To Save Them or Not
The question lingered in my mind: should I abandon Nancy and Freyr, or should I try to save them?
A brief silence fell between us. Nancy moved her lips several times before finally giving me a pitiful, pleading look. It was obvious from her expression that she had a favor to ask. Her lips, still glistening with my cum, parted.
“I overheard you talking with Freyr earlier.”
“What conversation?”
“Weren’t you two planning to join the bandit group together?”
She must have eavesdropped on the talk I had with Freyr while the other prisoners were distracted by the food. I raised an eyebrow.
“And?”
Nancy answered calmly and concisely.
“Let me in too.”
Her unexpected request left me momentarily speechless, and the prison fell into complete silence. I stared at her for a moment, then finally opened my mouth.
“…Is that why you gave me a blowjob?”
“I figured you wouldn’t agree if I just asked for free.”
“So you were trying to butter me up?”
“That’s right.”
I was grateful I still had my sanity. If I had gotten too excited and taken things further after the oral, I would have ended up owing her instead. This woman was a real snake. She had called it a “service” earlier, but she had an agenda all along.
“Sorry, but I don’t have any power. Neither Freyr nor you—I don’t have the ability to get either of you in.”
“Just put in a word for me. Tell them there’s a girl named Nancy who wants to join. Women are different from men, so they might accept me.”
“How are they different?”
“They just are. In many ways.”
As she spoke, Nancy gently cupped one of her breasts and slowly kneaded it. The gesture clearly meant she intended to use her body as a bargaining chip with them. I knew she gave off a promiscuous vibe from the start, but was she really this loose?
“If you’re so confident, why didn’t you just talk to them yourself?”
“I tried. During the day.”
“Who?”
“The guards and the work supervisors.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they didn’t have the authority. When I asked them to at least pass the message to someone higher up, they demanded sex in return—in a quiet place.”
“Sex?”
“Yes.”
These bandits really lived up to their lustful reputation. Their thinking was as cheap as those disposable characters who get knocked out in one hit in movies or dramas.
“…Did you do it?”
Even asking that question made me feel cheap.
“No. It felt like they would just pretend nothing happened once it was over. It was obvious they were lying—their only goal was my body.”
I had assumed she was completely open about sex since she had so eagerly sucked a stranger’s cock without hesitation, but apparently she still had some brakes. Good to know.
“You need to meet someone even higher than them. And you can do that. That’s why I’m asking you. I want to join this bandit group too.”
“Even though it’s full of sinister bastards?”
“It’s still better than being sold off as a slave. If they start bothering me too much, I can just give them what they want. Once they’ve conquered me, they probably won’t cling to me anymore. That’s how men are. After they conquer a woman, their interest fades and they start craving someone new.”
Wow. The more I heard her talk, the more curious I became about her way of thinking. What kind of past did she have to speak about men like she knew the species inside and out? On the other hand, she might be the perfect female member for a debauched bandit group that committed every kind of evil.
“Joining the bandits is just as much a path to ruining your life as becoming a slave. So why choose them? Do you have some hidden past you’re trying to escape, like Freyr?”
Suddenly Nancy moved closer and pressed herself against me. The moment her soft, swaying breasts touched my forearm, I flinched slightly. She didn’t seem to mind and continued with her bright, sparkling eyes.
“You came from far away, so you probably don’t know much about these people, right?”
“This group is infamous even among bandits. They’re called the ‘Elk Bandits,’ and they’re notorious in this region for doing the dirty things that other bandit groups won’t touch.”
“For example?”
“They don’t sell the prisoners they capture at the slave market. There are rumors they have secret connections with insane mages who perform human experimentation and supply them with live subjects.”
“Live prisoners…?”
Nancy nodded rapidly, her eyes filled with fear.
“Oh my god.”
I stared at her blankly. So it wasn’t a coincidence that I had almost been sold to a crazy alchemist. It seemed every customer who did business with this bandit group was a lunatic.
I slowly looked around the prison. The prisoners, their bellies full, were sleeping soundly. Tomorrow they would become materials for human experimentation… A horrible feeling washed over me, and goosebumps rose on my skin.
I stayed up all night. It wasn’t just worry for the prisoners that kept me awake—my mind was swirling with all kinds of anxious thoughts. More precisely, I couldn’t sleep because I kept worrying that the female leader might change her mind after agreeing to accept me.
Let me say it again: I was already overwhelmed just trying to take care of my own body and my own life. I had no room to worry about others. Last night, Nancy had clung to me desperately, saying she would rather become a bandit than be turned into an experimental subject. I had barely managed to calm her down by saying I would mention it to them if I got the chance. It seemed the number of lies I was telling was only increasing.
The first skill I learned after coming to this other world was lying. I didn’t want to, but the situation forced me to.
“Wake up, you lot!”
As soon as dawn broke, a guard banged a tin can hanging on the iron bars with a wooden stick, making a loud racket. Soon the door opened and a cart full of shabby clothes was brought in. The garments were thrown into the prison one after another. They were the clothes we had taken off after becoming prisoners.
“There’s no time, so pick them up and put them on quickly! The last one to get dressed gets his soles beaten!”
My mind snapped awake. Remembering the small bead, I frantically rummaged through the pile of clothes scattered on the floor, searching for my pants. Since they were jeans rather than medieval attire, finding them in the heap wasn’t difficult.
I took the jeans to a corner and examined them carefully. When I dug into the pocket, I felt something round and hard. I let out a sigh of relief. Finally, my otherworldly cheat item was back in my hands. I would escape this bandit group later when the opportunity came. Heh heh.
While I was smiling contentedly, Freyr ignored his own clothes and walked straight up to the guard instead.
“Why are you suddenly giving us clothes? Does this mean we don’t have to stay naked anymore?”
“Why? Because you’re all being sold at the slave market today, that’s why. We’re heading into the city. If you all go in naked as a group, you’ll draw too much attention, and it’s against the law. Public indecency, you know. Keh keh keh.”
The moment those words reached my ears, I froze with one leg halfway into my jeans. The stares burned into me. I slowly lifted my head and met Freyr’s eyes. His were wide with urgency.
‘Hyun-woo…!’
It was a desperate plea to save him. When I glanced sideways, Nancy was also sending me an anxious look, begging for rescue.
‘Please…’
They had both quietly tormented me together, yet now that only I would survive, the taste in my mouth turned bitter. But what great friendship had we even built? What exactly did they expect me to do? I had no idea what kind of reaction I should show in this moment.
“Hyun-woo!”
Suddenly a new person appeared outside the iron bars.
“Hyun-woo! Who the hell is Hyun-woo!”
All the prisoners’ eyes turned to me at once. I quietly raised my hand.
“That’s me.”
“Come outside!”
“Huh?”
Ah. So that was it. Since I had already been accepted into the bandit group, they were sending someone to pull me out separately.
“Only… me?”
Feeling relieved, I still pretended not to know and played dumb. My acting skills were improving right along with my lying.
“The squad leader is looking for you! Hurry up and come out!”
I lowered my head without saying another word and walked out of the prison. At this moment, it was hard to meet the prisoners’ eyes. Especially Freyr and Nancy. Even though we had no real connection, the bare minimum of human conscience made my steps feel heavy. It looked like I was leaving them all to die while I alone survived… The feeling was disgusting.
“What does the squad leader want with me?”
I quietly asked the escort who had come to fetch me. He yawned, still half-asleep, and answered.
“He ordered drinks and food to be prepared from early morning. Looks like he wants to have a drink with you.”
My ears perked up. He hadn’t forgotten me? I thought he had blacked out completely.
“H-Hyun-woo!”
Freyr desperately clung to the iron bars and shouted toward me.
“Tell them about me! Please! I’m begging you, please!”
“Let’s go quickly.”
Without looking back, I followed the escort with indifferent steps. Even without turning around, I could feel Freyr’s desperate gaze—and Nancy’s pitiful one right behind it.
Her words from last night weighed even heavier on my mind now. A fate more miserable than being sold as slaves awaited the two of them.
Only after we had walked far enough away did I finally glance back toward the prison. The prisoners, their faces deathly pale, were climbing one by one into the back of the horse-drawn wagon.
“Damn it.”
I bit my lip. I rubbed my face. I stroked my chin and thought deeply. The conclusion I reached was this: wouldn’t it be more comfortable to have comrades while living as a bandit rather than doing it alone? Wouldn’t it be better to have people who could laugh with me even when we got beaten together? Wouldn’t escaping later be easier if we cooperated? And wouldn’t it be good to have an ally faction inside the bandit group that supported me?
I was bothered that Freyr was a murderer, but there were plenty of even worse scumbags in this group. So, to properly adapt to this harsh place, maybe keeping a prickly guy like Freyr as an ally would be useful? Someone who could step up as an enforcer in case of factional fights.
“Ah, I don’t know anymore!”
I started running at full speed toward where the squad leader was waiting. To become the savior of Freyr and Nancy.
‘I can’t be late!’