“Are you ready to go?” Anna asked.
“Just give me a moment,” I took a deep breath as I grabbed the spilled bottle of wine. Before we left I had to give it a try and to my surprise, the taste was better than expected. The best way to describe it was by calling it elegant as it differed greatly from the standard fruity wines I commonly enjoyed. It definitely had higher acidity and tasted tight. “Want some?”
“No. How can you drink before we go out there?”
“Might be our last,” I chuckled.
Baffled by my joke, Anna stared in disbelief while patiently waiting by the door for me to finally get moving.
Leaving behind another corpse, we headed for the kitchen. This time, we had time to hide it by shoving it in the corner.
It was getting hard not glancing at her from time to time as she was a fairly attractive girl and still fully nude, but I tried my best. It was her suggestion to refrain from putting on clothes despite it being humiliating, claiming that it would make our cover more believable. That wasn’t her only suggestion as she told me to treat her like a common slave if needed. Throwing her around, hitting her, and even touching her however I wanted was okay as long as it got us out. I’ve never seen such determination in someone’s eyes before. Honestly, it was frighteningly impressive. Gods knew I didn’t want to do any of that even if I had to.
While we didn’t know who to expect hanging around the kitchen, we did plan to enter pretending like we were going to have a little bit of fun. It was the best we could come up with considering the time pressure. Sadly, the likelihood of me having to draw my sword was pretty high unless it was completely empty which we sincerely doubted would be the case. There was no way for us to sneak into the tunnel since the shelf was somewhere along the right-side wall within clear sight.
I’ve always said that if you act as if you belong somewhere then nobody would suspect otherwise. That attitude has gotten me into more restricted areas than anyone would imagine, not to mention a private party that celebrated a certain lady’s coming of age. Though, there was a chance she just liked me and told the guard to let me in. Isabella, oh how I’ve missed your plump bosom. I’ve heard she got married a year later to some snobbish noble. I would’ve taken better care of her despite the age difference and it was only three years. Despite all the useless thoughts I was having, we managed to easily reach the kitchen door. Luckily that kid hadn’t spotted me on my way down the stairs as I’d already forgotten his name.
Entering was as awkward as one would expect, but I was surprised to find no other woman inside. About nine men were standing around, drinking ale and smoking what smelled like weed. They looked like nothing special apart from one fierce-looking man who was missing a left eye. The reason he caught my attention as soon as I entered was that I felt mana circulating within him, quickly making me realize that we had the worst-case scenario on our hands.
He bared no resemblance with the Reaper with his black hair that was a tad shorter than mine and a scruffy beard that suited him poorly. As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, he had to be armed with a sword along with three others.
“Who’re you?” the one-eyed man asked.
“Someone who wanted to have a little bit of fun,” I confidently answered, placing my hand around Anna’s waist. “Isn’t that right, love?”
“Yes,” she mumbled submissively, lowering her voice and making me feel uncomfortable.
“Not just anyone can get back here,” he explained with a devilish grin on his face.
The door behind me was made of heavy wood, meaning that kicking the door down wasn’t going to be easy for anyone apart from people like him. With a wooden bar next to it, I knew I could barricade the door to prevent any reinforcements from coming in case a fight broke out. However, I wasn’t confident in taking on all nine of them but it had to be done. The rest of the kitchen provided me with little to no advantage as a massive table occupied the middle with bottles of alcohol resting on top. The lighting was bright for a change as multiple lanterns were spread across the place.
“Who made you the boss?” I taunted jokingly, making the others laugh.
“He has guts though. I’ll give him that,” another armed man said. “Bet he’s just new.”
“Listen up kid,” the one-eyed man said. “You better watch your tongue around here if you wanna live long.”
“Thanks for the warning, but the ones who’ll be watching will be you guys as I use my tongue on this one here over there by the corner,” I shoved her forward, guiding her to the shelves.
Luckily, that got them laughing.
“I quite like this one,” said a bald guy who appeared moderately drunk. “Maybe we should let him stay with us.”
“Sure, but he needs to let us have a go at her too,” chuckled an older fellow who ogled her breasts.
“I wouldn’t touch her if I were you,” I warned them with a smile on my face. “She’s the captain’s bitch that he told me to enjoy as a reward.”
“Captain’s?” The one-eyed man looked curiously. “You telling me that a nobody like you has caught the attention of one of the captains?”
The fact that he said that made me believe he couldn’t sense my mana. I wondered if it was because my core was frozen or because it was significantly weaker than his.
“I’d tell you to ask him yourself, but he’s too busy enjoying another slut already.” I crossed my arms, leaning against the door I needed to bar. “However, I’ll do you a solid and have her show us a good time. Oi, bitch! Go stand by that shelf and place your hands on it while sticking your ass toward us. That oughta give us a good view.”
The men cheered while the one-eyed freak kept staring at me. I was uncertain if he bought my story or not, but it was too late to pull out now. Listening to my command, she walked past them, twitching at their every move. It was unsettling to watch as I expected one of them to dare touch her, but it never happened.
“Come on, give us a show!” I yelled out, making them all turn to her while I carefully lowered the bar.
Some of them began to whistle as she arched her back with her hands up, giving me the perfect opportunity to strike first. While killing the men that were closest to me seemed like the easiest option, I had to deal with the one-eyed man first. He was the furthest away from me making it impossible to pull my blade before reaching him without others noticing, so it all came down to the draw.
“Hey! Take one of those bottles on there and shove it in,” yelled the bald man.
I refrained from making sudden movements to avoid suspicion, hoping I’d reach him before she had to do anything else as I heard her dropping a bottle, clearly buying herself time by acting clumsy.
“Come on! We ain’t got all day,” yelled an unfamiliar voice behind me.
Eager to put an end to the show, I grabbed my sword and attacked swiftly. While the others failed to even realize what had happened, the one-eyed freak managed to react on time by throwing himself backward. Had it been a second later it would’ve been his head rolling on the ground instead of the right hand he used to deflect my strike before falling to the ground. Maimed, he let out a cry which alerted the others.
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Their attention might’ve been drawn to me, but by the time they comprehended the situation I managed to turn around and mortally wound two men closest to me. I couldn’t see what Anna was doing, but I had hoped she was either looking for the tunnel or making sure she was safe. If she got caught, I would’ve been in no position to surrender.
While I couldn’t finish him off, the one-eyed man crawled toward safety as the rest pulled out their weapons. If I allowed them to swarm me I’d be in trouble so I took the initiative and dashed first with killing intent. Cutting down the unarmed men was fairly easy even without the enhancement that the mana core provided me with. Honestly, even the guys with weapons weren’t much of a challenge either despite outnumbering me since they’ve indulged in one too many drinks.
“It’s here!” Anna pointed out the shelf I needed to move.
“Stop them,” ordered the one-eyed man.
“Behind you!” Anna yelled.
Flourishing the blade backward, I managed to kill the guy sneaking up behind me thanks to her warning. Despite not knowing each other for long, I had to admit that her help was essential for my success. Amidst the chaos, I managed to keep them all at bay with only a few still left alive. They threw at me whatever they could grab and used metal pipes as weapons that were laying around. Anna came up with a brilliant idea as the one-eyed man got up and started slowly approaching her while bleeding heavily. She grabbed a grey-colored flask and tossed it toward him which shattered on impact and covered him in oily liquid. While looking confused at his body, his eyes went wide after seeing her swinging a lantern. It was easy to block, but she released the boiling-lit oil inside, setting him on fire and forcing him to scream in agony.
Her plan proved ingenious as I leaped onto the table and started kicking the bottles around. The floor was soon covered by spilled alcohol and despite one man trying to stop me, he ended up getting his wrist chopped off, followed by a heel kick to the nose. Anna once again acted expeditiously by grabbing another lantern and shattering it across the floor, setting a fire that kept the rest of them away. Her scream quickly grabbed my attention as she was assaulted by a man gripping her hair from behind, hoping to take her hostage.
Now that everyone was distracted, I was able to leap off the table and swing toward his arm. To avoid my attack, he was forced to let her go, but before he could do anything else I shoulder bashed him into the shelf. He fell to the ground before feeling the cold steel dig deep into his spine. It didn’t instantly kill him, allowing him to bleed out painfully.
With the entire kitchen now on fire and screaming alerting everyone outside, loud banging on the door notified us that it was our last moment to escape if we didn’t want to get caught. Anna’s quick thinking saved us again as she ran over to the left side grabbing one more lantern just in the nick of time, right before we entered the unknown.
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Wandering the dark tunnels that supposedly led outside, we found it surprising that nobody followed us after what happened. At least ten minutes had already passed and considering it wasn’t a simple tunnel, it was likely we could afford to take a small break.
“You okay?” I asked her but was surprised to see her so focused on the path ahead, almost as if nothing major happened. “Hey, we can rest for a bit.”
“Fine,” she mumbled, letting the lantern down on the ground. “We should be running for our lives though.”
“It’s fine,” I told her before starting to take my shirt off.
“What are you doing?” she asked, probably aware of my intentions.
“Apparently I have a thing for giving you clothes.” I tossed it over to her which was oversized for me and would’ve fitted her like a dress.
“Thanks,” she looked to the ground, putting on the tunic that reached just a little above the knee.
“Sorry about what I said.”
“Huh?” she looked at me confused for the first time since leaving the captain’s room. “For what?”
“Ordering you around like that and calling you names.” I knew it was silly to apologize after agreeing with the plan that she made but it still didn’t sit well with me. The amount of piled-up hatred I had for Tartarus was inconceivable. “Hopefully they all burned to death.”
Her expression softened for the first time as she failed to hold back a chuckle. I wondered if what I said was that silly, but it got her in a good mood so it wasn’t bad sounding like a fool.
“Are you seriously apologizing for something like that after everything that happened? I’m just glad it got us the hell out of there.” She kept snickering, trying to hold back her laugh. “Do you have a personality disorder or something?”
“Personality disorder?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry, I don’t want to sound rude but you keep confusing me. While you have bursts of genuine kindness that I've noticed back at the cell, you also tend to turn stone cold at a moment’s notice. It's kind of frightening when you glare as you did back at the captain’s room. However, now that I hear you say that it put my mind at ease. Despite saving me, I wasn’t sure if you were just using me or not.”
“I guess I had such moments.” She had me averting my gaze as I got lost in my thoughts thinking back on things.
Was I always so cold and calculative in times of need? Was that a good or a bad thing?
Noticing how confused I looked, she got closer to me and wrapped her arms around me, giving me a tight hug. It was the first time I’ve felt someone’s embrace since Ellie hugged me for the gift I gave her.
“Thank you,” she whispered, making me finally ease up. After holding me tight for what was probably a minute, she let go and took a step back with an optimistic smile on her face. “Better?”
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much mental fortitude it took for a woman to retain her sanity after weeks or months in Tartarus and on top of that to be able to comfort me. She was truly praiseworthy.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, returning her a smile. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”
She nodded, picking up the lantern once again.
We ended up chatting a lot as we wandered through the dark and dreary cave where the only sound that could be heard was the dripping water from the stalactites. The air was thick with humidity, making it difficult to breathe. Thanks to the hooded lantern we needn’t worry about lighting for at least a few more hours, but by then we hoped to be long out of there. There weren’t too many split-off paths and some naturally eliminated themselves by being too hard to traverse. Eventually, we even came across luminous lichen that gave the walls an eerie glow.
“How did you end up caught in all this?” I asked, trying to get to know her better.
“It happened late at night while I was returning home from work. I used to work at a tavern and the owner wanted me to work extra hours since there were some high-paying customers around. They ended up waiting for me after I closed up. Not much to it really. What about you?”
“I was traveling to the Capital for a royal wedding with my siblings when we got ambushed. Ended up sacrificing myself so they could get away. Totally expected to die.”
“Never would’ve imagined you to be a noble,” she chuckled.
“Why’s that?”
“I’ve always found them annoying when they came around the tavern and I quite like you,” she explained, giving me a wink.
“Is that so?” I smirked, thankful for the compliment.
“I always wanted to see Ailos. Didn’t know that Princess Amelia was getting married.”
“She’s not,” I chuckled, realizing we’re not from the same country. “The crown prince of Eleron is. You must be from Notish, huh?”
“Guess it was foolish to assume we were all from the same place.”
“Wait,” I whispered, suddenly halting in place as I heard a low growl. “Did you hear that?”
“No?” She stopped, looking around worriedly as to what had me frozen in place.
The growling behind us intensified as we both turned to see what appeared to be a creature bearing resemblance to an oversized wolf with a wicked gleam in its yellowish eyes; covered in iron-colored fur that made it hard to see. Its mouth was so big that it could swallow my head whole and tear it to shreds with its dagger-like teeth. It had us both petrified as I doubted the sword could even harm this bear-sized creature. There was no doubt in my mind that the reason they closed off the tunnels was because of it. Hell, we didn’t even manage to hear its footsteps.
Someone had to act so I stood in between the monster and Anna. My hand trembled as I gripped the sword tightly, ready to yell for her to run. To think that I would die being torn to shreds by a monster after barely escaping Tartarus.
Strongly believing my luck had run out, I chuckled knowing that even if I held it back for as long as possible, it would still catch up to her with ease. However, I was taken by surprise when the monster suddenly stopped growling and instead started sniffing. It crept closer and there was nothing I could do about it. The foul smell of the creature from wandering the cave for god knows how long made me want to barf but I held it in.
As our eyes met after it leaned in close enough for me to feel the warmth of its breath, I couldn’t help but feel helpless. Though, the more we stared at each other, the more I had a feeling there was intelligence to it. That’s when it shocked us by simply taking a step back, turning around, and walking away. Was it luck? Pity? Were the gods blessing us with another chance? It didn’t matter anymore.
When I heard Anna breathe for the first time, I realized I’d been holding my breath as well. I wasn’t even aware when I stopped. She almost fell over but I caught her right on time.
“What was that?” she asked, still wobbly on her legs.
“I don’t know, but it decided to spare us for some reason.”
“Let’s go. I don’t want to see it change its mind,” she let out a sigh of relief, managing to stand on her own. “Thanks.”
Without mentioning the monstrosity again, we continued moving forward.
“Look, over there!” Anna yelled out, pointing toward an opening in the tunnel.
Rushing out together we ended up outside on the outskirts of a forest. The fresh air hit our lungs as Anna dropped to her knees with a radiant smile on her face. My eyes had a hard time adjusting to the sudden sunlight, but it was a welcome sight.
We did it.
Chapter End.
Thank you for reading.
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