His eyes were cold, emotionless. Feeling absolutely not threatened at all, the slavers' leader was standing right in front of us, his guard completely opened, as he carefully studied each one of us, stroking his chin. His men, however, were a bit more cautious. Their hands resting on their swords, they were ready to pounce at any time, were any of us to make the slightest suspicious move.
"You look strong," he eventually spoke, his eyes focused on Leven. "Number 4889, was it?"
"I'm honored that you remember my number, sir," Leven sarcastically spat with an arrogant smile, which the other slavers didn't miss. The leader, however, paid it no mind.
"So, what is it that you've done exactly?" he asked.
"He murdered two of our men the night he arrived," the secretary dude at his side responded. "Art was murdered in his sleep, and he got John right after, while he was trying to subdue him."
"Art and John, huh?" A grin appeared on the slavers' leader's face. "Pretty impressive."
"Well, they were slowpokes so it was easy," Leven taunted.
Falling for his provocation, a slaver came to grab him by his collar.
"You piece of shit! Your death is going to be slow and painful!"
"That's enough," the leader ordered, "I'm not finished here."
The slaver ground his teeth as he reluctantly let go of Leven, still glaring at him. So the leader's word is absolute, huh?
"It says on your report that it took a total of five people to take you down," the leader continued, impassive, "and that you managed to injure three of them before being completely subdued. You seem to have experience when it comes to fighting. What did you do for a living?"
"I cut down trees," Leven replied with a straight face, "It's just your men who are pathetically weak."
Offended, the slavers shot him a deadly glare. Their leader was the only one to be seemingly impressed by his boldness, judging by the smirk on his face.
"Strong and audacious, huh?" he noted. "I don't dislike it. Would you like to work for me?"
Leven frowned at his unexpected proposition, and he wasn't the only one. Outraged, a slaver immediately came forward to express his disapproval.
"Boss!" he shouted. "He killed Art and John!"
"I'm aware," the leader replied with a disinterested voice, "but if those two weren't able to defend themselves against a mere logger, it's their own fault. I have no need for weak men."
His harsh statement caused the slaver to flinch.
"But… Even if it's true, he's an insurgent! He rebelled once, he will do it again! A former slave like him can't be trusted!"
The leader sneered at these words.
"Trust?" he repeated with an ironic smile. "Like you think I trust any of you? You bunch of thugs are only here because I pay you. The moment a better opportunity to earn money presents itself, you will no doubt stab me in the back."
The slaver tried to disagree, but he couldn't find anything to retort.
"Money buys loyalty," the leader continued, before shifting his attention back to Leven, "and now, I'm offering to buy yours."
"You want to buy me?" Leven repeated with a hard expression, before a grin spread across his face. "Alright, I'm listening. How much are you offering?"
I frowned, giving Leven a condemning look. He can't be seriously considering his offer, right?
"One gold coin," the leader proposed.
His men all winced in synchronization, clearly disapproving of this offer.
"Boss, that's a bit…" the secretary dude tried to reason with him, but he was immediately cut off.
"Silence," the leader ordered. "If I say one gold coin, it's one gold coin."
As the slavers exchanged dubious looks, their leader turned to one of them.
"You," he designated the one who grabbed Leven by his collar just before, "bring him the money."
Despite grinding his teeth, the slaver complied. He glared at Leven and, without breaking the eye-contact a single second, he unwillingly brought a pouch full of coins. Then, he took a golden coin out of it and tossed it at his face.
"There," he said, just before spitting at his feet.
Ignoring his rude action, Leven looked down on the single golden coin who just fell on the ground.
"One golden coin?" he mumbled.
"A peasant like you should be satisfied with that, right?" the slaver added, his voice filled with contempt. "It's probably more money than you've ever seen in your entire life."
But Leven clearly disagreed.
"Satisfied?" he repeated, a grin breaking onto his face.
Something triggering within him, Leven suddenly pounced on the slaver. In a split second, he stole the knife at his waist and used it to slash his throat, not even leaving the poor man a chance to react. He died before he could even understand what was happening. The others, however, were quicker to react.
"Fuck!"
"That little bastard!"
"Grab him!"
Leven immediately tried to go for the leader, but his men didn't leave him the chance. In an instant, a swarm of slavers came to subdue him. Leven may have managed to put on a fight against five of them before, but this time, there were more than ten of them. He was quickly subdued, tackled to the ground.
Seemingly unfazed by this sudden attempt of murder towards him, the leader simply let out a long sigh.
"How disappointing," he said, "I guess I'll have to take that for a no?"
"You, son of a bitch!" Leven bellowed, struggling on the ground. "One golden coin? Are you fucking kidding me? Is that what human lives are worth to you? My wife… My daughter's lives... One golden coin?! Go to hell!"
The leader sighed once more.
"Such a waste… Hold him well," he ordered his men, "we'll take care of him just after I'm done with the other two."
"Fuck…! Come back here you bastard! Don't hide behind your men! Fight me fair and square!"
But the leader had no reason to listen to him. His interest in Leven now gone, he moved to Cottontail, completely ignoring the corpse at his feet.
"So this is the mutant girl?" he inquired.
"Yes, this is her," the secretary dude responded. "She is also quite a dangerous one. Apparently, she took down dozens of our men on her own."
"Interesting."
The slavers' leader stepped forward to better inspect her. However, Cottontail did not appreciate that. When he tried to reach her chin to raise her head, she immediately growled, threatening to bite his hand off.
"Another fierce one, I take it?" the leader grinned, seemingly amused by the little girl's attempt to intimidate him.
"And the chosen one," he finally moved onto me. "A pretty face indeed."
But the leader didn't linger on me for very long. Unlike with Leven and Cottontail, he quickly lost interest in me as he simply sighed complainingly.
"Such a waste, such a waste…" he mumbled.
He turned to his men.
"Alright, execute them all."
The slavers nodded at his order.
"Huh? You sure, boss?" One of them inquired. "Shouldn't we at least keep those two alive and sell them?"
"I have a reputation to keep, I can't sell disobedient slaves," the leader replied. "We don't have the time to discipline them and they're a symbol of rebellion. It's not worth it."
"Oh, alright…"
As the slavers came to drag us and line us up with the other insurgents, widely exposing us to the crowd, commotion rose among the slaves. It was just like Leven had predicted. The slavers' leader never had the intention to spare a single one of the rebels. This was a warning.
"I don't mean to press you, Aileen," Leven muttered with half-smile at my side, "but if you want to make anyone's stomach burst, now would be a really good time."
I smiled. He never misses the opportunity to joke around, does he? Despite the situation…
"Etch this into your memory, people," the leader declared, "this is what happens when you mess with me."
He marked a pause, turning in our direction, as the slavers were awaiting for his command.
"Any last words?"
"Yes, fuck you," Leven blurted out.
This time, the leader did not react positively to his boldness. Instead of an amused smile, his face showed nothing but disappointment. And as the other insurgents were certainly not going to add anything else, considering their mental state, he continued.
"Well, if there's nothing else…"
"I have a question," I finally spoke up.
The slavers' leader directed his attention to me.
"What is it?" he sighed, already disinterested in what I had to say.
"Where's Olivia?" I asked.
The leader squinted his eyes.
"Olivia? Who the fuck is Olivia?"
I turned my head, inspecting the row of insurgents.
"That guy's wife," I said, designating Troy as I finally spotted him a bit further. Unlike the other insurgents, Troy had been gagged. He was being held against the ground by two slavers, as he kept struggling, sending me all sorts of signals with his eyes to attract my attention.
"How the hell should I know that… Ed!" the slavers' leader called.
"Yes, boss?" the secretary dude replied.
"What happened to this guy's wife? Did we ever have her?"
"We did, but she died eight months ago."
…
Oh, for fuck's sake, you've got to be kidding me…
"So he said," the leader turned back to me.
I shifted my gaze to Troy. He was giving me a meaningful look.
For real? She's dead? What am I going to tell Axis? I promised to bring back his mother. I know I've done nothing but lie ever since I reincarnated in this world, but promises are different. I've always kept my promises. And now I'm going to have to tell that boy his mother died. And not recently on top of that. She died eight months ago. That was before we even met.
I clicked my tongue, glaring at the slaver.
"Don't give me that look," the secretary dude said, noticing my expression, "we didn't kill her. She was already unstable when she arrived, and she couldn't adapt herself to her new situation. She took her own life only a few days after arriving at the camp."
Even if that's true, she wouldn't have killed herself if it weren't for them.
"You said she died eight months ago," I pointed out. "In eight months, you've never thought about telling her husband about it? Didn't he come every day?"
According to the other slaves, Troy has been coming here quite regularly in order to pay the slavers and assure his wife's safety. He clearly wasn't aware about her death. And neither was Axis.
"He did, didn't he?" the slaver holding him down sneered. "That fool had no idea she was dead and still kept coming every single day to give us money. And when he finally found out, he flipped out and tried to start a rebellion!"
I don't blame him. Those jerks purposely hid that fact from him to take his money.
"He owed us money, anyway," the secretary dude explained, indifferently. "What would it have changed to tell him about it? If it wasn't for her, he probably wouldn't have paid us back."
"It was his wife, he deserved to know."
"So what?" the slavers' leader interjected, slowly losing patience. "I don't care if she was someone's wife, daughter or mother, she died. It's just as simple as that. End of the story. Can we move on now?"
But Troy clearly disagreed. His furious eyes cast on the leader, he was trying to grumble something through the piece of cloth he was biting.
"What? You got something to say?" the leader taunted, a smirk on his face. He approached Troy, crouching down on him. "An insect like you doesn't get to say anything. Your wife died because she was weak. She died because you are weak. Don't blame it on me if you weren't able to protect her."
"What a piece of shit…." Leven muttered, loud enough for the others to hear.
The leader got up, shifting his gaze to him.
"I may be a piece of shit," he admitted, "but you, you are going to die."
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Ozen_Ice: we're approaching the end of volume 2, only two chapters left.