The bald man’s voice stopped abruptly.
His face turned deathly pale.
The girl stared straight at him, her voice trembling with suppressed fury.
“His ‘shop’ isn’t at Grove 29!
It’s hidden beneath the mangrove roots at Grove 27, closer to the Lawless Zone!
An abandoned wine cellar—half the entrance is covered in vines!”
“And the owner of the Bubbling Bar has nothing to do with this!
That’s a legitimate tavern!”
After being transferred and imprisoned multiple times, she remembered her surroundings with unusual clarity—especially anything that might become a way to escape.
“You… you little bitch!
What nonsense are you spouting?!” the bald man roared in panic and rage.
He never expected this half-dead girl to remember so much, let alone expose him to his face.
Moren’s gaze turned even colder.
He gave the man no chance to continue.
A flash of steel.
“AAAAAHHHHH—!!”
The scream tore through the alley.
Two fingers flew from the bald man’s right hand.
Blood sprayed across the ground as he clutched the mangled wound, trembling violently.
His face had gone completely white.
Moren flicked the blood from his blade.
“Next time,” he said quietly, “it won’t be fingers.”
His eyes swept across the filthy alley, as though looking beyond it—through the darkness covering all of Sabaody.
“There are countless maggots like you on this island.
Kill one, and another crawls out soon enough.”
The icy killing intent in his voice completely shattered the bald man’s mental defenses.
He collapsed onto the ground, sobbing uncontrollably, no longer daring to hide anything.
Words spilled from his mouth in a frantic mess.
The girl hugged her knees in the corner, quietly nibbling on bread while staring at the cold-eyed man who had saved her.
Broken confessions echoed through the alley.
And piece by piece, a massive, rotten structure formed in Moren’s mind.
A sprawling black industry.
Across oceans, villages, and towns throughout the world, specialized slave-hunting ships and crews abducted, deceived, raided, and captured people—turning living humans into “goods.”
Those “goods” were then transported across the seas to Sabaody Archipelago.
A massive trafficking hub.
A black market drenched in human misery.
Small-time traffickers like this bald man were merely the lowest distributors in the chain.
They received batches of “goods” from wholesalers or slave ships before carrying out basic “processing.”
Torture to destroy resistance.
Training to increase value.
Basic etiquette.
Basic skills.
Then the slaves would either be sold to underground brothels, gladiator pits, or private collectors… or pushed through peripheral channels connected to the auction houses, where the best “products” could fetch staggering prices.
As for the Celestial Dragons…
They stood at the very top of the chain.
Some hunted personally.
Others sent subordinates.
And the rarest, most expensive “top-tier goods” were purchased directly from human auctions.
A nobody like the bald man would only ever handle merchandise that suited a Celestial Dragon’s tastes through sheer luck.
But that kind of luck often led to death.
If anything went wrong, he would die without ever understanding why.
Capture.
Transport.
Processing.
Distribution.
Auctions.
Even after-sales service.
Even recycling.
As Moren listened, rage burned hotter and hotter inside his chest until even his fingertips trembled.
This wasn’t simple crime.
It was a systemic industry.
An industry openly tolerated… and secretly maintained by powerful forces.
Every part of it was soaked in blood and despair.
The cold pressure radiating from Moren made the bald man feel as if he had fallen into an endless frozen abyss.
“Sir!
I told you everything!
Everything I know!” the man screamed desperately.
“Please spare me!
I swear I’ll quit!
I’ll never do this again!
I’ll give you all my money!”
Ignoring the agony in his severed hand, he forced himself onto his knees and slammed his forehead against the stone ground repeatedly.
Moren slowly lowered his gaze toward him.
Blood.
Dirt.
Tears.
Snot.
There was no sympathy in his eyes.
Only icy indifference.
“I never said I would spare you.”
The bald man froze.
His eyes widened with despair.
“And even if I had,” Moren continued calmly, each word colder than the last, “I wouldn’t honor it.”
“Because…”
Moren leaned forward slightly.
“In my eyes…”
“Human traffickers aren’t human.”
The sentence was passed.
The blade flashed once more.
SHNK!
The scream stopped midway.
A dull, wet sound echoed through the alley as flesh and bone split apart instantly.
Silence.
The bald man’s head tilted grotesquely to one side as a crimson stream erupted from his neck.
His body twitched violently before collapsing lifelessly onto the ground.
Warm scarlet splattered across Moren’s trousers and the nearby wall.
The metallic stench completely swallowed the alley’s damp rot.
Moren stood there silently.
Ever since witnessing the Celestial Dragons’ atrocities… ever since burying that nameless slave…
Something dark and suffocating had been building inside him.
This strike finally released part of it.
He knew killing one low-level trafficker meant nothing to that monstrous industry.
Tomorrow, another “bald man” would take this one’s place.
But that didn’t matter.
What mattered… was that he had acted according to his own principles.
Moren flicked the remaining crimson from his blade before returning it to its sheath.
Then he turned toward the corner.
The girl had already finished her bread and water.
She hugged her knees tightly, staring at him without blinking.
Fear.
Confusion.
And beneath it all…
A fragile hope born from surviving despair.
Moren walked over and crouched in front of her.
“Can you stand?”
The girl nodded timidly and pushed herself upright with the support of the wall.
The whip marks on her back looked horrifying.
Every slight movement made her small face twist in pain, but she endured it silently.
Meanwhile, Moren considered what to do with her.
Hand her over to the Marines?
The idea was discarded instantly.
Those Marines stood guard for the Celestial Dragons while turning a blind eye to slavery.
Let her leave alone?
In her condition, she probably wouldn’t survive two streets before being captured again—or dying from hunger and sickness.
After thinking for a moment, only one person came to mind.
Rayleigh.
For now, he was the only viable option.
“I’ll take you to meet someone,” Moren said softly.
“He might be able to help you find somewhere safe… or send you home.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lally,” the girl whispered softly, her dirty little hand clutching tightly onto his sleeve.
Moren gave the corpse one final glance.
There was no need to deal with it further.
This was the Lawless Zone.
The body would disappear soon enough.
Then he led the girl out of the alley and back into the endless flow of people within Sabaody Archipelago.
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