“Is this important?” Leo asked when he went over to show the amulet to Lana.
“Oh?!” She stood up and grabbed it from hand, messing up Anna’s attempt to bandage her shoulder, “Ladies! It looks like we’ve unknowingly caught a big fish … or rather – killed it. It’s a Vidas’s family token!”
“Vidas family?” Anna was confused.
“You, silly girl!” Ruta snickered, “It’s the empress’s family! We’ve just killed a member of imperial family! No wonder she was so tough!”
Few pairs of eyes lit up, but Una was more concerned than happy, “What in the world a member of the imperial family is doing in the forest? Although we are not far from Seda for her this must’ve been in the middle of nowhere!”
“My thoughts exactly.” Lana agreed, “We’ll try to figure it out later. After all we still have Jonava, Rukla and Kinta left.”
“You still want to go despite them hunting us?” Anna asked.
“First of all we don’t know if they were looking for us.” Lana pinched her cheek, “And especially because of the ambush we need to clarify the situation in those three cities. The queen will be highly interested in this matter. The plan remains the same, except you’ll have to be even more careful, Anna. Alright, who wants the trophy?”
“Real women don’t wear such shiny crap!” Una snorted, “Why don’t you give it to Leo as a reward for saving our asses.”
“What?” Lana was surprised.
“Right, you were kind of busy and didn’t notice. When we got ambushed from behind, our little cook killed two of the attackers by himself. Obviously it was a lucky sneak attack, but still ...” Una explained.
“I told you we need to sign him up for arena!” Anna said to Ruta while pouting.
“And I told you we can’t afford too high profile.” Ruta patiently replied, “As his master how will you explain your origins if he wins anything?”
“Any entertainment will have to wait until we are back home.” Lana put an end to the discussion and turned to Leo, “So, you’re not useless after all, huh? Do you want this?”
‘Hell no!’ Leo inwardly shouted and shook his head while waving defensively.
He didn’t know whom exactly they killed, but the amulet clearly belonged to someone important. With his squad having such powerful enemies there was a chance at some point he’ll get captured and there was no need to have anything that could implicate him even further. In the worse case scenario he could always pretend to be incredibly dumb, but exceptionally skilled cook. But regarding the beetle he’ll have another chance to ask Lana or the other women after he learned the language better.
“So you’re not stupid after all.” Lana grinned and threw the amulet away, “Alright, let’s check everyone one more time. Maybe there is something we missed.”
Sadly after a thorough search it turned out they didn’t. When everything was gathered the squad went back on its way, albeit at much slower pace. Turns out that the superhuman called Lana was not invincible after all and her wounds were more serious than she was willing to admit. Thus in order to quickly recover she actually used Leo’s tactics – ate and slept a lot.
Because of that Leo had relatively more time to practice and to his great surprise it became a mandatory activity. When he first joined the seven women, or rather – was enslaved by them, Anna tried to teach him a few skills, but after her initial excitement subsided she became more interested in the food the new toy prepared. On the other hand after visiting Seda and especially after Leo’s performance during the ambush she got this new obsession of pitting Leo against the other male-slaves in arena and since it couldn’t be done immediately, she decided to groom the boy into a skillful fighter.
With the development of Leo’s physical abilities it actually went pretty good. He slept as much as Lana did and ate several times more than she, and as a result felt how Cleaver was becoming lighter every time he picked it up in the morning.
His rapid improvement both in speed and strength was additionally boosted by Anna’s relentless attempts to make a ‘real woman’ out of him by pushing the boy to his limits daily. Unfortunately his weapon techniques were so bad it seemed to be more practical for him to fight with bare fists.
Regarding the last part Anna already was getting desperate when Vida threw some hope her way with words, “Why are you getting worked up so much? In a real fight all that matters is speed, strength and reflexes. You’re just confusing your male-slave by trying to teach him fancy sword moves. He’s too dumb for that. Just make him as quick and powerful as possible and in the arena nature will take its course.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Leo had no clue what future the goddess had planned for him and diligently practiced, thinking it was done for the survival of their group. Of course this ‘realization’ came as a relief of him finally being accepted although still in a servant’s status, but at least he didn’t worry about keeping his life on a daily basis anymore.
The first results of Leo’s training were displayed when they arrived at Jonava twenty five days later.
Lana decided to not do recon in the city, but carefully scouted the surrounding forests and one by one cleaned up six similar groups like the one near Seda. Now when they were sneak attacking, it went much easier and the group got away with way less injuries while still eliminating similar numbers of enemies.
Since he was much weaker than the rest, Leo’s main task became preventing anyone’s escape. Anna’s training turned out to be sufficient for him to be able to loop the enemy forces and stealthily approach from behind while remaining unnoticed and join the fray when the fight was already ending or when a rare coward showed up.
This Leo couldn’t understand no matter how much he wracked his brains. From Lana’s explanations it was clear they were in the enemy territory attacking some kind of a hostile sect or a rival country and the enemy forces mostly consisted of conscripted soldiers. But for some reason almost every single woman they fought chose to die a heroic and, in Leo’s eyes, moronic death rather than surrendering or running away when they saw there was no chance of winning.
Such attitude went against the common sense, but for some reason his seven masters wholeheartedly respected such behavior. If it was him without a question he would’ve done anything for his own survival and only if there was a reasonable chance he would think about the employer’s interests. In the current situation it was the same – if his squad was defeated, loosing the goddess would’ve been a terrible loss, but with time he could get over it. On the other hand he could loose his own life only once, right?
Be as it may, when Leo noticed a rare escapee the first thing they did was to try and run away, but when he immediately caught up they turned into these crazed suicidal warriors who didn’t care for their own survival, apparently ashamed by the fact they got spotted doing something disgraceful.
Fighting these women who ignored all injuries and pain was incredibly annoying and soon Leo developed a technique that not only prevented him from getting hurt, but allowed on almost every occasion secure at least one captive. It actually was quite simple – while evading the weapon swings from the opponent a well timed low-kick to a knee instantly broke a leg and the next that followed right after broke the other one, but while the escapee gaped at him in shock and disbelief, he punched her in the face knocking the proud warrior out.
Carrying Cleaver for moths has strengthened not only Leo’s back, but the lower extremities to a degree he could break a couple inches thick tree with a casual kick. In comparison cracking a joint was easier than snapping a branch and it all came down to the speed and timing.
Such methods were unanimously defined as dishonorable and shameless by his masters, but they never expected a male-slave to have any morals. When Anna pointed out the fact they were actually training him to fight in arena against the other male-slaves and such disgraceful style might actually guarantee Leo’s survival, they decided to let it be for now.
Leo obviously didn’t understand what was all the ruckus about and only after the fourth captive ended her life by biting off her tongue instead of giving up some information in the exchange for a potential freedom, the boy realized his idea of acting humane was not appreciated the least. Thus during the next days he didn’t bother to care for opponent’s life, dignity or the future prospects and his methods degraded even more.
He didn’t know he was naturally developing a combat style of a regular street-fighter or even a beast who mercilessly went for the opponent’s weak points with no regard to any ethics or morals. From the survival point of view it obviously made sense and it was all Leo needed, although his masters were not particularly happy about it.
He managed to appease their displeasure though. Already in Seda he got a thought of broadening the group’s menu and now when they arrived at another city he suggested they would buy a large pot so he could make stews and soups.
At first this idea was met with scorn and disdain. To travel with a pot on their backs was unthinkable for a hunter squad. What were they suppose to do next? Wear robes?
It all changed when Lana returned from a scouting trip with a pot of a size that could easily fit in a couple of turkeys. It was a decision she made on a whim and Leo didn’t know if she actually bought it or ‘borrowed’, but it didn’t matter. After he made a simple stew, everyone immediately was reminded of the fact that he was here to cook and not to fight.
As the result within few days Leo’s shameful behavior on the battlefield was forgotten and even ignored during the next fights since his strengths lie at the cooking fire, not in combat.
It all came with a slight downside though. From the moment Lana brought back the pot Leo had to look for edible roots to cook and it was much harder than to pick a herb that could act as a flavorful condiment. It took him many days until he got a hang of it, but fortunately his masters didn’t mind him slowing down since the result was worth it.
While traveling, eating and fighting the group ‘cleaned up’ several imperial squads around Jonava and another month later – Rukla. At this point they had found few more golden amulets and Leo had finally learned what they actually signified.
He was kind of looking forward to visit to the empire’s capital to find out where the imperial family kept the bugs he was looking for, but for now it had to wait. For some reason the weird squad of commandos was set on eliminating groups of the imperial army deployed around the north-western cities. His masters never gave an explanation or reasoning, but from what it looked like the empress had taken away their toys during the childhood or done something similar that has left an emotional scarring for life.
Leo didn’t mind fighting too much since his task was relatively easy and he never got those superhuman opponents Lana took on, but during the last ambush it turned out that the enemy knew they were coming and only by some lucky chance no one from the group died. Everyone was covered in wounds with both melee fighters Ruta and Vida having serious ones, but the two obviously didn’t admit it.
There was only one last city left – Kinta, but before departure for the first time since Leo was enslaved the rest of the group disagreed with their leader who wanted to proceed with the plan while others wanted to return home.