The group Leo joined, or rather – the group that enslaved him, seemed to be a bunch of hunters who aimlessly roamed around forests while hunting on the way. At least this was the conclusion Leo came to after spending with them the previous day and this morning. Obviously this was only a guess based on the poor information he had.
The goddess similarly didn’t know a thing about him and either she had nothing better to do or he became her new hobby, because on the second day she didn’t let him out of her sight.
After Leo was done with his morning exercises, Anna was already back at the campfire and sat there, pretending to casually ignore him. He went over and pointed at the forest, then his belly and not waiting for an answer decisively marched away.
As expected, she immediately caught up and they strolled for a while until she finally couldn’t take it anymore and smacked Leo on the forehead.
“You’re making way too much noise!” She scolded pointing at Leo’s feet, “Your steps need to be softer, like this! Always put the forefoot on the ground first and avoid stepping on anything that will make a sound by breaking or even pressing. Even better if you never touch the ground with your heels ...”
Anna talked while showing the clueless male-slave the proper way to move around the forest, but while he didn’t understand a word she said, her demonstration was clear enough.
Sadly understanding the principle and following it in practice were completely different things. Leo had never felt this clumsy in his life – turns out he couldn’t even take a proper step even though he was twelve years old! He wasn’t upset though – learning to walk at this age felt hilarious and the lesson was actually pleasant since it was the goddess who guided him.
Unfortunately contrary to her looks her character was not close to being perfect. After trying to teach the dumb male-slave for a while, she lost patience and vanished, leaving the dumbfounded Leo alone, only to show up few moments later with three freshly killed hares in her hand. Leo understood he was not the brightest pupil, but at least he knew how to cook, according to the local standards, of course.
After all three had a light breakfast in form of a roasted hare, Ruta went back to working on leather clothing or armor and suggested Anna should try to find out more about Leo’s background. Even though the others were going to inquire about the recent runaway slaves in Kelme town were they went today to resupply, everyone was curious where such well behaved male-slave came from.
Obviously talking was useless for now, therefore Anna tried to draw in the sand a bunch of people running away from a house. When Leo didn’t get what she meant, Ruta suggested she should’ve drawn the thing men had between their legs so it’s clear there might’ve been a group of runaway male-slaves.
Leo stared at her edited drawing in confusion for a while, but then guessed what she meant, or at least he thought so.
“Yes, I came with a group from another realm, but all of us have two legs – just like you.” He said while pointing at her even though she didn’t understand a word.
Seeing her confused look he quickly erased her drawing and began to sketch forty figures, of course with two legs each.
Then he pointed at himself and then at the forty figures in the sand and said, “I was one of the forty that came to Dreadlands.”
“Ok. I think I understand now.” Anna loudly said mostly to herself, but also to Ruta, “He was the cook for forty people … oh no …”
Her expression became downcast when she saw what Leo kept drawing.
“What is it?” Ruta asked.
“I think … I think everyone in their group was eaten by beasts … wolves probably.” Anna said trying to translate Leo’s picture.
“I find it hard to believe that forty strong women were eliminated by a pack of wolves. The kid’s lying.” Ruta plainly said.
Seeing the two ladies throwing condescending looks at him, Leo thought for a moment and then decided to draw his whole adventure in this realm. He drew a large mountain and many small human figures inside it, then erased the picture and drew a smaller mountain and four groups of people on different sides.
In the following parts he depicted his own group traveling westwards and loosing their members in different fights. Meanwhile Anna translated everything according to her understanding and from her words Ruta casually judged how realistic the story was.
In the end they both agreed ‘Leo’s story’ was plausible, but they still wanted to hear Lana’s opinion. Fortunately the other five squad members returned in the early afternoon and brought a couple deer for their new cook to prepare.
“Ye, it seems the kid was telling the truth.” Lana said after hearing Anna’s story, “There were no notices about escaped male-slaves in Kelme and it sounds likely he came from a country far behind the mountain range in the east. I didn’t know there was such, but his existence clearly proves I was wrong. Evidently the group members of his expedition were weakened during the travel and therefore fell, but this lucky bastard escaped, probably by climbing trees or something.”
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“So ... I can keep him, right?” Anna’s eyes lit up. Her sister warned her that if Leo had an actual owner, they would kill him – they didn’t need to draw an unnecessary attention.
“Sigh, fine! But the same rule – he’s your responsibility!” Lana pinched sister’s cheek and smiled, “Make sure he won’t slow us down too much. It’ll take around half a month to get to Seda city if we travel at our regular speed, but with him … I don’t know.”
“I think I can train him to be less of a burden.” Anna said proudly raising her chin, “He’s quite dumb and weak, but his food is really good, you know?”
“He would’ve been dead otherwise, you know?” Lana mimicked her and both heartily laughed watching the male-slave busying himself around the campfire.
While Leo cooked, the rest began to organize their things, preparing for a lengthy travel. They didn’t have much to begin with and today in Kelme they sold everything they could do without, thus the ‘preparation’ mostly included cleaning of weapons and armor.
The evening was spent in a joyous mood that was completely ruined by the male-slave next morning.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Una was annoyed to no end just like the rest.
“I don’t know …” Anna was confused, “Last night he still practiced scaling trees, but this …”
For some reason Leo kept falling behind ever since they left the camp at the river. On the previous two days he was lively and energetic, but now he could barely lift his feet. It definitely wasn’t the fault of Ruta’s crafted leather armor he was now wearing because the items she made have always been works of art. It also wasn’t the fault of the food he ate since all of them had the same for dinner.
“Could it be … his weapon is too heavy?” Nina tried to guess.
“No. I checked that thing when we first arrived.” Lana shook her head, “Despite its relatively large size, it’s surprisingly light. Obviously only a dumb male can chose to wield such clunky and useless weapon, but even a male-slave this weak should be able to lift it.”
“… and he easily climbed trees with it on his back, remember?” Anna said while being completely desperate herself.
Lana already stated the male-slave was her responsibility and if it went on like this she would be soon left without a servant again. And while the regular assistance he could provide like drying her up after washing felt fancy, most of all Anna was unwilling to go back to eating the tasteless and burnt meat.
“You didn’t break him, did you?” Tia joked.
She was the only one still in a good mood and found the situation funny. Seven strong women had to wait for a male-slave who most likely was on his last legs – this was beyond embarrassing.
“Hmm … she did hit him hard on the head a couple times last night ...” Ruta joined in, “Or maybe it’s some kind of residue damage from smacking him between the legs … you said his thing was already incredibly small …”
When the rest began to tease her as well, Anna couldn’t take it anymore and went to Leo who was taking heavy steps hundred or so yards behind. He did look kind of sick – breathing heavily and perspired all over.
“What’s wrong?” She asked not really expecting an answer, but Leo knew that other than his poor performance there was nothing else that could interest her.
“Meat!” He said and tried to illustrate with few weak gestures, “Much meat! I cook!”
He was lacking words to fluently express himself, but Anna could guess the meaning albeit didn’t understand the reasoning. Only Leo knew that the damned second rune formation on the Cleaver stopped working during the night and his weapon’s weight doubled once again. And there was only one thing besides sleeping that gave him any strength – food!
On the day he caught the first mountain goat he learned that eating food in this realm not only quickly replenished, but also increased his strength and from then on tried to eat as much as he could. Of course his natural ability to digest was limited and he couldn’t successfully hunt at will contrary to the seven women he met, but usually he somehow managed to catch a couple of rabbits on most of the days. Besides the mountain goats the deer he stole two days ago was his biggest game, but unfortunately he got only to taste it.
All in all while he wasn’t starving during the time in Dreadlands, he rarely felt satiated and guessed that only by increasing the amount of food he could practice more and as the result grow in strength.
“You guys go ahead.” Anna shouted towards the group trying to hide the embarrassment in her voice, “We’ll catch up later in the evening.”
“Sigh, girl! Let’s just kill him and be done with it.” Lana said and forced a smile. She also liked the food, but if it continued like this they would fall behind the schedule – their goal was too important to sacrifice for a useless male-slave.
“Give me another chance!” Anna pleaded and her expression brightened seeing her elder sister helplessly waving her off.
A moment later her six companions disappeared between the trees in the distance and she pointed towards the direction they went and said to Leo, “Go!” and vanished as well.
Leo wasn’t completely certain, but could guess what they spoke about and he was proven right a short while later when Anna showed up carrying a deer on her shoulders and a couple of rabbits in her hand.
Her male-slave didn’t even ask anything, but immediately made a campfire and began to skin the deer. His whole body ached, but hands moved as nimbly as ever. After few moments the first skewer was already roasting, but to Anna’s great surprise Leo didn’t stop until there was not a single piece of meat left on the bones.
According to her understanding this would normally be enough for the seven of them, but the cook seemed to think otherwise. There was a point when she though he misunderstood her intention and thought they are settling down with the whole group, but when he began devouring meat even faster than she usually did, she almost blanked out from the sight.
The moment the meat on the first skewer was more or less ready, Leo nonchalantly gobbled it down, but contrary to his new master still managed to chew it and apart from the speed maintained his comparatively elegant manner of eating. Under the stupefied eyes of the goddess Leo finished the whole deer by himself … and immediately passed out.
Anna had heard the expression of male-slaves being useless lazy pigs and now was forced to realize her own one was just like that. She went through a myriad of emotions from an angry impulse of killing him, to a worry that she might’ve traumatized the boy with the test she did two days ago, but in the end decided to wait – her sister gave her time till the evening and there was a chance the dumb male-slave was not going to sleep the whole day.