Sylphia listened to her friend with grave seriousness, her golden eyes never leaving Bunbun's face. Leon, standing several meters away, was secretly hearing everything through his spatial awareness and relaying the information to Seraphine and Loriel through their mental link.

The bunny girl continued her story, her voice growing slightly stronger as she explained.

"I planned to start my adventure in a small city in an unfamiliar land—somewhere I could build my reputation without the shadow of my clan name hanging over me. That's why six days ago, I arrived here in Conan City."

She paused, her red eyes distant with memory.

"I registered as an adventurer immediately. Started as one-star, like everyone does. But I was climbing the ranks really quickly—faster than most people expected. Within three days, I'd already reached two-star status."

A hint of pride crept into her voice despite the circumstances.

"Everything was going well. Really well. I was pushing hard to reach three-star adventurer, and it was within sight. I could almost taste it."

Sylphia's brow furrowed in confusion. If everything had been going so well, if her friend was succeeding exactly as she'd planned, then how...?

"Wait," Sylphia interrupted, unable to contain her confusion any longer. "If everything was going so well, how did you end up as a slave?"

The bunny girl's voice dropped low, all that earlier pride evaporating like morning mist. Her ears drooped further, nearly touching her shoulders.

"Yes... Everything was going well. Until—" She took a shaky breath. "Until I got invited to a secret party through a letter. It was addressed to promising adventurers in the city."

Her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her guild uniform.

"The letter said I would get a free luxurious dinner. It seemed legitimate—well-written, official-looking seal, everything. So I went to the address listed in the invitation."

Sylphia felt annoyance already building in her chest. The scenario playing out in her mind was painfully predictable—her friend, who was definitely rich by normal standards despite leaving the clan, had been lured to an unknown party and ambushed. Some organization had probably planned the whole thing to capture and enslave promising young adventurers.

Her killing intent began leaking out again, making the air feel heavy and oppressive.

"Do you know who these people were who did this to you?" Sylphia asked, her voice tight with barely controlled fury. "Where are they now?"

She wasn't really hoping for an answer. Slave contracts typically included orders that prevented the enslaved from revealing information about their captors. It was standard practice among illegal slavers to protect themselves.

The thought of something truly horrific being done to her friend didn't enter Sylphia's mind, though. Bunbun was alive and seemingly unharmed beyond the bracelet, which meant certain possibilities were off the table. Her friend would have fought to the death rather than allow herself to be violated—she knew that with absolute certainty. The terms of the slave contract were probably about exploiting Bunbun for money through her work, nothing more sinister.

That was the only scenario that made sense given the slave bracelet and her current position.

But then the answer came, catching Sylphia completely off guard.

"The address was in the eastern merchant district, third warehouse from the river docks." The bunny girl's voice was clear, unhindered. "And the person's name was Luke. Luke Torrhen."

Anger flashed across her face as she spoke the name, her nose wrinkling with disgust.

Huh?

Sylphia's confusion deepened immediately. Her friend had just freely given up both the location and the name of her enslaver without any apparent resistance from the slave contract.

"Wait—how can you tell me all this?" Sylphia started to ask, bewilderment clear in her tone. "The slave contract should prevent—"

But she cut herself off mid-sentence as a different realization struck her. She grabbed her friend's hand tightly, her grip almost painful in its intensity.

"Let me go free you right now," Sylphia declared, her voice sharp with anger and determination. "And then I'm going to kill this bastard Luke."

In the bunny girl's mind, one thought dominated: What did I just hear?

"Stop!" she shouted suddenly, her voice high and panicked. "Sylphia, stop!"

She was genuinely touched—incredibly moved by the fact that Sylphia was willing to go so far for her, willing to risk becoming a criminal without hesitation. But she couldn't let her friend throw away everything for this.

"You can't do that!" the bunny girl protested desperately. "You'd be thrown in jail if you killed Luke! Your reputation, your party, everything—it would all be destroyed!"

Sylphia's expression remained calm, almost eerily so given the violent nature of her previous declaration.

"It seems you don't know the Union Law very well," she said matter-of-factly, as if discussing the weather rather than murder. "According to Article Forty-seven, Section Three: in cases where someone enslaves another person without proper legal backing and documented justification, the penalty is death. No trial, no appeal—just execution."

She paused, letting that sink in.

"And even if I killed him by accident during the confrontation, I would only have to pay a fine. Nothing more. My adventurer license would remain intact."

The bunny girl stared at her friend in shock. She genuinely hadn't been aware of this legal protection. The Union took slavery laws seriously—legitimate slavery was allowed only under very specific circumstances, and anything outside those bounds was treated as a capital crime.

However, she still raised her hands to stop Sylphia from charging off immediately.

"Wait, please! Just listen to my full story first!" Her voice carried a pleading note that made Sylphia pause.

Sylphia studied her friend's face carefully. Something wasn't right here. The pieces weren't fitting together the way she'd expected.

"Fine," she said slowly. "Tell me everything."

The bunny girl took a deep breath and continued.

"I arrived at the party, and everything seemed fine at first. There was indeed a free, delicious dinner—multiple courses, expensive wines, the whole thing. But the location... the location was actually a casino."

Her ears twitched nervously.

"I'd never gone to one before. I was curious about how it all worked, what it looked like inside."

Sylphia's eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits, her gaze boring into her friend with silent judgment. But she remained quiet, letting the story continue.

"I told myself I was never going to gamble," the bunny girl said quickly, as if trying to convince herself as much as Sylphia. "I remembered Father's words about never gambling, about how it ruins lives. I was just going to watch, eat the free food, maybe make some networking connections."

A long, heavy pause followed.

"But..." She swallowed hard. "Everyone around me was winning. I saw people celebrating, collecting their coins, laughing with joy. I even watched one person go from a single silver coin to an entire platinum coin in less than an hour."

There was a hint of jealousy and lingering excitement in her voice as she recalled the scene.

"So I decided to play. Just once. Just to see what it felt like."

Sylphia's jaw tightened, but she said nothing.

"In the beginning, I was winning! Small amounts, but consistently. It felt amazing, like I had some natural talent for it. But then..." Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Then I started losing. And I lost all my money. Two whole platinum coins—everything I'd earned from my adventuring."

She looked down at her hands, shame coloring her cheeks.

"Luke was the guy winning at the next table. He seemed so friendly, so generous. He offered to loan me money so I could win back what I'd lost. He said promising adventurers like me deserved a second chance. All I had to do was sign a simple contract for the loan."

Her voice became even smaller.

"I lost again. And again. And I kept borrowing more and more from Luke each time, certain that the next game would turn things around. Until eventually..."

She couldn't meet Sylphia's eyes anymore.

"Until it reached one hundred platinum coins and he refused to loan me more money!" There was anger in her tone when she mentioned refusing to loan more money.

Even Sylphia, who had maintained her composure through most of the story, visibly choked at those words. Her eyes went wide, and she actually coughed in shock.

"One hundred?!"

She'd already suspected her friend had been scammed—that much was obvious from the casino setup and the too-good-to-be-true winning streak everyone else seemed to have. But she was genuinely annoyed by the fact that her supposedly intelligent friend had needed to reach one hundred platinum coins in debt before realizing she was in serious trouble.

"Then what happened?" Sylphia asked, her voice strained.

The bunny girl's entire posture radiated defeat.

"The contract I'd signed stated that I had to repay ten percent of the loan the very next day. I didn't think that would be a problem when I was signing it—ten percent seemed manageable. But the next day came, and I couldn't repay Luke the ten platinum coins."

She gestured weakly to the black bracelet on her wrist.

"So I ended up with this slave bracelet until I can at least repay the full loan amount. It was written into the contract as a 'safety measure' so I couldn't run away from my debt. A slave can't register as an adventurer on their own, and I can't find a party to join now, so I was fortunate enough to get work here at the Adventurer's Guild."

Everything became crystal clear to Sylphia in that moment. Her friend had definitely been taken advantage of—that much was certain. The contract sounded legally dubious at best, probably designed with loopholes and deceptive language.

The way Bunbun described the casino, where everyone else was consistently winning while she lost, screamed of manipulation. They'd lured her in, made her feel safe and excited, then systematically drained her resources.

The only way to get her out now would be to repay the money. That or kill Luke, but given the contract's legal standing...

A thought occurred to Sylphia, and dread began creeping up her spine.

"Is there any interest in the loan?" she asked carefully, almost afraid of the answer.

The bunny girl responded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, her tone matter-of-fact.

"Of course, there's interest. Only one percent daily, though."

Sylphia's mind went completely blank. The casual way her friend delivered this absolutely absurd information made her want to scream.

One percent daily. One percent DAILY.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.