The people we rescued out of those closed rooms were standing in the large hall, right outside the room where Bo'guth, Igladith and I first got ambushed. I expected the people to be happy about the situation, but about half of them were looking warily at us—at me.
Because of that, the other half were sharing the same feeling, and I could already guess why.
As for who were the people themselves, they were a mix of different beings, like the ogre I first pulled out, different kinds of skeletons, a few goblins, a couple of demons that looked similar to Bo'guth, and other demons that were human-sized but still carried the same demonic features that Bo'guth had. It was also surprising to see Beastkin and Elves amongst the ones that had been trapped, since I was almost certain that the people of this world were more agreeable to them.
They weren't in particularly good condition, as all of them were barely wearing anything, and they were all bruised and wounded. The women in particular appeared to be in a much worse condition than the men, which caused me to deeply frown and give me a desire to go back to where the captured zealots were to finish them off.
"U-um… what is going to happen to us?" waveringly asked a human-sized demon, half-raising his hand.
"Obvious," the ogre said with a deep bassy voice. "She Holy Hero. We bad ones. She kill us."
The people in the room stirred and shook in their places, but none of them tried to run or fight back. I took a step forward to explain myself and the reason for being here, but Raki moved faster than I did.
"No! No, they're not here to kill us. They're here to save us!" he quickly said, turning to look over at Bo'guth and Igladith, the latter who had Mirlaneth in her arms, but the demon child seemed confused and scared about what was going on. "They're the ones leading this whole thing! It's a rescue mission!"
"What? No way! Grul said it himself! She's the Hero of the Holy Gods, and I wouldn't forget that face either!" a skeleton said while pointing a finger at me.
"W-well… y-yeah, but… she's not here to kill us…!" Raki tried to explain but the people in the room were whispering among each other while looking at me with fear in their eyes.
Bo'guth loudly laughed and everyone turned to look at him, both with fear and surprise. "I know how you're feeling. But our good man Raki here is telling the truth. Althea's here to help us, not kill us."
"N-no, I don't believe it…!" a pretty elf woman said as she looked at me. "T-this is just a trick to take us somewhere else and do horrible things to us!"
I heavily sighed as I shook my head and the people quieted down. "I won't try to convince you with what I could say. Words aren't worth as much as actions." I gave them a sweeping glance as I looked over them. "I'll help you. What would you like me to do?"
The people remained quiet as they looked at me and each other. Raki didn't do the same as he took a step to speak to me. "How about you go fetch everyone's things? They took everything we had, and from what I could tell, they took it to a room on the higher hallways, close to the training areas. It's probably magically locked. However, with your power as the Holy Hero, I'm sure that you should be able to get it back for us."
Without thinking about it, I nodded and turned to leave up the stairs and search for that room. After a few steps up, Bo'guth stopped me and passed over to me his own Magic Pocket. I looked up to him, but he just widely smiled and nodded, so I took the artifact, returned a small nod, and kept going.
"W-wait! I'll go with you. I think I know where it is," the same pretty elf said, taking hurried steps to stand behind me while she covered her half-exposed chest which was barely covered with a small piece of cloth.
I stopped to look at her for a moment, causing her to stagger slightly. She was a pretty woman, with short brown hair that reached just above her shoulders, large blue eyes, and pale white skin that was full of cuts and bruises.
"Lead the way," I said and moved aside to let her walk by.
She cautiously looked at me and carefully walked. With hesitation, she continued walking and leading me up the stairs. I followed after her and as I was leaving the hall, I could once again hear some murmurs from the people.
The elf woman kept half-turning her head with each step that she took, and I worried that perhaps she would trip over with a step, but it appeared that she was just as careful with each step that she took as she was wary of me.
Once we reached a hallway and were slowly walking by the large windows, she suddenly stopped and looked at me with a face full of anxiety. There was no magic reaction from her and with her being essentially naked, there was no way for her to do anything to me, so I just slightly tilted my head to the side and waited for her to either continue walking or say what she wanted to say.
"I—I—" she stuttered, her face just as anxious before dropping to her knees and bowing her head. "Please! I'm willing to do anything for you! I'll worship the Holy Gods and join the Empire! Just, please don't take me to another one of these places!"
I raised my eyebrows. I wasn't expecting her to suddenly beg for anything. I thought that she just wanted to curse me and tell me how much she hated me, but it appeared that she was put through much worse in this place, to the point that she was willing to do this.
"No. You don't have to—"
"Please! I'll—I'll even take up arms and fight my people! I'll—"
"Enough!" I shouted and she froze in place, her body tensing in the same bowing position. "Please, stand up."
She slowly looked up at me with a face full of both fear and tears. After a moment, she hesitantly stood back up, no longer bothering to cover herself up.
"I'm no longer the Hero of the Holy Gods, and I'm no longer working for the Empire or any of their believers," I calmly said, shaking my head after a moment. "I now realize the pain and suffering that I've caused in my blind pursuit of the Holy Light and the words of the Holy Gods, and as such…" I brought up my hand, and from it a green healing light poured over the girl's body. "I'm here to make amends for what I've done."
The wounds and bruises she had on her body quickly healed up, until she was looking just as healthy as one could be. She looked at her body for a moment, astonished before looking up to me with a confused expression.
"Then… you really aren't…" she trailed off, and I waited a moment for her to finish, but she didn't.
"Whatever it is that you're worried about is not going to happen. After this, you shall be a free woman," I said and walked over to stand next to her with a soft smile. "Come on. Let's get everyone's things back."
She looked back at me, blinking several times before nodding. "Okay… I hope—I hope you're not lying." She turned to look to the side, to one of the dead-end hallways. "It should be over there."
Since we were already fairly close to the place, we reached it after a few steps. This room's door was indeed different from the other ones, as it was slightly wider and the material appeared to be extremely sturdy. On top of all of that, I also felt a Magic Barrier covering the whole thing that extended even beyond the door itself to cover the walls.
"Take a step back. I'm going to force the door open," I said and reached for the blade on my back.
The elf woman hastily moved back a few steps and looked at me with fear. I thought that she was going to run away with how far she went, but she stood still, her body as tense as before.
I turned my attention to the door. If these were just as hard as I thought they were, then normal magic spells wouldn't be enough—unless I used something much more powerful, but something like that is beyond my current magic levels.
The only thing to do was simply use Darkness and Hellfire. I reached for it and covered the blade with both things. It flared with a blood-red fire that was surrounded by a dark mist. The elf gasped and took yet another step back, but I decided not to pay attention to her.
With a powerful vertical swing of the sword, I hit the door. The first barriers shattered like glass and the door itself caved in on itself with a loud bang, before flying off the hinges and slamming on the ground with a metallic thud. I stood by the open way, amazed mostly at how sturdy the door was, since I was expecting the door to be split in half with how much power I used.
But it didn't matter. The important part was that we could finally get to the stuff in the room, which was filled up almost to the top with all sorts of artifacts, jewels, personal items, and of course, the clothes of the people waiting in the hall.
"You can go in and get your stuff," I said as I turned to look at the stunned elf.
She was looking at me with widened eyes, refusing to move over to me, but after I secured the blade on my back she shook her head and her expression lessened slightly.
"You… that power…"
"Yes, it's the same power as Salrak," I said, summoning a small red flame to my hand for a second before dismissing it. "But it's just power. Just like Holy Power, only that this time, I'm hoping to use it for good, and not for some… lowly Gods."
"Lowly Gods…" she whispered, looking even more amazed. "Are you really the Holy Hero? The same one?"
"That I am," I said with a nod. "But it's not the same world, and… things have changed." I looked at her exposed body after saying that. "It doesn't matter right now. How about you get dressed first so we can take the things to the others."
"Right!" she affirmed and warily walked by me to go into the room.
After a couple of minutes, she found her things. She was wearing the same kind of clothes that one would find people in this world wearing; nothing more than a pair of tight dark-blue pants, comfortable white shoes, a delicate white blouse and a black jacket on top of that. She also picked a small bag and strapped it on her shoulder, which she then opened and rummaged inside.
"Okay, I think that's everything," she said, closing the bag once more and looking at me with less fear now.
"Good. I'll be taking everything else with the Magic Pocket Bo'guth gave me. You can go back now if you want to," I said, walking over a few things with the Magic Pocket in hand.
"I-I think I'll wait for you," she said as she moved over to stand outside the room.
I nodded and just shoved things into the Magic Pocket. I wasn't sure about how much this Pocket could fill since it wasn't mine, but just looking at it, and the fact that Bo'guth was able to easily fit a couple of massive swords for his siege form in it, I could guess that it could fit quite a lot.
After a handful of minutes, the room was cleaned, with the only things left being the walls and the light orbs from the ceiling. I considered taking the light orbs as well, but after comparing them to the ones that were outside the room, I realized that these were just part of the place and I didn't need to bring them.
"Okat, let's go back now."
* * *
"I don't understand how you can trust that—that woman!" the other elven woman in the group was shouting while pointing a finger at Bo'guth. "Don't you remember the things that she did?!
"Well, like I said, I'm just following the words from our Dark Lord. And so far, not only has it been true, but it has yielded good results," Bo'guth replied with a shrug before looking down on the woman with a smirk. "You wouldn't be out here shouting if she didn't come here to help—and she didn't even think about it, she just accepted my request for help."
"Doing one good thing doesn't fix all the wrong things she's done…!" the elf woman countered with a deep frown.
"I believe demon," the ogre said, causing the others to look at him with all sorts of looks. "She fool. She used by Gods. She good now."
"What?! Just like that?! You can't possibly—"
It was then that the people noticed me and the elf girl coming into the hall from the main stairs, which caused the skeleton that was talking to suddenly quiet down. Everyone else followed suit and quietly looked at me. Some glaring, others fearfully avoiding looking at me, and a handful appeared to be glad and surprised to see the elf girl that came with me was now in a much better state than before.
"Here's all the stuff I recovered from the room," I said, bringing the Magic Pocket up and pressing it so everything that I shoved in there came out all at once, filling the floor with all the stuff that was in there. "Go ahead and grab what's yours."
The people were looking at the things laying on the floor. Almost all of them quickly identified the things that were theirs, but they just looked at them without going for them. I was going to insist on telling them to go get it, but as I was opening my mouth to speak, the ogre that I first rescued calmly moved to the pile, picking the large clothes and things that belonged to him.
His clothes were similar to the ones that Bo'guth wears wherever he's at that office, only that his carried a brand on the chest pocket of his long sleeved shirt that read 'Global Magic Technologies', same as what the Magic Pocket in my hand had on the corner.
Once he was done, he stood aside looking at me for a moment before sweeping a look over the group. "Me believe. Dark God not matter. Past not matter. Only present. Present good."
There was some moment of hesitation from the remaining people, but Bo'guth simply chuckled. "You may also choose to leave this place naked."
Once he said that, people moved over to the pile and picked their things—the women being faster than everyone else.
As they were doing so, Igladith walked closer to me; Mirlaneth in her arms, looking with curiosity at me. But after a moment, the girl shyly looked elsewhere while Igladith maintained her look. "We should leave soon."