Easton lay huddled on the floor, surrounded by four knights. His nose hurt. His arms hurt. His back hurt. His belly hurt. His legs hurt.

One of the knights stomped on his face. "You lowly commoner! You dirtied my foot!

Easton gurgled blood. "I'm sorry! Please have mercy!"

The knight brought his foot near to Easton's mouth. It was caked in feces.

"You know what? I'm feeling generous today. If you lick it clean, then maybe I'll let you off this time."

Easton wanted to escape, but he was too injured to run. He was afraid that the knights would beat him more if he didn’t do what he was told. Choking back tears, he stuck his tongue out.

The knight pulled his foot back and then slammed it into Easton's face. "Trash will always be trash."

Laughter erupted around Easton.

The knight grabbed Easton's bucket, which was filled to the brim. "Hold him."

Two other knights held Easton down while the knight dumped the bucket's contents onto Easton's face.

Easton shut his eyes and mouth. Feces splashed all over his face and went up his nose. When he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he inhaled. A wave of terror and nausea hit him as feces poured into his mouth.

I can't breathe!

The arms holding him down released their grip. Turning over, he vomited and coughed out feces. He gasped for air and felt unbelievable relief that he was able to breathe again.

Screams and cries, mixed with the sound of banging and bashing, filled the air.

What’s going on? I can’t see.

Wiping filth from face, he opened his eyes to an astonishing sight. Lying around him were three of the knights who had been torturing him moments ago.

The knight who had been holding the bucket lay twitching on the ground. All of his front teeth were knocked out and his nose was caved in. Beside him, another knight was groaning and clutching his elbow, which was bent the wrong way. Bone was sticking out of the third knight’s bleeding arm.

Easton felt a chill down his spine. A shadow was looming over him. Turning around, he saw a black demon. It appeared to be the physical embodiment of anger and violence. Fresh blood dripped from its fists. It took a step toward him.

"Please don't hurt me!" He backed away.

The demon stopped. "Hurt you? Why would you think that?"

Its voice sounded surprisingly human.

"You're a demon, aren't you?"

"Demon? Oh... it must be the mask." It removed its face, revealing another one underneath - the face of a handsome man.

It’s not a demon?

"Who are you?"

"I'm Hupo. When I saw what those knights were doing to you, I couldn't stand by and do nothing. So I stepped in and gave them what they deserved."

Realization of what had happened dawned on Easton. "Thank you for saving me! I'm so sorry for calling you a demon!"

Hupo took out a small flask of blood red liquid, seemingly out of thin air.

He knelt down and held it in front of Easton. "Drink this. You'll feel better."

Easton hesitated to take it. It wasn’t because he didn’t trust Hupo. In fact, he trusted him with his life. After all, he had just saved it. Easton hesitated because he knew that healing potions were very expensive. Even if he worked for an entire month without spending a single coin, it wouldn’t be enough to pay for the cheapest potion.

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"I can't drink this. I'm just a pit toilet cleaner. I'll never be able to pay you back."

"I'm giving it to you free of charge. What's most important right now is getting your health back."

Easton's eyes filled with tears. Up until now, he had always been treated as something less than human. No one had ever treated him with such respect in his entire life, not even his own family.

"Thank you." Easton accepted the potion with a smile and drank it.

What happened next was nothing short of a miracle. All his pain vanished. Energy coursed through his entire body. When he tried standing up, he was surprised how easy it was to do so. After drinking the potion, he felt better than he had ever felt in his life.

All the long days of backbreaking work had taken a toll on his body. He was so used to the pain that he thought nothing of it. But now that he had a perfectly painless body, he finally understood how it felt to be healthy.

***

Hupo had a limited number of healing potions in his inventory. Although he didn’t know if he could replace them with those from this world, he didn’t give a second thought to using one to help the man before him. When he had seen the group of knights torturing the helpless man, it had brought back memories of all those unbearable pricks from his past - the people who were habitually cruel and insulting towards him. When he was in primary school, he had been a victim of bullying. The kids at his school regularly insulted him for being poor and having only one parent. They made fun of his worn-out shoes and patched up clothes. What he could only fantasize about doing to them, he had done to the knights.

“Are you feeling better?”

The man looked down at his own body. “Yes, I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life!”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how come the knights were assaulting you?”

The man rubbed the back of his neck. “It was my fault. I accidently spilled something on the knight’s boot.”

Hupo saw himself in Easton. Whenever he was bullied, he would try to find reasons for why it was happening to him. His mind had been preoccupied with negative thoughts - thoughts like Why is Mother so poor? or Why did Father leave us? At the time, he blamed his mother for his problems. He thought If I weren’t from a poor, single parent family, then the kids at school wouldn’t pick on me so much. It wasn’t until he was much older, that he realized that she was trying her best to support him and that the bullies were the real problem. Easton was trying to find a reason for his suffering, but he didn’t realize that the problem wasn’t him – it was the knights.

“Don’t kid yourself. It wasn’t your fault. The knights were just looking for a reason to flaunt their power. They probably would’ve done the same thing to you even if you looked at them the wrong way.”

Easton scratched his head. “I never thought about it that way. I’m thankful for what you’ve just done for me, but because of me, you’ve incurred the wrath of the knights. More will surely be coming for you.”

It had taken Hupo very little effort to take down the knights. Even if dozens more were to show up, they wouldn’t be a match for him.

"Then let them come. I’m not afraid of them. By the way, what’s your name?”

“I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.” Easton bowed his head. “This lowly commoner is named Easton.”

No wonder he has no confidence. If I introduced myself as a ‘lowly commoner’ to everyone I met, then I’d have none either.

“Don't ever call yourself a lowly commoner again. Doing so will only hurt your self-confidence. That’s a derogatory name invented by the ruling elite. People are like corn. One corn may be taller or sweeter than another, but at the end of the day, a corn is a corn. People who call themselves knights or nobles are still humans like everyone else. Like you, I'm also a so-called commoner, but look around you. I'm the one standing while the knights are at my feet."

Easton lowered his gaze. "Unlike you, I'm weak."

"You have neither money nor power, but you’re not weak. To be able to do the filthy work that you do day in and day out and endure the hardships that you’ve suffered is a reflection of your incredible inner strength."

"No one has ever acknowledged me like that before. You've not only restored my health, but also my dignity." Easton broke down in tears. "There must be something I can do to repay you. I don't have anything of value, but I can do any kind of work. You don't even have to pay me!"

He seems fiercely loyal and hard-working. Such an employee is not easy to come by.

Having personally hired many people in the past, Hupo knew an ideal employee when he saw one. "There is something you can do for me."

"Anything!"

"I'm a competitor in the Combat Tournament. I plan to use the prize money to open a restaurant. You can be one of my first employees. I'll pay you a fair wage and provide food and housing."

"A fair wage... food... housing.... I never would’ve thought that I'd one day have a job that could provide all of those." Easton wiped away tears.

"Of course, I'll need to win the prize money first."

"I have faith that you'll emerge victorious from this tournament. But even if you don’t, please allow me to serve you in another way."

"Of course. But first, let’s get you some food. You look like you're starving."

"It's alright, I'm used to it. Besides, I don't have any money."

"I brought plenty of food. I'll share some of it with you."

Easton waved his hands in front of him. "I can't possibly trouble you for food, after all you've done for me."

"It's no trouble at all. I brought more than I can eat, so I could use some help to finish it."

Hupo was delighted when Easton finally relented and accepted his offer.