Midnight, in the mansion of the Mist Household. Mist Dona, the head of the Mist Household and the mother of four sons Zac being the youngest of them. The Mist household is a well-known slave supplier amongst all corrupt noble families and Criminal Organizations. They use tricks such as failing to pay back their debts, kidnapping, and drugs to drag people into slavery. Of course, all of those people are illegal slaves, and they should have been exposed long ago, but that didn’t happen because they never use their name when striking their deals. In the criminal world, there are many slavery firms that sell illegal slaves and the First Knights’ Order has been trying to find evidence against them to no avail. The truth is that the Mist Household are using the names of those firms to sell and buy illegal slaves. When searching the slavery firms, nothing could be found against them and they themselves were cooperating with the First Knights’ Order’s investigation, but nothing came out as they really didn’t do anything bad.
Zac learned of his family’s ways years ago, and thus the moment he became 15 he promptly left the family. Right now Mist Dona is “educating” the new batch of slaves. In front of her tied to the wall with chains is a group of men and women looking at her with eyes full of rage and resentment. Those people were kidnapped just last week, all of them were people who don’t have families anymore and are known to live alone. Last week seeing it as their chance since that annoying Law Enforcer left the town the mist household went on to replenish their stock of slaves. Since they didn’t have enough time for the debt and drug methods, they went for the fast kidnapping method.
Since the moment they were brought here, Dona would come to torture them personally under the pretext of educating them. And the slaves’ rage-filled eyes never lost their glow nor were the slaves willing to beg or even talk, all they do is glare at Dona. Dona herself was frustrated due to the slaves’ attitude, and she has been spending more and more time torturing them. But the slaves’ attitude wasn’t the only reason for her to be frustrated. The guys sent transporting slaves should have come back three days ago, but they didn’t. Those guys were sent to transport slaves to important customers between Elm and Akud, a bandit’s band under the command of the criminal organization Grim Peace but for some reason, they hadn’t come back yet. The plan was for them to come back before Soma come back, but for some reason, they didn’t and the guys she sent to check on them disappeared as well. Right now she is taking all of her frustration on the new slaves, and before she realized the sun was already raising.
From upstairs came running one of the servants with a panicked expression on his face. Dona was in the basement where the slaves are kept and in that basement are more than 100 slaves that had their minds broken by the continuous torture performed on them.
“…Ha…. Ha…. Ha…D-Dona-sama! Dona-sama! A disaster!! A huge disaster!!”(Servant)
“…Calm down. What happened?”(Dona)
“…T-The mansion is surrounded! The town guards along with Leona-sama and the court magician Dalis and the Law Enforcer Soma have surrounded the mansion and right now the three representatives are breaking through the front gate as we speak!!”(Servant)
“…Well that’s a surprise! For that coward of a Lord to be this assertive!..... Clearly, they finally have something against us… but, did they forget about all the slaves I have here? Or don’t they realize that I can use them as hostages? I can’t imagine them discarding the lives of all those filthy slaves……. But this could be our chance…”(Dona)
“…C-Chance?”(Servant)
“Yes, this is our chance to get rid of those three! And with that, we will have free rein over Akud! And if we hold them back long enough, the other nobles will notice what is going on and will come to assist us!!”(Dona)
Saying that, Dona ordered the servant to free all the slaves from their shackles and chains and once he was done, she ordered the slaves to follow after her. Due to the collars around their necks, the slaves couldn’t disobey her no matter how much they tried. On her way to meet Leona and those with her, Dona met with her three sons and explained what to do to them. Before long, Dona and all of her servants, guards, and followers reached the front door and exited the mansion. Right now, Dona Mist is standing 10m away from Leona, Soma, and Dalis with her sons right behind her and the servants, guards, followers, and slaves right behind them.
“Dona Mist! It came to light that the manager of the Archiving Crew was helping you fools do all types of things! And reading through all of those reports led to all of your dealings coming to light! Drugs, fake debt contracts, and kidnapping! Using the names of upright slavery firms and impersonating merchants to sell slaves to bandits and Criminal Organizations! A lot of things came out to the light, and to make sure, everyone with a connection to the Mist Household that tried to leave the town was captured and interrogated. We even were able to catch some of your guys as they were trying to deliver slaves to a bandits’ band that was stationed by the road between Akud and Elm. What you didn’t know is that those bandits were already annihilated by Soma here and his students! Do you have anything to say?”(Leona)
“…Nothing but, what a long speech that was. So…. Are you going to do anything about it? Or should I say, can you do anything about it?”(Dona)
As Dona said that, all the slaves standing behind her came running and stood in front of her. There was a lot of them, and they all stood there acting as they were ordered, to become meat shields for her. Soma saw that and started walking towards the slaves, and once he was 3m away from them, he placed his right hand on his sword. Dona and her group were surprised by that, they thought he was going to kill all of the slaves. After a brief moment, Soma removed his hand from the sword and stared at Dona blankly. Dona and her three sons all believed that he couldn’t bring himself to harm the innocent slaves and gave up, “What a fool!!” they thought. But those behind them were confused, as combatants, they were able to notice Soma’s hand blur along with the sword it was holding, and that caused them to be suspicious of that. Soon enough everything became clear. All the slaves fell down after losing consciousness, all of the slave collars were cut in half, and they fell to the ground. Everyone there was surprised by what Soma did, even Leona and her group, as for Dona and her group, they were stunned. They have lost their meat shields in an instant in an incomprehensible way, but that didn’t stay like that for long. The oldest son of the Mist Household was the first to regain his senses, he moved and grabbed one of the unconscious slaves, a child, by the neck planning to use him as a hostage.
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“D-Don’t move!! If any of you a muscle this-….”(Son 1)
He wasn’t able to finish his sentence before his head was separated from the rest of his body by Soma’s sword. This time the sword moved at a speed that everyone there was able to perceive but all of them were confident that they can never react before it reached them. Seeing that, everyone from Dona’s side was terrified beyond belief and some of them even soiled themselves.
“…Dona Mist and her two sons! You three are sentenced to Death Row Slavery! And all of those behind you are to be interrogated to find out about everything they did! Those found innocent will be released right away, those who have committed murder, kidnapping, and drug dealing will be executed!! Those who have committed lesser crimes will suitable punishments accordingly!”(Leona)
After that, the guards looked through the mansion and sized everything they could find, and after putting the Mist Household and all their group in a steel cage Soma used Dark Magic to knock them out. After that, they took care of the previous slaves by healing their wounds using Healing Potions, and once all the slaves were healed Soma, Leona, and Dalis went to talk with one particular man.
“Thank you for your hard work! The mission was a success thanks to you!”(Leona)
“I’m honored to be of help to Lord-sama!”
The man was one of the people kidnapped last week by the Mist Household. He is a man without anyone to call a family that worked as a gatekeeper at the academy until recently. The man would take martial arts classes from time to time, and he would also go hunting for monsters to raise his level to increase his fighting power, and recently he was scouted by Leona herself to join the town’s guards, and he happily agreed, and his first job was to let himself be kidnapped by the Mist Household. Leona was able to pinpoint the Mist Household’s next targets and made contact with them in secret asking them to let themselves be kidnapped, so she could catch the Mist Household red-handed, and they all agreed to help.
Once they finished talking with the man, they went around and did the same with those who agreed to help them like the man. After that, they needed to do something about the slaves who had their minds and hearts broken because of all the torture they went through. There Soma came forward and used a combination of Dark Magic and Light Magic to erase the feelings of despair and resignation they have because of the torture. And then slightly modified their memories to make everything “Bad” that happened to them when they were slaves seem less traumatic and then purified their bodies from any drugs and all addiction to them. Once he was done, life returned to their eyes right away.
Once they were done with the Mist household, Leona, Soma, Dalis led the guards on another raid, this time against the Bennet Household, and they were able to finish everything right before the time for the classes to start at the academy. Leona and Dalis were confused by the actions of the Mist Household and the Bennet Household. Once they noticed that they are being raided they reacted in exactly the same way. And they both didn’t seem to think about what would they do if Leona decided to sacrifice the slaves to capture them, and moreover even though Soma, the man who defeated them at every turn they took, was part of the raid they saw it as nothing but their chance to get rid of him. Soma is already well known in Akud to be too strong, strong enough to fight an army by himself and come on top, and they should be the ones to know that more than anyone else. But their actions showed that they were truly believing that he is not that strong and that they can kill him easily. “How can someone be this stupid?” was what Leona felt from the bottom of her heart regards the nobles of Akud.
Soma arrived at the training grounds of the academy with the sound of the second bell, and there all of his students from the Actual Combat Class were waiting for him.
“Before I start the class, Zac I have some news regarding your family”(Soma)
“…My family?... please tell me and I don’t mind my classmates hearing about it”(Zac)
“Got it. We were able to find out that the ones who were selling slaves to that bandit's band we subjugated last semester were the Mist Household and the Bennet Household. And so today at sunrise, Lord Leona, court mage Dalis, and me the Law Enforcer led a number of the town guards on raids on both Households and were able to capture them and free the slaves they had with them. Mist Dona and her second and third sons were sentenced to Death Row Slavery along with Bennet Jason and his sons. And all of their underlings are being interrogated to decide on a punishment for them, and the first son of the Mist Household tried to take a child hostage, and to stop him he was killed on the spot. And so from now on those two Households are no more, that’s why you don’t have to call yourself ‘Mist’ anymore. By the Lord’s decision, you are given the choice of taking up a new family name, or you can just start your life anew as a commoner”(Soma)
“..?!... That was fast…… But… I see, they finally got arrested. Thank you, the fate of those innocent people was weighing heavily on me! And as a family name, I chose to start my life anew as a commoner!”(Zac)
“Alright! Now back to the class! Today you will start training on Body Reinforcement! All you need to do is to take the most comfortable posture for you and start moving your Mana in circles throughout your whole bodies! We are going to keep at it till lunchtime, now start!”(Soma)
Soma took out a chair and sat down on it and Marina did the same thing, and they both started reading books together. Seeing that, the students took the most comfortable postures for them and started doing as instructed. Zac sat down in a meditation posture. Nad took a posture with both of his swords out. Zeek sat down and leaned his back to a wall. The Four Brothers and Emma laid down facing the sky. Rimi and Alice sat down back to back. David sat down with his staff on top of his lap. Anolan stabbed his greatsword in the ground and stood there with both of his hands on the handle.
The students from the Knighthood class arrived at the training grounds with their teacher, and they were welcomed by the sight of the Actual Combat students and teacher lazing around.