" Cough.....cough". The sharp intake of dust caused me to cough therby joliting me awake. I looked around the unfamiliar place that I found myself. It looked damp and smelled of things that my nose could not register of. It smelled unique and alien yet still also smelled acient. The rocking of the vessel that I found myself in tells me that it is moving on land. I finally looked around and a frown started to form on my face because what I see when I turn around is cages, just like mine in whcih people are placed in and the conditions of soemof them look worse than those of dogs and cats that are pets.
I turned to look at an older looking girl, probably around eighteen years of age, as I looked at her, our eyes locked each other and we stared at each other in silence until I could not take it anymore so I spoke first
" Um... Hello?..." there was about some seconds of silence except the occasional rocking of the vessel and othe rinaudible sounds before she talked
" Hello" and then she stopped. Well, that was awkward. wll maybe not for her as she didn't seem to care about anything else but it was plenty for me. I wanted to keep quiet but she seems like the only one aware enough to talk to and answer some questions for me, in which I had plenty to ask so I pushed down my awkwardness and kept on talking to her
" I wanted to ask you some few questions if you do not mind? It will only be some minutes at most as I do not want to take your time" . Well that sounded sincere enough and kind too so I hope she would think so and let me ask her some questions
" Ask away" she said. Another simple sentence. Made me wonder if she is only capable of that, but enough of that, I have more pressing matters to deal with and questions to ask like where I am.
" Okay thanks. My first question is where are we? I just gained my consciusness and I am sure that this is not where I was to be"
She gave a long quiet look before finally speaking. " We are on a transport carriage of Savin Family who are the owners of onr of the more famous and a bit more influential slave houses in the western part of the kingdom"
'WHAT WHAT??!! I have so many questions from this informattion like has slavery not been discarded, and are we not using countries instead of something like Kingdoms?! Amd also how did I end up in a slave carraigw ith my hnds chained and in a cage?' . First, I have to be calm and ask the questions needed for now
" How do you know they are from Savina or Savin Family that youyu called and do you know how I got into the carriage?"
" The Family sign ( which is a collar with an S sign on the front with chains on it) gave it away and the way the captors kept on saying 'Chains Define Your Worth' like they were doing is some grand favour of chaining and capturing us because to them, this is the only way for the dregs of this kingdom to show their value. It is a twisted familty motto like they are as well and this is what they use to brainwash most of the slaves that they causght and those slaves end up buying everything that they say and in turn working for them to capture more slaves. It is a cruel cycle that they set up and itt disgusts me oh so much but ther else nothing I can do. as for you, sorry but I met you on the carriage sleeping too so I don't know how you got into the carriage"
Well that was quite a lot and I mean it from the infromation that she gave me and how miuch she talked. Guess i was wrong when i thought that she could only say simple words. Back to the urgent matter at hand, this is when I realised that i was fucked and you ask how much fucked, I will compare it to a foolish teen that was duped into giving an anonymous caller all their bank details so that he can send money to their dead parents who gave died before giving birth to him to serve as a way to send he away.
Yeah that was how fucked I was. So you mean that i died in my previous world and then I reincarbated, believing that I would be getting a better life like all those protagonists in manga and manhwa and all the likes biut I end up on a slave carriage which is definently taking me to my dooo without any seemingly possible way of saving myself. This is like a bad joke or a wrong nightmare. I began panicking and thinking of various scenarios of how to save myself an get out of this situation that I did not agree to be part of but all of themended with me dying or maybe put in worse conditions like torture and oh boy do I not want to live that. The major thing that wa sblocking all my devised plans were the guears that were obvously guarding the carriage. Thsi means my best way to escape is to try to sneak away when they are asleep. I just need to find the keys to the cage and the cuffs and escpae. Well, only if it wad that easy. Thsi made me give up this plan and decided to continue to ask the girl other questions that can assist me in escaping from here
" So do you know anything about their weapons and equipment or how strong they are? I'm trying to figure out a way to escape. Any little information would be of great help to me too" I said towards the girl. She looked at me and started laughing thoguh she was alostrying her best to supress it by covering her mouth with her hands but I don't think its working as well as she hoped. I noticed though that her laughter was cracked and like she has not laughed genuingly for a long time. After trying to stop herself from laughing, she turned to me with a seriuos look in her eyes and said
" Don't think about escaping. It would just be a pointless death for you and everybody else and your failure would also greatly deplete the morals of other slaves that would try to escape. They will use you as a way to instill fear into the others and it will work very percfectly. that is why there are no supervisors here to watch us. they give us the false sense that they have a shallow guard but they do not. They're like predators lying in wait for their prey to fall into the trap that they have set. Also, lets assume that for miraculous reason, their vigilance is lowered, they can still catch up to to the running slaves. Tell me what you expect a bunch of slaves like me, a girl of ten and eight cycles can do and you, who i expect to be around ten and seven cycles if not younger but much certainly weaker than me can do to a group of experienced veterans like them outside? This was too funny that was why I couldn't help myself though I apologise if it did cause you to misunderstand"
Yeah after she said this, I realised why she laughed like she has just seen a very comedic clown show. I guess the reason I didn't take these into consideration were because I just arrived here and I'm not quite used what is common sense to the people here.
But I don't plan on loosing hope easily so I decided to ask her a question again. "Is there no one who can help us or volunteer to free us?"
"No." That was all she said then looked away. U guess that shattered the tiny speck of hope that I still had. I believe that she thought she may have come up as harsh soybean she decided to phrase it again and explain it better to ke who is void of these things though I'm not sure if could say what she said as an explanation made me feel better
"Have you ever seen a tiny common bug that is being killed by other animals or suffering, and you say or think, 'Let's waste the time that I could have used for something else and help this thing? No, obviously not because you cannot understand them and how they live or what they call life and you will not bother to do that as it will be seen as pointless and a time waste that will not give any result to it. That's what we are to them, those ones inpower, those in wealth, those who commands and their likes, we are something that they understand does exist but they treat us as something you can never run out off so there is nothing interesting about them to note or study or bother to help or interact with. That is the nature of this kingdom or perhaps maybe the whole world"
These words she said ended up jolting me back from all fantasy and naive illusions that I perhaps might have had deep within my heart. She was harsh but she was telling the truth and also goliving me advices, ones that I might never forget.