“So that’s the situation. Would you two be willing to let us ‘capture’ you in name, but actually protect you?”

Facing Ivan and Phonia, I got straight to the point.

“What do you mean, ‘so that’s the situation’...?”

Ivan pressed a hand to his forehead, clearly wanting an explanation. So, I gave him one.

Right after we accepted the request, I expanded my presence detection over the city to locate them. That led us here—to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the port. The walls and ceiling had holes, making it seem like a poor hiding spot, but perhaps that very fact kept them from being discovered.

“The Adventurers’ Guild has issued a request to capture runaway slaves.”

“Huh? …Wait, don’t tell me—”

“Yes. It’s a request to capture both of you.”

At Rio’s words, Phonia’s face turned deathly pale.

“N-No! I don’t want to go back!”

She shook her head fiercely, her eyes brimming with tears. Ivan, holding her close in a comforting embrace, shot a glare at us.

“So you really are here to capture us…”

“No, no, hear us out. We have no intention of handing you over to that marquis.”

“…What?”

The hostility in his expression faded slightly, replaced by confusion.

“We looked into the Marquis’ family and, well, they don’t have the best reputation. Handing Phonia over to such a household would be cruel.”

“And besides, if the ones assigned to capture you are also the ones protecting you, others will be less likely to interfere.”

Anyone who tried to take them from us to return them to the marquis would have to justify why they were overriding an accepted request. That should make interference much less likely… hopefully.

“…That might be true, but…”

He still looked uncertain, but perhaps he was beginning to realize how difficult it would be to keep running.

“Besides, there’s also the Sea Emperor Turtle problem.”

“Yeah… The city’s been buzzing about that.”

“If the turtle ends up attacking the city, we could use the chaos to fake your deaths. That way, you’d be free. We can even remove your collars.”

“…Huh?”

“Wait… You can actually do that?”

Ivan looked stunned, and Phonia blinked in confusion.

“No way. These are slave collars! There’s no way they can just be removed!”

Ivan jumped to his feet, clearly unconvinced. I pulled out several previously removed slave collars from my dimensional storage and set them down with a clatter.

“Actually, they can be removed quite easily.”

Regular collars aren’t sealed rings when first worn; otherwise, they wouldn’t fit over a person’s head.

“These are…”

“Slave collars we removed before.”

“Do you believe us now?”

Ivan swallowed hard, reaching up to touch the collar around his own neck.

“That said… we haven’t really figured out what comes next.”

“It’s easy enough to free you, but…”

Rio and I exchanged wry smiles. That was the real issue.

“If you’re willing to leave the Empire and start fresh somewhere else, we’ll escort you that far.”

“That’s right. We’re planning to travel across different countries anyway, so if our paths happen to align, we won’t mind taking you along.”

“…We can’t ask you to go that far.”

“But at this point, we’re already involved.”

The capture request was already issued. If we didn’t resolve this properly, it would just lead to more trouble.

“Honestly, maybe this is just our own selfishness.”

“What kind of reasoning is that?”

“Well, we just don’t want Phonia to suffer.”

Rio clenched her fist as she declared this, and Phonia clung tightly to Ivan.

“Big brother Ivan, let’s go with them.”

She looked up at him with pleading eyes.

Damn. That’s way too powerful.

“Ugh… Alright, alright. I’ll go along with this.”

“…’Go along’?”

“Haha!”

Ivan pursed his lips but didn’t seem too displeased.

“So, what do you think?”

“Well… do you even have a place to hide us?”

“We can’t just hole up in an inn, right?”

“Of course not. The marquis’ influence might be involved, and even if not, no innkeeper would risk angering a noble.”

He folded his arms and muttered to himself, but he was right. Which meant there was only one option left.

“If we don’t have one, we’ll just make one.”

“…What?”

“Ah, I see what you mean.”

Ivan looked dumbfounded, while Rio clapped her hands in understanding.

“Outside the city would be best, right?”

“Yes. There was a forest a little ways off the road leading to the Imperial Capital. Let’s use that.”

“Wait, hold on. What are you talking about?”

It had been a while since I built anything from scratch. Lately, I’d only been expanding on existing structures from my storage. This would be a fun challenge.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you have a comfortable place to live.”

I gave him a confident thumbs-up, and though Ivan’s frown deepened, he eventually sighed and nodded.