Ben came out of the woods and slowly approached the cart and stopped alongside it. The slaves and four remaining injured guards were all looking at one another wondering if their situation just went from bad to worse.
They were in a bad situation with the bandits and then this elusive young man took out every one of the bandits before anyone could figure out what was going on.
Ben stopped next to the cart and looked from one person to the next. The shackled slaves looked like they were borderline malnutritioned and filthy, but they were all uninjured. The guards all had battle wounds with swollen faces and bloody lips from being punched and kicked after surrendering.
Everyone looked scared and refused to make eye contact with Ben as he silently looked them over. Noticing that they were all on edge, Ben began to speak to them.
"This is the deal, I just saved you all from death or becoming the playthings of these bastards. Since I saved your lives the way I see it you all belong to me now! "
Ben looked at the people and they all remained quiet wondering what was going to happen to them.
"Still I will not force anyone to come with me so you have two options!"
"Option one is you all will have a Slave Command spell cast on you and I will take you somewhere you can live with a decent home, plenty of food and will be treated fairly!"
"Option two is I walk away to continue on my journey and you all can try to make it back to the city without running into more bandits or profound beasts."
Option two was not much of a choice for the guards and slaves. They had no way to protect themselves and the next town would take them days to reach on foot and the guards were so injured they might not make it another day without medical treatment.
Ben gave them a couple minutes to let this all sink in before he made them make a choice.
He stepped away from the cart to look around at the scattered dead bodies and found the headless body that he assumed was the murdered slave merchant. After a quick search of the pouches on the body, he found a money pouch and a solid looking metal key.
He placed the money bag into his inventory and found it contained twenty-four gold coins and a few silver coins. Walking back over to the cart he tried the key on the shackles of the closest slave and found it fit the lock. One by one he removed all their shackles and helped them down from the cart.
In all, there were a total of fourteen male slaves and six female slaves. When they were all free, Ben turned his attention to the surviving guards.
"I guess I will start with you gentlemen first. Make a choice stay here or follow me from now on."
The four guards all looked at one another and chose to follow Ben. When they all agreed he opened his inventory and sold off some of his wood and stone to the System Store.
He now had 316 gold coins in his balance and immediately used 200g to buy the [Slave Command] Spell.
[Notice] [You have learned a new spell! Slave Command: Apprentice: Level 1!]
[Slave Command]: This spell is used to make a person or creature into a slave. The person or creature must remain still for thirty seconds while the spell is cast or it will be canceled out. Once the spell is cast they will not harm or run away from their owner. If, they attempt to harm the owner in any way the command spell will instantly kill them. Any orders that the owner gives a slave have to be followed or the slave will be subjected to increasing pain by the spell command until they accept the order or die. The only order a slave can ignore is if the owner orders them to commit suicide. This does not count if they are sent into battle any slave chosen to be a soldier can be sent into battle without fear of them disobeying. [Higher levels allow quicker cast times.]
Ben read through the description of the spell and was amazed at how much power it gave you over someone else's life.
'System, why does this spell even have levels?'
With as much control as this spell gave him over a person, he was curious why it would need to be leveled up.
*Ding!* [This is leveling option is only available to the host. This spell does not increase in strength for other people of this world. As the host raises the level of the spell it will cut down on the cast time and make it harder for people to cancel the spell. Once, it is near the max level the host may enslave someone by simply touching them.]
'This is a little...scary, I could just walk through a town smacking people on the back and turn the whole town into slaves.'
*Ding!* [That scenario could be possible, but the host would need to first enslave thousands of people to get the spell levels to that point.]
'That's okay I am not looking to accomplishing it, I just thought it was a little scary it could actually be done.'
Ben was looking over the guard's wounds as he had this conversation with the system so that everyone would not think he was just standing there staring off into space.
He brought out the box of bandages he was using to train his First Aid skill and began wrapping all the slashes and battle wounds these guys had from the bandit ambush.
He had to cut the armor off them to get to the wounds covering their bodies. It seemed even though these guards had a few pieces of armor on it was only enough to cover their vital areas. Once the bandits had superior numbers they could surround the remaining guards and attack the unarmored areas of their bodies. Some guards were even wounded through their armor which was made up of layers of hardened leather.
As ben cut off their armor he assessed it would help prevent damage from sword slashes but it was not sturdy enough to prevent piercing damage from sword tips, spears, or arrows.
While Ben was working on the last guard who was in bad shape his First Aid skill evolved into a new skill from the continuous use of training at the fortress and healing of these guards.
[Notice] [Skill: First Aid has Evolved into a Spell: Mending Touch: Apprentice Level 1!]
[Mending Touch]: negates any negative conditions like infections or bleeding and heals wounds. The healing time and amount of uses are dependent on how severe the wound is and the level of the spell. [Higher levels will allow for healing of more severe wounds with fewer attempts].
Ben finished bandaging up the last guard and went back to use mending touch on all their wounds and when he used the new spell on their beat up faces it was enough to completely heal these minor injuries.
The guards and the slaves watched this in shock and Ben heard a few gasps of amazement as the guard's faces went back to being perfectly fine. It seems that seeing people use spells or skills was a rare occurrence in this kingdom from how they reacted to seeing Ben cast a healing spell.
The guards battle wounds still needed time to recover, but at least they were not at risk of dying now. Ben had healed these guards the best he could without depleting his Mana which he still needed to cast the Slave Command spell.
The guards did not attempt to fight the Slave Command spell and just accepted their fate. When Ben finished with the guards he turned to the slaves.
"Anyone who wishes to come with me form-a-line in front of me now! If you want to try your chances on your own you are free to go!"
Ben expected maybe half of them would stay and the other half would leave on their own. It surprised him when they all lined up in front of him without any hesitation.
He went from one to the next casting the Slave Command on each of them and had them climb back into the cart. With everyone sitting down ready for the journey he turned the cart around and had the team of horse-like creatures pull them in the direction of his fortress.
He couldn't believe how long it took to get back to where they needed to enter the wilderness frontier by cart. Ben had grown so used to speeding along the road with his Whirlwind Technique and never thought about how many miles he was actually covering.
Over the past couple of days of travel, he had been keeping after the guards wounds and feeding everyone well with good portions of beef and vegetables.
Some of the slaves were actually crying while they ate the food the first few times.
When Ben asked why they were all crying, he found out that most of these people had been born into slavery and had never even eaten meat or healthy ripe vegetables.
They were treated worse than livestock and lived off of scraps and whatever they could manage to gather from the land around where they were forced to work.
The food seemed to also shock the guards because they could feel the Qi and Mana energies flow through their bodies after eating. Even if, they were not cultivators they could all tell this food was doing something extraordinary to their bodies. These energies flowed through them rebuilding muscle, healing interior wounds and helping improve their circulation.
After, four days of three meals a day the slaves began to make physical improvements. They may have been skin and bones still but their complexions were much more healthy looking.
They were all smiling and thrilled at the way things had turned out for them. At first, they were unsure about this young man who killed without mercy, but now their loyalty toward him was growing by the day without even needing the Slave Command spell to force them.
Everything went well until it was time for them to leave the road and from their panicked expressions, it seemed that even the slaves understood the direction they were headed. Ben turned the cart off the road and began heading into the forested frontier.
When they left the road things became more tricky. Ben had to weave the cart through the woods and around the many obstacles of fallen trees and rocks. The good news was although it took a few hours to make it through the woods they were able to make it without getting stuck or damaging the cart.
The slaves and guards were silent the whole time and everyone was on edge. It was as if they were holding their breath and feared if they made a noise or moved the forest would swallow them up forever.
Ben led the cart carefully through the forest and after a few tense hours, they could see sunlight ahead. The trees thinned out and were quickly left behind as the cart came out onto a vast flat grassland. Ben had the help of his map so he knew the quickest route through the edge of the forest that bypassed any danger of becoming lost.
Everyone's mood quickly improved when they found out that there was such a beautiful stretch of land hidden past this forest in which the whole continent feared.
There are tales in every kingdom about how those who travel too far into this vast forest never return. So to see there was all this open land with good soil and clear streams of water they all couldn't help look around at everything in surprise.
Ben and his followers spent the night out on the plains, he let them all sleep out on the grass around the cart and cultivated while remaining vigilant for any approaching dangers.
After their breakfast on the emerald colored grassland, they all climbed aboard the cart to continue onward. A couple more hours of travel and they had finally reached the road Ben had built that ran from his keep past the Farms and south into the forest to end at the Lumber Mill.
Ben led the cart up the smooth inclining dirt road while everyone in the cart looked on in wonder at the tall stone walls on top of the plateau cliffs that the cart was heading up toward.