After Robins failed rescue attempt Lili had feared the worst. She feared having her and Robins lives be completely in the hands of these strangers, these criminals. Most of all she feared for herself and her young girlish body. Despite her wanting to believe herself to actually be a boy, nobody else saw her as such and so she did fear these men actually doing something horrible to her, but in the end, nothing happened.
Since Lili didn't have thename of a rich family to give to the brothers since she didn't even have a family, to begin with, the brothers gave Lili and Robin a simple proposal. The brothers offered the two of them freedom if they could earn their worth for an unspecified amount of time. And, if either of the two were to escape then the other would be killed and like so their fates were bound to one another.
To Lili, all of this sounded like nothing more than giving them a false hope to hold onto as they were enslaved, but at the moment Lili didn't have anything to bargain with. So she kept her head down and did as she was told.
The bright side to this situation was that these 4 brothers had a fifth brother named Kane and he had a plan. While it wasn't much of a relief it did mean that they had a real use for her and Robin and wouldn't just use them up and then kill them, hopefully.
For whatever reason these brothers intended to gather as much money as possible, to what end she was not told.
So Lili and Robin were put to work. Robin was made to help the thin man with hunting, preparing the animals for eating, cutting wood and typical stuff dudes usually do while camping.
Lili on the other hand was made to do all the not-so-glorious stuff like cooking, cleaning and entering the men with her campfire songs. Although it was not glorious or super cool she did find it satisfying enough to do without complaints.
The reason she was forced to do these things was because when asked Lili had answered honestly and said that these were things that she was good at. Her small body at this time was not good for fighting, but she did know a thing or two about hygiene and cooking thanks to her previous life's education. Also, she had been taking care of herself all this time here in this world, so taking care of a few others wouldn't be a problem for her.
Like so life with these four brothers and Robin seemed like it wouldn't be so bad and maybe one day in the future when she was a bit older and stronger she could then escape or just be released.
The real problem here was actually Robin who like she was chained to the fat man which meant that they were now constantly pretty much together, especially during the nights.
Already on their very next night after getting branded as slaves Lili and Robin had been lying next to each other close to the campfire. As they had no tents they just lay on the ground under the starlit sky.
As she tried to lay on her back and get some sleep Robin was right next to her on his side constantly looking at her. When she asked.
"What are you doing?
He said.
"I'm keeping an eye on you. I want to make sure you're safe."
Hearing this Lili thought that this was actually pretty nice of him and so she said.
"Thank you, Robin. But you really shouldn't worry as it's not like I'm going anywhere, since you know, I'm chained up just like you."
After that Robin said nothing and Lili started to slowly fall asleep until she felt someone grabbing at her hand. Alarmed by this Lili's eyes shot open and she noticed Robin holding her hand.
Feeling a bit creeped out by this she pulled her hand away and said.
"What are you doing?"
Robin just looked at her innocently as he then said.
"Oh I'm sorry, I just thought to comfort you. My father always says that it's a man's job to keep his woman happy and safe. I just want to make sure you're ok."
Hearing this Lili's face immediately turned ugly as she looked at the boy. Did this teenage boy just talk about her as his woman?
Feeling creeped out by this boys actions and words Lili wanted to run, but she quickly calmed down as she remembered his young age. Taking a moment to think Lili figured that most likely Robin was the one in need of comfort, so with this in mind she used her one good arm to pat the boy on his head as she said.
"There, there Robin. Everything is ok, I am right here. Now close your eyes and go asleep."
With this said Lili pulled her hand away and closed her eyes. Then she heard Robin speak again and said.
"If you're cold, I could warm you up with my body or you could use my arm as a pillow."
Now Lili just felt annoyed by this boy as she said.
"Goodnight Robin."
After that, no more words were said between the two. Despite this Lili could feel Robins eyes staring intensely at her until the very last moment when she finally managed to fall asleep. Like this the first night passed by.
During the very next day, Lili found Robin still staring at her as he said.
"Good morning Lili. I must say that your skin is as pure as the white peddles of the Lili flower. To see such beauty in the morning truly brings joy to my manly heart."
Not having been fully awoken to the day and feeling her left arm still hurting and being quite unresponsive with only her fingers slightly moving, Lili hardly took notice of the boys words as she said.
"Yeah, thanks, Robin. Good morning to you also."
After that to Lili's relief, the thin man had dragged Robin along with him as they went to scout ahead. As they did this, Lili was left to prepare the food as the 3 other brothers helped her out.
Hardly any words were said between them, but Lili did quickly notice differences in the brothers. The short one seemed like the silent type, he seemed to like to play with his daggers and sleep a lot or maybe that was just because he had almost just died from Robins arrow and was now recovering.
The muscular one on the other hand seemed to like to chop wood and look at his own muscles. He also was a big fan of eating meat which the fat man didn't like.
Speaking of the fat one he was actually the nicest of the bunch as he liked to eat a lot and talk a lot about eating and cooking with Lili. However, there was this constant feeling that Lili got off of the guy that if she ever gave the man even the smallest of reasons to kill her then he would do so.
Overall the following few days went pretty well in Lili's opinion. They had almost already made it back to the small stone bridge. As long as she didn't do anything stupid then all seemed like it would go well.
All she really worried about was the nights, as during that time Robin was with her and every day he seemed to be trying to get closer and closer to her. But he didn't do it in a way as men would get closer to one another and become friends. No, Robin instead acted like a little boy trying to win the heart of his first school crush. To tackle this problem she came up with a genius solution.
On the next day as they finally got back onto the bridge they didn't head for Einsway village, instead they went left towards some other village.
Noticing this familiar road, Lili felt hopeful again that maybe someone would come and save her. Or maybe, just maybe she might stumble onto her only human friend in this world named Art and he might be able to do it. Although, the idea of him saving her once more did feel quite embarrassing. The best outcome would be if she actually managed to save herself instead.
The road was quiet and without much of any traffic. Some wagons transporting grain could be seen along the way as well as some wondering peasants, but once it started to get dark all traffic then stopped as did they.
Along the way Lili had quickly noticed that none of the people on the road seemed hardly moved by the sight of a small girl and a teenage boy in chains. At most, they earned some glances and a few whispers were heard, but that was it.
Lili could not help but wonder, was slavery truly just a normal thing in this world? To her, the people's reactions seemed the same as if someone were simply just walking their dog. Sure some dogs were more exotic than others and as such earned different types of looks, but in the end, they were just dogs and nobody was coming to save them.
After setting up camp which basically just meant setting up a campfire and eating. Lili soon found herself next to Robin again. Now was the perfect time to implement her plan as she didn't go asleep and insisted started to doing squats, abs and whatever other exercises she could do while chained and not having her left arm working.
It had already been almost a week since she last had done these. Sure now she couldn't do anything with her left arm so her movements were limited, but she did whatever she could.
Like so she planned on building strength to defeat these brothers and whatever else came into her path. Maybe if she did enough leg exercises and abs then she might just become strong enough to crush watermelons between her legs. The only difference here was that she intended to crush the men's necks or just choke them out with her legs.
While thinking on this she noticed Robin looking at her once more. This time he seemed a bit amused but confused at the same time. This was exactly what she wanted, now that she had his attention she just needed to get him to join her in exercise.
If she couldn't become strong enough to beat these men and escape then what if she could make Robin strong and use him as her weapon?
While doing squats Lili looked at Robin and said.
"Come on Robin, join me. But be careful as not to wake the brothers."
Robin seemed quite confused as he didn't move a muscle and just said.
"Join you in what? What is it that you're even doing? Are you trying to cast a spell or something? Is that some kind of a native ritual? My father used to tell me bedtime stories about them and their strange magic."
Hearing this, Lili now felt confused as she said.
"No Robin. What are you talking about? I'm clearly exercising and trying to build up strength. You know, typical muscle exercises. If you wanna get stronger in something then you need to do that something. Like I want stronger legs, so I then train my legs."
Thinking for a moment on her words Robin then said.
"Oh, I see. Yeah, I heard of that. Isn't that the same thing the knights do to get strong as well? Where did you learn to do that?"
Annoyed by the boys idiotic questions, Lili couldn't help but say.
"Robin, stop asking questions already and just join me, that is if you want to become big and strong like those knights."
After saying this Robin didn't hesitate to join her, but he still kept on insisting to ask where had she learned of these things and if they really even worked.
The boys question's seriously confused her but as they started to train it quickly became obvious to her that he had never even done the most basic of exercises. The boys firm was all over the place and when she asked him to demonstrate a basic pushup to her, the boy did not know what she spoke of.
That is when realization finally hit her and she understood. This country bumpkin truly knew nothing about building up muscle or exercising.
After seeing Art and his perfectly sculpted God-like physique she had assumed that basic bodyweight exercises were a normal thing in this world.
Now she really needed to rethink her plan of teaching Robin to become her weapon. What other basic skills might he also be lacking? Could she turn Robin into a beast of a man like Art, she wondered?
While thinking of these things Lili decided to just do a basic half an hour workout with Robin just to get him used to all the moves. Though it was just a quick and basic exercise Robin already seemed quite tired and to her great relief, the boy actually fell asleep before her.
No more were there any creepy eyes on her as she slept. Now there was only peace in the night. And, like so her first days as a slave went by.