The life of a slave wasn’t completely bad. There were no responsibilities, just eat, sleep, and work repeat. Except, of course, one would rather eat stones than the food they gave and rather sleep on rocks than be cramped inside the mine.
A week had passed since my reincarnation, or rather, transportation, into another world. There were quite a few things that surprised me—
“Hey, you there! Swing properly!” A watch shouted at me and flared his whip. He didn’t exactly say those words. If I had to put his vocalizations into words, it would sound something like this.
“@!@#$%@!”
That’s right. I was in another world and couldn’t understand a single word of what anyone was saying, it felt much better to think they were speaking the same language.
“On it!” I answered back and raised the pickaxe.
—The first was the item I was mining. The luminescent rocks were called Streis, an energy source that formed from a strict concentration of magical energy.
The other is my body. Even though I was just bones, like one would expect a slave to be, I had the same face as in the old world. The scars on this body were in the same places as the original world too.
Was this a reincarnation or maybe some kind of transportation? To be honest, this was answered by the third most surprising thing.
Amidst the feeble huffs of the slaves and the rhythmic clacks of the pickaxe against the cave walls, a few of the captives whispered amongst each other. Some with long ears, others with long beards, it would have been normal at that.
But the further I leaned the further inside the mine I could see, a man with a robotic arm. A man with horns. A person swinging their arms around and shouting ‘Three Tiger Strike,’ (or at least that’s what I wanted it to be) over and over to no effect.
Either everyone here was fucked in the head.
Or this was a place where all kinds of worlds merged. Cyborgs, demons, cultivators, all of them were here, at enough of a discount to make them slaves.
A week had passed since my reincarnation, or maybe, my transmigration. That was as long as I could go being a slave without cigarettes. I swept my gaze over the cave.
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A coup… would do us well.
***
The eighth day after waking up as a slave. During the hour of lunch.
I tightly held the hard rye bread and walked deeper into the cave. The ragged slaves in their ragged clothes paid me no heed.
All the time spent observing the slaves one by one led me to this. My steps halted in front of another slave, a sharp, handsome young man with jet-black hair and similarly dark eyes.
“Here, have this,” I said as I handed my bread over to the man. He looked at me with eyes full of suspicion.
“???”
The man answered in a language I didn’t know, it was definitely not an Earth language. But so what? We could still communicate with emotions alone, other world or not, everyone here was still a person. Being people meant I could manipulate them.
I was not tripping, this was verified knowledge. Every mealtime was time for me to approach someone and try to communicate, they would always take my bread but never actually talk.
I nudged him again and showed him the brightest smile I could muster.
“What the fuck?” The man reeled back and exclaimed, this time clearly in English.
“Huh?”
“That’s the scariest smile I’ve ever seen. Creepy bastard!”
The shock was far greater for me. Not because I didn’t expect an understandable language but rather because he said I looked ugly. My smile was one of my most important weapons! To nullify it in a single go! Truly I made the right decision by approaching him.
“You speak English?” I asked, faking a cough.
“Yeah, I have become used to this place’s language though,” said the man as he snatched the bread from my hand. “Johan, you?”
“Elphis.” I leaned back on the cave walls and stretched my hands. It was a surprisingly casual encounter. I didn’t go ‘Oh! Another person from my world!?’ being new to this whole otherworld thing, and he didn’t do so either. It told me that there must be quite a few people from our world here.
“So, Elphis. How did you get here? Reincarnation? Possession?”
“I am not sure. I died and opened my eyes in this body. It is very similar to mine except extremely weak.”
“And when was this?”
“About a week ago?”
“Hm. I’ve been seeing you here for a month.”
I pursed my lips at Johan’s words but wasn’t particularly surprised. This meant I was a possessor who had taken over the body of someone already here.
“But you were always quiet, almost lifeless, like a doll.”
By all means, Johan didn’t just seem observant but also quite knowledgeable. I certainly made the right choice approaching him first, it was a lucky break after about six failures.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, looking at the people walking past us.
“A month in this cave, a year in this world.”
The sense of wonder that I felt had just heightened after finding someone who understood me.
The dark cave was lit up by the glow of the Streis, the people all in strange clothing, elves, dwarves, cyborgs, cultivators, vampires, and a soup of races were all enslaved here. All of us were tied down by chains and forced into work.
This was just a mine for forced labor in this world.
Just what was waiting for me outside?
My heart raced at the thought.
I wanted to see it. I really did.
I turned to face Johan, staring into his eyes.
“You any strong?”
“What do you think?” Johan asked back.
A smile spread on my lips.
“Do you want to escape this place?”
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