"Made it... Made it home."

Lu Lin touched his nose and turned his head to the hesitant elf girl looking at the house.

"...Mmm."

Mercedes responded softly, then lowered her head, not daring to look him in the eye.

"Never mind that, let's go in first."

"...Mmm."

"Aren't you going to take a bath first or something... After all, you must be tired from coming back from the mountain range, and your leg..."

"...Mmm."

From start to finish, the girl's response was a listless "Mmm" sound. Lu Lin didn't know if it was because he used the fifth-order magic [Wind Corridor] to bring her back, and flying for a long time left her in a state of shock, or if she thought he was a pervert and was afraid of him.

——He couldn't communicate with her normally at all!

Ever since he said goodbye to the slave elf and Doru, there has always been an awkward atmosphere between him and the elf girl. She didn't say a word, and Lu Lin didn't know what to talk about.

Even if he was awesome in his previous life, he was still an idiot when it came to love and communication.

Every word Lu Lin said to Mercedes seemed like a command to her, and she followed them like an exquisite puppet.

He sighed in his heart as he watched her actions.

Both of them were covered in dust when they came back from the Wind Mountain Range. Lu Lin's hair had a burnt smell, and Mercedes' fair legs were covered in dust along with her coarse clothes.

"The bathroom is there, towels are hanging next to it... As for clothes, I think you should be able to wear my sister's."

"......Mmm."

"Then... you should go over there. But is the chain around your neck okay? Do you want me to..."

Lu Lin realized that he seemed to have hit a sensitive topic again.

"No... No need."

Mercedes hurriedly waved her hand and refused, retreating into the bathroom like she was running away. Lu Lin didn't enter the room, and she hesitated for a moment before closing the bathroom door.

So, how could he make her understand that he really wasn't a pervert and then get her to understand his feelings?

Lu Lin looked at the bathroom with a frown, as if his mental state was about to explode.

......

In the bathroom.

Was he... Finally going to lay his hands on her?

Letting her clean herself up, and then defile her again.

The image of him cornering her in the transport car, touching her, and speaking coarsely to her in front of Doru resurfaced in her mind.

——It couldn't be worse.

Being captured as a slave by humans, she was finally purchased by a kind-looking girl only to be given to such a frivolous young man. Told to go take a bath, and then give him her first time.

No matter what the consequences were after doing all this, she could only endure it alone.

She was just a slave, without freedom, without her own will, and she couldn't even have the consciousness to resist.

The last bit of trust she had in humans seemed to be washed away by the water, and as the hot water washed over her soft, fair body, her hand clutched the engraved collar around her neck, her face growing dim.

Water droplets slid down her cheeks, not knowing if they were water or tears.

......

However, what was on Lu Lin's mind was not this.

At this moment, he was hesitating to enter his sister's room.

"Should I go in?"

He asked himself.

His sister and unreliable mother didn't return home, and the clothes on the balcony were still wet. He had to give Mercedes a change of clothes after her bath.

——That's why he thought of his sister's room.

Inside, there should be a cabinet filled with her rarely worn old clothes. Their size in his memory should be similar to Mercedes'.

He hadn't been able to enter his sister's room once in his previous life, but he knew what it meant to go into his sister's room and rummage through her wardrobe.If he couldn't explain it clearly, there was no doubt that his mother and sister would treat him as a perverted sister-obsessed maniac, break his leg, and send him to the orthopedic hospital in the Delta Empire for treatment.

But he had a justified reason.

He was just helping Mercedes get a few outfits to change into...

But what was this overwhelming sense of guilt welling up in him? He was a murderous character, able to laugh while chopping people down! So why was he shivering in front of a door?

"For Mercedes...I will give it my all!"

Daring to face danger, a fierce determination flashed in his eyes, disregarding the consequences and opening the door.

A dreamlike atmosphere rushed towards him.

"Ah! This is...this is..."

In just an instant, a new world opened up before him.