The removal of the security mode from all the shackles took about 6-7 hours. Right now, Sam was sitting in the corner of the room, next to the cursed black box, examining his hand. He was still trying to feel the response from his hand so he could interact with it again. Meanwhile, Fifth was working on the last of the shackles on the now-conscious Octopus-slave. She decided to unlock all the shackles, saying, "It will help me improve my technical skills."
No one protested this. During this time, they had managed to eat the guards' rations, and everyone was in high spirits, except for the guards themselves.
Sam noticed that the Hunter sometimes chatted with Frank. Most of their conversations were about the desert and what would happen next. Sam gleaned a bit of information from their discussions.
In short, most of the desert was uninhabited. Anomalous fields and phenomena were everywhere. There were very few cities on the planet, as sandstorms prevented the creation of new ones, and the existing ones were in a semi-destroyed state. The nearest city was Omphal.
It was a few dozen kilometers away from here. It was a lawless place, like the rest of the desert, but according to the Hunter's stories, the city was somewhat safer than the slave camp.
Sam remembered having to fight other slaves who wanted to take his daily ration, which included strange worms that actually tasted quite good, somewhat like chicken.
'So, I shouldn't be thinking about that right now.'
The girl was about to finish with the last shackles. That meant it was time to come up with a new plan—how exactly to survive in this desert on the way to that city.
'The first thing I need is information.'
Sam stepped away from the wall and, finding no better option, approached the Hunter, who was currently chatting with Frank.
The Hunter noticed the boy approaching and fell silent. He turned his head and watched the approaching person silently.
"I apologize for interrupting your conversation, but may I ask a question?" Sam said, coming almost face-to-face with the tall alien.
The Hunter frowned slightly, then smiled in his usual manner, nodding silently.
"I'd like to know... Is there a way to leave this planet?"
The Hunter studied Sam silently until, at one point, he... started laughing?
Sam felt awkward. What was so funny about asking such a simple question? Although, in his previous life, it might have sounded funny. The Hunter laughed for a while, drawing the attention of everyone in the room, and then abruptly stopped, which made Sam a bit uneasy.
"Kid, why would you want to leave the planet? Are you scared of me?"
Sam ignored the last comment.
"Well, why not... I want to see space?"
For a few seconds, the Hunter was silent, then he burst into laughter again, even more than before. And not just him—Sam was surprised to see the Monkey, Frank, and even Fifth chuckling.
'Does this phrase mean something else in this world than I think?'
The Hunter laughed for a while, then abruptly stopped again.
"Kid, I don't want to disappoint you, but it's unlikely to be possible unless you have millions of credits."
Sam was surprised. What credits was he talking about? The ones from the bank, or... oh, right, credits.
Credits—according to the older folks, were the intergalactic currency used by everyone. They had a nearly fixed value on the intergalactic market. On different planets, the same material could have different values, depending on many factors.
For example, if resource X cost 20 credits on one planet, it might cost several times more on another planet where that resource was rare.
'Why am I even thinking about basic economics in this situation?'
It's not that Sam wasn't interested in thinking about the economic market right now and asking many questions, but unfortunately, the situation wasn't suitable.
"I don't care about that. How exactly can one leave the planet?"
The Hunter seemed to grow more serious.
"There are few ways—but they exist. But I'm not an encyclopedia, so if you need information, pay."
Sam clicked his tongue and stepped away from the Hunter. He had nothing to offer him, as he had no money or weapons.
Soon, all the shackles were disabled, and Fifth was calmly working on her own. Sam and she were allowed to leave, while Octopus was less fortunate. Since he hadn't "helped" the Hunter, he decided to take him to their camp. Sam found it strange why they weren't treated the same way, but he didn't want to know the answer, whatever it was.
"So... Kid, girl, leave right now. No other choice, my guys will be here soon, and they won't want to leave you." The Hunter said, yawning slightly.
"Why are you letting us go? What's in it for you?" Fifth, who had already finished with her shackles and was standing by the exit, asked. It seemed to Sam that she had been holding this question for a long time.
It would be a lie not to say the same about Sam, although he was wary of the answer.
"Do you really want to know? Even if after that, I won't let you go?"
The questions were rhetorical. Sam immediately decided to leave the place, and Fifth remained silent and followed him.
In the end, the two of them found themselves outside the ominous room where too many events had occurred.
As soon as the door closed, Frank immediately spoke up.
"Really, why did you let them go? It's not your style, as I know from rumors."
The Hunter was very well-known in the wastelands. He was famous for always achieving his goals by any means. He was the trump card for the rats. His partner was a vicious dog who always followed him. Together, they could do things that several groups of rats could not.
The Hunter looked at Frank strangely and then smiled in a way he never had before. He started breathing heavier, as if excited.
"They were still young... I'm sure that very soon, they will realize that the desert is no place for children, and then... then I'll come and take them for myself. They are my future prey, like a sweet fruit on top of a pie... I will definitely get them."
Frank felt disgusted listening to the Hunter. He was a complete psycho, and everyone knew that.
***
The first thing Sam and the girl did was head to the armory. They didn't talk along the way, but their thoughts were similar. If they wanted to survive in the wastelands, one of the most essential things everyone needed was a weapon, along with good equipment.
Sam glanced at the girl a few times as they walked, but he tried not to stare. He mostly didn't care about her. He decided to focus entirely on getting out of the complex as quickly as possible. He didn't know if the other Rats would really arrive soon, but he didn't want to stick around to find out.
The trip to the armory didn't take long. There wasn't much of a selection—carbines, pistols, and something that resembled an SMG. Sam decided to take the SMG, but there was a problem.
'Where do I put the ammo?'
His slave clothing didn't have any pockets or anything similar. He saw holsters for pistols, but there were no straps for the bigger guns. The weapons, by the way, were in the same style as the carbine he'd seen before. The same color scheme, the same blue accents.
Since he didn't have much choice, Sam revised his plan and took two pistols instead, attaching two holsters to his robe.
There was some protective gear as well, left behind by the previous owners of the complex, perhaps, but Sam didn't really care. The first thing he found was a pair of old gloves, not combat gloves, of course. They looked like something for construction work and were a greenish color. Sam quickly put them on and found them surprisingly comfortable.
He had thought that his new hand might make it difficult to put on gloves, but it turned out that the hand perfectly mimicked his old one, at least in shape. So everything was fine.
Sam noticed that the girl also picked up two pistols and attached two holsters to her belt. They looked at each other, and the girl was the first to speak.
"Hey... can you stop staring at me?"
Sam's eyes widened a little. He thought she was going to ask him to team up or something. But this?
He smirked slightly and replied.
"Sorry, it's not every day I see another person in the camp. I've hardly heard anything about you. Have you been hiding?"
The reason he knew so little about life in the camp was pretty simple. He'd tried to escape almost every other day. At some point, they'd started locking him up in something like a solitary cell, so he rarely spent time among the other slaves.
The girl smiled slightly and reached for the nearest carbine, inspecting it. Then she spoke, still focused on the weapon.
"But everyone knows about you. The most insane and disobedient slave among hundreds of others. The number 72 probably haunted the overseers in their nightmares," she said with a light laugh. "But this isn't the first time I've seen you. I watched you from a distance a lot."
A light smile appeared on Sam's face as well, and he spread his arms. For some reason, it was even pleasing to him that he was somewhat famous, although... that feeling was familiar in its own way. After all, he had been popular in his previous life, if his dreams were to be believed.
"And you're telling me not to stare at you? That sounds hypocritical, don't you think?" he decided to tease her.
She just remained silent, putting the carbine back and then walking over to him, extending her hand. Sam looked at her for a couple of seconds before extending his hand in return. Of course, it was his new hand.
"It feels pretty nice. My name is Jade, and I have a proposal for you."
Sam already knew where this was going, so he just smiled. But he also realized he needed to introduce himself. In this world, he had... a completely new name, which he practically never used. When slaves were born, their parents were only allowed to name them before they were taken away to be trained for work in the slave camps.
"Well, they named me Vengel, but I don't like that name. Just call me Sam."
The girl gave him a questioning look but made no comment, just shrugging her shoulders. Then she moved away from him and continued examining the weapons and rummaging through boxes of ammunition.
'So where's the part where she says, "Let's team up?"'
Sam sighed and started looking around the rest of the room. It was a fairly large space with lots of cabinets where the weapons were stored. Next to the cabinets were boxes of ammo, but overall, the room looked somewhat empty. Maybe before the Ancients disappeared, they took most of their gear with them?
Sam was curious about the fate of the Ancients. In fact, there was very little information about them. What the elders had told him was something like, "There were these powerful, mighty states, and blah blah blah, but in the end, they all mysteriously vanished."
Sam thought it was all... too strange. Based on what he knew about the planet, the Ancients had fought someone, but who?
"Hey, Jade, right? What do you know about the Ancients?" he suddenly asked the girl.
She flinched slightly at the unexpected question, then sighed and looked at him.
"Well, their security against break-ins to their complexes is terrible; that I'm sure of."
Sam chuckled slightly at the joke, and the girl continued speaking.
"But seriously, almost nothing. There's very little information about them. Even the elders said they'd only heard about them through rumors."
Jade shared what she knew about the Ancients, and Sam's knowledge expanded a bit. As it turned out, the Ancients didn't just fight on this planet but throughout the galaxy. This planet was mostly used by them as a production center. They didn't build cities here, just underground complexes, as the planet was still classified as "D."
He didn't learn much more, just some insignificant details about how they were a massive empire that controlled nearly the entire outer galaxy.
"So why did you ask about them anyway?"
Sam looked at her and then just shrugged.
"I just got curious about how such a huge empire could disappear. Who they were fighting and stuff like that. Just out of curiosity, although... I guess I'm kind of connected to them now, thanks to my new hand."
Sam said, gesturing figuratively to the hand hidden beneath his glove.
"Well. If you say so."
Sam sighed heavily again and decided to leave the room. The girl followed him.