
Inside the warehouse, the work was frantic, with more than fifty men carrying boxes and carts. It seemed to be a large evacuation operation, and everyone was very anxious about the recent news of how many businesses had been ruined, especially for Black Powder traffickers.
Suddenly, everyone stopped. They began to hear a low sound that increased to a very loud whistle, and then the roof collapsed.
Entoma was so high that her breath came out in white puffs. Looking down, she canceled Fly and began her dizzying descent. Her body was not very heavy, but due to the height at which she was and her acceleration, protected by Armored Beetles, with minimal wind resistance, she hit the building's roof like a ballistic missile, piercing through the floors before opening a crater in the middle of the warehouse.
Inta followed through the hole, summoning his bat familiars and spreading even more terror.
"KILL THEM, YOU DAMNED BASTARDS! - WE'RE BEING ATTACKED! - DO SOMETHING!" some of them shouted, seeming to have recovered more quickly than expected.
Inta used his hands, claws, and wings, and wherever he went, the bandits were gutted. Entoma, on the other hand, was pure grace, with acrobatic movements she dodged attempts to strike her while laughing. It was fun to watch the humans beating and stabbing each other while trying to fruitlessly hit her, until something hit her, not physically.
"I'M GOING TO KILL THIS INSECT!!!"
Entoma stopped and watched as the huge sledgehammer descended upon her, but it never reached her. Using one of her extra legs, she held onto the hammer, while the man seemed to be trying to exert all his force in vain. Unfurling her other extra legs, Entoma used them to lift herself up to the eye level of the huge thug.
"I'm not an insect, I'm an arachnid," she declared.
A kick to the chest sent the attacker flying across the warehouse, hitting one of the carts loaded with Black Powder, which was instantly destroyed. One of the characteristics of Black Powder, besides being extremely addictive, is that it is flammable. Like any fine, flammable powder thrown into the air in large quantities, it becomes explosive. All that was needed was for the lantern hanging on the cart to break, which it did.
The ensuing explosion blew a hole in the wall and started a fire that would soon spread. The maid was caught off guard, momentarily stunned, and several thugs took the opportunity to try to escape, only to find the doors sealed with webs. Those who headed for the sewer were stopped by Kyouhukou's relatives, and those who went down the alley found themselves confronted by Inta's family.
Entoma's mood had soured; usually, she let one or two bandits escape to spread terror in the underworld, a technique tested, confirmed, and approved by her master who used it extensively as Momon, but today no one would escape.
Rimbor didn't know how all this happened. Dodging beggars, old boxes, and garbage bags, he fled down an alley, taking advantage of the explosion to escape through the hole in the wall to the other building, and then out into the empty street. He tried to reach a safe place, entering the alley and then hope arose, a patrol just at the end of the alley, they could protect him, if they were bribed, maybe even escort him to a safe place, but his cry for help was cut off when he was pulled back into the darkness. No one would escape.
Entoma grabbed Rimbor, wrapped him in webs, and carried him up to the roof of the building in a matter of seconds. She didn't even see the grateful nod the veteran soldier gave her as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop with his cargo in tow. Rimbor was one of the masterminds behind this operation, and he was one of the targets to be interrogated by the Nazarick team.
Arriving on the roof of the warehouse, she realized that Inta had not yet left, and the building was already engulfed in flames. 'Has something happened to him? I still have to check the cage,'- she thought before jumping down through the hole to the floors below.
"Inta! Where are you?"
"Here!" - he replied with a strange voice. He was crouched inside the cage, the door had been torn off.
"Is it him? Why didn't he wait for me?"
"It's not him, I realized as soon as I approached the bars."
"Then what is it?"
"Children, there are two children."
"Damn, it looks like you were right, we can go then, the building will come down soon."
"What are we going to do with them?"
"With who?"
"With the children."
"They seem dead."
"Yes, in a way they are dead, but we can't leave them here."
"Why not?"
"They're children."
"They're just humans." Inta looked at Entoma with a mix of surprise, sadness, shame, and disappointment.
"I never thought I'd hear something like that from you..." - murmured the vampire as he grabbed the two children with the claws of his feet and then took off through the opening in the roof and towards the hotel.
Entoma didn't understand what had happened, what she said that irritated Inta? She kept brooding over the thought that she had done something wrong, but she didn't know what it was, while carrying Rimbor back to her apartment, leaving him tied up in the room, she quickly went up to Inta's apartment, where she found Kyouhukou.
"What are you doing here?"
"Mr. Barintacha asked me for a favor, so I came to wait for you to find out what happened since the miss ate my contact and our manager didn't want to give many explanations."
"Well, I don't know what happened, everything happened like this..." - Entoma explained how the night had been up to the point where something had irritated the vampire.
"You didn't say that?!"
"What?"
"Sometimes I forget how young you are, miss."
"I don't understand why he got mad AT ME!"
"You said to leave the children there to die and the reason for that is that they were just humans."
"And why is that important?" - the maid asked anxiously.
"I don't know if you noticed, but Mr. Barintacha has been fighting for the integration of non-human peoples."
"Yes, I know that, it's a struggle to get humans to accept us."
"That's the point, integration and tolerance are a two-way street, that includes accepting humans as they are."
"You mean to forgive them?"
"No, not at all, whoever needs to be punished will be, whoever can change should be taught and encouraged to do so, and the innocent should be protected."
"But they're useless to us, they're just weak humans.'
"You are weak."
"What did YOU SAY?!"
"You are weak, compared to your sisters, you are weak compared to the guardians, you are weak compared to Her Majesty, and yet they do not belittle you, diminish you, or scorn you, they support and strengthen you."
"The Sorcerer King, if he wanted, could raze a human city with a single spell, if he really wanted all humans dead, he could empty the Black Capsule and send my relatives, each with a tiny portion of arsenic, in one night all humans in the kingdom would be dead at the cost of only a few tons of poison."
"But instead he chose the longer path, as far as I could understand, our master desires peace among all races, he sees them all the same way, even humans. And we should learn from that."
" I didn't know" – murmured Entoma ashamedly, then she saw the bedroom door open.
" Int-...Pestonya?!"
"Good evening to you, miss-au.
"But what, how?"
"I asked her to come, that was the favor Mr. Barintacha asked of me, a healer, of course with our master's permission. Lord Ainz simply asked me if anyone on the team had been hurt, I informed him that no one had, then he asked if it was for the good of Nazarick, and I said yes."
"So Lord Ainz must already know about my behavior."
" Probably, I even believe he knew from the beginning, that's why he sent you here."
"It was a test, and I failed."
"On the contrary, I think it was more of a lesson, something for you to learn, like it was done with Lord Cocytus, which is why you should personally tell His Majesty everything."
" I understand, how are the huma...the children?"
" Malnourished, dehydrated, beaten, with an overdose of Black Dust, but after the cure, they are physically well."
" But mentally..."
"Inta! - Entoma ran to the vampire who was in his most human form – "I'm sorry, Inta, I didn't understand."
" Forgive me too, I think I was too hard on you."
"You don't have to, I deserved a scolding, I think my master wanted to teach me something I wasn't seeing."
" His Majesty is very wise."
"About the children, you said earlier that they were dead, even though they weren't, please explain to me."
" Well, I think legally they are dead, they were probably nobles, they had no calluses on their hands, they must have been sold as slaves to pay off some debt, even among fallen nobles there are still laws that restrict how they can be used. A noble still retains knowledge and sometimes contacts, so someone with education ends up as head of the household staff, the less capable you are, the worse the service, they were too young to work, they must have become companions."
" But how could they have ended up in that place?"
" Maybe they weren't good company, maybe the family that bought them had to get rid of them, but it was definitely not long ago, they wouldn't last much longer in another service, they were exposed to Black Dust in an attempt to drug them."
" For what purpose?"
" I think they were going to be sex slaves, they were probably going to be sent to another kingdom, "untouched" they would probably be worth a lot of money for those damned perverts."
"How can they allow that?"
"They don't allow it, especially nowadays where slavery has become illegal, but just a few silver coins in the hand of the right inspector and you have a document proving they died of some disease, then you can sell them without anyone knowing."
" My master needs to know about this."
" In addition, the overdose affected their minds too much."
" What do you mean?"
" Come with me."