Finding an inn was easy.

At the cost of a hundred gold coins, Elena practically rented an entire inn for herself and carefully asked that no one disturb her under any circumstances. Gold is always a good incentive, so the owner of the inn did not hesitate to accept the demands of his mysterious tenant and her group.

Leaving several steel soldiers throughout the inn to make sure no one bothered them, the rest of the group entered a huge room.

Nia immediately jumped into her mother's arms and they cried to the utter bewilderment of the two red-haired siblings and the brown-haired young woman.

「I thought I would never see you again, my little Nia」

「Mom!」

Nia let out a loud cry as she clung to her mother's arms.

After the Satyrs' attack on the temple where Nia and her mother lived, Maya, Nia's mother, she had escaped and deceived with false promises about helping her find her daughter later, Maya ended up accompanying her group to one of the three city-states of the elves.

For weeks Maya only received one pretext after another regarding her requests for help to search for Nia, and although several times she tried to go out alone to search for her daughter, her temple companions always prevented it.

After a harrowing month of not knowing about her daughter, Maya finally found out something about Nia.

One of the temple elderly had made it to the city alone, and because of the Elven laws, this elderly woman had to submit a full report on what had happened to her after the Satyrs attack

Thanks to Ophel, an old suitor of Maya and who was now a personal guard of one member of the council of elders, Maya knew what happened to Nia. That elderly woman from the temple had sold Nia to human merchants.

Out of despair, Maya tried to leave the city to search for her daughter. However, the city council of elders forbade her to leave the city and even ordered her to be confined. To the council of elders, a half-elf was worthless.

Willing to do whatever it took to go in search of her daughter, Maya agreed to become Ophel's wife if he helped her find Nia.

With the help of Ophel, Maya escaped from confinement and left the city-state.

In search of Nia, for long and harrowing months that turned into tortuous years, Maya and Ophel traveled through all the territories surrounding the temple where Maya used to live.

Two elves traveling alone were attractive to mean men and unpleasant Satyrs, Maya and Ophel lived through countless setbacks and moments of danger, and just a year ago, in one of those circumstances, Ophel lost his life protecting Maya from the Satyrs.

With no one else to trust or lean on, Maya often considered giving up, however, the memory of her daughter and the precarious situation in which she had to find herself always pushed Maya to keep going.

In a last desperate attempt to find her daughter, Maya had given herself up to a slave trader. Elf women are highly valued in this kind of heinous market, and Maya in her despair thought whoever had bought Nia would try to buy her.

For months Maya was taken from one city to another and auctioned repeatedly among the slave traders. All of them considered it a great investment that had no losses. In this way, Maya had ended up in the hands of Lutrel's wealthy slave trader, who also planned to auction her off.

The Mother Goddess whom Maya had so relentlessly begged since separating from Nia had finally heard her pleas.

Mother and daughter were finally reunited.

Discovering that those two were mother and daughter caused the little boy to throw himself into the arms of his older sister and both cried. Surrounded by those moving scenes, the young woman with brown hair shed some silent tears as she yearned for the warmth of the mother she had already lost.

As for Elena, she showed a sweet smile while also remembering her own mother and trying to deal with what happened to her father.

「Mom, there is someone very important that I would like to introduce you to」

Nia finally turned away from her mother and after cleaning her tears, she exclaimed that with a smile and then turned to Elena who was still hidden under that white cloak.

「She's the person who saved me from becoming a slave for the rest of my life」

Nia added that and Maya could feel a genuine feeling of gratitude mixed with admiration, devotion, and perhaps even love in her daughter's words.

Elena removed her hood and finally seeing the face of the one who had bought them was amazing for everyone. This young woman of great beauty caused for a second led Maya to question whether she was an elf.

「My name is Elena Izana, it is a pleasure」

The siblings, Maya and the young woman with brown hair, all they lost their breath completely when they heard that name.

Even inside their cages, they all heard this name being mentioned many times over the past few days in the conversations of those who went to the slave shop.

「Mom?」

Seeing that her mother was not responding to Elena's greeting, Nia panicked because of fear that her mother might hate Elena for some unknown reason. Something like that would put her in a very difficult situation.

「I-I'm sorry, my name is Maya Elyris, I can never finish thanking you for saving my daughter and allowing us to meet again」

Maya bowed deeply as tears flowed from her eyes, Nia hugged her again and they started crying once more.

「You… you are really Elena Izana, the Valkyrie?」

Taking stock of all her courage, eleven-year-old Erin asked that question. How could she resist it?

Before her family fell from grace and she and her little brother ended up as slaves for sale, Erin had heard the stories about the Valkyrie's heroic actions during the battle against the Sadorians.

Wielding a sword and single-handedly, the Valkyrie had defeated large numbers of enemy knights forcing the rest to undertake the retreat, and later that brave female knight had led the rest of the army to victory.

Erin's admiration for that brave female knight had led her openly declare that she would become a female knight, something that caused grace and tenderness in her parents, who did not try to change her mind and even her father agreed to teach her fencing.

When the tragedy struck her family, Erin longed even more to possess a strength similar to that of that brave female knight, thus having protected her family or at least prevent her little brother from ending up being displayed for sale to men of repulsive and twisted tastes.

With all that, how could Erin not be excited about possibly being in front of the person she admired so much?

As it was the first time that someone asked her if she was the Valkyrie, Elena showed some discomfort.

「I am, although I would prefer not to be called by that nickname, I don't think I'm worthy of it」

Hearing that confirmation pushed thick tears from inside Erin's emerald eyes, her body lost strength and she fell to her knees as a loud cry escaped her throat. Her little brother clung to her and started crying. He too was a great admirer of the Valkyrie and had promised to become a knight alongside his older sister.

Eighteen-year-old Bryn was no less shocked than the rest to learn the identity of whoever had bought her. In that brothel to which her father had sold her, Bryn heard the stories about the Valkyrie and also wished she possessed even a little of the courage and strength of that brave woman to flee, or at least be brave enough to take her own life. Now that person was in front of her and although her figure was slim, her beauty was even greater than that described by the stories.

「I don't understand why you cry but everything will be fine now, do you understand?」

Elena was trying to calm both Erin's and her little brother's crying without success.

After several minutes it took for everyone to calm down, Elena let out a long sigh of relief.

「First, I will clarify that I have no intention of performing the slavery ritual on your」

Even Maya surprised hearing that.

The slavery ritual that sealed the slave's freedom forever and bound it for life to the master was simple to perform. All the people who had bought the slave had to do was spill a drop of his blood on the collar on the slave's neck, this would cause the collar to physically disappear but appear on the skin of the slave's neck in the form of a tattoo.

Until the ritual of slavery was carried out, the slave could be controlled by anyone who held the chain attached to the collar on their necks.

「What does that mean, Elena-sama?」

Elena was slightly surprised that this red-haired girl who had been a noble showed her so much respect.

「Before, could you tell me your names?」

「M-my name is Erin, and he is my little brother Teo」

Erin's eyes sparkled and Elena continued to cannot understand why this girl was so respectful. All Elena could do in response to Erin was smile, and Erin seemed so moved as to shed a few tears.

「M-my name is Bryn」

That Bryn was respectful was normal, which is something she must be used to being a commoner, so Elena found nothing unusual in this.

「Okay, going back to your previous question, Erin」

Hearing Elena pronounces her name caused Erin to let out a long breath as her heart pounded.

「I will remove the slavery necklaces from your necks and give you two options, you can follow me of your own free will, or you can leave and live your lives freely」

Everyone went into silence after hearing that. Nia could only smile with pride when she saw that even her mother was surprised.

Elena had practically spent a fortune to buy them and now she was offering them the option of being free. She really was a Valkyrie.

「Before you give me your answer, I will make something clear, I am not a heroine and I do not pretend to be; I am someone who has suddenly gained great strength and who has sworn to herself not to allow anyone to humiliate her. So if you follow me, you will probably end up being forced to fight to protect my selfishness 」

This caused Nia to laugh slightly, which ruined Elena's intention for show evil.

「Elena-sama, if I join you, will I become strong?」

The first to respond was Erin.

「Do you want to become strong?」

「I want to be a strong knight just like Elena-sama!」

Elena smiled, she finally understands the source of the respect Erin was showing her.

「In that case, if you join me, I guarantee that I will make you a worthy knight to stand by my side」

Erin's tear-filled eyes shone brightly.

「I will join you, Elena-sama!」

「I want to be a knight too!」

Elena nodded in response to the two siblings and then brought her gaze to Bryn.

「Elena-sama... I… I not too old to become strong?」

Bryn's body trembled as she asked that question. She wanted to become strong, but she was already eighteen. At her age, many women were already mothers.

「If you accept my methods, you will become as strong as your own will allows」

Bryn saw no deception in Elena's beautiful violet eyes, so tears flowed from her eyes.

「I will follow you too, Elena-sama」

Elena nodded and then brought her gaze to Maya, who showed a warm smile.

「Although I have no intention of becoming strong, I hope you will allow me to join you, Elena-sama」

「I couldn't ask a maiden to turn into a soldier, but I heard from Nia that you prepare delicious food and I need a little help on this matter」

Maya smiled and nodded as Nia clutched her arms.

「Elena-sama, will you go see your father?」

Once she turned away from her mother, Nia asked that question that slightly surprised everyone.

「Yes, but before I must prepare, my half-brothers will not allow me to see him, so I will have to make my way to him. Therefore, we must return to Izana 」

Nia nodded as the level of confusion in the others grew. If Elena planned to return to her territory, then why did she take the trouble to rent the entire inn?

「But before... Rupture」

To Erin, Bryn and Maya's surprise, their necklaces were broken. The most surprised was Maya, who had great knowledge of magic. It omitting the conjuration and reducing the spell to the pronunciation of a single word was something that Maya had never heard or read in the Elven records. Maya also did not know of a spell that could so easily break a collar of slavery.

However, Maya's surprise was no less when Nia handed Elena a magic core which turned to dust after Elena used another unknown spell. Based on her knowledge, Maya concludes that what Elena had done was to take the magic power of the core to herself.

「Mom, you better get ready, you're just seeing a little of what Elena-sama is」

Nia showed a proud smile when she declared that.

「Well then, let's go to Izana… Warp」

In front of Maya's stunned gaze, Elena brought up a bright door.

「Let's go」

To Maya's bewilderment and Erin and Bryn's surprise, Elena walked through that door with the two Izana Knights behind her and disappeared.

Erin did not hesitate, took Teo by the hand, and walked through the light door. Bryn clenched her fists and followed Erin.

「Come on, mom」

Nia took her surprised mother by the hand and guided her toward the light door.