[July, 1300]
The noble European-style mansion, a symbol of wealth and status, proudly boasts its medieval architecture. Built on a sturdy stone foundation, it features a towering peaked roof and intricately decorated stained glass windows. The craftsmanship flourishes with elaborate stone structures, intricately carved crossbeams, decorative motifs, and expansive walls that enhance the mansion's grandeur. Inside, luxury abounds with wooden framed interiors adorned with exquisite wood carvings and opulent tapestries depicting historically significant scenes.
The grand hall serves as the focal point for social gatherings, boasting long wooden tables and high-backed chairs for feasting and conversation. The private chambers exude comfort and elegance, with canopy beds draped in luxurious fabrics and intricately crafted metal chests. Throughout the mansion, candlelight dances on wall sconces and metal chandeliers, casting a warm glow on the exquisite furnishings, enhancing the aristocratic elegance.
In the grand hall, a lavish banquet unfolds, attended by nobles and counts from across the Great Empire of Mikhland. Upon the long table adorned with purple tablecloths embroidered in gold thread, an array of dishes is laid out: grilled venison, roasted capons, wild boar, rabbit stewed in wine sauce, small diced truffles, hearty vegetable soup, red apples stewed in wine, and a large bowl filled with the finest local wines made from the best grapes of the region.
Count Heilop, the host of the feast, has been drunk for some time, his eyes fixed on the young, graceful, and beautiful countesses. Two maid servants gently escort him to his room. Lelia, the count's 14-year-old daughter, a kind-hearted girl with short blonde hair and violet eyes, assists the maids and guides her father back to his room. Menia, his beautiful wife eight years his junior, lovingly helps him into bed, as they often do.
Meanwhile, Vilad, a powerful female knight with long black hair and dark brown eyes, dressed simply in a blue cloak, silently observes the festivities, occasionally glancing out from the balcony. Many of the counts and nobles are now heavily intoxicated, while the countesses and noble ladies gossip in groups.
Lelia approaches Vilad. "The magic barrier has been established, and twelve stone golems have been deployed around the mansion. I am ensuring top-notch security," Vilad bows respectfully.
"No need for formalities, Knight Vilad," Lelia nods with a gracious smile, "But why such stringent defenses? This security seems sufficient to withstand an army of a thousand by the empire's standards!"
"Always prioritizing safety, especially for kind-hearted souls like yourself, my lady," Vilad smiles and gently pats Lelia's head, the girl knight was a whole head taller than Lelia.
"That's right, that's right, a perfect person like you must be engaged to me, right?", a handsome baron approached Lelia, reached out to rub her cheek, Lelia felt awkward, Vilad I was annoyed so I pushed his hand away.
The baron looked angry, glared at Vilad, pulled out his long sword and challenged him. Vilad did not give in, pulled out his long sword, prepared to duel with him. Lelia tried to stop the conflict from escalating, but someone stepped in to resolve it. A slave man with a long beard, in tattered clothes, holding a spear in his hand attacked the baron. Vilad reacted quickly, took down the slave, and tried to heal the man with magic. Everyone was panicking, the commotion grew louder, the uneasiness was spreading about the appearance of a rebellious slave.
"He's fine, just a little difficult but still can be saved.", Vilad sighed, looking at the people at the party.
Lelia was so scared that she stood still.
Another male slave angrily held a hoe and was about to strike Lelia when Vilad promptly cast the Fireball spell, launching a fireball that seriously injured him on the spot.
"This is the second floor, the doors haven't been opened yet, the slaves climbed up? They also took down 12 stone golems that are 7 meters tall?", a middle-aged count shouted in panic.
"These are Heilop's slaves!", another baron shouted.
"They don't know how to use magic, don't know any battle tactics, and aren't armed. How did they break the barrier, take down the golems, and climb in here!", a countess exclaimed in panic.
"There must be someone supporting them. Everyone, calm down, I will protect you and find out who the leader is!", Vilad reassured the people present.
"No need, I'll say it, it's us.", a man in a steel knight's armor, with two long swords, shinier than usual, walked towards Vilad, stopping only 5 meters away from her. Lelia was even more frightened when the man's right eye glowed red in the pitch black inside the armor.
The already frightened crowd was even more terrified by the appearance of a stranger, a group of 20 armed slaves following him.
More than 40 counts and barons, all the male nobles in the party and more than 60 bodyguards following him drew their swords, all of them casting Enhancement magic on their bodies and weapons to gain the most advantage.
"So that's all you have, rebel knight? We have five times more than you and the rebel slaves!", Vilad firmly held his sword, speaking to the stranger with a firm tone.
"I know, but those nobles are even drunk.", the man in the knight armor threw two swords towards the nobles. The two swords flew quickly and took down 12 people on the spot before being blocked by the Magic Barrier of the other two barons. The two swords then flew back to his position. Vilad did not hesitate, directly rushing towards him. This guy was no pushover either, Vilad slashed from the right, he blocked, Vilad slashed from the left, he blocked, Vilad slashed at the thigh, he blocked,… the vicious cycle continued. The other two counts with swords and enhancement effects also rushed forward to support Vilad. The one in the knight armor struggled to dodge all the attacks from Vilad and the two nobles, while launching counterattacks. Suddenly, more than 100 other slaves rushed out from the main door, combining with the 20 slaves who had arrived before, together fighting the nobles who had the enhancement effect but were still not fully awake. Lelia did not leave yet, she stayed behind to support Vilad by casting Energy Balls at the one in the knight armor. The other countesses and baronesses fled, and they were blocked on both sides as other groups of rebel slaves rushed in. A melee broke out within the mansion itself.
Hai, in a strange cloak that was black on the outside and a faintly glowing green on the inside, wearing a green demon mask, silently watched the melee. The last golem fell and broke into pieces, Hai turned his head to look, it was Quang Minh in a typical adventurer outfit with brown leather boots, brown leather gloves, an opaque white leather jacket, a brown leather belt and a pair of normal brown leather pants, holding a halberd with a sharp tip and pointing in all directions, wearing a green adventurer hat. Everything was normal except for the fact that he was wearing glasses.
"You're finally here, it's very chaotic inside.", Hai looked towards the mansion.
"Do we need to intervene?", Quang Minh asked.
"No need! Van Minh, Truong and Ky are enough in there, we just need to wait and block reinforcements if there are any.", T. Hai replied.
"Let me ask: Ky and I turned from human to half-demon because of exposure to negative energy from the demons that Heilop summoned. So what kind of race did you, Van Minh and Truong turn into?", Quang Minh replied.
"Wait, half-demon is different from semi-demon. Half-demon is similar to human in skin color, hair structure, has the ability to recover, endurance, speed, physical strength much better than human and slightly better than semi-demon, but has worse vision, cannot see souls, does not have tail, horns and wings to fly like semi-demon, and semi-demon usually has skin color of hot iron, while half-demon is similar to human skin color. Remember to distinguish these two races, they are different but not the same so you can randomly classify them. Semi-demon is larger than half-demon and human", Hai replied, "I have to ask Van Minh to draw a board to clearly show the similarities and differences between these two races."
"I know, and I am qualified to be classified as a half-demon, it's just that this race has been extinct for a long time, how the hell do semi-demons still exist, so people in this world are confused.", Quang Minh lamented, "You haven't answered my previous question? Oh, and also, Ky and I are the result of Heilop's random experiments, then I was thrown into forced labor with the task of picking herbs, hunting animals and taking their skin, fur and meat for another 3 months, so miserable, no word in the dictionary can describe it, and you guys?", Quang Minh said.
"Not much better than you…", Hai stroked his chin, "I turned into Corrithians when I touched a strange green crystal while being forced to dig for gold in a gold mine in Heilop's territory, now I know this is the decomposed and crystallized body of this race, and they are also extinct for a long time. I was so hungry that I tried to chew on it to see if it was good, and it was, and I accidentally chewed on the only Corrithian crystal found to date, because this thing is so old that people believe it is just a legend. This race has the characteristic of having the same eye and hair color as me now," Hai pointed at the light green eyes and hair that used to be black, "They also have the ability to resist acid and corrosive blood when exposed to air and contact with other organic materials.", Hai added.
"What about Van Minh and Truong? What were they captured for and why did they transform into some strange race?", Quang Minh asked.
"Van Minh transformed into Fleshmorph, Truong transformed into Metaller. You have to ask them to know their abilities. Although these two races are said to still exist, the island they mainly inhabit is not explored much.", Hai replied.
Quang Minh nodded slightly, then approached a 5 meter deep hole, below was a structure with a pedestal with hanging dodecahedron-shaped metal bars made of transparent glass and a Manatite sphere hanging in the center, one side was now broken and the Manatite sphere was cracked, no longer emitting the usual blue light. It was a standard magical barrier creation device, Quang Minh recognized it immediately. Looking at Hai who had fallen asleep, Quang Minh deduced something…
"Lelia, maybe you should check on your parents now!", the red eyes of the stranger in the knight armor stared at Lelia. Vilad was seriously injured, the two nobles had slashed and killed him savagely. Lelia realized the danger, immediately ran back to her room, desperately rushed through the chaos in the hallway, and rushed into her parents' bedroom.
"Father, mother, are you two okay?", Lelia shouted.
The two did not answer, Heilop was hugging his wife Menia who was crying as if he had just witnessed something terrible. Lelia repeated the question a few more times, the two still ignored her, not paying any attention to her, their eyes were still shocked after witnessing that mysterious horror, a large piece of the window was broken. In just one night, she had witnessed too many things…
"How do you feel about life in another world? "Happy?", Van Minh, leaving Heilop's bedroom, the man in the black cloak walked towards Quang Minh, asked, wiping the blood on his face with a white handkerchief.
"No, no, no! Being summoned unexpectedly, I thought I would be a hero like in anime, but no, this world summons people from other worlds to be slaves, the Catholic Church here even supports this, killing anyone from other worlds who come to rebel.", Quang Minh replied angrily.
"At least they summoned five of us at the same time, so we have a little advantage from the beginning to survive. Let's run away quickly, if the executioners of the Catholic Church here find out and track us down, we won't be able to escape even if we run to heaven.", Van Minh said.
"Let's wait for Ky and Truong to run out of the mansion.", Quang Minh said.
Ky and Truong, both in knight armor, also ran out at this time, Hai woke up after a short nap. Ky was the one in the knight armor, Truong was the other one leading the slaves blocking the escape route.
"Run everyone, the executioner of the Catholic Church of this world, the Cazadors are here.", the flames with the knights on horseback could be seen from afar.
"Run!!!", Truong shouted in panic.
Quang Minh shouted for everyone to run. The five of them fled from the mansion that night. The rebel slaves were captured and executed that night, the Cazadors also offered a bounty of 2 gold coins for those who captured one of the five alive, the value was halved if only their bodies were found.
A company of Cazadors consisting of 100 knights with 50 professional hunting dogs searched for the five people who were said to be the leaders of a slave rebellion, starting a tracking campaign, the hunting dogs found a final destination, a burnt-out hut. Inside, they found five charred bodies that looked similar to the other five, the Cazadors believed that the other five had committed suicide and removed the wanted posters and bounties at dawn, before any of the villagers had woken up.
Van Minh, watching the Cazadors with steel armor that could resist both physical and magical damage leave the hut in disappointment, chuckled. "Those five bodies are fake, they're just pieces of different animal corpses. Step 1 done… I'm so tired of working underground to mine for iron…"