Lament of the Slave

Hal had no choice. He had to try to escape or face execution. Therefore, even though he was surrounded by half a dozen of the best City Guards and was missing a leg, he tried to use magic to jump over the wall standing just a few meters away.

When he was barely three meters above the ground, still far from crossing the barracks wall, a lean guardsman appeared beside him. It almost looked like he teleported next to him, but as with the Captain, I had no idea if he really had such a skill, if it existed at all, or if he was only moving extremely fast, and the darkness lit by the flames was playing tricks on my eyes. Before Hal could react, the guardsman grabbed him by the ankle of his healthy foot and slammed him to the ground right in front of Captain Rayden.

Now I could finally feel the aura radiating from the Captain, protecting my mind, reassuring me as in the interrogation room. I was sure the field skill had a different effect on Hal, who struggled to get up from the ground because I couldn't imagine the Captain having such compassion for this man as to calm his mind. Wondering if it was the same skill she used to suppress his skills and magic before, as he mentioned when arguing with Zander Denholm, or if she was using a completely different one right now, I was curious, wanting to know if I could learn these skills. They seemed useful. But I wasn't going to ask her, not right now.

"Any last words?" Captain Rayden asked him as he managed to sit up, spitting blood from his mouth.

"I surrend ..." was all he managed to say before his head was separated from his body, falling at the feet of the woman who had severed it with a sweep of the sword.

Not expecting something like that to happen, I squeaked a little in shock. I thought the Captain would want to arrest him, interrogate him, and find out who hired him, who was behind it all, but I was wrong.

Unaware of what I should think of Rayden now when she ordered the slave collars be put on the children without hesitation, she executed the man who gave up, the man who had information about people who sent him here, I have decided to believe that she had a good reason for executing Hal. At least for now.

Looking at the limp body of the man I had suffered from so much did not bring me the desired relief. On the contrary, I felt even more concerned. It was clear to me now that he was just a pawn following someone else's orders, someone who was willing to pay a high enough price for my capture to make Denholm attack the Castiana' City Guards.

"You could have tried to escape, take advantage of the commotion he caused," the Captain said to Denholm with her back to him, looking at Hal's head.

"I didn't see a chance with these guys and girls around," he said, referring to the Guards around him.

Now that Hal was dead, all eleven men and women, not counting the Captain and Janina, focused on him.

She turned to him, "But you do not surrender, do you?"

He smiled sadly, "I would be laughing stock if I did."

"How do you think this will end?" She asked.

Denholm smirked, "I was hoping for a duel, you and me, but you refused!"

"I don't see why I should duel you," she shrugged.

I'd love to see Captain fight, but she was right. There was no reason for that, even if Denholm won the duel, which I dared to doubt he would, he would still have to fight the Guards. They wouldn't just let him go.

He nodded and looked around, "All right, boys and girls, show me what you are made of!"

The next moment, I watched in amazement as the air around them exploded in the colors of the clashing auras of nearly a dozen people. The sheer power that clashed just a few meters in front of me gave me goosebumps. The Guards tried to suppress him, but without success. He roared like a wild beast, a burst of energy spreading from him, stopping the Guards dead in their tracks for a moment. His muscles grew, his veins protruded, bringing his power to new heights. I watched his transformation with horror, it was unnatural, painful-looking, and above all, it reminded me of what I had been through. He did not inject himself with the essence of who knows what, though. No, it had to be a skill.

Firmly gripping his bastard sword with both hands, he rushed so fast that he literally disappeared before my eyes, which left me wondering why he didn't use this skill to escape.

With this speed, he could reach the barracks wall in a moment, jump over it, and get lost in the city. At least I would do it in his place, I could only imagine what reason he had not to use this skill before.

His first target was a guardswoman who was the only one of the Guards to have a staff as a weapon, indicating that she was a mage. Despite creating a shield in front of her, which shattered under the executed slash, and parrying Denholm's attack with her staff, he sent her flying.

He didn't stop in his tracks, looking for another target, just turned on the spot, continuing the attack on guardsmen standing to his right. Despite his size, his movements were graceful, which amazed me. I would instead expect the clumsiness of a brute—just pure strength.

Although the guardsmen blocked the attack with his sword, he had to take a few steps back. Denholm paused for a moment, forced by the parry to adjust his stance, which the other Guards immediately took advantage of. His legs were wrapped in vines, sprouting from the ground like magic beans, but not stopping him at all. Repelling the spear attack, he completely ignored the vines that tried unsuccessfully to prevent him from moving. In his display, it looked like they were made of paper, tearing with each of his movements. He managed to avoid the mana burst sent in his direction, the guardsman who sent it, immediately executing another slash, sending the second mana burst at Denholm.

Wondering what kind of skill it could be, I watched Denholm fail to avoid the arrow, but to my surprise, despite the arrow's speed and strength, it dug only a few centimeters into his shoulder.

Completely ignoring it with a stamp that shook the ground, he swept with his sword, repelling further attacks before him with a pressure wave that his move created. Despite that, he could not avoid the ice spear coming from the darkness of the night, digging into his side, likely sent by the guardswoman he attacked first.

Staggering, he roared like a wounded tiger and, with a slash, sent the guardsman nearest to him flying. The poor man crashed into a wall just a few meters from the place where I met the wall, but unlike me, his impact left cracked stone blocks in it, and after hitting the ground, he got to his feet, rejoining the fight.

I wish I, too, could ignore the pain, regretting my hasty decision to get rid of [Pain Resistance] again, reconsidering my earlier decision. The fact that the healers assumed I had it showed that it was a skill that almost everyone had, a necessity.

And I didn't have it.

Regretting that as a [Slave] who had the skill [Painless Agony] with essentially the same function as [Pain Resistance], I didn't choose it, I was considering whether to choose both skills right now, hoping their effect would stack.

Nevertheless, not wanting to make another hasty decision, which I would later regret, I didn't do it, enduring pain with clenched teeth and concentrating back on the battle taking place in front of me.

The Denholm sprang into motion ignoring the bleeding wounds. He moved at lightning speed toward the nearest guardsman, striking the man in the shoulder and despite the armor cutting into the flesh. A blast of fire forced him to jump aside, where Tracy, the vine-controlling woman, punched him into the kidneys, her vines digging into his injured side at the same time.

Tracy jumped back in time, avoiding the sword's sweep just to be hit by the mana blade. Denholm only frowned as she blocked his attack with her forearms shields, crossing her arms. Before I could blink, he blocked off another arrow with his sword, this time aimed at his head, failing to dodge the guardsman's attack with the spear. He stabbed him in the thigh, twisting the spear before pulling it out of Denholm's leg.

Despite all that, the Beast of the South did not fall to his knees but continued to fight like a tiger driven into a corner, and although I wanted him to experience the same, if not more pain, that he had caused me, I felt respect for him.

It took a lot of courage to stand up to such superiority, knowing that he had no chance to escape and that he would face death. I approved of his decision, though. If I had to choose between slavery or death, like him now, I would choose the same. Never again, I wanted to end up in the hands of another slaver/master again, with my mind bound by the collar, deprived of my freedom.

So yes, I respected his decision, his courage, but I was happy to watch him suffer like me, resenting him for pulling my wing off my back.

At the thought of my missing wing, I shuddered. Although I still had [Inner Perception], even now, I had no idea how badly damaged my body was, what muscles he tore out, and it was for a simple reason. I was afraid to look.

Instead, I watched as with each new injury, the speed with which Denholm moved dropped. Wondering what skills he used, if he had regeneration like me, how high level of his [Pain Resistance] was, or if he had a similar skill to it like me that allowed him to ignore pain, I expected the fight to end soon. It was evident that these skills were not omnipotent. You can ignore the pain from a severed muscle, but you can't expect to use it as a healthy one.

Roaring, Denholm struck the guardswoman in front of him before he fell to his knees, stabbing the sword into the ground so he could lean on it. Surprised that none of the Guards took advantage of this situation and stabbed him to end the fight, I watched his muscles return to their original size, withering even further. The time limit on his berserker skill has over, and he was now paying for using it, coughing up blood, exhausted. Denholm looked at me, finding me despite being surrounded by Guards, he roared like a beast, the last hint of defiance, trying to show me that it is my turn once he is done with them.

Like me, he was surprised when an even more beastly roar than his escaped my throat in response to his.

I was confused about how my body responded to his challenge because it wasn't something I ever did. I've never roared like that before. Horrified that my body had probably changed more than I thought and that the changes affected me in a way I didn't expect, I wondered if my body was still mutating, if it was still changing.

I even knew what my roar meant. I urged him to come, let him try, that I'm not afraid of him! Of course, that wasn't true, I wasn't even able to stand up, but Denholm was no better off. We were just two wounded beasts snarling at each other.

"Ha, I thought you were just a pigeon ..." he grinned and with that grin on his face, collapsed to the ground, dead.

I have no idea how I knew, but I was sure the man was dead. All my instincts were telling me that. Even the system that spewed one notification after another at me tonight told me he was dead.

(ding) Your group has defeated [Beast of the Sword - Zander Denholm: lvl 253]

Wondering if his class was the inspiration for his nickname, I pause in surprise at the amount of information available to me. I wasn't used to that.

So far I have seen quite a few people whose level the system showed me as one or two question marks, Denholm was the latter, so I was quite surprised when the system now told me his true class and level. I was even more shocked above the level itself. Fucking level 253, how could I dare fight someone like that!

Ignoring other notifications, since I really wasn't in the mood to go through dozens of them now, I quickly found the one I was looking for, just to be surprised again.

(ding) Your group has defeated [Mind Weaver - Stanley Morton: lvl 207]

Well, I finally knew the name of the dead scumbag, and it wasn't Hal.

Fucking Stanley Morton!

His level was much lower than Denholm's but still more than a hundred levels higher than mine. Pondering if this was why I saw these two dead people's levels as question marks before, I looked at the man and the women around me. Everyone's levels, not counting the creeper-bound man with a collar around his neck who was [Worker: lvl 42], I saw as two question marks.

If I thought correctly, all these people had a hundred or more levels than me.

In that cellar where I spent more than a year of my life, I stopped thinking about these question marks. At first, I saw everyone's levels as one question mark, except for Dungreen, whose level I saw as two question marks from the beginning, and that didn't change until the last moment. As my levels grew, the slave's question marks turned into numbers, and I stopped thinking about why. People with them were just stronger than me, simple.

Now I was amazed at how much stronger they were, wondering if there was anyone even stronger, someone whose level I would see as three question marks.

I shuddered at the thought, and curious about the assassin's level, I searched the notifications. I panicked a little when I didn't find any about her death, though.

When I thought about it a little, there were many possibilities why. They could have caught her alive, or when they killed her, I just didn't count as someone who contributed to her death, as part of the team, I wasn't quite clear yet how the system worked in this area, my only victim so far was a hungry rat.

Fearing that she could have escaped them, I decided to hope for the first two options. I didn't want to live for the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for fear that she would one day decide to come back just to take revenge on me, even if it sounded illogical. I just scratched and punched her as she tried to kill me.

Of course, I was aware that a much bigger threat and the reason I should be worried about my life was a man, or woman, who was so interested in me that he was willing to pay enough for my capture that it persuaded these people to attack the City Guards.

"Those who are injured and need treatment will stay here. Janina, take care of them!" The Captain ordered a healer who was already treating a man with an almost severed shoulder. She took one last look at the two dead bodies and then ordered, "Erik, Annie, stay here. The rest follow me!"

When she gave the order, I was angry at myself because I had many questions I wanted to ask her, but before I could organize my thoughts, the Captain and most of the Guards were gone. Where they were going, I had no idea. All I knew was that they weren't heading for the gate or the infirmary.

So I stayed here with two corpses, a healer who for some reason didn't heal me, just stopped the bleeding, one guardsman with a quite badly wounded shoulder, the other with her arm bent at the elbow in a way that was definitely not natural. Then there was Erik and Annie, who had been keeping me company since the rubble under the infirmary windows. I mean, they were trying to stop Denholm and Morton since then, albeit somewhat unsuccessfully. However, after seeing how Denholm was able to resist almost a dozen Guards, even if only for a moment, I could not blame the two for their failure.

Ah, of course, I shouldn't forget the poor man Morton forced to attack the City Guards with a broom in his hand.

Guards Erik and Annie brought the poor man to the wall and laid him carefully on the ground not far from me. He didn't move, his eyes closed, almost as if he was asleep, but his muscles were tense, and tears streamed from his eyes. I didn't dare say that I knew what he was going through, because after all, I defended myself, my mind was not controlled like his.

He calmed down a bit when Janina knelt beside him, probably using [Soothing Touch] or a similar skill. However, he did not stop crying, having a nightmare, of which I was told it's hard to wake up from.

Looking at him and seeing the slave collar around his neck, I felt disgusted by what the Captain had ordered the City Guards to do, glad I defended my mind and didn't end up with this piece of disgusting metal around my neck again.