Soon after, both boys and girls moved through the corridor
towards a certain direction. Mino was going to head out, but he
was forcefully pushed back by Zay.
Losing his balance, he fell
down on his butt. Furloc was still by his side, a strangely apologetic look on his face. He seemed to be struggling to tell
something.
Following a painful struggle, he turned his sweaty
visage and said,
"Ummm....I'm going..."
Mino instantaneously replied, "Yeah let's go, I'm hungry as hell."
Just when they reached the door, Mino felt a hand strongly grip
his shoulder. Taking a sidelong glance, he found Doro was
stopping him.
Doro calmly stated, "You haven't worked. So you won't be
getting the free meal."
Mino's face turned livid!
"Why the fuck it's free then?!"
"Members only feature..."
Doro replied nonchalantly, not giving
a shit to Mino's hunger. Why would he, honestly?
He continued,
"...and you haven't become a member yet. From tomorrow you
would be following the same routine everyone does, then only
you will be entitled to member only privileges."
"What are the other privileges?" Mino asked curiously.
"Only this, nothing else."
Finishing his words, he threw Mino back into the cell.
"Ow!"
Falling down on his butt again, he stood up while rubbing his
behind. His insides were burning due to hunger, but Mino knew
that it was probably the beginning of his sufferings.
As he closed his eyes and sighed while rubbing his empty
stomach, Mino heard footsteps. Not a hallucination, but real ones.
"Oi! Eat up! Don't rub your stomach like some pregnant woman!
Your physique is pathetic enough, honestly you would die in
physical training next morning if you don't eat anything."
Mino turned his head and found Iso standing. Iso tossed an
apple over to him. He looked over to him and Iso nodded before
moving on.
[This is much better than nothing though... and Iso seems like a
good person.]
Wolfing down the apple in mere seconds, Mino huddled down,
head buried between his knees. After some time, he started to
perform some breathing exercises he had seen in YouTube
videos and never even bothered to try them out.
"Let's hope I survive."
While performing breathing exercises, Mino decided to practise
some more. He meditated to help build his focus up. Nothing
more, nothing less.
Tomorrow he was going to meet up with the mysterious girl who said she would give him instructions to feel
and manipulate mana.
His body was heavy even though he
hadn't stayed awake for the whole day. There was a slight
discomfort in his head too, which didn't want to go away.
Mino's eyes started drooping. It was only a few yawns after
which he hit the sack. Although he hit his head on the hard wall
in the process of falling asleep.
But he had endured a whole
lotta head injuries and didn't seem to mind much.
Soon he was drifting in the dreamlands...and this time he didn't
have any awkward or mysterious dreams.
======================
"Urmmm...."
Mino was letting out weird grunts in his sleep. Why so? Was
anybody servicing him? Well, of course not yo perv!
Someone
was repeatedly rocking him to wake him up.
"Mino, wake up! We are supposed to wake up now! Hey! You
will be punished if you don't wake up on time!"
It was Furloc. He had woken a bit earlier before the designated
time, and was trying to wake Mino up. He didn't want him to get
punishment yet again.
"Hahaha! He's gonna get his ass whooped again!"
A dark red haired boy with ochre eyes snickered while tidying
up his own hair. Then he turned towards Zay and said,
"Boss!
C'mon, won't you help this poor guy by saving him from
punishment, haha!"
Ending his words with a chuckle, he turned towards Zay.
"Heh Raye, well said. As the boss, I sure have these annoying
responsibilities..." he cracked his knuckles and his neck noisily
before continuing, "... then let's get it over with."
"Oh no you don't."
A firm resistance from Furloc.
"Hmph now it's Furloc? You forgot how much of a wimp you
are? Wanna let me show your place? Will I send you to the
gutters you belong to? Didn't I already show you that who's the
boss?"
Zay stood up, ready for some fisticuffs.
Furloc gave Zay a bitter look and started shaking Mino harder.
[Damn it Mino wake up! How much of a deep sleeper were
you?!]
"Tch. It pains me to see the former boss interacting and even
trying to protect that worthless shit."
"Your junk is worthless you blockhead rhino!"
"FURLOC!!! YOU ARE FUCKING CROSSING LIMITS!"
Now Zay was absolutely livid. His muscles tensed and bulged,
veins showing. Unhesitatingly, he threw a punch against Furloc packed
with intense strength.
"Hiyah!"
That fist was easily stopped with a cross formation Furloc made
with both of his arms. They hurt a little though.
"What's happening!"
All this commotion had woken Mino up. He quickly sat up,
rubbing his eyes. He clutched his stomach, he was feeling
hungry.
Ignoring the hunger, he jostled Furloc with his elbow and asked,
"Hey Furloc. What's the time?"
"Time? Let's get going to the training ground. We will get to
know the time there. Come follow me."
"Now the former leader is even guiding that blob of sludge. Heh,
shame on you Furloc. And you too, Mino. Well, haha, you are a cripple. You should dig a hole, crawl in it and just die."
It seemed like Zay wasn't done with his taunts yet.
However, a single thing in his words piqued Mino's curiosity.
"Furloc...what did he just-"
He was cut short. Even before he completed his sentence,
Furloc started explaining him, "Before Zay, I was the boss here.
He thrashed me and didn't leave a chance to humiliate me in
front of everyone. My gang and his gang fought a whole lot of
times. At first we used to win. But upon winning, we just left
them alone. It was not our policy to bully the weak, torture the
defeated you see."
He paused for a small bit to take in a deep breath, and his tone turned much more serious.
" But we lost, and they were not as forgiving.
They humiliated us in front of everyone, kept on beating our
ragged bodies, tossing us here and there with hands
conjured with earth magic and a whole other things. Now, the majority accepts him as the
boss. He exploits them, but they can't retaliate back. He and his
group of nine lackeys once violently beat everyone who revolted
against him. Some developed cold feet and withdrew on seeing
his mercilessness."
"Makes sense...." Mino thought.
"I am training, hoping to catch up to him. This
time I'll pay him back tenfold for the humiliation. And yeah, I'll
introduce you to my gang okay? Now let's hurry up!"
Furloc quickened his pace, so did Mino. But his mind was
spinning since such drastic facts were loaded into his brain in
such a short interval of time.
His body shuddered when he
heard Furloc's hatred laced voice. And his respect for him grew
too. He was glad to receive him as a friend.
"What do you mean by exploit?"
Mino couldn't help but feel uneasy when he heard this word.
"He spends his time training and forces others to do his and his
gang's share of work. Pretty simple, right? Once they members didn't
collect anything, hoping to see him punished at the cost of
themselves getting punished too. They enjoyed that, but the
sufferin they received afterwards wasn't worth it. Also, on the event they got something
rare in their possession, he would claim that to be his own. He
has even tried to snatch my and my gang's. But since there are four of us, so
he doesn't care much now. When we collect just about enough for
ourselves, he just leaves us be. Twenty five boys work under
him. Zay, of course isn't satisfied with making them collect just
about enough to fill the daily amount, but makes them collect
even more as such so that he and his gang gets some extra perks.
Those who fail are beat up badly. I was surprised that Sir Iso
interfered in these internal affairs and saved your skin, he normally doesn't. Just sends Calibri here."
Mino was curious about what to 'collect', but he didn't want to
bother Furloc anymore and asked himself to be patient instead.
After a five minutes jog, Mino and Furloc reached the training
grounds. Mino reminded himself of what he needed to do once
again.