"Captain Emily, they're just some plant people. Let me handle it," Sacrina said, then ran off with a few elves.

  Emily seemed to tacitly approve of her actions, now walking towards that direction at a leisurely pace.

  Several minutes passed, minutes of silence.

  Then Lux couldn't hold back any longer and decided to ask, "Captain Emily, what are you going to do with those plant people?"

  Emily glanced at Lux, paused for a moment, and then said, "First, slaves. Acriders are employed in Radiant Glade and some service-oriented positions, but plant people are used for labor in mines and some workshops."

  "I see," Lux said, feeling sorrow for the plant people's miserable fate, though she couldn't do anything to help these poor creatures.

  'I promised Sylvie I would treat those plant people as people. If I do this, it's the same as me joining a group of mercenaries, and then, besides hunting monsters, also trafficking and kidnapping people... Then I'd be one of those indifferent people,' Lux found herself in a moral dilemma. She decided to just watch for now.

  'Did Emily leave something out?' Lux thought, but before she could ask again, they had arrived.

  "Captain Emily, we sent Lamiya and Kael to chase after some who ran away," Sacrina reported to Emily happily. They were quick; Lux felt like only ten minutes had passed, and they had already tied up all the plant people.

  It was a small village of plant people. Lux felt a sense of familiarity, as if she had been here before.

  Many plant people, including many bright red tomato people, various fruit people, and those with various vegetables on their heads, the most numerous being mushroom people with large caps, were now tied together by a long rope, their hands bound. Some looked despairing, some were silent, and some were angry.

  Lux recognized the rope; it was the same kind that had been issued to her in her backpack.

  "You long-eared bastards, just kill me already!" a tomato person shouted. Lux felt he was in trouble; the elves would probably beat him up.

  But an elf, hearing these words, walked straight towards him, drew his sword, and cut off his arm. Then he picked up the bright red arm and began to eat it.

  "Not that sweet, but quite juicy," the elf said, sucking on the tomato person's arm a few more times before pulling out the bone and eating it in small bites.

  'So plant people have bones,' Lux thought. In an instant, she felt as if she had stepped out of icy water – first a numbness spread through her body, so complete it froze her thoughts. She didn't know why that was her initial thought, but as the tomato person cried out in pain, an icy chill and a sense of horrified awakening spread through Lux, making her brain tremble uncontrollably.

  "Perfect, I was thirsty too," Sacrina walked up to the tomato person who was still screaming in pain, took out her water bottle, and emptied it. Then she used her hand to rip open the tomato person's face. 'Juice' spurted wildly from the torn wound. He tried to scream, but then his throat was crushed. At the same time, Sacrina filled her water bottle with the 'juice' and drank it, savoring the fresh tomato juice, which was sweet and fresh.

  "Share some with me," another elf said. "They're dead anyway. Might as well divide them up while they're fresh, though it's a shame they weren't cooked."

  "Tomatoes are best eaten raw," another elf nearby said. "Aren't these just freshly cut vegetables from the plant people right now?"

  The elves suddenly became very talkative, enthusiastically discussing the "food

  Lux, however, felt that their current chattiness made them even more distant than their previous silence, a distance so vast it felt like another world swallowed by the celestial horizon.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "And then, there's the food," Emily continued her earlier statement. "We will eat these plant people as vegetables and fruits. And since the celebration is in three months, we need to prepare a lot of food."

  "So, these plant people won't become slaves. Instead, they are going to be prepared—" Emily turned her head, her gaze as cold as snow on a mountain peak, and stared at Lux. "—to be eaten entirely

  ---

  Lux didn't help, nor did she need to. The elves were very enthusiastic about capturing the plant people. Soon, the two elves who had been sent to chase the逃跑 ones returned with seven or eight plant people. In total, they had captured over thirty plant people, minus the tomato person who had been eaten because the elves were in a bad mood and hungry. Now, the elves were checking the houses for any hidden plant people, and soon they caught two more.

  The plant people who were initially captured were mostly male, likely the village's guards who had tried to delay their escape. The ones captured later were mostly female plant people and children.

  'Plant people have genders too,' Lux thought. As she considered this, she realized that plant people really weren't that different from humans.

  Lux looked around the village. There were clothes hanging out to dry, and drawings on the ground, drawn very crudely, like a child's random scribbles. The houses were built with earth or poor-quality bricks, with dry grass used to patch up holes. Every house even had a simple table, making it clear that plant people also gathered to eat and chat.

  Lux thought a lot. She seemed to see a group of plant people living in this already ransacked village, living their boring, but alive, days.

  Lux's eyes wandered around the vicinity, wandering, wandering, until she suddenly noticed a pair of eyes in the crack of a stone slab.

  It was a small mushroom boy. His eyes met Lux's, and in that instant, fear threatened to overflow from the little boy's eyes like water.

  Lux immediately made the 'quiet, stop' hand gesture (she didn't know if the mushroom boy would understand it, but after seeing Lux's gesture, the mushroom boy held his breath, not daring to make a sound).

  Then Lux looked around. The elves seemed busy with their own tasks. Some were searching houses further away, but they would probably be back soon.

  Lux quietly made a 'clenched fists, then open hands' gesture towards the mushroom boy (this was a gesture Lux had invented).

  Then she pointed in a direction, made the 'go around behind' hand gesture to signal the mushroom boy to go through the woods and avoid the elves' line of sight. As for how much the mushroom boy understood, Lux didn't know. Now, she made the 'prepare to move' hand gesture.

  "Lux Exploding Strike!" Lux shouted loudly, then raised her sword, gathering all the magic in her body and slamming it downwards with all her might.

  In an instant, the entire village was covered in leaping earth, and everyone's vision was filled with dust.

  "Human! What in the blazes are you doing, you mad monkey?!" Sacrina roared angrily, her voice piercing through the dust, almost piercing the eardrums of everyone in the village.

  "I just had a sudden flash of inspiration and invented a special move!" Lux shouted back. "If I didn't seize this inspiration quickly, it would have run away. So I just had to try it out. This is also to contribute more strength to the team in the future. Unfortunately, the inspiration was a little off, and the special move didn't quite work out." Lux said in a regrettably disappointed tone, while also glancing in the direction of the stone slab. The mushroom boy had successfully escaped, and she couldn't help but feel relieved.

  But Sacrina wasn't about to let it go. The blonde elf charged up to Lux and yelled, "Do you even know who your Leader is?! Do you know the impact your actions and existence have on Captain Emily?! Do you know how important the celebration in three months is to Captain Emily?! You know nothing!!"

  Well, Lux had thought that even if she got yelled at for a whole day after doing this, it would be worth it. But Sacrina's voice was really too loud. Could she even have magic that amplified her voice for attacks?

  "Alright, Sacrina," Emily said, waving her hand to stop Sacrina. "Since I am this human's handler, it's only right that I'm the one to reprimand her."

  "But Captain Emily, how is this monkey worthy of you wasting your time?" Sacrina's voice held a hint of sadness, but seeing Emily continue to wave her hand, she could only grit her teeth at Lux and then turn away.

  Though it was rude to think so, Lux really wanted to remind Emily to put Sacrina on a leash when taking her out.

  "I'm very sorry, Captain Emily. Can I offer to clean your boots as an apology...? Like, you give me your boots, I'll clean them, and then mail them back to you," Lux said, raising her hands.

  But Emily ignored Lux's offer and said, "You let a mushroom person go just now." Emily wasn't asking; it was a statement. "Right?"

  Lux hadn't expected to be found out so easily. She figured she was about to be fired, hoping that the only punishment would be no pay. And she guessed she would be seeing Sylvie soon to talk about her two-day unemployment.

  "Yes," Lux replied, her eyes meeting Emily's. The green-haired elf's eyes were hazel, a color full of life, yet so difficult to see through.

  "As long as you understand what you're doing," Emily said, holding Lux's gaze for a moment before turning and walking away.

  Lux didn't quite understand what had just happened. It seemed she wouldn't have to go back to Sylvie's place tonight after all. As for whether that was a good thing, she didn't know.