Delilah stood and waited for him to read what was written and say that he knew.
"I-I don't know anything about the village leader. Why would I? I'm just a..."
The knife was under his chin before he could finish. The man fell silent and raised his hands.
"W-wait! I really don't know who that is, but… I have maps of the village. Every entrance, exit, alleyway. I kept them… just for myself. Take them. Just don't touch me!" He jerked his head toward the safe bolted to the wall. "The code is two thousand eighty-nine. There's money in there too, take it."
She drove the knife through his palm and pinned it to the floor. The man screamed in pain as Delilah walked to the safe. She entered the code and opened it. Inside were stacks of papers, some equipment, and money.
"That round thing… it's a holographic map," he moaned behind her.
She took the map, then noticed several folders among the papers and opened one. It was a registry - a list of guests, and a list of girls who had been taken and forced to work here. All of them.
She silently flipped through the pages and set the papers aside. Then she looked around the room and spotted a large box bag on the table. She grabbed it, dumped everything inside onto the floor, and began loading all the cash and documents from the safe into it.
Seeing this, the brothel owner spoke in a trembling voice:
"A-alright... take everything, just leave me alive."
She walked over and crouched beside him. He flinched and covered himself with his free hand.
Delilah only smiled and slowly ran her palm across his cheek.
Then she calmly rose and left the room.
For a few seconds he lay there listening to her footsteps fade. Then he exhaled. Thought it was over. But soon he felt a strange burning on his face. Seconds later the burning became sharp pain, rising fast. He screamed when it became unbearable.
Delilah was already in the corridor.
Doors opened one after another. Girls stepped out cautiously, disoriented, frightened, exhausted. Torn clothes, dark circles under their eyes. They looked at the guards' bodies, then at her.
Then their eyes settled on Dalila. She stood in the middle of the corridor, holding the bag.
She walked to the first girl and pressed several bundles of cash into her hands. Then to the next, and the one after that. She gave each of them money and silently gestured toward the exit.
Some didn't understand at first what she wanted.
One girl asked quietly:
"C- can we… go?"
Delilah simply nodded.
That was enough.
The girls began moving toward the exit. Slowly at first, afraid of a trap, then faster. Some thanked her through tears, others just ran without looking back.
She handed out money until the bag was nearly empty.
Within minutes the brothel corridors were silent. The girls had poured out of the building and scattered through the streets of the black market, disappearing into the alleyways.
Delilah followed.
Outside, she stopped. In her hands was the bag with the remaining documents and the map.
Her face was calm.
For the first time in weeks - since she had found herself in this situation, she felt something close to relief.
_____
The next day, Namkhai, Delilah, and Phobos returned to the Kenshin bar. They sat down at the same table to go over everything they had managed to learn the day before.
Delilah looked different. Her usual black rags, which normally covered her entire body, were gone, apparently, yesterday's carnage had finally reduced them to tatters. Now she was wearing a simple dark sweater and thick pants, clearly bought at the nearest black-market stall. The clothes hung on her a little awkwardly, emphasizing that she wasn't used to such a "civilian" look.
But what stood out most was, quite literally, her face. A fresh bruise darkened Dalila's cheekbone, and her lip was slightly split.
Phobos held his gaze on her longer than usual. He saw the marks of the blows, saw how she winced slightly as she sat down at the table, but he didn't say a word.
"Where's the white-haired one have you seen him?" Phobos asked.
"How would we? We were in different areas," Namkhai replied. "Maybe he's just running late."
"Fine, while he's not here, let's go over what we found." Phobos glanced around the bar, checking that no one was listening. "I only managed to dig up the bare minimum. The leader of this village is a serious paranoid. It's like he doesn't exist. The only thing I could find out is that he recruits wanted criminals for his security."
He paused and reached into his coat's inner pocket.
"But there is something useful." Phobos pulled out a map and spread it across the table. "Here. A more detailed layout of the village."
Separate zones were marked on the map: alleyways, warehouses, markets.
"You see these areas?" He pointed to the markings. "Empty. No information at all. As if these places don't exist. I think that's exactly where we need to look, but the problem is we don't have a detailed map showing hidden passages and every back corner."
Delilah silently set a round metal device on the table - the very map she had taken from the brothel.
Both of them went quiet for a moment.
"What is that?" Namkhai frowned.
Phobos picked it up and activated it.
A holographic map unfolded above the device. It was highly detailed: alleyways, hidden passages, internal routes, all of it rendered clearly. The map could be zoomed in, individual zones examined, and certain areas explored from the inside.
Phobos stilled for a moment.
"W-where did you get this?" he asked, shifting his gaze to Dalila.
She shrugged.
"So what is it, exactly?" Namkhai asked again.
"A map. Not just any map a fully detailed one. Everything I marked as blank zones on mine is completely laid out here," Phobos said.
"Ha, nice. So now we know the whole city and can move around without being seen," Namkhai said.
"Don't celebrate yet. We still don't know where the leader is or who he even is. We'll have to stay up and comb through every location until we find even the smallest lead…"
"It's fine, I'm meeting him tomorrow along with the false king and those knights from yesterday," Namkhai said, casually.
Phobos looked up sharply.
"What did you just say?"
"The false king. The knights have their own leader. He doesn't want to call himself a king because there's already a real one back in their world…"
"I don't care about their king."
"False king," Namkhai corrected.
"Shut up." Phobos cut him off. "Talk about the meeting. Are you saying you're personally meeting the village leader tomorrow?"
"Yeah. I'm going as a trusted representative."
Phobos stared at him in complete disbelief, then looked over at Delilah. She looked just as surprised, eyeing Namkhai sideways.
"How did you even pull that off?"
"Well… family connections helped," Namkhai answered, without going into detail.
Phobos thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright. Here's the plan: tomorrow you meet him. Afterward you come straight back here and we go over everything. I need to know it all: what he looks like, where he's located, how many people are there, the layout of the space, every exit, the guards. Memorize every detail. If he really does recruit wanted criminals for security, I might be able to identify some of them from your description. After that we start planning the kidnapping. And with this map…" he glanced briefly at the device, " we'll have a way to get out fast and clean."
"Got it, we'll go from there," Namkhai replied, with a hint of satisfaction.
Delilah gave a quiet nod.
Phobos looked at them both and sat with his thoughts.
"Remarkable… in a single day they managed to pull in this much. Unlike me. Even if it was just luck… maybe they're not such useless idiots after all. "
Now they waited for the arrival of №1991, who was running quite late.