How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 80

“Meowww~!”

The boys chased after the black tuxedo cat.

The cat glanced back several times to make sure they were following, then turned a corner and entered a deserted alley.

However, when the boys rounded the corner, the cat was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a woman stood there alone.

“Huh?”

“Eek! W-what, what’s going on?”

Dave, who had been leading the chase, stopped short in surprise at the sight of the woman. Jane, following right behind him, bumped into him and stumbled.

“Big brother! The cat disappeared!”

“Th-then, wh-what do we do?”

The woman smiled brightly and opened her mouth.

“Oh, no need to worry, young masters.”

At that moment, tiny, gleaming lights began appearing one by one in the dark alley until they filled the entire space.

“W-what in the…!”

Every single light was a cat’s eye.

The boys recoiled in horror at the sight of so many cats crowding together, but Bella giggled and greeted one of them.

“Lovely night, isn’t it~?”

“Young masters, I need you to help me with something.”

“H-huh? W-what do you n-need us to…?”

The boys were at a loss as to how to deal with a woman who had suddenly approached them, but they couldn’t back out now. They still needed to find the cat.

The biggest problem was figuring out how to find it among all those cats.

“You see, I’m in a position where I mustn’t reveal myself~ So, the little master will come with me to deliver a secret letter, while the big master keeps watch at that inn from earlier to make sure no other rabbits are sold~”

Only then did the boys realize that the woman before them knew the mysterious little boys. They also realized that she was trying to protect the “rabbits.”

Bella took out paper and a pen right there and began writing a secret letter. Dave couldn’t read well enough to make sense of it, but Jane managed to decipher a few scattered words and gradually piece together its contents.

Children. Medicine. Transactions.

Seeing several words repeated throughout the letter, Jane guessed that it was a secret report concerning human trafficking or drugs.

“W-where should we s-send it?”

“Straight to the Royal Guard~”

“T-to the r-royal palace?”

“That’s right. As you heard, the local guard captain is already in cahoots with them. We need to send it to the royal palace so the bad adults can be caught quickly. Oh, by the way, can either of you draw a map?”

At the mention of a map, the boys exchanged glances. Then, with determined expressions, they leaned close and began drawing Sharton Street.

“That’s the grocery store. The restaurant is right next to it.”

“T-this is the w-warehouse, and n-next to it should be the r-red-roofed inn you mentioned. I-it’s called Maple Tree, but I’ve h-heard some men call it White Maple.”

Bella filled in the names as the boys supplied them, completing the map. Without their help, she wouldn’t have finished it so quickly.

Finally, she drew cute cat faces on the completed map to highlight the guard station, the inn that sold rabbits, and the inn suspected of storing the drugs. She then carefully folded the map with the letter and handed it to Dave.

“W-why are you giving this to m-me?”

“I mustn’t let anyone see my face. I need the little master to help me.”

Bella repeatedly emphasized that he must send it as an urgent dispatch. She then asked Jane to keep watch at the inn that sold rabbits to make sure no other children were brought there.

She also warned him not to intervene under any circumstances if children were brought in, as far as possible. Then she transformed into a cat and hopped onto Dave’s shoulder.

“Meowww~!”

“…A cat?”

“Meowww!”

The astonished boys stared dumbfounded at Bella, who had turned into a cat.

Bella meowed once more, then impatiently kneaded Dave’s cheek with her paws as if asking why he was still standing there instead of getting a move on. She pointed the way with one forepaw.

Prompted by the cat, Dave reflexively took a step forward. But then he remembered how he had insulted the little boys at the guard station, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from wavering.

“Um…”

“Meow?”

“…I’m sorry.”

In a situation like this, a quick apology was the best answer.

The cart carrying the iron cage rolled along for quite some time.

Eventually, Rianus could no longer stand being bored and began squirming around. Then he remembered the thread bracelet on his wrist, and his eyes lit up.

Could this be the moment when my dear friend’s special training finally pays off?!

Thinking this, Rianus fiddled with the thread bracelet.

But perhaps the rope binding him had been too loose to begin with, because after just a few little wiggles, it slipped free!

“…”

Rianus stared blankly at the rope that had come undone far too easily.

Nihil watched him and chuckled under his breath. Then he freed himself from his own bindings, pulled the disappointed little boy closer, and let him rest his head on his arm.

The cart kept jolting because the road was uneven, causing Rianus’s head to bump against the sides repeatedly.

Rianus listened to the steady thumping of Nihil’s pulse beside his ear and nearly dozed off.

I’m being sold into human trafficking right now, and I’m getting sleepy?!

It was all because his dear friend was so dependable.

Rianus hurriedly wiped the little bit of drool at the corner of his mouth, then cautiously lifted his head to see whether Nihil had witnessed his disgraceful appearance.

Nihil had his eyes closed, but perhaps because Rianus had moved or because he sensed the other boy’s gaze, he carefully raised his eyelids and looked down at him. His lips moved silently, asking, Why?

Relieved that he hadn’t been caught drooling, Rianus whispered with a serious expression, as though he hadn’t been sleeping at all.

“Where do you think we’re going?”

Nihil had already wiped Rianus’s drool several times along the way, so he struggled not to laugh as he answered just as seriously.

“Probably a gambling den.”

“A gambling den? Why?”

“The missing children were probably sold far away or disposed of. But this country doesn’t have slavery. To sell them as slaves, they’d have to be sent to another country where slavery still exists. That’s risky, and turning young children into slaves isn’t profitable because they’re not very productive. They don’t seem to care about appearance, either, so I doubt they’re selling them as collectibles. Besides, the major organizations in Sharton Street were supposedly dismantled, so there probably isn’t an organization here with enough manpower to manage something on that scale. The guard captain only changed three months ago, which makes me think Sharton Street is merely a temporary storage point for drugs. At most, they pull the patrol guards off duty when the drugs are being distributed. Hmm, Rian, could you lift your waist for a moment?”

Nihil thought they were almost at their destination. He wrapped the rope around Rianus again, binding him tightly, and continued.

“If that’s the case, the children were probably ‘disposed of.’ And the reason for disposing of them was likely entertainment rather than revenge. Aside from drugs, there are three major forms of entertainment here: alcohol, sexual gratification, and gambling. Alcohol has nothing to do with the children, so that leaves sexual gratification and gambling. If the purpose were sexual gratification, the price would usually vary according to appearance. But they valued the children for being younger, not for how they looked. More importantly, if the children were being used for sexual gratification, there’d be no reason to dispose of them afterward. So rather than being used for pleasure and then disposed of, it’s more likely that disposing of them is entertainment itself. The older children get, the more fiercely they resist, and the harder they are to control. They need someone small and fragile enough to manipulate easily.”

“Then… you think the children are being used as stakes in gambling…?”

“It’s only a guess. Oh, Rian, don’t move around too much now that the rope’s loose. There, hold still like that.”

Nihil soothed Rianus, who was squirming because the rope was uncomfortable, and continued explaining.

“Another possibility is that they’re being used as sacrifices by a heretical cult. But considering the circumstances and the conversations we’ve heard, that seems unlikely.”

As Nihil explained, Rianus’s expression grew darker and darker.

“…If you hadn’t suggested coming here…”

“Then we wouldn’t have ended up being sold for a mere eighty silver coins.”

“…”

That wasn’t what Rianus had meant to say, but Nihil pretended not to understand and continued.

“We would’ve had a warm, delicious meal and been lying in a soft bed instead of this cold, hard cage.”

Rianus gave a small nod and added to Nihil’s words.

“That’s right. And we would’ve finished our homework in a hurry and then wondered what to play.”

“Exactly.”

“We would’ve been fools. Completely ignorant of everything.”

“…”

“…If we hadn’t come here, we wouldn’t have had to hear about the girl who sold her body to support her younger brother and was beaten to death. We wouldn’t have had to see her little brother left all alone, blaming himself for being useless. We wouldn’t have seen the child who nearly had his intestines burst after being kicked by his only remaining relative. And we wouldn’t have seen those foolish children getting excited over watery soup with just a few pieces of meat in it.”

“…”

After listing everything he had seen and heard, Rianus fell silent for a moment before quietly calling Nihil.

“Neil.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for bringing me outside.”

“Yeah.”

Nihil smiled warmly.

Just then, the cart stopped. From this point onward, they would truly have to be on their guard.

I really mustn’t fall asleep now!

As Nihil had predicted, the iron cage containing the children arrived at a gambling den.

The moment Rianus entered the building, the overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke nearly made him cough.

“What took you so long? I told you to hurry up!”

A middle-aged man with a bald head approached them and immediately began shouting.

He seemed to hold a relatively high position, judging by how the man who had brought the children kept bowing and scraping before him.

“I-I’m sorry. One of the rabbits must not have drunk all his milk, so he took a little longer to fall asleep. And then that damn hunter started haggling with me…”

“Haggling? How much did you pay?”

“I-I paid eighty per child.”

“Are you insane? Is this how you do your job?”

“B-but he was so stubborn… Still, they really are very young. The other customers will be satisfied.”

“Enough. Give them the antidote and get them into the hunting grounds already!”

“Y-yes, sir!”

After bowing repeatedly, the man waited until the bald man had left before moving somewhere else. Then he pulled away the cloth covering the cage.

Rianus had to struggle not to squeeze his eyes shut too tightly, lest the man realize he was still awake. Nevertheless, his eyelids kept trembling involuntarily.

Shouts that were difficult to distinguish from cheers or cries of despair, along with loud conversations, reverberated throughout the space. He cautiously opened his eyes a sliver, but the surroundings were too dark to see clearly.

The man took Rianus out of the cage and forced his mouth open, pouring in something that Rianus assumed was the “antidote.”

Rianus wondered how anyone was supposed to swallow something while asleep, but the man seemed to be in such a hurry that he didn’t even check whether Rianus had swallowed it. Instead, he moved on to Nihil.

Rianus quickly spat the antidote onto the floor and opened his eyes a little wider to observe the situation.

His eyes soon adjusted to the darkness, but there wasn’t much information to be gleaned. If anything, he could at least see that Nihil’s pure-white eyelashes seemed to sparkle even in the dark.

Rianus worried that the man might do something to Nihil after removing his hood. But the man seemed to have even worse eyesight than Rianus. He took another dose of the antidote from his pocket, dropped it, and cursed.

Then he spent quite some time groping around on the floor, trying to find it.

Nihil grew frustrated watching the man fail to find the antidote that had rolled just beside him, despite several minutes of searching. He quietly pulled his hood back on, let out a groan, and pretended to wake up.

Rianus had been tense, but when Nihil gave the man a look of utter contempt, he nearly burst out laughing.

“Damn brat. I thought the sleeping pills weren’t working properly, and now you’ve woken up already.”

“Ugh…”

The man never imagined that the damn brat had been looking at him like he was an idiot. Instead, he remarked that this was actually convenient, grabbed Nihil and Rianus by the backs of their necks, and carried them somewhere.

“Get in!”

The man roughly shoved the two boys into an iron cage, while they continued pretending to be frail little children who had only just woken from the effects of the drugs and could barely walk.

The place where they were thrown was a semicircular space enclosed by iron bars arranged in a circle. Beyond the bars, spectators crowded around to watch the children.

And among those spectators stood Evan, his expression fierce as he clenched his fists tightly.

There was another problem, though. Other children who had been sold were already inside the cage.

And among them was…

“…What are you guys?”

Pan, kneeling stupidly with his hands tied behind his back.