After treating all the girls, Dan Feng began considering how to return them all safely to their homes.
After finishing treating the one girl, Roxy brought her over to Dan Feng's side.
The girl's complexion looked much better now—no longer as pale as when they first saw her. Thanks to Roxy's careful treatment, her condition had steadily stabilized.
"Dan Feng, what should we do with these children?" Roxy asked worriedly, looking at the ragged group of children before them.
After all, since she and Dan Feng had rescued these children, they naturally couldn't just abandon them.
Dan Feng furrowed his brows slightly, gazing at the children in silence for a moment before slowly saying, "We'll send them home one by one. We can't just leave this group of children to fend for themselves in the wilderness, can we?"
No sooner said than done—Dan Feng and Roxy immediately set to work.
They began patiently asking each child for their address. However, problems quickly arose.
Among the children, only a small portion could clearly state their exact home location. Most had almost no idea where they lived—they could only vaguely remember the name of their village.
But the Central Continent was vast, with countless villages. How could Dan Feng and Roxy possibly know every single one?
Faced with so many unfamiliar village names, they felt helpless.
After racking their brains, Dan Feng and Roxy finally came up with a temporary solution.
Dan Feng would first take those children who knew their home region and village name back home. For those whose village names Dan Feng had never heard of, they would temporarily entrust them to the Adventurers' Guild.
Roxy stayed behind to protect the small girls, while Dan Feng picked up one small girl and flew toward her home address.
Fortunately, the human traffickers hadn't taken the children very far. As long as Dan Feng flew quickly enough, he could return the remaining small girls to their homes in a short time.
Thus, Dan Feng paid no mind to the consumption of Imaginary energy. Given his current state, its depletion rate was comparable to mana, yet his reserves remained enormous. Even flying continuously for several weeks might not deplete it.
When he brought the first small girl back to her home, her parents finally breathed a sigh of relief. For the past few days, they had searched everywhere for her—even posting a request at the town's Adventurers' Guild to find her.
They wept with joy and immediately hugged their small daughter tightly, afraid she might disappear again.
The parents' tears flowed freely—the cries held both the joy of reunion and the lingering fear of what their child had endured.
In this world, oversight of children was quite lax, which undoubtedly gave human traffickers plenty of opportunities.
These inhumane traffickers often took advantage, abducting innocent children who should have been living normal lives.
Most kidnapped children ultimately ended up sold at slave markets to become commodities, or purchased by nobles with perverse tastes to serve as maids.
In short, few of these children met good ends.
Dan Feng quietly watched the family reunite, a complex mix of emotions surging in his heart.
He felt relieved that the small girl could return safely, yet he also felt helpless that this world was so different from his previous one.
However, he did not linger long—there were still other girls who needed to be sent home.
Thus, he silently turned and left, preparing to continue returning the other girls.
Time passed minute by minute. Dan Feng had gone back and forth dozens of times. All the girls who knew their home region and village had been safely returned. The remaining ones were those who didn't know their home locations.
However, among this remaining group, there was one who stood out.
She was a beast race girl who had lost her parents at a young age and had since wandered alone.
The hardships of life forced her to scavenge everywhere just to fill her stomach.
Unfortunately, one day, in her hunger and lack of caution, this beast race small girl caught the eye of those two detestable human traffickers.
Because she was starving and defenseless, she was easily captured by the traffickers and stuffed into a burlap sack.
"Dan Feng, that beast race small girl is alone—she has no home anymore." Roxy relayed every detail she had learned from the beast race girl to Dan Feng without holding anything back.
Faced with this situation, Roxy felt deeply helpless. She didn't know how to help this pitiful small girl.
After all, a child so young wandering alone must have endured countless hardships.
Roxy truly couldn't bear to see this underage girl continue drifting alone and destitute.
After listening to Roxy, Dan Feng fell silent for a while, seemingly deep in thought.
After a moment, he finally spoke: "Then let's have her stay with us for the time being. We can teach her some survival skills. Once she's capable of living independently, we can let her go."
This was undoubtedly the best option at the moment. After all, the beast race girl had no home—being rescued like this would only leave her to continue wandering.
It would be better to let her stay with Dan Feng and Roxy to learn some magic or other skills, so she could survive on her own later.
Roxy nodded at Dan Feng's words. She also felt this was currently the best approach.
Afterward, Dan Feng and Roxy took the remaining small girls toward the nearest Adventurers' Guild.
They planned to post an escort request, having adventurers familiar with nearby villages take the children home.
Alternatively, they could have the adventurers inform the girls' parents so they could come to the guild to retrieve them.
...
As Darius's contact, the man had arrived early at the agreed-upon location, waiting for the two traffickers to deliver the "goods."
But he had waited several hours, and there was still no sign of them.
"Strange? Rotkeber should be very punctual, right? The agreed time has already passed—why haven't they shown up?" The contact wondered in confusion.
Darius had been eagerly awaiting new "goods" for a long time. If they failed to deliver on schedule, they might all end up dead.
The thought filled Darius's contact with growing panic, yet he had no solution—he didn't know where the two were.
If they still didn't appear soon, he would have to flee.
After all, no one wanted to die. Escaping now would only get him wanted by Darius—but that was still better than losing his life.