Regarding Fire Moth exploiting child labor, if we go by this world's standard of eighteen as the age of adulthood, Shu's pioneer team would have to be downsized to just Shu himself.
Kiana Kaslana and Raiden Mei had just started high school, and Bronya Zaychik was even younger at fourteen, still a middle schooler.
Only Shu's mental age exceeded eighteen; he was a university student who hadn't been completely "formatted" yet.
However, whether Shu's current physical body was actually over eighteen was also a question. The medical report Otto Apocalypse provided listed Shu's age as eighteen, which Shu himself had reported.
Even looking at the entire core leadership of Fire Moth, there seemed to be only five adults... Otto and Kallen Kaslana, Natasha Cioara, Murata Himeko, and Theresa Apocalypse, who didn't even look as mature as Bronya...
---||---
Meanwhile, on the other side, where the "child laborer" from the unscrupulous Fire Moth factory had been sent.
Kiana once again found herself by the window, silently looking down.
She had indeed jumped, pulling Bella with her out the window.
The castle glass was no match for Kiana's desperate lunge; she successfully leaped out the window with Bella in tow.
But once in the air, Kiana realized just how high this castle truly was.
This wasn't the mere two-story convenience store in Nagazora City. The height of several dozen meters instantly stripped Kiana of any control mid-air, and she could only be pulled back into the castle by the frantically flying Bella.
Damn it, if only I had my battlesuit on... Kiana gritted her teeth inwardly and started looking for the stairs leading down.
Then, for the fourth time, she saw that familiar suit of armor decoration.
Gradually, Kiana accepted reality. She probably wasn't getting out.
"How can a captured princess escape on her own..." Bella muttered softly, having expertly returned to her corner to cower after pulling Kiana, who had jumped out the window yet again, back into the castle.
"Hmph! This young lady definitely can!" Kiana waved her fist at Bella, then huffily resumed her search for a way to escape.
A long banner hanging on the wall fluttered in the breeze blowing into the castle, and a brilliant idea suddenly popped into Kiana's head.
She quickly ran to the banner, yanked it down, and then did a simple test.
It's a good banner! It can definitely support me!
With that thought, Kiana glanced out the window again, decided one banner wasn't long enough, and proceeded to rip down several more, twisting them together into a single rope.
Bella squatted quietly in the corner, watching Kiana tie one end of the long banner-rope to a pillar inside the castle and toss the other end out the window.
"Hehe! This young lady is a genius!!" Kiana confidently wiped her nose, put her hands on her hips, and then climbed out the window, leaping out under Bella's watchful gaze.
A few minutes later, having reached the end of the rope, Kiana leaped into the nearest window.
"Is the rope still too short..." Kiana landed, glanced back at the end of the banner-rope, tutted, and then started looking for more "rope."
Bella: Stare—
Kiana: "..."
Blinking in disbelief, Kiana took two steps back as if she'd seen a ghost, pointing at Bella, who was still squatting in the corner in the exact same position. "You really do know the way downstairs! You actually took a shortcut and got ahead of me?!"
Bella: "..."
Silently shaking her head, Bella extended a finger and pointed to a nearby pillar.
Kiana followed her finger and saw... her own banner-rope.
Pupils quaking.
Kiana quickly ran back to the window, looked down—the rope was indeed still there. She looked up—another rope was hanging from the window above.
A Möbius strip. A standard topological structure. If such a structure was applied to space, it could create the wondrous phenomenon of an "inner world."
When the thickness of the Möbius strip is infinitely small, the "inner world" phenomenon of one coordinate having two different scenes can occur.
Specifically...
Never mind, Kiana didn't understand any of this. She only knew that, in all likelihood, she wasn't getting out.
"Isn't it nice to stay here?" Bella continued to mutter from her corner. "Just stay here for a few days, and the knight will come to rescue you. Then you can go defeat the Demon Lord together..."
The ahoge on Kiana's head twitched. The next moment, Bella felt the light being blocked.
"So that means Shu is alright now, right?" Kiana asked earnestly. Afraid Bella wouldn't know who Shu was, Kiana even added his profession: "The Demon Lord who came to save me earlier, he's okay, right?"
Kiana had fainted before she could see Shu get smacked into the ground by Sirin, so her memory stopped at Shu being knocked away.
"Mmm..." Bella tilted her head, thinking. Recalling the deep pit in the ground, Bella shivered involuntarily.
In that state... could he really still be alive?
No, wait, Lady Sirin was the one who attacked. In the story Lady Sirin told me, the Demon Lord is defeated by the hero... no, by the knight, not the King. So Lady Sirin definitely held back!
As expected of Lady Sirin... she always knows how to measure her strength!
"He's definitely fine. The Demon Lord still needs to wait for you all to defeat him," Bella nodded affirmatively.
Kiana breathed a sigh of relief. After rushing around for nearly a day, she was feeling quite tired now.
Even worse... she was hungry. Hungry enough to eat an evil dragon...
Kiana stared at the dragon wings Bella was using to cover her head, her gaze gradually becoming fixed.
Bella suddenly felt a strong wave of malice, as if she had reverted to being prey...
Lifting her head in alarm, she caught Kiana hastily wiping drool from her mouth. Bella froze for a second, then, the next moment, she ran.
Crying as she ran, "Lady Sirin!! Your Bella is really going to be eaten!!"
"Hey! Don't run!!"
---||---
Meanwhile, in the royal palace, Sirin was curled up into a small ball on her bed, her forehead covered in cold sweat.
"Don't..." Soft, panicked whispers escaped her lips, her curled-up body trembling slightly.
It seemed someone was chasing her in her dream, and she could only run, run for her life.
But how could one escape a nightmare within a dream?
She was caught. She watched helplessly as those white rubber-gloved hands reached for her, watched that hand grow larger and larger, eventually covering her entire dreamscape.
...
"Save me... Homu Brave..."