Five rugged looking men were leisurely riding their horses through the forest, chatting happily among themselves. These men are traffickers who had just pulled off a successful kidnapping. Strapped to the back of one of the horses sat a beautiful elf woman who was currently blindfolded, gagged, and had every part of her body tied up.
The slave trade has been banned in the Kingdom of Reikon for over a thousand years, but this has not stopped the dark business from operating in the shadows. Trying to abduct people anywhere near the center of the kingdom is risky, but near the borders where jurisdiction between nations is more in the gray is much simpler.
The unnamed and obscure forest on the border between the Elven Nation of Yggdrasil is one such prime location. Normally elves are much stronger on average than a human, but a young elf without much experience can easily be brought down a peg by using dirty tricks.
These men were heading back to their main base of operations located next to a small mountain in the middle of the forest. The location is a decent distance from any nearby towns, and thus has gone unnoticed by authorities.
"Ey boss look, there is somethin weird o'er there." One of the more emancipated looking men, who had the elf strapped to his horse, pointed to something in the clearing just to the left of them.
The boss in question, a man on the larger side with a hearty build reminiscent of a bear, glanced over only to be surprised by a weird sight. A man who was completely in the nude, everything hanging out to the elements, was sleeping in the middle of the wilderness. And to make it weirder, a beautiful and rare looking bird was sleeping on the man's head.
"Hold it boys, that bird looks impressive, it would definitely sell for a pretty sum. And that man looks awfully pretty, some young mistress might take interest'n buying em. Round em up."
All of them had a devious grin on their faces as three of the traffickers hopped off their horses and took out their equipment. The boss and the emancipated bandit stayed on their horses and watched.
The three degenerates who approached had a balanced build, with two warriors who could quickly move to apprehend the target, and an archer who shot tranquilizing arrows. Moving in place without speaking a word, the two warriors surrounded the sleeping duo, and waited in position with nets. The archer loaded his bow with a tranq arrow and pulled back his bowstring. The arrow was shot out, precisely hitting the bird's wing.
Startled awake by the pain, the bird struggled to fly away, only to miserably fail and launch itself a couple feet away. The tranquilizing poison made the bird sluggish, unable to react to the net that soon wrapped around its whole body. It struggled violently in the net with all its energy, until the poison sapped its strength and made the bird fall unconscious.
"Weird, this guy isn't waking up at all, what're we to do with em, boss?" One of the warriors questioned the hearty man known as their boss. Meanwhile, he pulled the arrow out of the phinx, and splashed some healing potion on the wound. Low level healing potions are not expensive, and only go as far as to stop someone from bleeding. This saps some of the creature's energy to enhance the healing process, draining them enough to not risk waking them up.
"If he's not waking up he must be out cold, just tie em up and throw em on a horse."
"Ok boss!"
The three men looked at each other, not sure who would get stuck having to haul the naked man. They got into a stance, knowing exactly how to settle it.
"Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot!"
The two warriors both picked rock, while the archer threw out scissors. The archer suffered a complete loss.
While sporting a sour face, the archer bound the unconscious man and secured him to the horse, careful to avoid the man's unmentionables.
The two warriors mounted their own horses as they snickered at the unfortunate archer.
"We have quite a pull today boys, so tonight we drink!" The whole crew of bandits cheered at the mention of beer, except for the archer who still had a grumpy look on his face.
The group of bandits continued their travel across the forest for 15 minutes, quickly arriving at their encampment. The bandit's encampment was relatively small, with only five small log cabins spread out around the base of the mountain.
The group dismounted their horses and carried their cargo into one of the smaller of the five huts. The inside of the hut just contained a table filled with tools to dismember animals, a couple of animal skulls mounted to the walls, and a large panther skin covering the ground. To any official that may search the hut, it would just appear to be an ordinary hunter's cabin.
One of the warriors peeled back the rug to reveal a large trap door leading underground. The warrior opened the door revealing a staircase that led to a dimly lit underground storeroom. Inside were only four metal cages and a man sat at a wooden desk and chair.
The three prisoners were shoved into different cages, and the restraints were removed from the elf. All the men except for the one sitting at the table left, off to enjoy a night of drinking.
An hour later, Ceila the elf regained consciousness. Rubbing her head which was jumbled with confusion, she tried to remember what happened. As she looked around her metal prison, her memories came back to her. She had set out from home to explore the world, and had been heading to the capital of Reikon because she had heard a tournament was going to be held soon. However, as soon as she crossed the border she was tricked by one of the bandits pretending to be injured. When she went to help the man, he had stabbed her with some powerful poison and she fell unconscious.
Teeming with anger Ceila shot up from the ground and instinctively tried to channel her nature magic. To her surprise, she could not focus her magic at all, the mana in the air was extremely chaotic, interfering with her casting.
"Why can't I use magic!? What are you going to do with me?" Ceila glared at the person sitting so intensely that if looks could kill, he would be on his 30th reincarnation.
"Calm down lassie, no need to be so worked up. No matter what you do, you won't be set free. Those there cages are made out of pure magicite. S'long as yur not a S rank mage." The sitting man looked up and down at Ceila with a mocking smile on his face. "As for yur other question, a pretty elf like you, will probably be sold to some rich noble, never to be seen 'gain."
Ceila clutched her body, a shiver went down her spine as the severity of the situation caught up to her. Even so, the fear did not win out over her anger, as she continued to repeatedly cuss out the man, despite the fact that he sat there unperturbed.
Meanwhile, about halfway through the confrontation between the two, a certain red haired man stirred. As Auron's consciousness returned, he was confused. He fell asleep in the forest, on a bed of grass, but his body only felt cold metal. Then he overheard the conversation between what seemed to be an angry woman, and a smug man. He was absolutely furious! He had just escaped his uncountable time of imprisonment underground, he would absolutely not let himself be contained any longer.
With his eyes still closed, Auron's body suddenly started spasming, his body flailing against the ground. His head smashed into the metal floor of the cage, starting to slightly bleed.
The guard shot up out of his seat, his face pale as a ghost. "NO,NO,NO! If the goods get damaged the boss will have my head!" He rushed over as fast as he could, opening the cage and reaching down to restrain Auron.
"Apologies to your boss, I'll be taking this instead."
Those were the last words the guard ever heard, Auron shot up the moment the guard got within strike range, and snapped the man's neck. It was so sudden the man did not even have a chance to process what happened before his dead body collapsed onto the ground.
Ceila stood there slack jawed in shock at what she just witnessed. Everything happened so suddenly, the red haired man stuck faster than she could comprehend. She was a B rank Magic Swordsman, and she could still not follow the man's movements. He had to be at least a rank S, but how did someone so powerful get captured by these lowlifes?