A New Beginning

I looked down and saw boiled hands that were tied by a rusty handcuff.

I looked right and saw a huge man with a huge serpent tattoo on his arm, he was also handcuffed.

I looked left and saw another huge man but this time he had a huge scar on his face and kept glaring at me.

I looked straight and saw a guard holding a sword, he was glaring at all of us like we were criminals because we were criminals.

We were on a ship going to a penal colony and we were going to work for the rest of our lives.

I looked around and saw a dangerous looking man all around me, I was the only one with a normal body.

A young guard approached me, he had a smug smile on his face. He turned to the other guard and signaled him to come near me, they were all looking at me and one of them talked.

"Isn't this the High Priest Agust?" He was yelling on purpose so the other prisoners would look at me and it worked, all of their attention was on me.

"Why is he here?" The other guard asked.

"Oh, that is because of he stole the holy tablets." I couldn't take this anymore and yelled at the guards

"I only stone that to heal people!" The smug guard laughed and punched my face.

"Know your place Agust. Your hands were boiled for a reason." After he said that the ship stopped, a guard came downstairs and started to go through a list, he was calling for names and my name came, we got in a line and walked out of the ship.

There was a small camp with a couple of buildings, the camp was surrounded by metal wire and the guards were everywhere, the metal doors opened and we went inside to a yard, they divided us by our height and a fat man wearing a fancy military uniform walked in front of us.

"You animals! There are two rules in this camp. First, always obey the guards and second never try to escape! I will let my second in command explain other shit!" And so he left, another brawny man walked in front of us, this brawny man seemed to be an prideful man.

"I will now explain things, the building behind me is where the guards and the officers live. You will never go inside that building with a guard. The building behind you criminals is your home and the building near the port is the criminal's guild. There you can trade your loot exchange for money and buy everything if you have the money, even your freedom and I will now split you into squads, there are two hundred of you so each line will be a squad."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

 I looked around and saw nine other dangerous men but they were around my height, so for a second, I got hopeful until the man near man spit on my shoes and whispered.

"Yo, fucking priest. You are dead if I have the chance." I was surely wrong and I didn't want to die.

"I almost forgot! Your loot is basically monster ears and other things. We will now give all of you a list of every monster around here and their loots." And then the list reached my hands.

[Cheap Loot Costs]

[Goblin Ear: Two Criminal Coins]

[Wild Boar Tusk: Three Criminal Coins]

[Wild Eagle Feather: Five Criminal Coins]

[Mermaid Scale: Twenty Coins]

"You can now register! Go to the criminal guild!" And so we started to wait in a line in front of the criminal's guild and my turn came, an old lady was doing the registration.

"Name and class?"

"Agust and Priest." The old lady cleaned her glasses and stared at me like I was an idiot.

"You can't use magic with those hands, you probably stole something so thief." She put a thief in the class section and before I could object they gave me an old dagger and I was kicked out of the building.

I saw my squadmates waiting for me and the biggest man in our group was standing in the middle, he looked like he was the leader.

"You!" He called out to me and I walked to him, I was scared for a  moment but he got on his knees and pulled out a photo. This was a photo of a pregnant woman.

"You were a priest, right? Please pray for my unborn child." This was a normal thing for priests and I was used to this but I was no longer a priest.

"I am not a priest anymore." He looked surprised for a moment, he stood up and snatched the photo from my hands.

"Then don't get in our way, we will hunt now." And without anyone talking, we left the camp and entered the forest.

A New Party's Death

I got lost in the forest for a while and searched for my squad after walking for a while I found myself near a lake that was tainted with my squad's blood. All of their heads were gone and their corpses were lying near the lake. I dragged their bodies to the forest and prayed for them.

They also had loot on them that could be very useful for me. I took their loot but then my dignity stopped me, I hated this but I had no other choice.

After taking their loot, I went back to the camp. A guard stopped me with his spear.

"Your squad?"

"T-They died."

"Well, that's four squads down in the first day. You can go." I walked to the criminal's guild and put all of my loot on the table, the old lady looked surprised for a second but she started to count my loot.

"Twenty goblin ears, ten wild boar tusks, and six wild eagle feather. That will be one hundred criminal coins, hand me your card so I could put it." I gave her my card, my card was an ID and a bank card and then she asked me a question

"I bet you want to buy something." I really did want to buy a couple things.

"I need a sketchbook, a pen, and a telescope." She stood up and started to search the crates behind her and then she put all of it on the table.

"They all cost one hundred twenty coins but I will accept one hundred." She gave me my card back along with my stuff, I thanked her and left.

His Majesty's Ship Queen O' War

Lucky for me, I was able to get the higher spot in my bunk bed and there was a window in front of me, I looked outside with my telescope, there was a huge ship waiting on the ocean.

That ship was the strongest ship in our nation's navy and that ship's captain was the governor of this whole continent but I didn't care about that I was fascinated at that moment because it was my first time seeing HMS Queen O'  War and this was an honor.

 I noticed movements on the ship, it was the middle of the night but everyone was out, I didn't know what was going on but it looked like they were alarmed, it was probably a drill but then I saw a huge tentacle taking the whole mainsail down, I couldn't believe my eyes and then other tentacles appeared, they shook the ship and broke down all of the sails and then that monster climbed to the ship.

I reached for my sketchbook and started to draw the creature, It had many tentacles and a dark greenish skin. This was the rumored Kraken. Before any cannons were fired, the Kraken sunk the whole ship into the ocean leaving almost no trace except the broken parts and at that moment I realized that…

"Even the mightiest fall…How will we survive this land?"