Seven shadows soundlessly sped through the pine forest. If it wasn’t the middle of the day one could easily take the blurred figures for ghosts, except for the sun’s reflection on their weapons that clearly indicated these were live human beings.
“I can’t believe someone actually dared to steal our game!” One of them hissed.
Even though the voice was angry, it was soft and didn’t travel further than the ears of the others in their group.
“Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding?” Another one, clearly younger, guessed, but the first disagreed.
“Misunderstanding my ass! Not only they dare to steal – they are roasting it in a broad daylight! I could smell it the moment we left the Kelme town!”
A third shadow didn’t hold back and cursed as well, “I’ll fucking kill those arrogant bastards! We’ve followed all the rules of Alytus county and marked our traps, but not only they took our pray, they purposefully cut the snares and even urinated nearby! What kind of moron one has to be to urinate on a beast path?”
A split moment later they got an answer.
They arrived at a small, rocky river, not more than ten yards wide. Right next to the water was a large campfire and a youth in ragged clothing was roasting a whole deer on it. There were no signs of any other people present and clearly this was the person who stole their game, but strangely enough they weren’t afraid of getting caught. Completely the opposite – the enticing aroma of their meal filled the surroundings and the youth casually acted as if he was the owner of the whole region. He smiled the moment he noticed the arrival of seven figures, then beckoned inviting over and pointed at the roast saying something in a strange language.
The shadow who earlier swore to kill the perpetrator deeply inhaled and said not hiding revulsion in their voice, “A male-slave. Die, you f*cking bastard!”
After taking couple of long strides it arrived in front of the youth in an instant and kicked him in the face knocking him out, “I f*cking hate runaway slaves who don’t know their place!”
The shadow didn’t intend to stop and slowly, as if savoring every moment, unsheathed a huge claymore, but just as the sword was about to cut the youth in halves it was stopped by another shadow saying, “Sis, wait! You’ll probably regret that!”
The ‘sis’ with the claymore turned around and took off the cloth covering her face. Despite her being six and a half feet tall and burly, her facial features were quite cute.
“What is it, Anna?” Lana was already annoyed to no end, but now when she was about to finally vent, her younger sister stopped her.
“If you kill him without tasting this first, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” Anna grinned in return.
She was as tall as Lana, but of a slimmer stature, although one couldn’t tell that since currently she was squatting next to the fire, holding a long dagger in one hand and a large piece of roast in the other. Half of her pretty face was already covered in grease and she wasn’t bothered about the lack of manners speaking with full mouth.
She had starved the whole morning and while her elder sister intended to vent her anger on the young male, Anna directly ‘attacked’ the deer roasting on the campfire.
“You, little beast!” Lana said with a sigh and only now realized she was uncontrollably salivating.
The other five women also quickly rushed over and few moments later the small camp was filled with sounds of chewing and soft moans of delight.
“So this slave was a cook.” One of the girls named Una stated after cutting off another piece of meat.
“Do we have to return him or we can keep him?” Anna looked at her sister with pleading eyes, but her moth never stopped on grinding the meat.
“We’ll see.” Lana said, throwing a glance at the unconscious boy.
They have been on the road for far too long and obviously all seven longed for some kind of entertainment. Of course all of them understood their mission came first, but a meal of this quality was a rare treat they could only enjoy in the cities they passed. Even then, if Lana was honest with herself, she had to acknowledge this was the best meat she had ever had.
“Alright! You can keep him!” After a bit of hesitation she said in a pampering tone to her younger sister, “Everyone knows that the road to a heart of a girl lies through her stomach.”
But just as Anna was about to cheer, she added, “But he’ll be your responsibility! You’ll have to make sure he’s clean and doesn’t stink like the other males do … and he’ll have to cook for us all the time!”
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“Sis! Your the best!” Anna jumped over and hugged her older sister smearing grease all over her face and hair, but Lana didn’t really mind. After their mother’s death Anna was her only family and there were only so few things she could spoil her with.
“Urghhh … cough … cough …” Leo woke up with the realization he was naked, cold and the worst of all – drowning.
Someone with an iron-tight grip was holding him by the neck and dipping in the ice-cold river, then pulling out, rubbing his face with a rough, wet cloth and dipping back again.
“Hahaha! Anna! You’ll kill that weak male-slave like this!” A leisured laugh traveled from the camp at the riverside.
Two women dressed in leather armor were half lying there while picking their teeth with straws after the lunch they just had and watching Anna wash her newly acquired male-slave.
“Instead of laughing you should’ve helped!” Anna was both happy and annoyed, “You’ll want to eat in the future, won’t you?”
The teasing expressions of the two instantly changed. After having the delicious meal they were not willing to go back to previous half-raw half-burned food.
“Alright!” Tia said, “But we have to make sure he’s not one of the perverted male-slaves that are raised for breeding.”
“Oh?” Anna pulled the choking boy out the water and observed him while holding up like a kitten.
In fact, this also was a question that worried her. According to what she had heard from the others, most male-slaves were dirty, weak and perverted beings and even if the food was great, she was not willing to keep her new cook if he was like that.
“How do we do that?” She asked.
“Hmm … from what I heard the lower parts of the male-slaves get big and hard if they see a beautiful, naked woman.” Una thought out loud, “And they sometimes even ejaculate disgusting fluids after their thing gets stroked. Soldiers and sailors go to fool around like that to places in cities called ‘brothels’ where special male-slaves are kept.”
“Why?” Anna was confused.
“How would I know?” Una shrugged, “That’s disgusting.”
“Indeed.” Tia agreed, “But we should test him anyway. If he’s disgusting, we’ll have to kill him no matter how good the food is …”
“Ehhh …” All three sighed at the same time and Anna dipped Leo back in the river.
“So how I’m supposed to test him?” Anna asked after pulling the boy out again, “Should I completely undress or something?”
Currently she had only trousers and a sleeveless shirt on – the rest of her armor was lying on the bank at the campfire.
“No, I don’t think that’ll be enough.” Tia shook her head, “Even though you are tall, you’re too young and slim. No offense, but I think any male would prefer to see Una naked. She is a bit shorter, but has wide shoulders and strong looking arms.”
“Don’t be upset, kiddo!” Una said, got up and began to take off her leather armor, “The power of a real woman doesn’t lie in her looks – that’s for male-slaves only. We know how fast and agile you are, even though you’re not as strong as your elder sister. In fact, none of us are. Unfortunately we shouldn’t postpone the test since we might need to move out as soon as they return otherwise we could’ve asked Lana to check your new male-slave. Sigh ... I guess it’ll be my job now …”
Leo arrived to Dreadlands over two months ago. After the first few days it became clear that here, just like in any other realm he had traveled to, the laws of nature were slightly different. To the great horror of his fellow disciples from the Sacred Order, the amount of Qi in the air was almost non-existent, but for Leo these were great news.
According to master Shaw, he had to stop any form of cultivation and strengthen his physical body first, but in Aurora mortal it was almost impossible. Even the simplest breathing exercise increased the amount of Qi in his body thus leading to inevitable death, but spending it led to involuntary replenishment via absorption from the air and food and in the end it would culminate the same way. The only question was when he would die and not how.
Here in Dreadlands though, Leo had a strange sensation of the previously accumulated Qi slowly merging with his flesh, albeit only slightly, with the most of it gathering in dantian together with the annoying lightning bolts forming a dense gaseous substance. Of course, by now he already understood that the lightning within him only pointed at his fire element mutation, although he had no clue why it always seemed to be of a purple color.
Contrary to Leo who didn’t know any combat Qi techniques and whose ignorance turned out to be a blessing, the other disciples were forced to spend Qi while fighting for their lives against the predator packs that kept frequently attacking the group. If after Arthur’s death the three remaining Foundation establishment stage disciples still had the Qi replenishment pills that they could use in emergency, those at the Qi gathering stage slowly died one after another from Qi deprivation.
Even when the third one was on his least breath, no one cared enough to give him a pill that could save his life and seven days in only four people were left in the group – Nathan, Tim, Xander and Leo.
The first three were baffled how Leo was able to keep going. At some point they even searched the boy to check if he had any Qi replenishment pills on him, but were left disappointed. In addition, from what it looked like he didn’t hold back during the fights as well. Of course he was smaller and weaker than the rest, but despite that on some occasions he managed to save the asses of his leaders.
But regarding himself Leo figured out the proper way of training when he woke up in the morning after eating his first mountain goat. Somehow the food in this realm gave all the necessary replenishment his physical body needed and while the Qi was great and all, he didn’t intend to use it or cultivate, thus there was no risk of him following the footsteps of his fellow Qi gathering stage disciples.
He also learned quite a few survival tricks.
First of all he began to spend the nights up on a pine tree. In the beginning everyone laughed at him, because they saw how easily the oversized weasel bit off Arthur’s arm and clearly the boy was not safe up there, but for some reason all attacks during the night continued to occur around the large bonfires they lit up even though normally beasts should avoid them. Of course, on every occasion Leo quickly jumped down to assist the fellow disciples or in his eyes – practice, but that didn’t make anyone feel better.
At some point for a few nights the rest also tried to sleep up on trees, but when Xander got attacked and broke his neck after falling down, everyone, including Leo, was ordered to spend the nights at bonfires while keeping guard shifts.