Day 33, 4:00 AM

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

— Isaac Asimov

I’m in considerably less pain than I expected. As my reason returns, the furious red haze lifts, and I’m once more in the dimly lit front yard, twenty-five feet from the mansion’s entrance.

My shoulder and back hurt, but those are the only sources of pain. I suffered no wounds during Rage?

I can’t believe it. Then I recall the skill’s description and realize how much I suck at combat. I need proper training.

I don’t see Batsy, and the stones no longer weigh my belt. I must have chucked them while fighting. I head into the house and take an oil lantern hanging off the wall.

A corpse on the ground groans.

Right. I didn’t kill one of them.

Should I finish him off?

I shed light on the wounded man, and see how busted up he is.

He’s crippled. There’s no way this man will ever pose a threat to me, and since that’s the case, I have no reason to kill him.

“I’m sparing your life,” I say and turn away.

The warm, yellow light reveals broken and bloody bodies littering the ground. I pull Batsy out of a corpse, and while cleaning it, wondering whether my next move is still viable.

It should be.

“I have killed the monster which enslaved and tormented you,” I bellow, my booming voice so powerful the windows rattle and hum. “I was a slave once, and I will help anyone seeking freedom.”

My words echo in the night, then the mansion and its estate turn quiet like a horror movie set. Then, there’s a cheer, followed by another.

“Let us out,” a man shouts about a hundred yards away in the darkness.

“Let us out!” Several other voices, coming from the same direction, repeat his cry, all of them male.

I hear bare feet slapping against stone, heading towards me from somewhere within the expansive garden.

“Thank you,” a young man and a slightly older woman shout. The flickering lantern light paints them scrawny, malnourished things. Like Aang was.

“You’re welcome. Who are the guys shouting?”

“Mill slaves. They are locked for the night,” the youth says, then answers my question even without me asking. “Lord kept the keys in his room.”

I nod. “Gather anyone who wants to run away and come back here as soon as you can. I’ll go talk to the mill slaves.”

We each run to do what we think we should, meanwhile mill slaves keep howling for freedom.

“I’m coming! I’m coming,” I shout back, but they don’t hear me.

Their holler becomes unbearable when I reach the small door made of steel bars.

“Quiet!” I bellow, and they finally shut up.

The gate is locked with a slightly rusted lock. I don’t even need a key for this.

“How many of you are inside?” I ask, smashing the lock with Batsy. The rusty iron clatters to the ground, and someone inside says, “Sixteen.”

I pull the door, and it squeaks open. I stoop, the entrance is five feet tall. The ceiling inside is barely four inches higher, and I face sixteen chained men.

They are big and muscular, stooping, just like me. Three-odd feet of chain connect thick shackles around their wrists, looping around a chain which runs across the low ceiling, connecting two ends of the room.

They have to sleep on their backs with their arms up, the strange thought is the first thing that pops to mind when I see the setup. Next come more useful ones.

The chains don’t seem that thick. I can probably bust them.

“Did you really kill that bastard?” the filthy man with a greasy, tangled beard asks.

“We’ll carry his corpse to the town square later. Now, make room, I’ll try to break your chain.”

“There’s no use, we tried—” he starts, but I heave and pull his chain. It snaps.

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“You next.” The filthy man number one is still gaping at me while I snap the second, then the third chain.

By the time I reach the tenth man, my arms are slightly tired. I pull, but the chain doesn’t snap.

“What are you looking at? Pull!” I shout in his face and he jumps. We heave together, and the chain snaps.

The others started moving, and in teams of four they are grabbing their partners in misery’s chains, pulling and heaving. The chains creak, and one team breaks theirs, all four men tumbling to the ground, laughing of all things.

Their morale is high, and they release one more before they are all free.

“What’s the plan?” Filthy One asks.

“I have killed ten armed guards. We take their weapons, and we take everyone who wants to go with us. We try to incite a rebellion or at least a riot, take whoever we can and head for the next town. If we gather enough men, it will snowball into a real uprising. We see what we do then.”

Filthy One nods, Bald Scar shakes his head.

“Nine years ago, after the war, royal decree ordered the citizens in this region disarmed,” he says. “All weapons are kept under local lords’ control. Meaning they should be locked away in the mansion.”

I eye Bald Scar again. He’s thirty, maybe forty years old. The scar across his face either a knife or a sword wound.

“You a vet?” I ask, and he nods.

“I didn’t want to give my family’s sword and shield when they disarmed us. Punched Najel, that traitor, square in the face and broke his nose before the others forced me down. They threw me into the dungeon, then sentenced me to heavy labor in the mill for fifteen years.”

“Do you think any other veterans would join us?” I have little hope, but Bald Scar kills even that bit.

“They are broken, afraid. They got on with their lives, and they have families they won’t risk. Some slaves may rise, but most will stay slaves. Most masters treat them like humans.” He shrugs. “I treated mine well.”

He keeps talking while we run back to the mansion. I learn that fifteen slaves live and work at the mansion. They cook, clean, garden, etc. Out of those fifteen, only four are waiting for us.

“Where are the rest?” I ask, but the young man from before shakes his head.

I take a moment to realize the other three are women.

“Aren’t there any men who want to escape?” I ask, and the youth shakes his head again.

“If they catch us, we will get sent to the mill,” he says. “I’m only escaping because of Herma.”

Herma grabs his hand and smiles. It’s a beautiful smile of a woman in love, something I wouldn’t mind seeing sent my way by a certain someone.

Don’t go there. Be patient.

“What about you?” I ask Bald Scar, who shrugs.

“They beat me up, add five years to my sentence and send me back to the mill. I like escaping better.”

“Pick up the weapons,” I tell the men in general.

“You, what’s your name?” I ask Bald Scar.

“Ron.”

“Ron, go find the stashed weapons. You,” I point at the youth, “go with him. You probably know where they are.”

He nods and leads Ron into the house. Meanwhile, the men are arming themselves, and the three women are looking at them with fear.

“If anyone touches a single hair on them,” I say, “I will crush you worse than the guards you see on the ground.”

They nod in fear and understanding. I don’t know if any of them wanted to rape the girls right in front of everyone in five minutes I’m away, but the women seemed afraid enough I had to say something to reassure them.

“Does anyone know where the gold is?”

“Naan knows,” Herma says. “He keeps the lord’s ledger.”

“Let’s go find Naan,” I say and she leads me to his room.

“Naan, I know you’re in there,” I shout. “Nobody will hurt you. I want the money. I will need it to feed everyone.”

“No,” a firm elderly voice says from the other side.

I push the door, it’s locked. I push harder, the lock breaks, and the door opens.

Inside the tiny room, an old man lies on his bed, trembling.

“Leave me alone! I’m just a peaceful old man!”

I stare at him.

“Look old timer, first thing we need to set clear is that you are not peaceful,” I say with a toothy, intimidating grin. “I am peaceful. I don’t wish to harm you. You cannot truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of great physical violence. If you are incapable of great violence, you are not peaceful, you are harmless.”

That’s a cool quote, I think it was Sun Tzu or someone like that. The words were probably slightly different, cooler, but the essence is there. As expected, Naan pales further, it’s a nasty truth to hear. I give him another moment of sweating and cooking before I continue.

“I am peaceful, but I am not a saint. My patience is limited, and my capability of physical violence is great. Really, really great.” I punch a hole through his door, to drive the point home. Or at least I try to. The door is too damn sturdy, so instead of punching a hole through I rip it off the hinges and it falls down.

Excellent quality! I want to compliment the carpenter, or curse the ones back home, but I settle for glowering at the old man.

“The locked chest is in the lord’s bedchamber,” he stutters, watching the door crash against the floor. “He wears the key around his neck.”

“Wore,” I correct him. “How much money is in there.”

“Seventeen hundred crowns, fifteen hundred shields.”

“Thank you,” I say. “We could have done this quicker, without destroying furniture. I wish you a good night.”

I can see the shock in his eyes, but I have no idea what expression he had when I left just like that.

Mouth gaping at the least, I decide, striding towards the dining-room, Herma trotting barefoot behind me and overtaking me to lead the way.

We need to buy shoes for all of them.

The dining-room door is wide open. It reeks of violent deaths and I head straight for the seat of honor, where the viscount sat. I check the gold chain hanging around his neck, it ends with a cube-shaped rock.

When did I become so used to this? Is it because I’ve died several times? I wonder while digging through his chest in search for the key.

Finally, I find the deformed thing, and it ain’t opening any locks ever again. I hope his coffer is wooden or something.

I turn around, Herma was standing behind my back all the while. Her face is green, but she seems happy and nauseated at the same time.

“You’re glad he’s dead?”

She nods.

“Give me a moment, then you’ll lead me to his bedroom.”

She nods again, and I pick up the messy corpse. I toss the former viscount through the window.

“Nobody touches his body, or you will regret it. I need him as pristine as possible, given our circumstances.”

They shout a bunch of ‘Yes, Sirs,’ and I focus back on Herma.

“Let’s go.”