Rayne opened her eyes. It was dark out, but she could see well enough to realize she was no longer huddled beneath the underbrush where she’d lost consciousness. Instead, she found herself laying on a solid floor, surrounded by bars. Though nothing was hurting, she was afraid to move since she could hear others breathing nearby.

Tears sprang into her eyes as the weight of defeat crashed down. She’d failed to escape.

Unable to stifle her sobs, Rayne cried. She wanted to be brave and strong, but she was just too weak. How had she been captured? She was well hidden! Even unconscious she should have been relatively safe.

Maybe she could still get away. She’d gained an offensive spell, after all. She could try to create a weak fire and burn through the wooden floor of whatever cart she was in. The thought slowed her tears, allowing her to breathe a bit easier. Even if she was burned a little, it would be okay since she could heal herself. Everyone was sleeping. She could –

“There ain’t no escaping, girl. Just settle yourself,” a rough voice sounded out from the darkness. She looked toward the voice and saw a shadowed form standing outside of her cage.

The voice spoke again quietly, likely trying not to wake the others. “I don’t know what you did, and don’t care. Your life before is over and it’s best you accept it. Do what you’re told and life will be a lot easier for you.”

She watched as the shadowy figure moved away. It felt like her throat was closing in on her as she tried to keep from making more sound. She was not comforted in the slightest by the man’s words. Then again, comforting her might not have been his intent.

She continued to sob, curling into herself to form a small ball. There was nothing else she could do. When her tears began to run dry, Rayne wished she could just go back to sleep. At least in sleep she would be free.

It was only a matter of time before she figured out how to bring that freedom into reality. She would find a way, she was sure. Maybe this was supposed to be her challenge in this life. There had to be a purpose, right? She was supposed to progress somehow. That’s what the voice had said anyway.

It was supposed to be harder since she remembered, so this could just be the game of life in hard mode. She would figure it out. It was only –

She felt a nudge. “Hey, wake up. It’s time to go.”

Rayne blinked. Somehow, she’d actually managed to fall back asleep. Though, did passing out from leveling up actually count as sleep?

Someone yanked her from her cage and deposited her roughly by a tree next to a crying child.

She turned around and found herself face to face with a dark-haired woman who looked like she hadn’t bathed in weeks. A small part of her brain felt relieved to be near another female, though that part was quickly overwhelmed by the reality that not all women were going to have positive feelings toward children.

The woman sneered at her. “What’re you lookin’ at? You like my tattoo or something?”

Now that the woman mentioned it, Rayne noticed she did have an elaborate tattoo across her forehead. It looked a lot like some of the magical symbols she’d seen in the pictures within the books she’d read. Was her tattoo magical? If it was, what did it do?

“You’ll be getting your own soon enough,” the woman scoffed. “Do your business and hurry up. Don’t even think about trying to run. If you do, they’ll just break your legs so you can’t.”

After quickly relieving herself, Rayne was promptly shoved back into one of the caged carts with a handful of other children and ignored. She noticed that the captured adults were kept separate from the children and segregated by gender since there was a caged wagon for each. She also noted there were several more women than men, making Rayne wonder just how potential slaves were chosen.

Were they simply crimes of opportunity, or was there something else going on? She was certain her abduction was planned by the [Baron]. Perhaps some of these others had been betrayed by their supposed protectors as well.

She tried talking to the other children with her, but quickly gave up after being threatened by the [Slavers] every time she spoke. Consequently, the trip to their destination was long and boring.

The forced silence did give her plenty of time to covertly test out one of her new spells though. She couldn’t do much with [Fireball] since the light would draw too much attention. [Minor Heal], on the other hand, she was able to study and manipulate without anyone around her noticing.

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Eventually, she managed to use her knowledge of the human body from her previous life and combine it with the inherent understanding of [Minor Heal] that she received along with the spell to create a new spell: [Directed Heal].

Unlike [Minor Heal], there was no set mana cost, allowing her to channel however much mana was needed to heal the injury focused on. [Directed Heal] did require her to know what the problem was though, as opposed to providing general healing like the other spell. Still, it would be immensely useful… eventually.

By the time they arrived at their destination nearly three weeks later, each of the cages was filled with slaves to the point that there was no longer any room to lay down comfortably. The slaves had only been fed one meal per day, though even that was better than Rayne expected.

Even with the lack of sustenance, she didn’t dare access the hidden storage ring for fear of having it discovered, though she did covertly heal all the children in the cart with her. Rayne felt like it was the least she could do since she had the ability to help.

They were forced to clean themselves in a cold river outside of the city in order to ‘make them more presentable’, then promptly deposited into pens like they were nothing more than livestock upon entering. There were already tens of others there, waiting to be sold.

Each of the adults were scanned with a crystal and separated into groups. Rayne wasn’t sure what kind of categorization the [Slavers] used since the younger children were not subjected to the same kind of scan. It was most likely something like the [Priests] used to check her status, which made sense if you were looking at people like commodities.

They probably wanted to split the groups into different class-types to make it easier for those looking for specific skills in their slaves. Not that the crystals had ever displayed actual skills, but knowing someone’s class and level would be enough to infer their usefulness in certain fields.

The slave auction was held a day later, with the men being sold first. As suspected, the first group of males auctioned were those with professional classes (of which there were few), followed by several men with servant-adjacent or laborer classes. The final group of men were those that could be used as a fighting force.

After the last man was sold, the adult women without children were auctioned based on their classes, followed by those with children present. Buyers were given the option to purchase family groups (which they only considered as mother and child), though several opted to simply purchase the mother instead of keeping them with their children.

After all the adult slaves were sold, the remaining children were brought to the platform. Unlike the adults, the children were not scanned and categorized based on their profiles. That was probably because nobody would expect a young child to already have a class.

Rayne looked out at the crowd nervously. There were many more people than she anticipated. She thought the majority would have left already after making their purchases, but it appeared she was incorrect.

As her ‘turn’ approached, Rayne looked over those in attendance, noticing a few who seemed interested in her. Recognizing the gaze of a few of the men made her stomach clinch and her skin crawl. There was no way she was going to leave with one of the creepy ones, even if she had to burn them with her weak [Fireball].

One man looked angry as he stared at her, his face growing redder the longer she looked. His anger confused her since it seemed focused solely on her. Did he know what she was thinking?

When her turn came, she was pulled over to the man running the auction like those who had gone before her. Before the [Auctioneer] could even begin, the now livid man interrupted, his voice resonating above the crowd.

“How dare you attempt to sell a [Mage] as a slave!” he bellowed, causing a hush to fall over the crowd.

The [Auctioneer] jumped away from her with a gasp before pulling out the crystal he’d been holding earlier. The blood drained from his face as he stepped further away and raised his hands.

“I had no idea,” the [Auctioneer] exclaimed. “We don’t typically identify young children. It was a mistake.”

The man’s eyes were darting around, as if looking for a route to escape. His hands were shaking so badly that Rayne thought he would have likely dropped the crystal in his hand if he hadn’t been holding it with a death grip.

Rayne wondered if the same thing would have happened had she chosen one of the other available classes. Somehow, she doubted it. It seemed that [Mages] were treated differently than the rest of the population.

Was that why commoners were not normally taught the requisite skills?

She was quickly ushered off the stage and to the side while the [Auctioneer] was questioned by the other man. Rayne didn’t catch everything that was said, but it seemed like the [Auctioneer] was blaming the whole thing on the group that brought her to the slave auction to be sold.

It made sense. She wondered if the [Baron]’s involvement in her attempted enslavement would be discovered. Would that even be a good thing? What if he took out his frustration on her family?

The thought of them being targeted because of her caused the knot in her stomach to deepen. Was there anything she could do? Not only that, but what was going to happen to her?

She had no idea what was going to happen to her now. Was she safe from becoming a slave, or was there some special format or process for [Mages] to become slaves? Even if she was free, where would she go? Going home would almost certainly cause more problems than it would solve.

She just needed somewhere she could lay low for a handful of years until she was old enough to do… anything, really.

Whatever discussion the men were having must have ended since the [Auctioneer] was once again on the stage. She found the man who had yelled at him making his way toward her, a deep scowl on his lined face. When he reached her location, he stared at her for a moment before grunting.

“Good thing I picked out my new maid before I noticed you,” he grumbled before addressing her. “Come on then. I guess you’ll be coming with me too.”

With no better options, Rayne quietly followed the man as he paid for and collected a woman who had been sold earlier, then climbed into a waiting carriage.