The black-beard chubby man and his underlings where unable to do anything, mocked and out smarted by a mere child in front of everyone. Realizing he had to somehow save face and show what it meant to mess with him the black-bearded man approached Arat, seeing that the man was coming to attack him Arat quickly stood up and grabbed his clenched fists, to everyone's surprise he held his ground against an opponent as large as the chubby man.
At first, the two guards considered intervening, but since their job was typically boring, they found this fight entertaining just like the others, and let the two go at it. Arat, holding a piece of dry bread in his mouth, bit down hard as he summoned all his strength to push the chubby man back.
Why is no one doing anything? Are they watching? Doesn't this not look dangerous to them? come on stand up and get this fat bear away from me you scum. Seems like they rather watch the fight.
From inside the crowd someone shouted
"Beat him kid."
Following that the slaves grew rather happy and cheered Arat to beat up the chubby man, Fernand and Conrad unlike the rest, kept watching silently. The bald man who saw that the more he continued the more foolish he looked, glanced at Arat's bandaged leg. Seizing the opportunity he held Arat's hands and threw a kick toward his injured leg.
Arat cried out sharply in pain, losing his strength. Allowing the bald chubby man to bend his hands. pressing down even harder, if he could make Arat fall on the ground and sit on him, victory would be his. But Arat's eyes began to glow. The bald man hesitated, distracted by the sudden emerald-green light. A surge of energy rushed through Arat's body, and an illusory red layer appeared before his eyes.
He swallowed the bread down his throat, and roared like a beast. The sound was so loud that it frightened everyone. And some of the other bandits rushed over as they heard it. The fat bald man kept pressing down, even though he was taller, heavier and more masculine he was being pushed back by Arat.
The crowd was baffled, Fernand's eyebrows shot up as his eyes widened. Arat pushed the bald man back and let go of one of his hands, and attacked him with his sharp over-grown nails, slashing five deep claw marks into the man's fat stomach. The bald man let go of Arat's hand, staggered back, and clutched his bleeding stomach.
Arat pounced at him, throwing the man on the ground and sitting on him, tearing into him with his sharp claw-like nails, piercing skin and fabric alike, blood gushed from the man's wounds as he begged for help. Seeing the fight escalate, the two guards rushed in, trying to pull Arat away as they had before.
Soon, the other bandits arrived, drawn by all the commotion. Finally their leader came over to see what had happened, before him two of his men dragged the bloody chubby man outside bandaging him to stop the bleeding. seeing this, he shouted.
"Make way!"
as he forced his way to the front. His tall and large body made it easier to be noticed by the others and get through them
Pushing the crowd aside he saw Arat, who was cornered as men with swords and spears surrounded him and kept him away at a safe distance. The bandit leader shouted.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Everything stopped, including Arat. One of the guards stepped forward and explained,
"Boss, this fatty grappled with the devil child. At first, it was funny, so we didn't stop it. But then the kid started tearing him apart."
A fist flew toward the guards nose, connecting with a sickening crack as blood splattered everywhere from his broken nose.
"Your f*cking duty is to keep watch that these goods remain safe until we sell them, and you let something like this happen? You found it funny? Huh?."
The bandit leader, filled with fury, yelled at the guard. He kicked him in the stomach while he lay collapsed on the ground from the heavy punch.
"Huh? Answer me?"
"I'm sorry boss, I will never le.."
Another kick struck his side. forcing all the air from the poor guard's lungs. The weight and power of the tall, heavy man's blows were unbearable.
"Shut up, moron"
He looked at Fred and another man beside him.
"Get him out of my sight."
His gaze fell on Arat, his nails soaked in blood as he held the guards back, intimidating them by his wild, animalistic violence. The leader of the bandits looked at Mackenzie.
"Did you feed him anything?"
"No, boss, we had to starve him until he.."
"Until what? He ain't a f*cking human you stupid idiot, if you don't feed him he will feed himself by killing the others."
He then sighed.
"Take care of this mess."
Then left. Some of the bandits exchanged meaningful glances at Mackenzie, laughing inwardly at his foolishness. The thin man scowled and went inside a near then after a moment he came out carrying a piece of raw turkey leg and threw it inside the the fence near Arat. Immediately after that, Arat began eating. He lost interest in the others and stopped lunging at them. The bandits took this opportunity to step out and close the wooden fence that served as the gate.
The other slaves sat as far away as possible from Arat, who was busy eating a turkey leg, seated diagonally from the group in the corner. Once all that remained of the turkey was a bare bone, Arat pulled his knees to his chest, locking his hands around them, and rocked back and forth slowly to calm down himself. His body felt warm and the wound on his leg had reopened due to the bald man's kick and his own rise of blood pressure.
After about an hour Arat felt the heat in his body fade, The red haze that clouded his vision was almost gone as well. he kept staring at the others, especially Fernand and Conrad who where looking at him differently now. Fernand, tired of the silence, approached and sat in the middle of the area, facing Arat.
"You taught him a good lesson back there. He bullied the others and got their food, that's how he was this damn fat despite being here for some time."
The others glanced at Fernand, some with furious expressions, others with curiosity, wondering what his intentions were. The man before them had just praised a devil for almost killing one of his fellow slaves. Fernand continued
"When we talked earlier that night, you said you were on the run, who you were running from?"
"Some female knights, they had devilish looks."
"Devil brides?"
Fernand asked.
"Yeah, that was what they were called."
How did you run away from them?" one of the men in the crowd, a brown-haired fellow with dark-brown eyes, chimed in.
Mr. Conrad and Mr. Fernand are talking with me openly so that everyone else can hear us too, what are they after? I guess I'll play along and see where this goes? Maybe they just wanna change the mood.
"I distracted them and ran over the mountain, one of them however wasn't fooled and remained there, I was forced to fight her. She was too strong and almost beat me, but I managed to land a blow on her leg and out run her in the end."
"You fought a devil bride?"
Asked the man, his eyes opened wide and his eye brows raised like the others, unable to believe what they had just heard.
Arat nodded his head as a yes.
"One versus one?"
"Yes, she was a monster I let my guard down once and she punched me so hard that I flew several meters and got slammed to a tree. Fernand and Conrad succeeded in drawing the slaves into the conversation. The men, who had been trapped here and bored to death, began bombarding Arat with all sorts of questions.
Is this what Mr. Fernand was after? Make them see me more human and less devil?
The more Arat shared, the more the group began to relax. They were now talking to him like he was a normal child. Arat told them about how he healed an arrow wound in his chest using potions without mentioning Mr. Strangers help, and how he survived the two hunters who wanted to kill him. The men listened like children hearing a fairytale. Arat even lifted his shirt and showed them the scar on his chest as proof.
By the time he finished, the sun was sinking behind the mountains. Fernand seized the opportunity and showed the knife he had stolen to everyone, and thanked Arat who had helped him pull it off by putting up an act with Conrad and how he untied his ropes earlier.
The other slaves stared at Arat in disbelief. Following that Fernand convinced them to help him steal some food, promising them they could eat meat, rum and anything else he could steal from there.
The other slaves looked baffled at Art, who had chewed Fernand's ropes allowing all this to happen. With that, they all waited until Mackenzie and the middle aged man gave them their food, and left, even though he was punished by his boss because of Arat, he still gave him a piece of bread. After some time had passed since they left, Fernand nodded at the others, signaling the start of their plan.