Chapter 785

Chapter 39 – Forbidden Flesh

The candlelight turned the pitch-black narrow tunnel into a deep red. I could tell that this was a man-made hole dug out with a shovel, the walls uneven and winding downward for about four or five meters. With a glance under the light of the candle, one could see the exit.

This place was indeed a simple underground cellar.

I quickly slid my body through the hole, soon reaching the darker area at the exit. Then, I quickly stood up, brushed off the dirt on my buttocks, and inhaled the suffocating stench from below. Frowning slightly, I raised the candle to inspect the interior when suddenly, a sharp whistling sound of a blade slicing through the air came from the left side.

Indeed, here it is. Pfft!

Without looking, I grabbed the arm that was swung towards me, tightening my grip on her wrist. The woman let out a painful scream, sounding like a hoarse bird call: “Aaaah!”

Whoosh—

In the next instant, a sharp ice spear flew out from behind me. As my gaze shifted to the left, the ice spear whizzed past my ear, piercing through the woman’s hand that I had grabbed. The weapon she held dropped to the ground with a clatter, making her screams even more agonizing, as if a pig was being slaughtered, causing my eardrums to ache.

“Shut up.”

I kicked her, causing her to bend over, clutching her lower abdomen and taking two steps back. She crashed into the dirt wall behind her with a thud, then fell to her knees. Her screams abruptly stopped, replaced by continuous retching.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

At this moment, Barry rushed in from the entrance, initially panicked for a few seconds before noticing the kneeling woman: “Uh, is this the runaway maid?”

“Yes, it’s her.”

I handed the candle back to Barry, signaling him to hold it above me. Then, I walked up to the woman, knelt down, and once she had finished vomiting, I grabbed her hair, lifting her head to reveal a face streaked with tears, her mouth stained with filth, contorted in agony.

“Gou.”

I greeted her, trying to force a smile that wasn’t particularly friendly, but apparently failed: “You were indeed hiding here.”

The woman’s face was clearly visible in the candlelight. She was the maid from the inn. She wasn’t stupid.

She deliberately left the kitchen door wide open, trying to make me think she had escaped that way. She almost fooled me. “What is this place?”

I casually asked her, but the woman couldn’t speak for a while. Although I didn’t kick her hard, she trembled all over, possibly injuring something internally. Kneeling there, she curled up like a shrimp, not even aware of the bleeding wound on her arm. Her eyes rolled upward, her features twisted, her consciousness already hazy.

Seeing this, I shrugged and released my grip, standing up. I said to Barry, “Look at her,” then walked aimlessly deeper into the cellar, scanning the surroundings. After a few steps, I approached a few other figures huddled in the corner.

This cellar was actually very small, so small that a single candle could illuminate almost all of it. From the moment I stepped out of the entrance, I noticed several shadowy figures huddled here. Now, walking up to them, I could clearly see their faces in the dim light. There were four of them, all girls, three alive and one dead, all chained by their ankles, huddled in the corner.

They didn’t speak. As I approached, they merely drew closer together, seemingly not very afraid. Their expressions were mostly blank and wooden. The three alive ones looked up at me, while the dead one lay beside them, leaning against one of the older-looking girls.

The larger one hugged their shoulders.

The body looked somewhat stiff, but it seemed to have died no more than a day ago, still in the rigor mortis stage. However, both legs and one arm were already gone, as if they had been hacked off with a knife, barely bleeding at all. There was no large pool of dried blood around, suggesting that the limbs were cut off after death.

Those pieces of meat on the chopping block must come from here. I began to understand.

I realized what this tavern was up to, and what the maid wanted from me since the moment I entered the tavern.

These girls should be kept here by the maids and those few men. They didn’t seem to be much older than me, all looking emaciated and bony, but relatively clean, with neat hair and no obvious dirt on their bodies. However, they were barely clothed, wearing only thin, coarse linen outerwear for warmth, with large areas of skin exposed. Almost everything could be seen, but the girls didn’t seem to care.

Their faces weren’t bad, with one even being quite pretty, but their eyes lacked luster. Even when illuminated by candlelight, there was no gleam in their pupils.

Meat taboo

I instinctively thought of this term. “You cough.”

Feeling my throat dry and hoarse, I coughed forcefully and squatted down to check one of the girls’ shackles. When my hand touched her calf, she only trembled slightly and showed no other reaction, her vacant gaze staring blankly at me as if she didn’t understand what I intended to do to them.

“How long have you been locked up here?”

I asked, but after waiting for a while, no one responded. I wasn’t too concerned and lowered my head to rummage through my bag, pulling out ‘Dragon Claw’. The white blade was drawn and held high, a red glint flashing in my eyes, and three sharp clanging sounds echoed. The shackles binding the girl were all severed.

I stood up and clipped ‘Dragon Claw’ to my waist, softly saying to them, “Get up.” But they remained huddled in the corner, staring at me as if dazed.

“Little sister, this lady seems to have fainted.”

I heard Barry calling to me, but I ignored him and continued speaking to the three girls, “You’re free now, do you understand? You can leave this place, no longer forced to do things you don’t want to do. Live well outside, you can stand up, right?”

After I said this, they finally reacted, though not strongly. They just exchanged glances with each other, then hesitantly, one by one, stood up from the corner.

They stood there stupidly in front of me, three pairs of dull eyes looking at me, as if waiting for my next command.

“Haaah…”

I rubbed my forehead and sighed softly.

The last time I saw something like this was back at the Silent Castle…

Suddenly, memories flashed in my mind—those cries and sobs echoing in the rain, their figures appearing once again in my heart. “Let’s go.”

I shook my head and pointed to the opening of the cellar, “Crawl out from there, leave this tavern, run far away, never come back.”

As I turned to walk towards Barry, I heard one of the girls speak. “Leaving means we’ll starve to death.”

I abruptly turned back.

In the dim light, I saw the girl who had been holding the body standing between the other two, pulling them back behind her, looking at me with a hint of resistance and defiance—this was the first time I clearly sensed such emotions since entering this cellar.

“Here, there’s food to eat.”