It wasn’t long before I stopped wavering and made the choice of going back to help those that were still confined.

My mind was made since I could now count on the skill to at least made me strong enough to do a killing blow, which meant there was less of a danger to my life if I used it correctly.

Only one thing made me have true confidence in being able to win this, the guards which at this point were obviously Slave Traders.

They were a truly careless bunch, something which I noticed throughout the day.

For instance, during the whole night only one guard actually did the work of watching over the men while the others were enjoying themselves, and yet the one guarding kept snoozing off every so often.

The slaves, of course, were chained by the pillory, as I was, a few of them were also given ball shackles so they must have felt sure no one would escape.

I came closer to the guard sleeping as he hung his head to the side while snoring.

On closer inspection, he only carried a small knife that was hanging on his waist, which would be a bit hard for me to take as his left hand was laying over it.

I decide the best choice would be to activate my skill while holding his head and hopefully with enough force to break his neck while using his own mantel to cover his mouth.

This was a bet I wanted to take so as to not dirty the clothes he was wearing with blood and maybe with them on, I could get near the other guards easier.

I used the skill again and quickly held his head and roughly turned it to the side holding his jaw so he wouldn’t make any verbal noise.

It ended as fast as it began and with it, I killed for the first time, or at least I hoped.

Many thoughts ran through my mind as I quickly stole the garments from the corpse only to notice one of the chained men staring at me.

He was the bald guy from before which nodded as I became aware of him.

I tried to speak out but he jerked his head as if telling me to quickly get out of here, I stood up while twirling my finger around signaling that I would return not knowing if he understood or not.

I rushed a bit while hiding behind the shadows, checking for any movements as I got closer to the campfire.

There were four guards in total three of which were sleeping on the floor probably caused by drinking while the last guard was on top of a woman which seemed to be unconscious while another laid near them on her side crying.

A rage quickly built up in me, as I bit hard on my molars but there was nothing I could do without a plan.

I had to keep hiding while waiting to see if there was one of the guards roaming around.

Finally, I spotted him, one of the guards who was probably in charge of scouting the area as I saw him walking around earlier while whistling.

I had to follow him for a while to make sure he was the only one moving around, but he moved to slow, yawning every so often that it made me want to stab him already with the dagger I had stolen.

Fifteen minutes or so had passed and he was closing in on the area were the men slaves were at, as well as where the corpse was lying.

It was now time to act, as I got closer waiting for him to do his exaggerated yawn to which he would rub his eyes for a few seconds.

Just as he was about to stretch, I covered his mouth with a piece of cloth and quickly slit his throat.

His body convulsed a bit before giving out but it didn’t fall as I held him from his hairs and dragged him to where the other corpse was at.

Most of the other prisoners were still asleep as only three were up and they were whispering with the bald guy about something.

I couldn’t release them yet; I didn’t want to take a chance of them making any noise while I moved around to kill the other guards even if they were willing to help me.

Removing the short sword that the newly killed man was equipped with; I went back to the campsite to see if anything changed.

There was now a total of six individuals on the floor, four drunks and the two naked women almost lifeless.

I went in slowly taking out the dagger with one hand and a cloth in the other. I had to make sure they made no noise even if they were out cold so before stabbing them in the heart or slitting their throat, I covered their face as to not see their final moments.

The four died in a matter of minutes as I used my skill just before doing the killing blow.

As I finishing off the guy who was near the women while leaving the dagger stabbed near his heart, both of the women reacted. I quickly placed my finger on my lip hoping they wouldn’t make to much of a fuzz.

They only watched as the man's life was giving out, but just before he took his last breath one of them pulled the dagger out and began stabbing the guy again and again.

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She stopped after the tenth or so time only to stare at the dagger which was now dripping with blood.

I was taken back from the scene but noticed what she was trying to do as she put the dagger near her wrist.

She was hesitating for a few seconds while her hand was shaking, I wanted to stop her but I could not move from my spot as she looked up to me.

A smile was finally visible on the contour of her face, shown by the fading flames of the left-over coals.

Her shaking hand finally stop as she made her decision and finally ended her life with the dagger, the one she just used to finish off her assailant.

There was no time for me to do anything as she stood still waited for her life to come to an end to come while finally looking as if she found peace.

The other woman lowered her head wanting to avoid watching the death of her comrade while covering her mouth with both hands.

I stood up knowing there was more work to be done, only six guards were dead as the two or so were probably sleeping in the tent nearby leaving on the leader for last.

With that in mind, I went back into the shadows moving around the tents, which were five in total.

The women and children were all placed in one tent to avoid the cold, this one was a bit further from the campfire at least. Next to it, a small storage area where boxes with dried food and such were placed that had a strong scent to it.

I slowly opened one of the other tents and was lucky to stumble upon two guards who were sleeping on the floor with a type of bedding, the area was small with only two or three steps beside each other.

Brandishing the sword as the dagger was behind due to obvious reasons, I tiptoed near their faces and decided to kill the left guy first as he was the quieter one as far as snoring.

After a clean cut that went through the neck, I turned the blade around to use the better side for the big guy to the right and proceeded to put closer to his existence.

Unlike the dagger cutting with the sword broke after using the skill on both guys so I scavenged around for another blade and found another two daggers luckily.

Feeling things were going smoothly for me I passed an empty tent which was probably for the four who I killed in the campfire leaving only one last one remaining.

A light as lit from within as and upon closer inspection a thin guy was scribbling on some scroll-like parchments.

The person looked to be counting and unlike the rest didn’t appear to have touched a drop of alcohol.

I opened the cover thinking that with the uniform I could probably get near the guy, he didn’t respond though as he kept his concentration on the paperwork.

It was until I got near the illumination of the candle that he looked up startled.

“Y..yes what do you need?” He was quite startled and almost fell back, the guy or should I say the boy didn’t seem to have armor on only using the mantel with both brown and green colors.

Unlike the others, he didn’t seem to be too capable in combat and with the room full of parchments he was clearly a type of administrator.

The room seems to only accommodate one person with their only being one bed placed and to be frank everything in the room seemed to be well in order.

I activiated the skill "Oration"

“Gowd... Ahem Good evening" I adjusted my vocals a bit to be able to the speak the new language correctly.

"I just came in to see if you wanted to join me in a drink as everyone else went off to sleep.” I said while trying to keep at a distance to keep my face from being seen but also where he could be in arm’s length.

“No thanks, you all already know I didn’t sign up for all this, just leave and let me finish my work.” He looked disinterested at my approach not even trying to keep eye contact as he went back to writing.

Now that Plan A didn’t work and with a carefree individual who didn’t know his death was close, maybe I could take this chance to learn a bit more.

“Say, so about our numbers, aren’t we too few for the number of slaves we have?” I only counted 10 including the leader but didn’t know if maybe there was more to watch out for.

“Well I’m stuck here in camp if you haven’t noticed, cough... uhm we had at least thirty-four when we started, how we got reduced to ten isn’t hard to tell.” He took a sip of water from a canteen near him just as his voice was giving out, maybe he had a cold but looked quite indifferent to the situation of his comrades.

“So how long have you been doing this for?” I went on to asking trying to probe just enough to let him him talking.

“You all should have already known by now, right? I just joined because of the ad like most of you all. That it was a Slavery Trades Caravan is different from just “the” Caravan I thought it was. But enough about this why are you here starting a conversation when we will be separating tomorrow, just let me finish this work, please and get out.” Irritation was clearly on his face as he looked up, not that I could see it clearly with just the light of the candle so I tried to get closer as it seemed he wouldn’t speak anymore.

I activated my skill as I raised a dagger hoping to get one good strike at his neck but missed and slashed his chest.

The slashed was superficial only cutting the top of his clothes as he tumbled back.

I tried to follow landing on top of him as he didn’t react, fear was in his eyes as the dagger was adjusted on his throat.

The only thing stopping me was his look, it didn’t look at all like a man or a boy.

“Please, I didn’t do anything… I just came here thinking the administration job would be a good way to earn money.” The voice changed, it was now high pitched and girly causing me to waver.

“Then why didn’t you do anything, why did you let them enslave so many people?” I threw those words in a low voice feeling the anger brought from watching one of the women committing suicide.

“I don’t have any power, I am only one person… but you what about you, what reason do you have in blaming me for all this when you pigs enjoy the cries of those poor women every night, you…”

I had forgotten I was still dressed like the other guards while asking my previous question, I calmed myself a bit understanding that the person in front of me was also opposed to slavery.

I loosened the grip on my dagger and deactivated the skill but kept a wary stance in case the other wanted to try something.

“To be frank with you, eight of the guards are dead, only you and the leader of this group are left.” I stopped my rough manner of speaking and went back to it being casual trying to dispell any form of hostility.

Whipping the remaining tears, a surprised expression was present but it wasn’t until he, or she cleared her short hair behind the right ear that I noticed.

“You’re a woman, aren’t you?” I got closer to the girl who was sitting in an awkward position caused by her falling back. Her face at a closer look was androgynous, maybe with a few years, it would start to look more feminine.

Failing to answer my question she was still shaking so I release the dagger, of course, I still had another one nearby for safety measure.

“Look here’s the plan, I kill the leader and we release the slaves one of which escaped, you surely know who I am talking about right?” I pointed to myself while saying this.

“After everything ends, we gather the corpses and burn the unnecessities, I am sure that with the gold the leader has saved up somewhere we can live a few days of peace after all this ordeal, right?” I proposed a simple plan hoping that with her help I could make future plans by enticing a split in the cash.

She thought of it for a few seconds before accepting and with that I had a few more questions, like the location of the keys to release the prisoners and if she knew of the leader’s skills but both came in negative.

Without much left to do, I told her to stay in the tent and wait for my return as I picked up the dagger and handed it to her, but to my amazement, she almost cut herself.