Natalia took a sip of wine and frowned at her somewhat troublesome friend.
"What kind of expression is that?"
"Cough, cough. Hiring child labor is illegal."
Samael picked up the tablecloth, wiping the table as he coughed lightly and pondered.
"Could you wipe your own ass clean before saying that?"
Natalia raised a brow and glanced at Abigail and Lavinia in the back hall, where they were fiddling with puppets and playing house, then turned a look of contempt toward Samael.
Uh, strictly speaking, they were already adults. Their loli builds just had an unusually long shelf life.
Unable to explain himself in the face of his friend's doubts, Samael could only mutter to himself resentfully.
"Besides, do you think it was easy taking dead weight like this through customs?"
Natalia paused, then could not help rolling her eyes at Samael.
"When all was said and done, wasn't this your doing?"
Seeing the flames spread to himself, Samael was utterly baffled. Fortunately, after a free glass of brandy was passed over, the satisfied drunk at the bar smoothly opened up and began telling him where the child had come from.
Hisau Mai had been born in a war-torn country. Because the nation lacked funds for the war, local factions and warlords often seized children and sent them into battle. Her parents had refused to submit, and so they died in one such armed conflict. She had begun wandering from a young age, struggling to survive amid the ruins of war.
Having survived in that kind of environment, she had naturally developed a keen instinct for the battlefield and decent survival skills.
But a young, frail child was destined to be unable to live in such harsh conditions for long.
Taken into a military camp to become one of countless child