Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Cutthroat

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When I first got a slave collar around my neck, I was shocked, unaware of what was happening. Immobilized by magic, naked and surrounded by slaves who stared at me helplessly, unable to help me, I could do nothing but scream and cry at that time.

In a sense, this situation was the same.

Like back then, I was facing strangers, confused by what was happening. Even today, I was immobilized. Only instead of magic, it was the huge bruiser sitting on me who made it impossible for me to escape. The onlookers this time were not other slaves but seekers, merchants, and ordinary Castianians, apathetic to what was happening around them or unwilling to help me.

The only change besides that I wasn’t stark naked was that I now had a system in my head, skills that were useless to me at the moment, and magic that was shackled by the runes hidden somewhere under the paving of Labyrinth Square.

I could do nothing but cry and scream silently into the gag in my mouth, soaked in what the system characterized as poison and was supposed to put me to sleep. For now, I countered the fatigue with [Indomitable Will], hoping that my regeneration would handle this poison like it handled mine.

Scratch that. I stopped myself when I realized my wrong assumption.

[Never-Dying] was not the [Poison Resistance]. It was not a skill to counter poisons, but to heal my damaged body. I was just guessing, but the sleeping poison in the gag didn’t work like the one in my tail whose goal was to destroy the nervous system, most often mine. 

That made my regeneration useless in this case and meant that I would have to rely on my will and [Tireless Machine] to stay awake.

The sleeping poison was one of my least problems, though.

Everything I’ve accomplished so far, what I tried to achieve, my freedom, dreams, and hopes will be gone the moment the slave trader activates the collar.

The thought made me cry even harder. Desperate, I looked ahead, focusing my mind and my hopes on the only person I had seen in front of me who didn’t seem numb to what was happening to me, Traiana. I knew it was just a statue, not a real person, but she was crying as hard as I was right now.

Whether there were gods in Eleaden and Traiana was one of them went beyond my knowledge of this world. She could be one, but I wasn’t a believer, not even on Earth, and if I had just a little faith in me back then, I lost it entirely in that cellar in Arda. Even now, I didn’t think of Traiana as a goddess, but I hoped with all my heart that she would help me.

I begged her to stop them from making me a slave again. I asked for her help, willing to do anything for it. I even moved the mana to the labyrinth mark, hoping I could teleport from this spot when I was so close to the platform. I didn’t.

But it wasn’t the end of my hopes, as I thought. The mumbling of people in the crowd drew my attention, the words of one man in particular.

“What was that on her hand? Have you seen it?” Pressed to the ground, I could see only his feet. Barefoot, hairy paws, he was a terran.

“Get out of my way, slaver,” he pushed one of the trader’s henchmen away and stepped forward. “Hey, big beef, show me her hand.” the man demanded the bruiser.

My hand? Why my hand? Oh, the mark? Unaware of what exactly happened when I sent mana to the labyrinth mark, I did it again. Now that I focused on it, I saw it was glowing on my hand in my domain. Bruiser noticed too and swiftly covered it, but he was too late.

“Fuckers, she’s a seeker!” terran exclaimed aloud in anger.

The crowd’s reaction was immediate.

“Seeker?” “She?” “Probably a debt slave.” “Terran like her, nothing weird.” “She’s [Slave], she can’t be a seeker.”

To my dismay, most of what I heard was unflattering, the opposite of helpful.

“Back off, sir!” shouted the guardswoman at the man and stood between us. “I’ll arrest you for interfering with official matters.”

“Since when is helping slavers officially a matter of guards? As far as I know, since Rayden is captain, the city guards have not helped the slavers.”

Guardswoman came up with another lie. “This one is dangerous.”

“Level ninety-two [Slave]?” sneered the man. “So tell me, why wasn't her brand removed? It is obligatory before you make the seeker a slave. Don’t you know your own rules?”

He then looked back over his shoulder. “Ember, run to the barracks. Tell them that their own guards are helping the slavers put the innocent girl into slavery.”

“Got it,” said the young woman, according to the feet also terran, and disappeared before the slavers could react. I had no idea who the man or Ember was, but I was incredibly grateful to them.

“Now we’ll see what Captain Rayden says,” the man said with a smirk, but then stopped when he saw the slave trader move. “Hey, stop it!”

But it was too late, and he was stopped by a guardswoman anyway. 

In essence, the slave collar worked as a spatial ring and required blood to recognize its owner, my new master. It was enough for the trader to place his cut finger on it to let the mana flow in it.

The moment the slave trader activated the collar, I finally heard Traiana’s answer to my pleas. Her cry for the fallen. It was the loudest cry I’ve ever heard from her in my mind. As always, it didn’t last long, though.

As the lament subsided, the mark on my hand darkened, indicating that she had left me. I felt as if she was ignoring my distress as well as others.

The system just confirmed what I already knew.

(ding) You have been blessed with a new master: Arlo Rutledge

I almost ignored the mumbling in the crowd when I saw this notification.

“Did you hear that?” “Was she really a seeker?” “You hear the cry again?” “Did someone fell in the square?” “Only an idiot would kill someone here.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t care less right now that the others had heard Traiana’s cry as I did. I had a much bigger problem on my neck.

“Not waiting for the Captain I see? You are no city guards,” the man accused them and attacked.

“This is an official matter o...of the city gua ...!” said the guardswoman, stuttering while defending herself as it didn’t deter the man from attacking.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck...we have to...have to get out of here!” she shouted at the others, what they already knew.

Arlo Rutledge approached me quickly, squatted down, grabbed my face, and turned my head to look at him.

“Listen, bitch. I am your master now. I order you not to move until I say otherwise and shut up,” he commanded me, and I obeyed.

Even though I didn’t want to, I stopped resisting the bruiser and screaming into the gag. Though tears still burned my eyes, and I didn’t stop fighting for control over my body either. I tasted freedom again, and I was not going to give it up so easily. My battlefield just shifted from the square to my mind, which the collar tried to grasp.

“Help me!” the guardswoman barked at the bruiser. As the big man finally got off me, I could take a deep breath, and it wasn’t pleasant at all with the broken ribs.

“Stone, grab her. We’re leaving!” Rutledge ordered his henchman.

There was nothing I could do when a man named Stone slung me over his shoulder but wished I could cut his throat, stop him from leaving the square. The slave trader’s command prevented me from doing so.

Because of my position on the slaver’s shoulder and my battle with the collar that took most of my concentration, I wasn’t even able to look up and see what was going on on the square, which we were hastily leaving or  in which direction they were taking me. 

I was all the more surprised when the man threw me on the floor in some sort of shop. Pasted time lost in my thoughts

It was not a dubious store in the back alley, as I would think they would take me to, but a legitimate store operating on one less busy city street I saw through large windows at the front. Because of my master’s class, I would bet this was his slave store. I could even imagine the slaves on display behind these windows, but now they were empty, as was the shop itself.

It was closed for today, of course.

“Stand up,” the bastard, I mean my new master ordered me. When I did, he smiled shrewdly and nodded to himself. “Good, good ... Stone, give her irons,” he said to his henchman.

Silently, but with hatred in my eyes, I looked at the man in whose hands shackles appeared. I wished he would go to hell, and not just him: everyone, even the two fake guards who weren’t here right now.

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“She looks like she wants to kill someone,” the trader laughed, gesturing to the man to hurry up.

Rutledge was not wrong. If I could, I would kill them all. So as the man named Stone approached me, I moved my left hand. It was a tiny victory over the collar and slave trader’s command, nothing significant that would help me to freedom, and I couldn’t do more now either. But even so, this slight movement allowed me to slash the man’s throat at double speed. He didn’t expect it, nor did he have time to react.

It was like magic, but time seemed to stop for a moment. 

The man stared at me in disbelief, trying to hold his bleeding neck, from which I basically ripped his throat with my claws. The others stared at me as surprised as he did, one common question going through their minds. “What just happened?”

Even the bruiser who had just entered the store gawked at me wide-eyed. 

I wished I could use their shock more to my advantage, but this minor victory was at the cost of a terrible migraine that clouded my mind and judgment. 

“W ... why did you order her to kill him?” the bruiser asked, baffled by what he saw. I managed to smirk, and time began to move again.

The man fell to the ground, holding his throat, gasping for air. It was a gruesome sight but a delight for the soul of the slave.

“I didn’t!” Rutledge snapped angrily, pointing at me. “I order you not to move a muscle, not to use skills.”

His words struck like a hammer on my mind, especially the second part. I needed skills to resist, especially [Indomitable Will]. Were it not for his command not to move, I would have knelt on the ground, holding my head in pain.

The slave trader then looked at one of his men. “Tate, you do it.” 

“Boss?” the young man asked, hesitant to approach me.

“What!” he barked at him. “It was a fluke. She’s under my control.”

“But ...” Tate tried to object, but the bruiser’s huge hand pushed him aside.

He grabbed my wrist with both hands and twisted it. The blood-curdling crunch of bones I heard was nothing compared to the pain that came shortly after. I screamed, though only in my mind, but my legs buckled beneath me this time despite the order, and I fell to my knees.

“Satisfied?” the bruiser asked the young man.

Tate hesitated anyway and looked at his boss. “What about Stone?

“That bastard was useless. Save him if you want, but put the irons on her first,” he growled. His order was like a death sentence for the man lying in a pool of his own blood.

Tate, keeping his eyes on me, crossed Stone and bent down for the shackles the dying man had dropped. At that moment, Stone, for the last time he tried to breathe in but choked on his own blood.

(ding) You have defeated [Bouncer - Stone Penhale: lvl 89]

This simple message meant more than it seemed at first glance. It made me a killer. Yes, this was not the first time I had seen such a notification. At the time, it wasn’t me who killed the person in question, though. Now there was blood on my hands, literally.

What scared me even more was that I was happy with his death.

(ding) You have reached level 93

As soon as I read the notification about my level-up, I chuckled, and then I laughed hysterically. With a gag in my mouth, it looked a little strange, and it scared Tate, who was shackling me.

It’s been a long time since I last saw this notification. Dungreen was my master at the time. 

When I got my freedom back, I found I did not need a master to gain experience, as I feared. The system was not so strict.

With this hope, I set out on a journey to become a seeker and today dared to visit the labyrinth for the first time. I did not expect to gain any experience as a [Slave] by killing rabbits today. It would be nice, but my goal was to get a picture of the first floor, gain combat experience with horned rabbits. I wanted to check the gain of class experience on my second dive, which would tell me if I really don’t need a master.

Never did I imagine I would experience the next level-up in the hands of another master, what’s worse, after fulfilling his wishes. How else would I level up? The man died because his boss let him die.

With that, my nightmares come true.

I was a killer, cutthroat, fulfilling my master’s wishes. 

Raising my weeping eyes, I looked at the man, who stopped shackling my broken arms. Instead, he stared at me, horrified, as he noticed that my level had changed. When he put two and two together, he looked at his already dead associate.

He was so close. All I had to do was reach out, and ... my hands were both broken. I couldn’t even bite his throat with the gag in my mouth. 

The idea was disgusting, though.

[Workhand: lvl 84]

All I could do was use the system and look at his level, but when I saw his class, I had to question the sense of someone who would voluntarily choose a class like this.

“Are you done?” asked his boss, my new master, sharply.

My hands were still free, so at the reminder of the slave trader, he looked away from his dead colleague and quickly fastened the handcuffs to my wrist. After I stood up at the master’s command, he did the same to my ankles.

“Boss,” he called to him, indicating that everything was in place.

“Finally. Take the chains and take her into the back, to the office. Vik, where’s Aspen?” Rutledge asked the bruiser.

Before he could answer, the guardswoman emerged from the back of the store. “I’m here. It wasn’t easy to get rid of the idiot. Fortunately, no one joined him.”

“Did you kill him?” asked Rutledge.

She shook her head. “Who do you think I am, of course not ...” she stopped, noticing the corpse on the ground. “What the hell happened?!”

The slave trader sighed. “Later, you two check the horse carriage and slaves at the back,” he said, pointing to the two of his henchmen. “We’ll be in the office when you’re done.”

They both nodded, but then one of them stopped at the corpse. “What about Stone, sir?” he asked.

“Take him to the slave room. They’ll find him there sooner or later,” he said and looked at me. “You follow us.”

All I could do was watch him defiantly and follow them as they hurriedly left the saleroom and headed deeper into the shop. Tate, the workhand, was holding chains, but I was looking at the backs of the two false guards, cursing myself. I was stupid to trust them so easily just because they were dressed like city guards. It was the woman’s class, which made me believe they were and blindly follow them directly into the arms of my future master.

It made me wonder why when I looked at her class, I saw [Guardswoman]. Was there a trick to it? Something like Morton, the mind mage, did so I wouldn’t see his class.

I shook my head, dismissing the thought. These people didn’t seem capable of something like that to me. Which left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, as the only other option that came to my mind was that she was indeed a city guard. Although a corrupt one, tempted by money for my capture as well as her current associates.

The amount of the reward, as well as who offered it, was unknown to me. It could be Dungreen, my former master, or the people in Arda behind him. I wouldn’t rule out a potential mind mage in the empire’s capital either. Honestly, it didn’t matter. My end will be the same anyway.

What weighed on my mind more right now was the behavior of the people in the square. I couldn’t say how often it happened that the seeker was in debt enough to become a slave, but that didn’t entitle anyone to such apathy. My class could not be the only reason people condemned me without knowing the truth, why only one man found the courage to stop the injustice that was unfolding before his eyes.

But was the Earth so different? People would film it on their phones, share it, talk about it, and hardly anyone would actually help me. Needless to say, there was no system or seekers on Earth.

I sighed, knowing that reminiscing won’t get me there, that it won’t help me get rid of the collar. My only hope was that the young woman had already informed the Captain, and she was on her way here.

 

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