The best memory in the woman's life was when her father told her stories during her childhood.

Every night when the darkness fell, the smoke of the fire rose in the long house. Her one-eyed father returned from hunting and sat down by the fire pit, drinking honey wine and holding her, who was ten years old, on his lap.

He let her touch his long beard and the seal-skin eye patch.

"The giants from the stars brought fire and wind to this world," her father said, gazing tenderly at her mother who was tending to the fire pit, "but Cromm and Fruya, our gods, lived in this world from the beginning."

The firelight made her mother's calm face red.

"That was a long time ago, when the world was still chaos. The giants came from the unknown starry sky to the earth. They ate people and used evil magic to enslave us."

Later, it was Kromm who discovered the secrets of forging from the earth and drew power from the flame, turning shattered rocks into "unimaginable metal." He used it to forge a sword, which was the "King's Sword." It was Freya who discovered how to use the sword. With it, she could kill everything that could run and jump in the world.

The giants were afraid and stole the sword from Kromm and Freya. Kromm raged, shaking the earth and sky with fire and wind. Freya led us in pursuing and killing the giants and their evil, shape-shifting followers. The giants escaped into the deep sea to hide forever and never appeared again.

But in their anger, the gods forgot the secrets of metal and the methods of fighting with metal were lost on the battlefield. In the end, we found it.

Father picked up the heavy, black battle axe from the ground beside him and let his daughter reach out her curious little hand to touch the icy axe face with its runic-like markings.

"Not a deity, nor a giant," he smiled at her, "just ordinary people with flesh and blood."

He kissed her forehead.

"Go to sleep. Tomorrow morning, I will teach you how to use metal in combat. Right now, your mother and I have some things to do."

Her mother's face became even rosier.

"Wait a minute, Dad," she remembered begging, "tell me about that stolen sword, the one stolen from Crom."

"That sword..."

Her father's gaze was fleeting, as if reminiscing, and also as if sighing.

"It was a long time after that, the Hyperboreans conquered Akkron, Poseidon's Isle and the Mu mainland sank into the sea, and the god-breaker, Borkrug, destroyed Sarnath... During that time, the sword of the king was found by a wild Western Somerian. This person, wielding the king's sword, killed the incarnation of the gods and exterminated the snake-men of the city of Ngyur in their entirety!"

In the firelight, her golden-like eyes shone like gold.

Even though she had heard the story countless times, she was still excited every time she revisited it.

Her father smiled at his daughter.

"This Western Meiliana barbarian," he said, "has participated in countless battles, defeating countless strong enemies. For hundreds of years, people have praised his name. He is the King of Aquilonia, the barbarian Conan."

She longed to linger and let her father talk a little more, but her mother was impatient: "Don't keep talking to your dad anymore! Go to sleep!"

Before she dreamed of her mother calling her name, the woman opened her golden-like eyes.

She still lay on the narrow prison cell's thatched pile, her body slightly moved, and the shackles clanged.

When she returned to the tunnel, she faced the nervous slave trader and his armed thugs for the first time.

The woman surrendered her weapon without resistance and was shackled and returned to the prison. She did not plan to act recklessly before it was clear where she was and how many guards were around.

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Lying on the familiar pile of straw, her tense nerves relaxed and she quickly fell into a dream.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Soon, the slave trader and his two bruised henchmen appeared outside the fence.

The next procedure was familiar.

They opened the door, roughly shackled her to the iron ring on the wall. Two female slaves carrying a bucket of water entered the cell to bathe her.

However, this time the water in the bucket was at a warm temperature, and the bristles in the slaves' hands were no longer rough and abrasive but fine and soft cotton.

They even brought a bottle of fragrant essential oil.

The slave girls first pour hot water carefully over her head, wash her hair thoroughly, and massage her scalp. Using a cotton cloth dipped in slightly cooled water, they wipe off the dried lion's blood from her body. They apply essential oil all over her body, using a black obsidian knife to remove the sand and sweat from her skin and also shave her underarm sweat hair. Their movements are cautious, as if they are afraid of hurting her.

They repeat the washing process, finally changing to a dry cotton cloth to gently absorb moisture from every inch of her skin, even the folds in her armpits and private areas. They apply the essential oil again, stroking her torso, massaging her limbs and feet, allowing her to fully relax.

She rolled her eyes in her heart and guessed what was going to happen. With great endurance, she restrained herself from killing them all.

After all, this was her second time experiencing such treatment.

The last time she had a similar bath was when her family was killed and her younger sister was taken away, she was captured into a military camp by being tied up with ropes. A few tan-skinned slave girls appeared, just as she experienced now, bathing her with hot water and shaving her sweat hair. She was bewildered and could only let them have their way, feeling like a wild boar that would be cleaned up before being gutted.

However, they didn't kill her or eat her. After a lot of fuss, the slave women carefully adorned her naked body with necklaces of fine gold and various gems, and sent her into the bedroom of a noble.

The luxury of that room was something she could never have imagined in her dreams. The furnishings inside, the rare things she had never seen before in her life.

Compared to her long house where she lived, that room was like ... she didn't want to describe her home as a "pigpen", but reluctantly admitted that it was the most factual vocabulary.

But she knew that even the most powerful earl in the north couldn't live in a house like that.

She didn't remember much about the young noble's appearance, only remembered that he was a southern man with a tanned complexion, but she still remembered clearly what he did next to her.

She easily broke free of the ropes, waiting in the room - outside were all fully armed soldiers, and she didn't know where to run.

She calculated, first grab an important person in the military camp, blackmail him, and force the soldiers to let her escape.

Laying on the soft and comfortable bed for an unknown amount of time, she was drowsy and almost falling asleep. At this moment, a man, more accurately, a boy, drunkenly walked in and climbed onto the bed.

Between being half asleep and half awake, she felt someone touching her and woke up. She turned over and faced the naked dog-like thing next to her. She saw that his age was similar to that of her murdered younger brother, with no beard yet, only delicate down.

This is why she did not immediately strangle him to death.

She first slapped him and knocked him off the bed, got off the bed slowly, and flew a kick at him before he could get up, aiming at the tent between his legs. She watched him spit white foam, rolling his eyes and shrinking on the ground. She then tore off her thin gold chain and tied him up tightly, just like tying up a wild pig in the black forest near her home.

When the boy regained consciousness, she punched him again and then ate all the food she found in the bedroom. A roasted pork leg, a roasted wild chicken, and some nuts and figs... barely filled seven tenths of her stomach.

It might have been that the food was too mixed at once, and she felt discomfort in her stomach and could not go out to relieve herself.

She clutched her stomach, looked around, and finally settled on the golden helmet studded with dozens of gems in the corner of the room.

She had never seen such a beautiful golden helmet, and was slightly reluctant... but there are three emergencies.

Under the gaze of the little boy in terror and grief, she picked up the golden helmet, inserted it back into the wooden floor in the corner of the room, squatting on the neck of the golden helmet and solving the problem with a crack.

Then, there was a little surprise.

She was thirsty, and found two large jars of wine in the room.

The wine brought by the southern nobles is different from the honey wine brewed by the local people. It has a sweet and soft taste. She took a sip, felt it was sour and sweet, very delicious, not too intoxicating, and wanted to have another sip after drinking one. As a result, she drank all of one big jar of wine, sip by sip.

After that, she couldn't remember some things clearly.

Feeling tipsy, she admired the tough guy and drank a second glass of wine while he was serving his second sentence. After drinking the wine, she found herself unsteady and gradually slumped against the captive, using his belly as a pillow and entering the dreamland.

When she woke up, she found that her hands and feet were shackled, and she was locked in the prison.

She vaguely remembered that she was drinking and her body was floating, so she interrogated the captive while drinking the second glass of wine and asking him if he had seen her little sister being taken away.

She didn't expect that the captive, although young and unspoken, was actually a tough bone.

She used various non-bloody punishments on him, but he didn't cooperate - well, now looking back, it's more likely that he didn't understand what she was saying because of the language barrier.