"It's... a fucking Giant Lizard."
"RUN!!!!!"
Once the giant lizard monster showed its entire massive body, all the slaves got scared and began to run away from it as fast as they could.
Seeing everyone else start to run away Shuku couldn't help but...
"Do you think we should run too?"
"Yeah, we should."
They both joined the cowardly crowd, running to the dungeon entrance in an attempt to escape.
"Hey! Where the fuck do you think you're going?!!!"
One of their superiors, the one with the whip, wasn't happy about this, so he stayed behind when the other superiors fled.
"Go back and fight, you cowardly bunch! The treasures in this dungeon are worth a million times more than your pathetic lives!"
In his attempt to keep control over the slaves, despite his threats, none of them paid any attention. They all continued running past him, away from the lizard.
It seems like they are scared of the lizards more than him.
"How the hell are we gonna win this motherfucker?" Shuku remarked on the boss' "unreasonable order."
The bosses used the whip and even brought out a sword to scare the fleeing slaves. However, no matter how much he tried, yelled, or whipped, the slaves just kept running past him.
After a dozen slaves had already escaped, the superior understood that he couldn't stop the slaves from leaving with just death threats and weapons, so he pulled out his last card from his pocket.
"Deserters! Activate the Slave Collars!!"
The moment he yelled, the slave collars on the necks of those within a 20-meter range from him activated.
"Ugh!"
Immediately, the blades in those collars started spinning inwards, cutting off the heads of nearly 10 slaves around him with haunting meat-slicing sounds.
"OH MY GOD!!!"
The rest of the slaves instantly halted their escape upon witnessing this.
"Now, does anybody want to run?"
Shuku had endured this wretched motherfucker and his kind long enough; not only did they take away their freedom, but they also destroy their hope for living. Nothing could describe his anger at this moment.
"You-"
"Don't. You'll be just like them." Sylvar extends his hand to stop Shuku.
Forced to turn back and face a lizard monster ten times their size with bare hands, none of them made a move. Instead, they turned to talk to each other.
"How are we gonna fight this thing?"
"We're all gonna die!"
After a moment of chattering with no one making the first move and the lizards getting closer, the superior lost his patience. He whipped the ground while yelling at them.
"SCREW THIS!!! GAAAHHHH!!!!"
"Just go all in! It can't attack us all at once!!"
Being pressured from both sides, the slaves had no choice but to go all in on the monster, even without any weapons or strategy.
As a result, as soon as the lizard saw the first five people coming, it opened its mouth and began to grab each of them with that big mouth the size of a bathtub, toss them up into the air, and swallow each of them, one by one.
"My god. They are being slaughtered like ants!" Sylvar remarks as he watches the horrors in front of his eyes.
Meanwhile, Shuku's attention was pulled back to the superior guy with the whip and sword. He saw the superior guy smiling and smirking as the lizard devoured the slaves alive.
'These motherfuckers, I swear I will kill them, I swear with my own life.'
"Hey!"
Sylvar's call grabs Shuku's attention.
"I have an idea. But it could be risky."
"What is it?"
"We will..."
-------------------------------------------
"DIE!!!"
A while later, after numerous unsuccessful attempts to defeat the massive lizard with punches, kicks, and rocks, many more slaves had been eaten alive by it.
Now, only 10 of them remain to face the monster barehanded. No matter how hard they punch, kick, and even bite the lizards, it seems like they're just scratching it.
"We can't kill this thing!"
Many lives were lost, yet the giant lizard sustained almost no damage. The slaves began to lose their will to fight.
"We have to run!!"
"But we will be killed!"
However, they recalled that the lizard wasn't the only threat to their lives. Right by the cave's entrance stands a man wielding a sword and a whip, ready to slash anyone who tries to escape.
To them, their human bosses are even worse monsters. Stuck in a hopeless situation, their outcomes could only be either being devoured by the lizard or getting their heads cut off by the slave collars.
Their fate appears bleak, and they begin to lose even the will to live...
"Hey! You big ugly lizard! Look over here!"
Out of nowhere, a voice from the far left side of the lizard grabs their attention, and they see a guy with black hair.
"No! Look Over Here!"
Another voice comes from the far right side, and it appears to be an elf with grey hair. Both are yelling as loudly as possible for the lizard to hear.
"Look here, you reptilian bitch!"
None of them know who these two are, but they wear the same slave collars and clothes like them and appear to be doing a good job of getting the lizard distracted.
Meanwhile, Shuku is doing his best, yelling to distract the lizards and redirect it's attention toward him or Sylvar, as they had planned a few minutes ago.
"We can't kill this lizard, we don't have any weapon that can damage it, the superiors are afraid that slaves might use the weapons against them."
"So how are we gonna-" Sylvar interrupted him.
"We will put it back where it came from, the cliffs. You and I will distract the lizards, we will going to piss it off and make it chase after us, then when it's after one of us, we will be running near the cliff, and when the timing is good, the other will secretly push the lizard down the cliff."
"Isn't it a little... dangerous?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"Nope, but I'll believe you."
Sylvar was surprised: "You are braver than I thought."
"If I am going to die anyway, I'd rather die by being a hero, than by hard labor."
And that's what they agreed on, if they are going to be killed anyway, they rather die a heroic death than a pathetic one.
"Yeah, that's right! Look at me!"
So, with nothing to lose, both of them are giving their best shot to execute their plans to win the monster.
"No, you dumb ass! Me!"
And their plans start to work when the lizards finally decide to chase after Sylvar.
"Here it comes!"
The giant lizard rushes at Sylvar with terrifying speed, leaving him no time to think about anything else.
He sprints as fast as he can, so fast that he accidentally slips on the watery soup that was previously spilled on the ground.
"Shit!"
The soup causes him to fall to the ground, leaving him paralyzed from the impact as the lizard slowly approaches with saliva dripping from its mouth.
"Look at me, you son of a bitch!"
From behind, Shuku grabs and throws rocks at the lizard, attempting to lure it away from Sylvar. Even though it didn't feel any pain, the lizard was pissed by the constant pelting of small rocks on its head.
"That's right! Follow me!"
So, it turns to chase Shuku instead. He quickly gathers his strength, moving his legs, and runs as far away as possible towards the cliffs.
"This is a bad idea!" He thinks while being chased.
Running along the cliffs with the lizard still in pursuit, he searches for the right edge to execute the next part of their plan.
Seconds later, he finds it—the perfect position to push the lizard down the cliff. As he gets closer to the spot, he shouts out loud.
"Sylvar!"
"I'm coming!!"
Sylvar recovers from the slip and starts running toward their place while doing some sneaky tricks to avoid catching the lizard's attention.
The plan is going smoothly. Shuku easily grabs the lizard's attention, luring it near the edge of the cliffs, and Sylvar approaches it discreetly. Then, all of a sudden...
"It's not looking at us! Let's attack!"
The other slave, unaware of their plans, suddenly sees an opportunity to push the lizards down the cliffs. Without wasting a second, they immediately charge at the lizard.
"Charge!!"
While screaming to boost each other's motivation, Sylvar hears sudden noises and screams from behind. He immediately halts to stop the ones who are about to ruin their plan.
"No, you idiots!"
"Any moment now?!" Shuku continues running around the edge of the cliffs, keeping the lizard occupied and waiting for Sylvar.
However, there's a bigger problem that he needs to solve.
"You are being too loud! Get out of there!"
Sylvar hopelessly yells at the morons charging at the lizard with their all-or-nothing tactics. Unfortunately, his voice accidentally attracts the lizard's attention as he needs to yell louder than the others.
As Sylvar approaches the morons, he pushes all of them out of the way towards the lizard. The lizard, seeing this, uses its big and long tail to turn and swing it at Sylvar.
The tail was supposed to hit the other slaves, but since Sylvar pushes them away, he accidentally replaces them as the target.
The big tail hit the unlucky elf man, shot him up with high speed and force towards the wall where there's a sharp pointy stone poked out and penetrated through his stomach.
"SYLVAR!!!"
Shuku instantly ditches the plan and the lizard, rushing to his new elf friend who is now bleeding heavily, with a cup-sized hole in his stomach.
"GAAHHH!!! HELP!!!!"
With all the distraction gone, the lizard can refocus on its main business, to digest anyone it sees. It uses its bathtub-sized mouth to grab and then raises the mouth up to use gravity and force the "meal" to move downwards to its stomach.
"Sylvar!!"
Meanwhile, Shuku gets to Sylvar and watches helplessly in disbelief as he keeps bleeding a pool of blood without being able to do anything to help.
"Oh no... You're bleeding so much..."
Unlike Shuku, Sylvar stays calm. Breathing slowly, he grabs Shuku's shoulder and pulls him in closer.
"I don't have much time left, so please, listen... to me." He speaks weakly.
"Please, promise me, if you could find the Blood Blade... take it and use it to save my daughter... you are the only one I can trust, even though we just met... Promise me..."
Shuku hesitates at first, but upon hearing those sincere and pleading words, he grasps Sylvar's hand with his own and looks at him with determined eyes.
"I Promise."
"...Thank you..."
Sylvar then lets go of Shuku and rests on his back.
"She's everything to me... please... take care... of... her..."
Sylvar, took his last breath.
Right now, Shuku is unsure about his feelings. Is it sadness and grief over losing a friend? Is it anger and hate towards those responsible? Or is it worrying that he won't be able to keep the promise?
Maybe, a little of all.
"Such pathetic fools."
Those words. Come straight into Shuku's brain as soon as he hears it.
The superior doesn't even feel bad for them, instead, he looks at the slaves being devoured by the lizard with contempt and delight.
Seeing this snaps him back to reality, and he eventually understands everything.
It was never their fault that brought them to this situation. It never was. It's people like him, those who mistreat others just because they have some power and money, it's because of them that innocent people die and suffer. It's because of them that slavery exists, and it's because of them that Sylvar was killed.
Now he knows where the sources of their problems are, and he knows he needs to focus on entirely eradicating them out of his life, or even out of this world if he wants to live peacefully.
But right now, in this hopeless situation, he seems to have no solution. He looks around the area and looks at the superior, and then at the slaves being eaten by the lizard, and then he looks down at himself.
At his top naked body having nothing more than a shitty cloth to cover his genitalia and a metal slave collar that the bastard King gave him.
...
'The collar that the king gave him.' The collar that King GAVE him! Suddenly, his eyes light up like the sky as he realizes something even the superior isn't aware of. This realization doesn't just give him an insight, it gives him an idea.