Orph on the other hand couldn’t find any royal guards, he wondered where they were as he wandered around, trying his best to save as many people as he could.

Cess, however, had lost Doug. She was carrying her sword and the bow and arrows she got from here.

“Where did it go...”, she wondered as she looked around. A house collapsed near her, “...I hope it’s ok.”, she thought to herself before noticing a footprint. A footprint of a dog. She went near it and caught a track which she decided to follow. However, after a while, the track disappeared into thin air, as if the dog had vanished, or teleported far away. There was a giant firewall standing right in front of her. Surely the dog didn’t go through it? She wondered and hoped that it didn’t. The dog wouldn’t have survived that.

She then looked up at the trees, relatively unharmed from the fire. “Did it really climb up there and jumped over?”, she questioned herself before doing the same. Cess could see the whole village from up here, although the smoke made it very hard to see further distances.

“I hope everyone’s safe...”, she wondered. As she looked around, she noticed a silhouette of a dog, it looked like it was wagging its tail.

“So, it did cross over the wall...”

She jumped over the firewall, “I wonder how it did that.”

Cess ran towards where she thought the dog was and hoped that it was safe. Only to find the dog wagging its tail while licking a person’s face. A person she had never seen before.

“I missed you too...”, said the man to Doug while smiling.

“Is that your dog?” asked Cess, as she slowly walked towards them.

The man nodded.

Cess sighed a sigh of relief, “I’m glad you two finally found each other...”

Before Cess could finish her sentence, the man threw a bomb at her, which she barely dodged. She looked behind and found smoke coming out.

“I feel like we’re having a misunderstanding...”, she tried to explain herself while Doug growled at her.

“Looks like I missed.”, Dit took out another smoke bomb and started to play with it. “You know what to do Doug.” Doug barked and ran toward the right before making his way straight to Cess.

“You don’t look very friendly anymore...”, said Cess, confused about what was going on.

With Cess distracted, Dit threw another smoke bomb at her. It hit her directly as smoke came out of it, causing her to cough.

“What is this...?”, she asked. She didn’t get a reply, but she could hear footsteps getting closer to her. It wasn’t of a human.

“The dog!”, she braced for impact, knowing that for whatever reason the dog was hostile to her now. It bit her hand, making her incapable of moving away, and held her in place. Cess tried her best to free herself but to no avail. “Bad dog!”, she screamed, but Doug didn’t care. Cess’ instincts were screaming at her to dodge. She didn’t know why, but she got an idea when she could barely make out to what looked like a spear coming at her. Cess jumped away along with Doug and rolled out of the smoke, pushing Doug away as soon as she stopped rolling, making him whimper away for a while.

“How did you know where I was exactly?”, she asked while getting and taking out her bow.

Dit didn’t reply as she took out another one of his bombs.

“Alright...”, Cess took aim, “We’ll play it your way.”, as she shot an arrow which Dit was able to barely dodge. She shot another arrow as soon as Dit stopped, not giving him, enough time and it hit his armor which he was wearing underneath his clothes.

“The dog...”, Cess looked behind, and she found Dog rushing towards her again. “I had forgotten all about you...”, Doug pushed her down and tried to bite her as Cess put her bow in his mouth and tried to push him away.

Dit rushed near them as fast as he could, seeing which, Cess had decided that she had enough and kicked Doug away and quickly took her stance to shoot an arrow, which Dit parried with his spear. Dit looked towards Doug, making sure he was alright. After which he closed the distance between him and Cess as fast as he could. So fast that Cess couldn’t reload an arrow in her bow and had to resort to taking out her sword. Dit swung his spear as fast as he could, but Cess blocked it.

“That’s not how you use a spear...”, she smirked, before Dit swept her legs, making her fall down.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As Cess groaned in pain, it didn’t take long for Dit to put his spear near her.

“I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them.”

Doug came near them, growling. “Doug, sit down.”, Doug followed his orders fully.

“Doug? Is that its name?”, asked Cess.

“We just called him dog...”, she added.

“Do you know where a girl with a slave collar is?”

Cess smirked, “I don’t see any slave collar on you...”

Dit hit her right on her face with the blunt side of his spear. Cess braced for the impact and took it as her opportunity to escape. She readied her bow and arrow, “There’s nothing more dangerous than a cornered beast!” and hit Dit with a barrage of arrows as fast as she could.

The barrage of arrows was too much. Dit tried to close the gap, but failed, he resorted to parrying the arrows, hoping that she’d run out of them.

“I just need answers.”

“Why do you think I’ll ever give them to you?”

Dit groaned. He was able to parry most of the arrows, but one hit him on one of his shoulders and the other on one of his legs, the shots were good enough to slip through the cracks in his armor. His mobility took a big hit, as did Cess’ arrows as she was now out of them.

Doug barked as loudly as he could and chased after Cess, before going near Dit and whimpering. He couldn’t decide where to go before ultimately deciding to go after Cess.

“Not this again...”, Cess ran away and got on top of a tree. She would’ve said something to Doug if she didn’t remember that Doug can climb trees.

“Doug!”, Dit screamed at the top of his lungs. “Come back.”

Doug as always, followed orders.

“What?”, Cess smirked. “Are you going to let me go?”

“You still haven’t answered my questions.”, asked Dit, barely able to stand up. He took out one of his bombs and got ready to throw it.

“I’m not scared of smoke.”, Cess screamed.

“You shouldn’t be.”, Dit threw the bomb directly at the tree. “But you should be afraid of fire.”

The bomb hit the tree and made an explosion. It wasn’t a smoke bomb, but an explosive.

“I have to thank Esting for this... later...”, he whispered to himself.

“Where do you even get these?”, asked Cess, as she was forced to jump down.

“A wise choice.”, Dit replied, as he gasped for air.

“Now answer me!”, he added.

“I will answer you nothing!”, Cess retorted back, with Doug growling back at her.

“Just answer me... I just want her safe...”

“You care too much about a slave for being a slave owner...”

“That’s because I do care about her!”

“Then wouldn’t you give her freedom to choose?”, Cess screamed. Dit looked at her, but he wasn’t really looking at her. He didn’t speak, but instead simply thought.

After a while, he finally spoke up, “Why haven’t you struck me down yet?”, he asked while looking at Cess.

“My orders were to take you in... not to kill you.”

“Is that so?”, he looked at the ground, “You have a kind supervisor.”, he smiled.

“You’re losing too much blood...”, said Cess, while trying to go near him. Only to get blocked by Doug growling at her, trying his best in his own way to protect Dit.

“Move aside... dog...”

Out of nowhere, Slav showed up. Curious to what had happened here. She saw Dit on the ground, with blood around him, and rushed towards him. On her way there, the tree in which Cess decided to climb and the one on which Dit decided to throw his firebomb started to collapse and it looked like it was going to collapse on Slav, who didn’t know what was going on.

“Wait-”, said Cess, but before she could rush in to save her. Dit, who was barely conscious, decided to run towards her. It was as if it was his body’s last rush before it collapsed like the tree before him.

He managed to save Slav by pushing her out of the way, but his legs got crushed by the tree. He looked up and smiled at Slav, who was too shocked to realize what was going on and just stared at Dit. Doug ran towards Dit and laid down beside him and whimpered.

Slav got up and walked slowly towards them, still too shocked to even speak. She dropped down near Dit’s body. He looked like he was barely holding on. Slav started to cry.

“Don’t... cry...”, said Dit, barely being able to speak.

“I’m not someone who deserves your tears.”, he smiled.

“Dit-”

“No! You’re nothing but a Slave Slav!”, he screamed. Even he was surprised that he could do it considering the condition his body was in. He took out his slave key, “Sister did trust me with this...”, he whispered and looked towards Slav, tears still rolling down her face. “Take care of Doug for me, will you?”, he smiled.

Slav nodded; she could barely see anything.

He then petted Doug, “And you...”, he coughed, “Take care of her.”, and smiled again.

“Listen to me... Slav...”, he pulled out the slave key and destroyed it, “You’re now free...”, he coughed again, barely holding on to his life, “So...”, he looked over at both Slav and Doug,” ...be... free...”, and breathed his last breath.

“Yes...”, Slav replied. “Dit...? Dit!”, she cried. She didn’t get a reply. She waited for Dit to get up, but he never did. Both Doug and Slav hugged and comforted each other while crying.

Cess saw all of this from a distance and decided to give them space, she was sad with how this had happened. Maybe there was a better way, maybe she could’ve done something to prevent this. But nothing that she could do now would change it.

She questioned what kind of a man Dit was, she could never really know. He was a slave trader, but he had his slave crying over his death.

“Life is complicated...”, she thought to herself. “You could’ve freed them anytime... but why did you wait for your death?”, she asked, knowing well that she wouldn’t get an answer for it. All she could do now was theorize.

She had to report this, so she went to where Dave was. Cess looked back at both Slav and Doug mourning the loss of their owner while looking sad and left them be.