Giorno Nojo.

***

I didn’t sleep that night.

To be entirely truthful, I’m surprised I even remained standing in that room. I’m surprised I was able to keep my cool.

The stench. The sights. It was… overwhelming. Even thinking about it now makes me want to puke all over this parchment. To hold an infant orphan in the air and shout out a price as if it was a bargain on a prime cut of meat. It was utterly disgusting. And sad.

I didn’t sleep that night, for I cried.

I sobbed.

I bawled in my wagon like Letta bawled in hers. But where she was attempting to comfort a pair of children who could hardly talk, I spent the night talking with myself. I cleaned myself up and emerged from my wagon to see everyone else approaching in the light of dawn.

Again, Silas took care of the hard part and kept the soon-to-be-freed slaves with him, though he didn’t share the good news as a way to not arouse suspicion.

That too hurt. But I knew it was logical. Forty enslaved people would have no reason to be ecstatic about leaving the coast under new masters. Even if we had full autonomy in how we treated them, it was best not to raise suspicion.

Along with Eric and our guard, Vell, we were riding with one of the two men we freed along with his two daughters, aged thirteen and twelve. They remained withdrawn for the entire time thus far. Not that I blamed them. But it still pained me to see. It wasn’t until we were a day past the checkpoint that Silas broke the news. Naturally, they were skeptical and reluctant to hear it. But over time, the father who was riding with us, Anta was his name, opened up to us. We learned that he was a widow and was born a slave due to some crime his parents committed before he was born. He never knew what it was, nor did his daughters. But they were born into slavery all the same. That's how the majority of slaves came to be.

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Hearing it made us furious, Eric and Vell and me. They apologized for things they’d never done to the man or his kids, nor any other slave. And although Amun dictated we be unapologetic, I apologized too. Not because I hadn’t done anything sooner. That would be absurd. Nor was it because I didn’t buy any slaves for the sake of freeing them. No matter how noble the ends seemed, I couldn’t bring myself to do such a thing as buy a living creature like some coat in a shop. No, I apologized because of my naivety. I apologized because I believed I would travel the realms and see cultures just as vibrant and amazing as the one I grew up in.

I knew such a thing was improbable. But still, I believed it to be reality.

Now though, I had a purpose.

I decided I would do as Amun did and teach them during the ride back. For weeks upon weeks, I shared everything I knew and told them all about the only person I’d ever call my Master. Though he would never allow me to call him such a thing.

Our return to Hill Base came by the seventh month of the year. Our final rest stop seemed a commemorative one, though it was only so that Silas could gather our new citizens to be taken to the Witch’s Hut to have their pins removed- and not the ones Silas purchased. In doing so, the rest of us were granted the liberty to return to the Bureau and have our clones unload our profits.

Free of her responsibilities, Letta joined me in the tavern for a much-needed drink. On the way, the stench and bile and filthiness that seemed to have been following me everywhere seemed to fade. I was once again in a familiar place and among sane people- my people. And they were crowding the sidewalks with the full fervor of a festival. Until… I realized.

“Are… do we have visitors?”

Letta said nothing but acknowledged I said at least something by turning her eyes about the environment before we entered Claire’s Bar.

“Gio! Letta!” Her daughter, Larissa called out to us at once, and before I reacted, Letta dragged me across the room to speak with her. “Welcome back.” She smiled. “Your Doppelgangers have been waiting for you. And a lot of the immigrants have been asking for you too.”

“Immigrants?” I recoiled in surprise. “Have we been gone that long?”

Ignoring my question, she only pointed across the bar and said. “They’re right there. Oh!” She added. “And you have, we've gotten quite a bit of news as of late.”

Now, I was ignoring her. My eyes were scanning the area her vague gesture pointed to. And then they widened to an impossible degree. “They’re… from Corvus.”

“What kind of news?” Letta asked. "From who?"

“From no one other than the Emperor.” I heard her smile through her words. “From Amun.”