The World's Ego (Book 2)

'Lookout' Duties

Third Person POV

The rest of the evening involved dinner on the second floor dining room, which gave them more privacy to speak to each other uninterrupted. The Seven Swords, who woke up by Feiyun's bedroom door a few minutes after the fiasco, were ordered to return to their residence for the night by Su, and to not return the next morning for a few hours (for Fu Hua's sake).

"Hm..." Vita hummed, shuffling her feet on the floor while she sat and ate, "... There are so many people living here."

"Yeah." Feiyun swallowed her food, "Technically, this place is their home. I only use it for occasions like this festival. To be more specific, the mansion was built solely to house them until they are ready to move out and on with their lives."

Su hummed quietly, "That's more or less the story. You only missed out on the part where they were once prisoners of the slave trading business."

Feiyun cleared her throat, giving him a subtle glare, "Well, they don't have to be reminded of that."

"None of them are around us, so what's the problem?" Su shrugged, "And it's the truth. Why do you think they wanted to serve you in this mansion?"

Fu Hua turned to Feiyun, understanding Su's words, "Rescued slaves?"

Feiyun sighed, biting on her spoon lightly, "Yeah. It was also a setup by the Queen to give me a reason to build the mansion."

"So you were tricked too." Senti stated bluntly, "At least some good things came out of it, I guess?"

"I guess..."

Vita's eyes flickered from Feiyun and then down to her plate, which had an awfully small portion compared to the amount she ate before on Earth.

"Is she still...?"

Su kept his eyes trained on Vita for a moment to observe her actions. When they had snacks in Feiyun's room, Vita had been extremely friendly to Feiyun, and he observed that there was some sincerity and concern in her actions but it was Vita, even if she truly saw Feiyun as a friend, there was still a need to be wary with the way she mixes truth and lies in her words.

"Hey, do you think you can still hang out for a little while longer tonight?" Vita requested with a smile, "I really want to have a nice talk with you! It's been so long since the last time we were properly able to hang out!"

Feiyun hummed, turning to Su as he shrugged, and she returned her attention to Vita, "Why not? I can ask for some guest rooms to be made available."

"Then you two can stay for the night too." Su said, turning to Fu Hua and Senti, "I will let Elysia know so that she can relay the message to your friends."

"Oh..." Fu Hua shared a look with Senti, the Herrscher simply shrugging to let her decide, "... Okay then. We will take up the offer. Thank you."

Su nodded and started communicating with Rimuru to make the arrangements while Feiyun did the same when Hilma entered the dining room to refill their drinks.

"Hey, Feiyun." Vita started once Hilma was out of the room again, "What happened when you went to the base to rescue the slaves? Anything fun there?"

"Fun?" Feiyun raised a brow, "You can't say that it's fun for them to be taken to become slaves."

"Oh, it must have sounded wrong! Sorry!" Vita waved it off, "I meant if the base had anything interesting."

"Not really." Feiyun recalled the details back then, "It was an underground network in the most obvious places. The criminals have already gone through trials in their home countries so there's that. Reparations and stuff are pretty much settled too. They got a bunch of people involved that day, and after the rescue, I received a lot of letters as thanks and maybe a few gifts scattered between months."