We follow the line of slaves at a distance through the alleyways for almost three hours. The capital of Unun truly is an enormous city. Finally, they stop walking when they reach a small wooden door. The slaves are led through by the guards escorting them. We head to the front of the building they were led into and discover that it’s a slave auction.

"I’ve seen my fair share of slavery," Jack says. "In some ways slaves in this world are treated even worse than the ones we read about in history class." My blood boils at the sight of it. We all walk in, Winter banging his head on the doorway as we enter. We draw the attention of everyone in the room, who all appear to be nobles.

We wait for about half an hour as various demi-human slaves are presented to the crowd and purchased. They all use fyles, which I have learned is the currency of this kingdom. Finally, the lizardfolk we had chased down appears. "That’s her," Ican whispers. One of the noble men looks at me.

"Did that wolf just… talk?" He asks.

"Think nothing of it," I say. "As for you all, get ready to run." My group looks at me in worry of what I plan.

"Don’t do anything reckless," says Julius. What choice do I have? I’m not going to partake in this horrible business. Just before the woman is sold to a bidder, I place my time-stopping spell focus into my gauntlet and freeze time. In frozen time, I rip the shackles off of the lizardfolk woman and move her along with the rest of my group into an alley where nobody will see us. Thankfully, nobody outside of the spell’s radius seems to have noticed anything odd.

When time resumes, everyone looks dazed for a moment before gaining their senses. The lizardfolk woman looks at us for a brief moment before trying to run deeper into the alley. I easily block the exit with my speed.

"Calm down for a moment," I say. She raises her fists, looking ready to fight. Suddenly I realize she’s bringing up a status window. Maybe I shouldn’t have fixed that… "I don’t think you want to do that." As her eyes read the window, they suddenly go wide and she clutches her head in agony. Damn it. I use a healing spel focus to ease her pain and bring her back to reason.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

When she regains coherence, she speaks for the first time. "What the hell are you?" She asks in a pained voice.

"I am the Thaumaturge. I have come to save you."

----------------------------------------

"Do not try to hide it. I am aware that you are not of this world. We are in a similar situation." Her eyes widen in shock and she looks around at my companions. She opens her status window again and looks at each of them.

"You’re right… I’ve never seen this title before. ‘Reincarnator’?"

"I’d say that’s a flawed description at best. By the way, if I may ask? What about my status window caused you to keel over in pain like that?"

"I… I can’t exactly describe it. It was like my mind was attacked by something when I tried to read your status. It’s like it attacked my soul…"

"I see. Well, since I’ve finally gotten to you, I’d like to make a proposal. Would you like to join me in my quest to reach Heaven? If you die in this dimension, you’ll wind up wherever the Voice of God designated, but if you come with me, you can escape the cycle of fake afterlives and truly reach Heaven. Also, I assume you died and wound up here?" She nods.

"I was walking to my house when I got struck by lightning. I’m so worried about my son…" Damn, unlucky. "The next thing I knew, I was… this. My parents in this world named me Coh’lek, but my real name is Maria."

"I see. If you wish, I can restore your human body and return you to your home dimension. Would you like that?"

"How? Impossible! Even magic can’t achieve that!"

"So you are familiar with magic? Unfortunately, you are only familiar with a fraction of it. The Voice of God created an intricate vis network that allowed the use of status checking and magical skills and spells. I killed the Voice of God, which I’m sure everyone in this dimension including you has noticed, and to fix the magic network I created a device that will maintain it. I, on the other hand, am capable of accessing the power of raw vis, which is infinitely stronger. What you call mana, I call a logical knitting of the ley lines of vis in the atmosphere." Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t understand half of what I said.

"I’d like to join you. If you can help me get back to my son, I’ll do anything."

"Not much is required of you. All I ask in return is you help with any problems we encounter as we make our way through this dimension in search of souls like your’s." She agrees, and we set off to cover the rest of the city, after which we will return to the tower.