The realization of reality sobered Jett's foolishness. Since then, he began to try and learn more about his predicament.

From his observations, Jett concluded he had really made it out of Shacktown. He was at least in the Lower City.

He could tell from the heavily armored guards. They looked like any other normal Strata native. Although, they weren't the Storm Wardens that he was used to seeing.

In all of his time in Shacktown, he never had the gall to get close to the heavily guarded checkpoint. It was practically a death sentence for any rodent to waltz up.

Sometimes the guards would kill with a reason like "invalid documentation" or "I saw you murder a man" and whatever absurd reason they could come up with to justify killing.

To the outcasts of Shacktown, it was unfair, cruel, and disgusting, but that was just how life was.

Yet the same mentality of oppression used against them had permeated through every lowlife there. To be fair, the only way to secure freedom from such an oppressive force would be to garner power of your own.

A power which could only be gained by killing your fellow rat. A power that had tempted Jett his entire life.

Jett didn't have that level of greedy ambition. He saw what murder-crazed fiends became:

Dead in the mud. The universe's balance always caught up to them.

In many ways, this excursion was a dream come true for Jett. He had finally achieved his humble dream of making it out of Shacktown.

This was also the most comfortable he had ever been, and the best food he had ever tasted.

The culinary pallet of Shacktown included the outer wall's moss, the occasional rat or bird, maybe some grass, and other miscellaneous plants. Jett had never tried human meat before, but he heard good things from the vile creatures who partook.

The guards would also often throw scraps down, but those were always the hardest to obtain. Everyone would tear each other apart for basically nothing. Jett knew better.

However, the total uncertainty of his current situation, the lack of knowledge, and especially the absence of freedom, filled his mouth with sour taste.

Shacktown wasn't exactly Jett's idea of freedom, but at least he could travel freely within the slum.

He could go wherever he wanted, only restricted by his own weakness and need to survive.

But in this cell, Jett was powerless, and deprived of freedom.

Every time a guard passed, he called out asking for answers on how to leave, or where he was, but to no avail.

They would only respond with 'Shut it' and try and hit his fingers with sword pommels which certainly made Jett feel right at home.

He quickly learned that he wasn't alone. Jett was simply in one room of a long hallway.

On both sides of the hallway were similar cells to his.

There were people inside these cells, but they weren't very talkative. However, he caught a glimpse of one other prisoner across from him.

The prisoner had strange wooden horns growing out of the temple, acting quite… broken.

The half-tree half-man reminded Jett of many in Shacktown whose minds shattered, like the crazed old man, and others who were left as husks on the side of the town's muddy paths.

Of course, those types didn't last long. They were typically the ones who the inner city dwellers dumped in, like migrants and refugees.

It all felt like a forewarning of his own fate.

As someone born and raised in Shacktown, Jett prided himself on his resilience.

It was a miracle for a child to survive. Mothers had to look out for themselves as well.

Families were rare. There were simply too many mouths to feed, combined with the rampant murder.

Thinking about it now, he didn't remember much of his early life.

Jett knew no mother, father, brother, or any real companionship for that matter. In Shacktown, the self always came first; what room was there left for others?

His 'completion' in the alley of Shacktown filled in these gaps.

Though he never knew companionship, his subconscious felt as though he had.

'Maybe in another life. Like a crazy story of another world's soul trying to enter the soul of a dead man. Transmigration.'

Nothing more than a crazy folk story, but none that Jett could recall hearing directly.

But the past was the past. Jett needed to think about the future!

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And the future looked quite unknown. The only thing Jett could do now was wait.

***

With no window, Jett couldn't tell how much time had passed, but he estimated a day or two.

During that time he feasted upon the slop given to him, and then made good use of the hole in the corner.

Taking off the dirty bandages felt liberating.

He was pleasantly surprised to see everything had healed nicely. He was also rather surprised at how abnormally fast it had healed.

The wounds weren't shallow, but they weren't deep either. They weren't wounds a normal person should recover from this quickly.

Or maybe his internal clock was out of whack.

But on this day, action finally spurred outside of his cell.

The guards went one by one, taking the prisoners out of each cell, shackling them, and lining them up. Jett could hear the echoing sounds of grunting and metal dangling.

"Move to the back," one guard said.

Said guard was backed by a few others, all equally equipped with metal weapons and armor.

Jett complied entirely. The options were to either foolishly resist and die or take the chance to see what fate has in store for him.

The Storm Torn boy obviously preferred the latter. He liked probability, weighing his options and seeing different paths in his mind.

Shackled by the hands and in a column of other prisoners, the guards led the group down the hallway and through a large spiral staircase.

Every step felt like a new experience; a piece of Jett's naivety constantly piqued his interest.

Along with the odd wooden-horned prisoner in front of Jett, there was an abnormally tall man with abyssal eyes and long white hair directly behind him.

The rest of the prisoner column looked like relatively normal humans.

At the top of the staircase was a tall hallway, lined with a few doors that branched off from the sides.

But the troupe's destination was a set of large wooden double doors at the end of the hall.

"All of you stand still, walk onto the stage when we tell you to," a guard at the column's front said.

The doors opened with the unlocking of metal latches followed by a resounding creak.

Behind the doors was a wooden platform. A man in an intricate black suit, white gloves, top hate, and a wild mustache stood looking outward.

One by one the column was stripped of its members. Jett and the odd-looking people were in the far back, while the more normal-looking humans went up to the stage first.

'Do they think I'm a freak like these two? Is that really what they think of Shacktown?'

About an hour of standing passed.

With each prisoner walking up to the stage, Jett came closer and closer to the door at the end of the hallway.

As the number of prisoners whittled down, Jett tried to listen to the strange man on stage.

"—is a very fine deal. This Released Stage human, despite being on the older side, comes with loads of Soul at a relatively cheap price. I assure you, fine patrons, transportation costs aren't cheap, and this one hails all the way from the Northern Ridge! Do I see 150 Catas? 200? 215? Sold at 215!"

'What the hell is that guy talking about? Catas… so they're being sold. I'm being sold. Guess their hospitality wasn't free…'

The tall, white-haired mutant was next, ushered into the room by a guard. He stood next to the suited man with an honorable and unperturbed expression.

"Ah, I'm very excited about this one. This right here is a Sellgren, a small tribe of mutants on the Eastern Ridge. Sensitive eyes, and tall but muscular frames, perfectly suited to hunting the ever-elusive but Soul-dense Silver Mammoth. This one is quite old but he is Soul Released. I doubt you'll ever see another one of these in your lifetime! This could very well be the key to your lineage's success!"

Through another round, the Sellgren mutant sold for 380 Catas.

Jett wasn't very familiar with the exact value of a single Cata,

but he knew that one Cata was around half a loaf of bread.

The things he had done for less…

Jett was quite saddened at the thought.

Or more aptly, he felt fury and envy. There was so much the world had to offer, all barred to him, his only sin being a lowly birth.

'I never really thought about how there's an entire world outside of Strata. Never was in the cards for me.'

Shacktown was all he ever got to know. Which was certainly a very warped experience.

"Go." A guard said while roughly pushing Jett forward.

'My turn? Wonder how much I'll get. Let's shoot for 400.'