Chapter 33

“Mistress!”

Hearing Lynn’s voice instantly woke me up. I rolled out of bed, picking up my dagger in one smooth motion while reaching with my psi to scan my surroundings for some kind of threat.There didn’t seem to be anything. Coa had been woken up too and squeaked in alarm at the sudden movement. I took a glance at the small inn window and saw it was the crack of dawn. I saw some notification windows in front of me, but I ignored them for the moment. “Lynn, what happened?”

“There were visitors here not too long ago.” Lynn explained.

“Visitors?” My head was still a bit fuzzy from just being woken up but it only took me a brief moment to realize what she was talking about. “Some more people finally came looking for me?”

“Yes. Mistress’ wolves followed your orders faithfully and tried to scare them off but once they got near the ship the wolves attacked. I regret to inform Mistress but some of the wolves have died.” Lynn answered.

“What? Were the enemies that numerous or powerful enough to take on 127 wolves? Not to mention, you had the hover drones deployed of course, right?” I asked.

“There were eight humans. The wolves attempted to surrounded them and then rush them from all sides, but the humans didn’t let themselves be surrounded easily and instead managed to attack together to escape the ring of foes. They were ultimately unable to do so after I did some pinpoint shots to cripple them.” Lynn replied.

I finally took the time to look at the windows. There was a lot of smaller windows and one large one. I examined the large one first.

*Some of your Tamed Beasts have died*

-Murzim has died

-Mutated Wolf L34 has died

-Mutated Wolf L27 has died

-Mutated Wolf L32 has died

-Mutated Wolf L31 has died

-Mutated Wolf L29 has died

Six of them had died for eight humans, even with Lynn giving support. Damn! Damn! Damn! What a horrible waste, yet they had fulfilled the role I had given them to, at any cost, stop intruders from reaching Lullaby. I felt guilty that I don’t even know the ones that died in my service. I vaguely remember what Murzim looked like, but the rest are just nameless ones from the crowd. That just doesn’t seem right. I sighed. There was nothing I could do about it now. I can’t seem to name them through the pet menu, and to be honest I don’t think I could have come up with 127 names anyway.

I glanced at the other windows but they were all just telling me that this or that wolf had leveled up. Now that I think about it, I hadn’t seen any notifications like that before, despite having tamed the wolves a few weeks ago. None of them leveled up in all that time? Do they have some kind of weird reduction in experience earned because they hunt in a large pack? I suppose that would make sense. Or it’s possible that beasts like them, once fully grown, require a lot of experience to level. That would really make Sirius quite outstanding wouldn’t it? I dismissed every remaining window.

Was there anything I could do to make the situation better for the wolves? This party of humans will absolutely be missed which means the wolves will be in further danger, but I can’t rescind the order I gave them because it’s still vitally important that no one finds Lullaby. Plus, I don’t think I could rescind the order without going there in person to begin with.

“Hey Lynn, how is the excavation of the hangar going?” I asked.

“The hangar is now functional, Mistress. Would you like me to send the hover car to pick you up?” Lynn inquired.

“Not this instant, no. Send it to me the next time there is a large amount of trouble. Even with my current position, it should take only a bit longer than half a day round trip from the ship to here and back. Whatever happened would probably be over by the time I get there but I can probably at least do something.” I stated.

“Affirmative Mistress. Would Mistress like to add any other new orders?” Lynn asked.

“No, I don’t think so. For now the best thing to hope for is that with the loss of this group that they’ll be hesitant to send any others. By the sounds of it, this group was pretty high class, so the risk vs reward for looking for me will rise. They might not be able to find anyone to take the job. Well, that’s only if the people hired were adventurers. If the kingdom takes interest, we might have to face actual soldiers and knights. They did seem like adventurers right?”

“Yes, Mistress. There was no uniformity about their gear like the soldiers you saw at the fortress. I suppose it is possible they were still soldiers of the kingdom in some way despite that, but I don’t believe so. Some of the words I heard said by them were ‘The reward for this is not worth dying for.’ and things in that vein. Typical mercenary behavior.” Lynn explained.

“That’s good at least. Was there anything else to talk about?” I said.

“Oh, I almost forgot. I brought the corpses back to the ship and stripped them of all their belongings. I stored it all in one of the small rooms off the central hangar bay. Mistress can examine it when she returns. Afterwards, I left the bodies out for the wolves to dispose of.” Lynn stated.

I suppose I don’t have the right to lecture Lynn on giving people proper burials considering how I treated that scum a few days ago. I’m still a bit surprised by how easily I killed him at the time but it can’t really be helped. I don’t feel like there was another option but to kill him once he attacked me. I wasn’t going to carry him back to town to be imprisoned and I didn’t want to impose on the people in those wagons either. It was the simplest option to just remove the potential annoyance then and there. It just kind of nags at me that I truly feel like the simplest option was to just kill someone.

“That’s fine. I’ll take a look at it all when I return to the ship whenever I finish my business here. If that’s all, I’m going to go back to sleep for a bit. It’s too early for me to be awake right now.” I grumbled.

“Pleasant dr… I mean rest well, Mistress.” Lynn replied.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Waking up a few hours later felt much better. I stretched as I got up out of bed. The inn was nowhere near as fancy as the one I stayed in at the previous town, but it had the benefit of a comfy bed and at least I could get hot water delivered to my room for me to clean myself with. The food and alcohol was good too, so really I had no complaints for a place I’d only be staying at this one night.

I gathered together my belongings and got dressed, and then went down to eat breakfast. It seemed to be a common inn design that the rooms for guests are upstairs while the downstairs is for dining or other things. The breakfast wasn’t that good, just being porridge and bread, and I had to get a few extra bowls before Coa was satisfied, but it was filling enough for me to work with. I’d be back on the highway in another hour or two at most and then I could use my own food supplies. Based on some questions I had asked last night, the distance to the capital was only four days away by carriage, which meant I should be able to get there in a day or so even if I don’t rush that much. It does depend on traffic along the highway though. With all the people that should be traveling to the capital, it might well take me longer.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

After eating my breakfast, and paying for the extra food for Coa, I left the inn and decided to spend some time just wandering around the city. It wasn’t yet midday so I felt like I had ample time. I visited a variety of stores and examined their wares. Weapon and armor shops, some alchemy shops, and I even checked out a tailor’s shop. They didn’t really have what I was looking for though. Apparently normal pants in a female size wasn’t really a thing here. While it was common for female adventurers to wear leather fitted pants with possibly some chain mail or metal fixtures, normal clothing for women did not include pants. I should have expected this outcome, but it’s still a bit disappointing. It meant that if I wanted pants, I’d have to either pay for a tailor to make them for me or get some leather armor made to fit me. Either way, I’d need to actually pay someone to craft me some when taking into account my small body size. I’ll have to look into it at the capital.

Upon leaving the tailor shop, I witnessed a shocking sight. People with large collars chained together being led down the street. Slaves I guess? Some of the slaves were shackled in a wagon cage. All the others were being forced to walk, though it didn’t seem like they were being treated badly otherwise. I saw some of the escorting soldiers sharing water with them. Had I heard anything about slavery existing here? I think those guys that tried to rob me, mention something about the possibility of being enslaved if I turned them in? So they’re all criminals? People are definitely getting out of the way of the convoy and I see some of the people whispering as they watch them march through the city.

“Dearie, is this your first time seeing slaves?” A fragile sounding voice came from my side.

I turned in response to the speaker and came face to face with a wizened old woman. She wasn’t much taller than I. I wanted to answer her and say I hadn’t but some memories of Seri came to the forefront of my mind.

Seri had seen slavery in the past and slavery where the slaves were being treated much worse than the ones I can see here. Ones where the slaves were dragged behind vehicles and forced to keep up or else they would fall and once they did fall, they’d be sure to die from being dragged along the ground by the vehicle. This wasn’t something I had ever witnessed happening in game but to Seri, slavery was just another dark fact of life that she had witnessed on too many worlds.

“No. It’s not my first time. It’s my first time seeing them here in the empire though. I was just momentarily surprised.” I answered her.

“Is that so? You seemed more shocked than that, dearie.” The old woman responded.

“Do you mind if I ask a question? What’s with the difference in treatment between the slaves?” I asked.

“Dearie, do you see the colored emblems on the slave collars?” I nodded and she continued. “Those tell what kind of slave they are. The ones in the cage are red marks, which means they are the worst criminals that have committed heinous crimes like murder or rape. They’ll be sent to the mines to work until they die. The blue marks are thieves while the green marks are those that have a large number of repeat offenses that normal punishments don’t seem to curb their behavior. These groups will be put to work during construction and a number of other projects for the country. The white marks are simple debt slaves. Either they didn’t pay their taxes for a long period of time or they sold themselves to cover their debts. They’ll be put to work for a year or so and then released. Other than the red marks, all the slaves will be treated well.” The old lady explained.

“You sure know it well.” I commented.

“Of course, my husband was the guard captain after all. Is that all you were curious about, dearie? She asked.

“Yes, thank you for the explanation. It was helpful.” I replied.

She laughed joyfully, “It’s the privilege of the elderly to impart wisdom to youngins like yourself.”

I smiled. She couldn’t be much older than I since she was merely human, and not a modified human like myself. Maybe five to ten years older at most. She reminded me of my, that is to say Aaron’s, grandmother that passed away a few years ago. I took out a silver coin from my pack. “Here take this as my gratitude for the elderly wisdom.”

“Bah, I don’t want your money. If you insist on rewarding me, why not come have lunch with me. I don’t get many visitors anymore since my children grew up and moved to other cities.” She said.

“Sure, why not? It’s almost lunch time anyway.” I couldn’t get it out of my head how much she reminded me of my grandmother, so I didn’t even give it a second thought before taking her up on her offer.

It was a very nice and relaxing lunch at her home. I listened to her complaints about her family never visiting her enough and how she rarely got to see her grandkids. In return, I told her about some of my travels throughout the empire and introduced Coa to her. She even gave me some snacks when I was leaving and thanked me for the company. I left her home in good spirits.

I made my way to the south city gate. I was leaving much later in the day than I had intended but no real harm done. Once on the highway and away from the town I went with my usual routine of moving as quickly as possible without letting myself be seen moving at ridiculous speeds. Whether by good fortune or divine intervention, I didn’t run into any travelers along the highway this afternoon, and eventually it started reaching late into the evening. I’d need to look for a good spot to set up my tent for the night soon.

I felt presences ahead so I slowed down. As I got closer, I could feel three presences. Two of them were observing me from the trees about forty to fifty meters away from the road. They didn’t seem like they were going to do anything, just watching me carefully. The other presence was weak and off to the opposite side of the road. I walked closer to that side and it dropped off about seven meters like a small cliff. Down there was some debris that looked like broken wagons and a lot of bodies. With how thick the trees are in this area, I never would have noticed those unless I looked over the edge here. The other presences were now watching me very closely but made no move to confront me yet. I decided to hop down and see if I could locate the weak presence. The observing presences got surprised but still made move. Well, most people would probably be injured dropping down seven meters casually like I just did.

Walking among the debris and bodies, it looked like they weren’t long dead. Possibly an hour at most. It only took me a minute or two to find what I was looking for. A young man that looked like an adventurer was leaning against a tree. Underneath him was puddle of blood and it was clear that he was barely hanging on to his life. When he saw me, he got surprised and tried to draw his weapon but he didn’t have the strength to.

I pulled down my hood. “Calm down, I’m not here to hurt you. What happened?”

He coughed and I saw blood run down from his mouth. “Bandits. They attacked the caravan. I only survived because I threw myself off the cliff. They probably assumed I died. I’m as good as dead anyway. Even taking a healing potion didn’t help. Please,” he coughed again, “I have a request.”

Damn, final requests can be tricky. “Go ahead.” I answered.

“Please return to Knightvalley quickly and inform the guards of the attack. If you hurry they might be able to save them.” He said.

“Save who?” I asked.

“The caravan was transporting a group of orphans that were headed to an academy in the capital. From down here, I heard the bandits say they were going to take the kids to sell them off. I failed to protect them but if you can hurry, they... might... still... have... a... chance. I’m… begging… you… please…” I watched as he breathed his last. His final words not asking for anything for himself but for children. I closed his eyes and then bowed my head for a moment of silence honoring his passing.

Before I noticed, I was filled with an unexplainable rage that was just boiling out of control. I switched my main Class to Psion and then jumped back up to the highway. Those two presences were surprised by my reappearance but before they had a chance to react further I grabbed them and pulled them, covering the forty meters between us in a matter of moments. They definitely looked like bandits. From their thoughts, I could see that they had been left on watch. They were struggling, but I tightened my grip and dropped them down to the ground and pinned them against it.

I crouched down and looked at them. They were both a little frightened of me, which was good. They should be frightened of me. They needed to be more afraid. “You two are going to tell me what I want to know. If you don’t, there will be pain. Lots of pain. Do you understand?”

“Go to hell, whore!” Bandit A answered.

“Wrong answer.” I broke one of his fingers. He groaned.

“What about you? Do you want to do this the easy way and answer my questions?” I asked the other bandit.

“Fuck off, bitch.” I broke one of his fingers too. Unlike the other bandit he gritted his teeth to not react audibly.

“You know, I’m honestly happy you didn’t just tell me. It means I get to make your last moments a living hell. You know, something that gets me angry is the thought of kids being harmed or put at risk. It just really ticks me off.” I broke one more finger for both of them. “I’ll give you one more chance. Tell me where the other bandits went and I’ll make your deaths painless.”

Bandit A spit at me. Bandit B just kept his mouth shut and glared at me.

“Oh well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I reached out with my psi and dug into their heads and then cut off all their senses except for their senses of touch and hearing. They predictably started freaking out, but because I was still holding them against the ground they couldn’t do anything. I leaned forward between their heads and whispered. “Welcome to your greatest nightmares, please do enjoy your stay.”