Wuk was surprised as he looked on from within his cage’s confines.

He was a green forest troll, his body was several heads taller than average humans.

Wuk was supposed to be covered in muscle, but due to malnutrition his muscle mass has noticeably decreased. His face had fangs jutting out from his lower jaw, which made him look particularly intimidating to humans.

Wuk was a hunter under the tribe, Goluk. While he was out hunting one day, he got chased and caught by human slavers.

Though he tried to resist, the humans outnumbered him and overpowered him using a metallic slave net.

Wuk was a seasoned hunter, so a lot of things don’t typically surprise him.

What surprised him was the momentum of the human slave who killed off those human mercenaries. Wuk originally believed that the human would have been caught right after killing that slave merchant.

Yet what he saw from his elevated cage was completely different. Atop of two other cages below him, he saw how that escaped human killed four mercenaries in quick succession.

In total, Wuk supposed only 30 minutes had passed with each mercenary slain taking only around 5 minutes each.

Although those mercenaries were all weaklings, it was impressive; at least, for a weak and cunning species like humans.

However, the human’s methods were unrefined and too reliant on stealth. Using his species’ trait, dark vision, Wuk observed that all mercenaries seemed to have gotten secretly alerted one way or another.

If those mercenaries were a bit more experienced or cautious, they would have realized something was wrong. At that point, the human would be done for if the mercenaries ganged up on them.

There seemed to be limits even for this particularly cunning human.

However, the human did not escape right away, which puzzled Wuk for only a moment before he realized something.

Then he grinned madly, his face scrunching to reveal his gums.

The human walked to the center of all the slaves and spoke as they did. Of course, Wuk couldn’t understand human language, but that human’s body language was all that needed to be said.

When the human lifted up the square silver key, everyone was able to understand what that gesture meant.

They were offering all of them freedom.

Every slave here who has been in these cages for even a few seconds should be already sick and tired of it.

The one most sick and tired of it was Wuk himself.

He was part of a strong and proud race and tribe, being caught like this is pure agony. He swore to himself that he would make those slave loving bastards pay for what they have done to him.

Now an opportunity has arrived and he was more than happy to take it.

Working together with a human will be a first for Wuk, yet he wasn’t against it.

Though perhaps some of the more brainless goblins, orcs, and perhaps even his fellow troll may be against it; he would be sure to make them accept it if he has to.

Wuk rubbed his fists in excitement.

===

Vow stood amongst the silence until a flurry of shouts and mad cries filled the area.

“Glack Tack!”

“You! Are you trying to make us your meatshields? How dare you!”

“Bala Bala!”

“What makes you think you can escape? I’d rather stay in this cage than die to Noxen City's Elite Knight Nox or their Nox Soldiers!”

“Grah! Grah! Graaaaah!”

She couldn’t understand the language of some of those shouting at her, but she can guess what they were cursing at her judging by their furious tone.

Vow hadn’t expected such resistance from fellow slaves when she offered to set them free. Though she supposed she shouldn’t count on other people being idiots who would easily do as she says.

‘It seems… I will have to adjust my plans.’

Her fellow slaves seemed to realize that she was trying to use them to escape by herself. Initially, she had planned to use the slaves to cause chaos within the city. Then while dressed like a mercenary, sneakily escape in the midst of the confusion. After a while, she would either bribe the Gate Guards to let her pass out of the city or forge a new identity within Noxen City.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Vow sighed inwardly, this unexpected complication was quite a dilemma.

‘How will she get these people to listen?’

She needed to think of a way to quiet down their racket now. Otherwise, people outside may take notice of what was going on inside the tent.

“SHUAAAAAAK! BUUUUUUUUUUPP!!”

While she was trying to think of something, a bellowing roar echoed in the tent, silencing all other voices.

Even she felt goosebumps rising up her skin.

She listened closely to the outside in the midst of the silence. Then she sighed in relief.

‘Good. It seems no one was alerted from outside.’

Now it was time to appeal to her fellow slaves. She needed to convince them for her escape to be possible.

If she wanted, she technically could just walk out in her disguise. However, if she did, many foreseeable problems will occur.

In order to escape, she had to kill Dawson and 4 other mercenaries. If she escapes before the auction begins, once the auction does begin, those bodies will obviously and quickly be found even if she tries to hide them.

Once investigation ensues, the disappearance of a single slave will make it obvious who the culprit of the murders would be.

Even if city officials don’t really care about the death of a mere merchant and a couple low-skilled mercenaries, the residents of the city surely would.

Rumors would easily spread word of an uncaught psychopathic slave who killed 5 people in cold blood, on the prowl inside the city.

Regardless of her intentions, people will fear the idea of a serial killer on the loose.

At which point, the city officials and forces will be forced to capture her and likely criminally punish her.

The death penalty and torture is what she could look forward to if she is caught by than.

If the city wants to catch her, they will capture her one way or another.

To be honest, even if she somehow didn’t kill Dawson or those mercenaries, she would inevitably just be caught, punished, and enslaved again at best. At worst, she would be beaten to death and hung as an example for other slaves to not try the same thing.

So it was no use to think of hypotheticals. She did what she had to do based on the situation.

Right now, Vow had to get these other slaves on her side.

She needed to come up with a new plan. A plan that the other slaves could accept.

Escaping quietly with this number of slaves quickly in a short time frame is unrealistic. They are forced to escape openly.

Vow didn’t even bother considering using force to escape. Even without considering the insufficient number of equipment to gear up every slave here, the city had more trained soldiers than the strands of hair on her head.

Each soldier would be trained, experienced, and armed.

Even in the case where all the slaves were properly armed and geared, the soldiers would still outnumber, outmaneuver, and overpower them.

She would be delusional if she thought she could fight her way out of the city with some slaves.

What could she do?

In times like these, Vow knew she needed to refresh her way of thinking. First, she needed to ask herself a question.

‘What does a city fear? Or more exactly, what does a city official fear?’

She went into deep thought for a moment, before arriving at an answer.

‘It was avoidable losses.’

Vow just came up with a plan.

It was an extremely risky and dangerous plan. A plan which depended on what the city officials considered as acceptable or inevitable damage.

They were going to take hostages.

There was a whole crowd of people vying to buy them. It would be a waste to not use them.

‘There also seemed to be a few influential people among the crowd; such as that Sir Benard person spoken of by Dawson.’

It seemed like a doable plan. For now, it was her only hope.

However, how was she supposed to communicate with the slaves who don’t speak the same language as her?

“Is there anyone who can speak Vinish?”

She decided to throw a dart in the dark.

Vinish referred to the main language that the tribes of goblins, trolls, and orcs spoke in the Vanishing Forest.

Some scholars studied Vinish, so she was hoping for perhaps a knowledgeable slave that knows both Vinish and Common, the most widespread language across the continent.

A brief silence was then broken by a somewhat raspy voice.

“I can…”

She looked at the direction the voice came from. Although it was dim, she could still make out a short statured hunch-backed figure with big pointed ears and bluish-gray skin.

It was a goblin. An old goblin to be exact.

“You can speak Common,” Vow spoke with some incomprehension.

From what she read, she learned that although many races were able to learn and speak Common, most of the races and tribes from the Vanishing Forest typically don’t learn to speak Common due to various reasons.

Reasons such as seeing outsider influences as dangerous and simply being uninterested in the world outside the forest.

The old goblin didn’t seem surprised at her confusion.

“I’m an oddball from my tribe. I learned to speak Common due to an interest in human society, though that same interest led me to where I am now,” spoke the goblin to provide a small explanation.

“All you need to know is that I can help you translate, alright? Anyway, my name is Chuka. How about you,” the goblin, Chuka, said as it introduced itself more.

“Vow. I want you to share my plan with others,” she said curtly. Right now, they need to hurry before the auction begins.

Likely understanding that they were on a time limit, Chuka agreed with a condition.

“I understand, but can you free me first?”

Thinking that Chuka wouldn’t do anything detrimental, she decided to free him.

Click.

The cage door opened and the goblin slave walked out.

“Feels good to be free. Okay, tell me your plan now,” Chuka stretched and indicated that he was ready to comply and listen.

She could sense the other slaves watching her intently. The slaves who could speak Common were likely also listening in.

“First, we’ll…”

Vow explained her plan of escape to the old goblin, who listened carefully and seriously. After a few minutes of explaining the basics of the plan, she finished.

“You really thought this out…”

The old goblin expressed his amazement at the simple yet plausible plan. He thought he would listen to a stupid or manipulative plan that would either cause all of them to die or benefit only a few lucky slaves.

‘She is no fool, that’s for sure.’

Chuka had seen many humans, but none as collected and planned out as this one. The old goblin believed that it would be worth it to listen to her for the moment.

Her eyes seemed to glint with a way out of this rather perilous situation all the slaves have gotten in.

“It’s just because… I had such thoughts for a very long time,” Vow said slightly awkwardly. She wasn’t used to compliments or praise, since she never did anything incredible before in her life.

“Alright, I will inform the others for you. Would you mind giving me that key?”

The goblin pointed at the key in her hand.

“Alright. Go talk to and unlock the cages on the same level as us. I’ll go move the wheeled platform stairs to reach the higher cages,” she said as she handed over the keys without hesitation and went to push the wheeled devices the merchants used to gain access to harder to reach cages.

“Thanks,” the old goblin said as he trotted off to cages to inform and free slaves.

===

There were a dozen or so cages, but there were only 28 other slaves in total.

There used to be way more slaves, but Vow knew that on the journey to Noxen City, a majority of slaves died due to disease and injury inflicted by the slave merchants.

Among the 28 other slaves remaining, twenty were humans of various ages, five goblins, two orcs, and one troll.

All the cages were seperated by race, with members of the same race being grouped up in a maximum number of three inside a single cage. The only exception being herself, who got a cage of her own.

Working together, she and Chuka managed to free most of the slaves within 30 minutes.

The exceptions were the two orcs who refused to cooperate with them, which put even more risk into the plan.

It annoyed her, but there was little that she could do. There wasn’t much time left before the auction should begin now and everyone needed to get ready to take hostages before the auction begins.

So she had no choice but to leave them in the cage. Apparently, the two orcs said that they saw humans as too weak to work with, that it would be better to stay as a slave than work with them and fail.

Besides the orcs, every other slave was easy to reason with even if they were suspicious of their intentions. The last slave to get set free was the troll, whose cage was stacked the highest.

“Plack Chew,” the strong troll said to Vow as she helped free him along with Chukan.

“Brack boa treach borco beckon,” the troll pointed at the key in Chuka’s hand.

The old goblin quickly nodded his head right away before giving the key to the intimidating troll. Receiving the key, the troll started heading off to where the orcs’ cages were.

“What did he say,” she asked curiously to Chuka.

The old goblin replied with a subtle tone of caution, “He said… ’Thank you’ and that he was going to ‘teach those orcs a lesson.’ To be honest, I almost doubted my ears for a second.”

“Why?”

Vow didn’t understand what the old goblin meant.

“Nothing really. It’s just that all the trolls I’ve met before in the forest were brutes. They beat me up and rob me of all my belongings whenever we meet. I thought the troll was going to be like the orcs. Someone whom we couldn’t reason with,” the old goblin spoke and shrugged.

“Oh.”

She didn’t need to nor did she care to hear the rest of his story.

Now they needed to gather everyone up so far.