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After finally settling Beedle down, the boys felt guilty for having abandoned us. Beedle was bruised up, but a quick potion and all of the physical trauma was gone. That only left the emotional trauma, which was likely heavy. She had a haunted look in her eyes, and the only reason she hadn’t left was that she’d need to leave alone. She clung to my arm as the pair of us continued to move deeper into the abandoned fort filled with goblins.

Even Bradrick had been affected by what had happened to Beedle. He no longer took off ahead, and every time he looked at her, his eyes flickered with a complicated look. I wondered what he was thinking. I’d like to think it was pure sympathy, and while he may have felt some, I was betting the thoughts in his head centered more around whether Beedle was a liability. Should they continue to bring her along, or just dump her?

It was unlikely she’d be going on another mission with him. She had been unable to deal with even a simple goblin when it took her off guard. She was too used to the men handling all of the battles. This wasn’t to say that she was weak, but her spells took time and being caught off guard and close range were two things that she couldn’t handle. In a situation where she had the backing of all her teammates, things would have turned out different.

She didn’t even think about how the stress of this trauma would affect her in the future. Would she freeze up with the next enemy, or start throwing attacks out that put herself and her teammates in danger? Now that she was mentally compromised, it was difficult to say. Ignoring all of that, there was no saying she’d even want to go on another mission. Likely she’d be haunted by what happened for the rest of her life. It must be nice…

As I gave her a comforting arm, I found myself wondering about such a thing. I had the corrupting influence of Seductress and later Mental Fortitude to keep my mind under control. However, Min had been raped by goblins as well, and she didn’t have such protection. I realized that part of the reason I had been enamored with Min was that we had shared such an experience. Yet, the way she handled it, and the way Beedle handled it were radically different. As Beedle shook while holding onto me, I realized that Min was mentally far stronger than I had ever given him credit for.

With that thought, an image flashed in my mind. It was Min, bloodied and broken on the floor. That was the last time I had seen him. I had put him in that state. No, he went by Bryson now. He still was a boy, and now he acted like a hero too, even claiming he was from another world. It was like he wanted to live the life he had fantasized about for me. Was he trying to show me that I could have been a hero? Was he rubbing my failures in my face?

Thinking about Min only caused my mood to sour. I didn’t know how I felt about her. At least when it came to Devon, I knew that we were enemies. He said he’d kill me the next time he saw me. Well, he was a human from the human realm, so our paths weren’t likely to cross here deep in the demon realm. I also didn’t plan to get involved with politics again. A nameless adventurer and traveling alchemist… that seemed as good of an identity as any.

As I was thinking about such things, the group continued deeper into the compound. We encountered a few groups of goblins, but there were rarely more than groups of three. The two of them would swiftly take them out before we were seen. We had already killed enough goblins to equal that cave I had once been in, and there was no end in sight.

As we continued deeper, I began to hear the sounds of whimpering and crying. Bradrick gave a gesture for us to all get down, and he slowly began to creep toward the noise. He probably would have gone on without us, but he didn’t want a repeat of the last ambush. We ended up entering a room. The sounds and smells immediately told me where we were. It was a place I was extremely familiar with from both sides. This was the breeding room.

There were four women. This room must have been a barracks or bedroom once. The woman was chained to broken, rotting beds. Honestly, they had things better off than I had in that cave. My bare ass was on cold rock day and night. They at least were on something soft, even if it was covered in goblin filth.

“Damn them…” Rio hissed under his breath.

One woman was on her stomach, weeping into a pillow. There was another woman who looked to be very pregnant and about to pop with goblin babies. There was a third woman who had goblin cum leaking from her crotch, staring up at the ceiling with a vacant, lost look. The final girl was the only one who reacted. She jerked when she saw shapes in the room. At first, she was afraid a goblin had come to rape her, but when she saw who it was, hope and excitement filled her eyes.

“Please, help!” She immediately started to panic, pulling on the chains. “Gods, help me!”

“Shhh!” Bradrick hissed angrily.

There were no goblins in the room at the moment, but that didn’t mean there might not be ones close enough to hear and investigate when one of the breeders got noisy.  The woman barely listened, still crying out and rattling her chain. Of the other three girls, the pregnant girl weakly raised her head in response to the noise and the crying girl looked up. The blank-eyed girl didn’t move.

Bradrick took three steps and then backhanded the girl making noise. She let out a cry as she fell back on the bed.

“Be quiet, dumb bitch!” He cursed.

She whimpered, rubbing her cheek, but when she looked back up at him, there was no fear or anger. Instead, there was hope and submission. How was a strike to the face any worse than what she had already been through? Likely, women who had been through these kinds of experiences got with the toughest man they could, even if he was abusive. At least, that’s what I would have done.

“We’ve got a pregnant one.” Rio sighed.

“W-wait!” The woman weakly held up her hand, but Rio pulled a knife and while looking away, stabbed her in the throat.

The other girls jerked but didn’t say anything else. They all knew the cost of getting pregnant with a goblin. It was often considered a mercy just to kill them. It wasn’t that these women couldn’t be saved, it was more than the cost of saving them was too high. After all, if they were valuable enough to go through such expensive rehabilitation, someone would have already been dispatched to rescue them. It was a general understanding that most adventurers wouldn’t rescue someone so far gone. She would have had to be carried back, and almost certainly have the babies on the way, which also meant her death was almost certain.

Not only did pregnancy births often lead to the death of the mother, but even if she survived, the babies would have to be killed instantly. The responsibility for monsters who were brought into a village fell on the person who did it. In other words, if an adventurer rescued a woman pregnant with goblins, then it would be the adventurer’s responsibility to make sure those goblins died. It’d be done at a cost to them unless someone from her family took over responsibility. In most cases where a woman was dragged in by goblins, there was no one from her family left. Furthermore, the mother would have gone through the trauma of pushing out abominations. This caused me to remember the abomination I had to push out. It was sometimes better to just die quickly than go through that.

The woman was already very weak, and it didn’t take long before her gurgling ended and she died silently. The crying woman cried harder, but when Bradrick shot her a look, she shoved her face in the dirty mattress to stifle the noise. As for the woman who was struck, she looked at Bradrick like a loyal dog. She even wagged her tail expectantly, her ears laid back in submission. She was a demon with dog or wolf-like traits.

“That… could have been me.” Beedle shivered, holding me tighter.

She didn’t have sympathy for these women but fear that she could have been on one of these beds, the same thing happening to her. I gave a fake sympathetic look as I stroked her arm. It didn’t take long until the chains were broken and the three naked women were on their feet, covered in raggy cum-stained blankets that had been in the room.

“Beedle, take them to the exit.”

Beedle’s eyes widened. “A-alone?”

I could already feel her body shaking.

“We’re already so far. I’m not going to waste time going back and allowing them to be alerted and mount a defense.” Bradrick declared.

“We’ve already cleared out everything on the way here.” Rio tried to comfort her. “As long as you go back the way you came, you won’t run into any demons.”

“I-I can’t…” She responded shakily.

“Useless!” Bradrick hissed, causing her to wince like she had just been struck.

“I’ll go with them.” I declared.

“Aria?” Rio frowned.

“I’ll come back after taking them to the entrance,” I explained. “We’ll be fine.”

Beedle looked at me with teary eyes. She likely thought I was being brave, but I honestly just wanted her to stop grabbing onto me. I was becoming one of those people who didn’t like to be touched. It wasn’t because I was a recluse. Quite the opposite. The feeling of a girl pressing against me was making me horny, and I knew I wouldn’t be getting any relief for a while. Her traumatized, vulnerable state was a turn on. I had played with myself earlier, and now I was barely keeping myself restrained. Once I dropped them off at the entrance, I’d finally have a few minutes alone. I could play with myself for some relief, although if I found a goblin on the way back, I would fuck him too.

“I-I’m a guard.” The woman who had been weeping suddenly spoke up. “I-if you give me a blade, I can protect your women.”

Bradrick and Rio gave her a dubious look. I tended to agree with them. She seemed to be the most emotionally damaged one present. Plus, she had been captured by the goblins in the first place. While there was a difference between handling two or so goblins in a team and being overrun, it was still questionable.

“Ma’am…” Rio tried to let her down gently.

“We… were ambushed. I’ve from the nearby village. We were sent here before we knew there were goblins. My friends…” Her voice broke. “They were all men. They’re dead now. I was hit by a rock, and when I woke up, I was chained to the bed.”

Bradrick stepped forward and pulled a dagger out of his belt, handing it to her. “Beedle will take you all to our camp where you can eat and get a change of clothing.”

I was a bit surprised he gave her the knife. She could end up knocking Beedle out and robbing us while we were still cleaning up the remaining goblins. Then again, I wasn’t the trusting sort.

Beedle finally managed to calm down. After all, as much as she trusted me, in her mind, I was just another victim who was a bit braver than her. If a half-naked stranger with a dagger was what was needed to calm her though, I wasn’t complaining. The two men headed off deeper into the complex, while the five women headed toward the entrance.