I pretended to be skittish as I stood behind a tree looking at the Slaver camp. I was about a hundred feet away or so exposing an eye looking out towards them. They tried to bait me towards them thinking I was just a young man and would be foolish enough to listen to their sweet promises.

When the slavers made a single step towards me, I took off running. As I ran, I weaved through the trees. The slavers were much faster than one would think. They had to be fast to catch elves, and I by far wasn't the fastest elf. Using the obstacles of tree and rocks to my advantage, I jumped around almost bouncing off trees. I kept leading them through jagged rocks and an area with potholes and a stretch of swamp.

The slavers hadn't noticed, but I was weaving wind magic the whole time. I was cutting the wind in front of myself, and as it passed me, I made waves of the parted wind push my back to make me faster. It was an efficient and fluid use of the wind the resembled the spiral of an ocean wave.

The slavers, however, were given the heaviest of wind resistance they had ever had while running. Sometimes a rock would move beneath one of their feet making a slaver trip. It was a game of cat and mouse, but the ones who thought they were the cat were the actual mice.

I was genuinely shocked by how much mana it was taking to keep them from catching me. I was spending mana twice as fast as my mana regen. Luckily I was close to the ambush point. One of the slavers used a beserker skill to drastically accelerate and nothing I tried even fazed him. I was forced to jump from tree to tree as he without even stopping chopped trees down in a single swing of his cleaver.

Damn, he's strong! I analyzed him quickly mid-jump, and he was like level 300. He was probably the second toughest guy in the band of slavers. His talents make him not normally a problem for me but for this trap a serious annoyance. I could burn him with magic, but I could not give away that I had magic without them retreating. I couldn't handle their numbers in a one versus many fighters either.

As much as it terrified me, I made one big leap using wind weaving to jump directly into the ambush area. Knowing I was frozen in terror while falling Emma jumped and caught me in middle air. Okay, it wasn't very graceful for me being caught like the princess bride. She caught me in a princess carry, and I couldn't resist saying "MY HERO!" in an exaggerated and effeminate tone. I could tell Emma suppressed a chuckle.

Luna gave Emma a raised eyebrow expression as her arrows flew killing dozens almost instantly. Emma simply said "Television... bad women's acting in men's macho movies." Luna smiled in understanding. She loved hearing soap Oprah's from Emma all the time like "desperate housewives" almost as much as Grillo liked hearing the story of the movies "The Godfather" from me.

 I used the last of my mana to weave an inferno and killed quite a few slavers with my fire. Nothing quite kills and cleanses like fire now does it? When Emma asked how many I killed, I replied "about a dozen or so but who's counting?" Emma spat back "You got nine, and I am!" Gawd, I can't get away with anything around her.

Emma who was terrifying at level three was now level forty and was spending her stat points. I shudder to think how strong she would be after spending those points. Why are all the women in my life so scary? All it takes to rip a human ear off is ten pounds of force. I committed myself to never finding out how much force it took to rip off a man's junk first hand.

We Headed Back Toward The Slaver camp. My dad had finished off most of the remaining seven slavers. Dad had the slavers leader kneeling and tied up. He was yelling at the man to give him the keys to the slave collars. The slaves had collars on that would kill them if they weren't given a slave seal within ten days or had the collar removed. The issue was the slaver leader had an inventory ability that he used to keep the keys. The famous dimensional storage that everyone wants.

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The Slaver was refusing out of sheer spite. I looked at the man's soul it was black, slimy, and rotten. The man had no redeeming features. I looked at a green elf girl being released from the cages. She had a familiar deadened look in her eyes. Her body was about that of a ten-year-old, but she probably wasn't more than five years old. She glanced at the Slaver leader with pure hatred, fear, as well as disgust and I knew what it meant. A pure rage came over me as I realized he had raped this child.

Something few people knew about me was that I was the nicest person until you succeed in pissing me off. My rage wasn't like fire though, it was cold like ice, and when directed at someone it often made them shiver. It was a just and deserved rage. The moment when someone did something so vile I no longer looked at them as someone worth being left alive. As if they were not a person, not even an animal, but a thing!

 My dad had mentioned that no one could steal from an inventory. Once again just because someone else couldn't didn't mean I couldn't. When others didn't know how it was often because it had to do with the soul. I looked for an anomaly in the slavers soul similar to the system orb. After careful examination I found it — an orb of purple light that had almost blended into his blackened soul. I hadn't noticed it at first.

The Slaver spat a thousand insults at me as I examined the orb. He had been lucky enough to be born gifted by God's with an inventory and look what he did with it. The Slaver claimed we would all be in chains someday with a smile on his face. His smile dropped when I ripped his inventory right out of his soul!

I gently placed the inventory next to the system orb in my very being. It clicked into place like it had always belonged there and a system prompt popped up.

You have acquired "Inventory 129876657."

Items can be placed inside, and Inventory screen can be summoned at will. Currently 40 slots available for storing.

The man's expression was no longer one of defiance or hatred but one of absolute fear — his expression like he was looking at a monster or a god. His expression got even worse when I ripped his system orb from him too. I had been curious about the system orb I had but had been reluctant to experiment with my own or my family and friends. Now I had the opportunity and stored the slavers system orb away in my new inventory. I handed my father the keys, and he looked at me shocked but recovered quickly.

I turned my attention back to the Slaver my wrath still raging inside me. My eyes were still ice as I told my father the man was mine to dispose of as I pleased. My dad tried to say otherwise but saw the look in my eyes. I would fight him for it if I had too! I would make the slavers end pain like never imagined! 

I started by burning him ever so slightly. As the flames ate him, I did not look away. Neither did Emma as I think she accepted my dark side as a necessary evil. Millimeter by Millimeter I would chip him away until he was nothing! His screams echoed throughout the forest, but no one had a problem with what I did. Long after he couldn't scream, I kept him alive with the forests lifeforce. He could not speak, but his eyes pleaded for mercy. For him, I had no mercy, and he burned until he was nothing but a pile of ash and salt.

***

Later that day I sat at home looking at a polished piece of steel that was my mirror. I asked myself if I knew the man in the mirror as I looked at my Image. Emma came up behind me and hugged me. Her arms went under my arms and around my chest. Her hands were resting on my heart. She rested her head on my shoulder.

"I know it hurts," she said.

"I created her, everything that happened was my fault. Every fiber of my being, my heart, my bones, even my flesh commanded me to destroy that beast!", I stated as if it was fact as I turned to face her.

"Spoken like a true father," Emma replied.

I remembered an old saying refashioned by my last life's father. He had turned "Behind every great man is a great woman" into "Behind every great man is an even greater woman." I knew Emma would keep me from going off the rails and turning full "Sith Lord."