Terem woke up to raking laughter. Of course, the cackle belonged to Davarose who took special care to make the sound as mentally aggravating as possible before relaying it through the mental bond.
Terem knew he wouldn't be able to extract any information from Davarose in his current situation. If anything, the lich would exaggerate events to make the current predicament appear more hopeless than it actually was so he reinstated the mental wall, blocking the lich's raucous laughter from his head.
Just as he began to open his eyes and examine the surroundings, a hard kick landed on his stomach causing the air to suddenly abandon his lungs.
'Aaaaaah' Two pained voices harmonized together, sounding as one within Terem's mind. He coiled over, moving into the fetal position on instinct.
"So, you're awake now, huh? Lu~cky me." The speaker sounded similar to Prentan, but Terem couldn't be sure since his ears were muffled, blocking out most of the sound. However, clearly apathetic towards Terem's current state, he continued. "You see, that idiot Charles gave you to me, as a gift no less. I planned on asking for you, but it couldn't go any better! That's right, you're my loyal dog now! You have to do whatever I say!" Spittle audibly ejected from Prentan's mouth making Terem imagine a rabid dog, frothing in its madness.
However, he also took the first kick's lesson to heart and remained still, but that didn't mean he had to listen to the mad dog's ramblings further. Instead, he busied himself with examining his body for abnormalities. Results arrived quicker than expected since he discovered that ropes were chafing into his wrists and ankles. But, the most baffling issue was linked to Terem's mana flow.
After a week of constantly circulating and manipulating it, he knew how quickly and where his mana typically traveled. However, his mana was severely altered, even crippled to some extent. Instead of smoothly circulating within the bounds of his mana circuit, the energy resisted its natural flow, preferring to head towards Terem's wrist while drastically slowing if it was headed in the opposite direction.
The uneven flow had many effects upon Terem's body too: giving him nausea, weakening his limbs, even lowering his concentration. Just as he thought this was the worst of it, Prentan finally mentioned something important.
"You see, Tom is a very special merchant who developed an untraceable injection that enslaves the infected. In other words, you... are my slave now!" The constable laughed once again in glee while Terem forcefully cleared his mind and concentrated on stabilizing his mana flow. He even took up his breathing technique to replenish the mana that was stolen by the injection.
Prentan confused Terem's rapid breathing for panic and laughed anew, mocking the man whenever he could wield enough air to make some sort of condescending remark. They weren't fairly creative insults though. All of them pertained to enslavement or the psychopath's, quote on quote, master plan in some way, shape, or form. Meanwhile, Terem cursed Davarose's name, believing him to be the probable inventor of the slavery injection. This was true.
After a minute of inspecting the mana pathways, he was finally able to focus his mana sense on the injection. The flow of mana surrounding the object made it look more like a pill, though, instead of some sort of liquid injection, but the size and shape didn't matter.
What intrigued Terem was that he could sense the mana flow within the injection. It swirled around and concentrated into a thread before being sent to some type of receiver that was in the direction that Prentan's voice originated.
With the copious amount of information at his disposal, a solution snapped into Terem's mind. He began furiously chiseling at the intricate tangle of mana within the pill, slowly bending and altering each minuscule thread until it was untangled from the knot and bent enough to lead the mana flow back into Terem's own body. It was similar to unraveling a box of wired earbuds that deformed into an amalgamation of thin wires, each being the same color. The difficulty started on hard mode, but Terem had hope for the future since the more cords he unraveled, the smaller the tangle would become.
Sweat soon bulleted down his face, coalescing on his chin before dripping down upon the dirt floor in an ever-growing pool. The mental strain was immense and Terem soon realized why the slave injections were so successful. Subconsciously, he also knew that Prentan had concluded his games, but he simply did not care. The focus he was exuding didn't even allow the constant mental barrier he carefully constructed to remain. And with this, a familiar unwanted voice reappeared.
'Ignorant bitch, you get what you deserve. How dare you imprison me inside of your body! Know your place and suffer the same fate I am suffering from! Do you think you would ever be able to escape my wrath? It knows no...' Davarose droned on and on. Simultaneously, Prentan was revealing his master plan to his new slave, lovingly gifted to him by his own enemy, the captain.
He spoke two sentences and two sentences only, but these two sentences carried significant effects that Terem simply couldn't ignore; in the most literal of ways.
"Attack Charles Berstein with all of your might. After that, bow your head in front of me so I can properly execute a filthy white hair such as yourself." Disgustingly, Prentan began to howl with laughter in his own frightening way.
Due to Terem's status as a slave, he felt a compulsive desire to complete the tasks assigned to him; difficulty and rationality didn't seem to matter anymore. With his senses, he detected a slight pulse in the mana stream from the receiver device, each one scrambling the remaining ball of mana threads further and further. The situation had just gotten dire.
Terem's body stood up and wobbled over to the door. Opening it, he saw that he had never really left the mansion.
'Shit. Curse my bad luck and shove a stick up its tight-lipped asshole. Now I have less time to unravel this fuckfest of tendrils.' The only solace he found in his situation was that he didn't need to concentrate on moving his body anymore. Instead, the pill emitted waves of code with each string variation it underwent, moving Terem's body for him.
He slowly shambled over to the stairs while frantically unraveling the threads from the headphone wire knot. One by one, the threads fell into order and rejoined his mana flow, strengthening his body and returning a small amount of control to Terem.
But it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough yet.
From the time he began, Terem had successfully aligned 14 threads. By his count, another 10 entered the yarn ball. Slowly, his body shambled down the stairs, occasionally bumping into portraits hung along the staircase wall as the enslavement item gradually lost power and control.
Terem booted his mind into overdrive. Creepily, his years spent observing and tracing tangled blood vessels or organs from freak accidents aided him in his struggle for life. He also practiced on his own wired earbuds since he never bothered to buy Airp**s Wireless. After all, everyone knew those were trashcan products that would eventually be improved by specialized companies better suited to manufacturing audio devices.
Soon, Terem reached the main hall, a place he remembered distinctly for its presumptuous architecture and vaulting ceiling that reached over 10' in height. His body mechanically turned towards the first room he had entered, the study.
Terem's feet dragged against each other in the ugliest duck-footed posture he would ever bear witness to. Beyond the next door, a large man sitting behind a large oaken desk looked up, clearly annoyed at the second untimely interruption that day.
"Does Prentan need something, slave?" Of course, with the rapid status change from child to slave, the honorifics altered to match. Terem didn't answer; he was incapable of doing so. Instead, his full focus was dedicated to unraveling the remaining five tangled mana threads. Fortunately, since only five of the original 24 threads were filtering into the enslavement bead, he had regained some control over his body. Although, when he tried to seize control, his movements became sloppy as his mana was forcefully split along two separate pathways.
He knew his life could end for the second time at this moment. That's why he wanted power. Why he needed power. He wanted to live a life.
His own life.
No control, no strings attached, no nothing.
He continued to unwind the threads that bound his fate with his untimely demise.
4...
Footsteps echoed upon the stairs.
3...
Prentan peaked his old scarred rat face out from behind the open doorway, gleaming ear to ear.
2...
Terem drew his fist back, instinctively empowering it with mana from his body. The muscles tensed and thickened as the extra strength supported their core.
The last two threads split apart as Terem's fist flew through the air, accelerating the full force of his jump and propelling his body forwards.
-Crash-
A window shattered and Terem bolted into the deepening night. Confusion was written across the faces of both military men as they witnessed this unprecedented turn of events.
Neither bothered to chase nor did the escapee ever turn back. He was no savior and he certainly was not a hero bound by a holy oath to save the poor citizens of Verim; they didn't care for him and he didn't care for them.
Only the night embraced him as he ran.