Quoted By:
“Mister. If you’re looking for volume 11 of Kuro’s place…” Coming from behind me - and somewhat low to the ground - is a strangely familiar voice of a goblin. Huh. She must’ve waited behind me while I was looking through the catalog. My bad. I should not be clogging up the line.
Turning around, I see a female whose height is roughly half of mine. More alarmingly, this one I - do - recognize: Airin. While we work in the same slave-audit agency, our lives do not intersect that frequently, and oftentimes, not directly. Airin is a legal advisor for the slave masters while I mainly audit and process slaves - she advises them on big decisions whereas I deal with the decisions’ aftermath.
Oh god. Oh no, no, no, no. This- this is bad. This is really, really bad. WHY IS SHE HERE? Will this female squeal on me? Getting caught with pornography of this sort, hell, just the RUMOR of it be pretty damning. It is fiction, yes, but quite a number of folk seem to believe it to be closely related to actual childfuckers for some reason.
“Uh...” Airin is also freezing up - she seems to have recognized me also. After a second of staring, she pretended to not be aware of me and only address the dealer when talking.
“… uh.. yes. Randou’s Lady Yuri Servants… volume.. one to four. That- that is correct. Thank you.” After confirming her order to be accurate - in a rather nervous manner, Airin slides the dealer a heavily bulging pouch for four exceptionally thick books complete with colored illustrations. Once the dealer finishes gathering the bullet coins and hands her back the pouch, Airin prepares to take her leave. Quickly.
“Miss— ” I try to get her attention. She shuts that down immediately.
“Mister. You. you. Saw nothing. We- we never spoke to each other. Are we to be clear?” Airin is becoming jittery both in tone and in action. She must be a hair’s breadth away from panicking.
“Yes. Yes. We are clear.” I slowly back away from her. She seems to appreciate that.
“Good.. good.” She nods.
As her fingers frantically grasp onto the groove to slide the door open, I wonder if I should really let her go or not. Could I really trust this female to not squeal? I am sure to see her at work soon. And what’s with that non-answer, anyway? What the hell? Why did she refuse to answer?
Should I let her leave like this?
>Yes: remain quiet
>No: pursue and ask her further questions
