“You can’t just leave.” Ryku wasn’t having any of Dalric's deflection, “You killed the Baron’s son!”

“Who?”

Ryku pointed towards the back end of the hall where the bisected bits of human remains laid, “The one you were questioning. The short haired one.”

“Ahh. That makes sense.” Dalric just shrugged at that though, “I merely killed a criminal in the effort to free myself from illegal and unjust enslavement. Perfectly justifiable. Anyway, everyone’s up now and we’re making a scene.”

“Making a scene—”

Dalric coughed loudly, both cutting Ryku off and getting everyone’s attention, “Hello! I’m sure you’re all very confused and maybe even a little anxious. Worry no longer, we’re here to help you all.” He waited for everyone to shuffle out of their cells and into the hall, “My name is Dalric, and this here is Ryku, he’s a silver badge Paragon.”

Most of them knew that already, but still the mere mention of Ryku’s rank plastered faint expressions of hope and expectation on many of the faces in the crowd. From the explanation he received, Paragons were essentially mercenaries that kind of specialized in community aid. Sometimes they patrolled cities as police, sometimes they protected towns and villages as guards, sometimes they cleared monster or beast infestations as guilders, sometimes they charted and cleared paths as adventures. They did a lot for communities and were often revered because of it.

Dalric added the ‘kind of’ bit anyway because reading between the lines of the explanation, whoever was running the organization clearly wanted a bigger spot on the world stage. They’d started branching into work that fell well outside ‘community aid’.

Investigating illegal slavery technically still fell within that bracket, but the way they’d gone about it reeked of ulterior motives. There was nothing wrong with playing the politics game though, every powerful organization had to eventually. At least they were still being useful while they played.

He switched to his broken brand of Surunese for a second, “If you Sailian not understand, raise hand.”

Only six hands went up, “Okay, will translate Ryku.”

“What—okay.” He stuttered for just a moment before quickly assuming his role as translator.

Dalric switched back to Hellgurian, “We’ll both be leading you, and the rest of the people imprisoned here, out. We’ve already dealt with the biggest threats here, as many of you have seen down the hallway. We’ve even subdued ‘Sunset White’.” Some of the people in the crowd had yet to overcome their astonishment at finding out Sara Hangaku was the person behind the mask, but he wouldn’t wait for them to get over it. “To escape this camp completely, however, we’re going to need your help. By a show of hands, which of you has combat experience?”

There was a short pause as they processed what he asked but then immediately, to his surprise, every single hand shot up. Even the children who stood at the front.

He immediately turned to whisper to Ryku, “Did they misunderstand me?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“The kids too?”

“They’re probably riftans, though I agree they look very young.”

“Is ‘riftans’ another race or something?”

“No. They’re like... gladiators. They fight in tournaments for money and fame and the like.”

“In Whitesails? That’s allowed? At their age?”

“The age minimum is fifteen and it's completely voluntary. I don’t know how they ended up here, but forcing someone to participate is thirty years in the black cells.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They’re at least fifteen?

Dalric looked at them, but even with that knowledge all he could see were small children. Admittedly, their heights were likely playing a large role in that impression. He tried to put his bias aside and peered closer. Then, he caught it. That little glint in their eyes. He had wrongfully assumed that was just the jadedness of being, even temporally, child slaves. But no, there was a hint of violence to it, a bit of aggression.

I need to work on the way I view humans.

He coughed loudly again. The little aside hadn’t taken too much time, but it was still an awkward break in his speech.

“Apologies. I hadn’t expected all of you to be fighters, but this works perfectly. I’m about to cast a spell, don’t be alarmed. It’s going to conjure a suit of armor around each of you, suited to your size.”

~In times of strife, I offer protection~

All across the room, bright flashes of light suddenly emerged. Ahjer had gathered around each person and begun swiftly morphing into plates of armor. Though the process appeared the same, the spell was almost completely different from the one that created Dalric's own set. The suits this spell conjured had no extra properties, they were just plain metal. Said pain metal was stronger than regular steel, but it was still a ways away from cloudsteel.

The suits wouldn’t last particularly long either, only about two bells. Or rather four hours by the current time measurements. They did come with helmets, though. His did not. All things considered, they were good temporary measures. Their main purpose was to protect them from the enchanted ‘rifles’ they'd face.

Rifles were the weapons the patrol he stumbled upon earlier had hanging over their shoulders. From what he heard from Ryku, most of the camp had them as well but the variety they had was much weaker than the ones Dalric had fought against in the past. Those were packed with all manner of deadly attunements. These ones on the other hand just fired fast-moving pellets. The armor could handle that. Within reason.

It took a bit for the crowd to calm down after the shock of various parts of their bodies suddenly shining brightly and then being covered by hard metal, but once everyone’s suit had fully formed the shock sharply turned into amazement. They admired their new, shiny attire while throwing Dalric looks that ranged from respect to reverence.

And that’s part two done.

With this, both he and Ryku would be given the appropriate room to command authority without having to be questioned and second-guessed at every turn. Capturing ‘Sunset White’ and eliminating the rest of the upper crust might have already accomplished that, but none of them had actually witnessed him do it. When trying to influence people, giving them first-hand experience was always for the best.

“Now, I’m going to brief you on what we know and also on what we believe. Breaking out of here shouldn’t be too difficult with our numbers, but we’ve given those who would like to stop us a great deal of time to prepare. So this is what we’ll do.”

He first went over the layout of the camp. There were five layers to it, one above ground and four below. They were on the fourth layer underground, the very bottom. Above them, in the third layer, was storage. Food, items, tools, bulk goods, those sorts of things. No one was there, so they’d only briefly stop there to pick up weapons.

Then they’d quickly move to the second layer, the largest floor and also where the main holding cells were. Dalric’s ahjer sense could only just barely see the bottom of that, too much interference, but based on what he saw there weren't any guards there either. Just more slaves. Whether they freed them first or came back after depended on what the situation was like above that.

Dalric couldn’t see it all, but according to Ryku the first layer was the actual main base and the camp on top was just a front. If that was the case, that’s the floor they’d likely meet the most resistance.

That worked in their favor though. The main worry they had was receiving too much penetration damage from the rifles. Above ground, they’d have open space and clear sightlines, not things you wanted when dealing with ranged weapons. Small cramped spaces were much better for them, especially since they were playing the quality over quantity game.

When he finished going over the information they had and their plan moving forward, he opened the floor to questions. He quickly had to close it, however as he realized they all just wanted to know more about him. Dalric had no interest in divulging anything more than he already had. There was one important question he had to answer though.

“After you’re free, you’re free. I ask nothing of you and want nothing of you. Ryku will handle getting you all back to where you belong.”

“W—”

Dalric calmly cut him off, “As a Paragon, I’m sure you can trust he’ll work hard to get you back home. Anyway, since we’re done with questions, move to the third layer and pick out whatever weapons suit you the most. If you can’t find anything that fits your specialization, let me know.”

There was a palpable buzz in the group as they headed up the stairs behind them. He didn’t think many of them knew each other, but it seemed the prospect of freedom built bridges. Or maybe it was just sharing in the same nightmare that brought some together.

Dalric had just arrived and had not suffered at the hands of anyone here. That was not the case for them. Ryku was a new arrival as well, relatively, but he had a bit of first hand experience. They were trapped unconscious in their cells, only awoken to work tirelessly for days or to be sold to different masters. Some of them were beaten, some were abused. They were all dragooned and once they’d been exhausted, they were knocked out again.

Ryku had managed to stay aware, but that seemed to be a unique situation. Maybe the jupiter had as well, but Dalric doubted it. In any case, the rest were only conscious when they were allowed to be. They didn’t know what week was what, how much time was passing. It was a grim life. He could empathize.

He could more than empathize.