Part 1

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Sand woke to the smell of poultices and paints.

He found himself lying face down on the medical bed, his head pillowed on a rolled-up bundle of cloth. Slowly, gingerly so as to avoid jolting his wounds, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and inspected himself.

Strips of greyish cloth had been wrapped around his back and chest, replacing his loincloth in its function as a bandage. A pair of dark trousers several sizes too large had been put on him while he slept. Reaching backwards, he touched the bandages on his back, wincing when the movement affected the wound, sending a dull twinge of pain shooting up from his back.

The bandage was still wet with whatever herbal poultice the medic had slathered on his back before wrapping him up. His fingertips came away dyed green from the juice seeping through the cloth. Bringing them up to his nose, he sniffed.

A mixture of wolfsbane to numb the pain and some antiseptic herb to prevent infections – he was unable to distinguish exactly what. Although he’d had much to do with herbs his previous life, they had mostly been of the magical kind. As a Dungeon chef, the ingredients he had needed – whether the blood or the herbs – all shared the same characteristics: they were dangerous to obtain.

His knowledge of mortal herbs was limited.

Even though he couldn’t identify the constituents of the poultice, he didn’t worry. He had been marked by Kreg as the Fool. Even if the medic had ten times the courage, he wouldn’t dare to blatantly fudge his treatment.

While the attention of the orc was the bane of his existence, if he leveraged it well, it could also be his strongest backing.

Sand turned his gaze to one side off the room where the blind medic was crouching beside a vat of lye, introducing some rags into it. He dangled his feet over the side of the bed, the tips of his toes just touching the ground, then got off. He swayed unsteadily on his feet as a spell of dizziness assaulted him from his loss of blood.

Supporting himself by a hand on the bed, he waited until the feeling passed. Tightening the drawstrings of his oversized trousers to prevent them from falling off and rolling up his pant legs to avoid them getting in the way, he made his way towards the old man.

When Sand was within five steps of the man, his head snapped around. He studied Sand with those sightless eyes of his before turning back to his work satisfied that he was no threat. Sand could empathize with that kind of reflex. When you were a slave, sometimes the only way to survive was to take the lives of your fellows. The most fearful thing wasn’t the orc slavers, their behaviour was predictable. No, the most fearful thing was a knife in the dark from someone you had put your trust in.

Several human heroes had died that way in Sand’s previous life. Sometimes, the thing hindering humanity’s progress was humanity itself.

“W-water.” Sand croaked out, his voice cracking due to his parched throat.

Without turning back to him, the medic nodded towards the desk he’d been working at when Sand had barged into the room. Walking around it, Sand found a wooden mug filled with water and a piece of hard bread placed on the wooden stool. Picking the two things up and seating himself, he dipped the hard bread in the water to moisten it, then slowly sucked out the liquid.

Water was precious in the desert. For a slave, it was a delicacy to be savoured.

It wouldn’t do for him to suddenly start acting like the orcs and straight up chug the water down, even spilling some in his haste. Over the hundred years of his freedom, he’d been able to let loose slightly. He’d been able to enjoy a meal without worrying about the next one. He’d been able to drink water without trying to savour each drop. But in his current situation, that kind of unrestrained behaviour would draw attention.

He’d made that mistake once – ending up whipped within an inch of his life and sold off to the mines. He wouldn’t make it again.

As he alternately dunked the bread in the water and chewed on it to soften the tooth-breaking lump of dough, he watched the medic at work. The man was taking up strips of cloth from the pile by his side and placing them into the vat of lye, hanging them over the edge so that the entire strip didn’t fall into the vat.

The solution had already turned a dirty grey from the accumulated grime from all the strips. Sand narrowed his eyes as he recognized the rag being dunked into the vat. It was his bloodied loincloth. He touched the greyish bandages wrapped around him. ‘So, they reuse the discarded cloth as bandages,’ he thought.

After putting the last rag into the vat to soak, the medic rose with a groan, placing a hand on the small of his back and bending backwards slightly to limber his creaking joints.

“Aah, youth,” he remarked as he drew up a stool and sat down across the desk from Sand. “Such serious wounds and you’re up and about within hours. Me? These frail old bones of mine grumble every time I need to squat to take a shit. I quite envy you.”

Putting the last of the bread in his mouth, chewing, swallowing and washing it down with the last of the water, Sand placed the mug down on the desk and said, “And I haven’t seen many folks get as old as you, old man.”

The medic grinned at that, revealing a gap-toothed smile. “Now, that they don’t. I guess I am lucky in my own way.”

“Oi, old man, how come you can see? Your eyes sure don’t seem to work.”

“Brat! Hasn’t anyone taught you manners?”

“Man-ners? Yeah… Gura used to want us to look at the ground when we were speaking to him. You want me to do that too? Not happening, old man!” Sand replied with a frown.

“No, no… not that. Ok, just forget it. It’s not a secret. Might as well tell you. It’s a skill shard called Estimation. You know mages have skill shards, right?”

“Mage! You’re a mage!?” Sand’s eyes shone with undisguised desire and excitement as he leaned forward in his seat.

The medic chuckled wryly and shook his head. “Just a Red Mage, brat. Nothing too special.”

Sand shook his head vehemently, “Gura was a Red Mage and look at him lording it over us all. And Garo, the leader of our caravan, was just one step higher, a Yellow mage. Everyone looked at him with so much respect. A Red Mage is plenty strong.”

“I’m the shoddiest kind of Red Mage… I wouldn’t hold a candle to that orc master of yours. Let alone, my skill shard ain’t for combat.”

Sand shot him a disbelieving look but didn’t press further. Instead he asked, “What’s a skill shard? What does yours do?”

“Well, just being a Mage doesn’t get you magic. You need skill shards for that. The kind you have determines what you can do. Mine, lets me see things and compare them instantly. Like, you put two piles of sand in front of me and I can tell at a glance which one has more grains. Can’t tell the exact number, mind you, but I can tell which pile’s bigger. My old master, before he lost me in a gamble to Kreg, got me this shard to better mix my poultices with.”

“How does that let you see?” asked Sand doubtfully.

“It doesn’t. It just lets me compare stuff. I just got good enough at using it so I could make up for my lost sight with it. I compare which part of the room has more air than the others, gives me the shape of the solid stuff. I compare which part is brighter and it gives me the light and shadows. I compare which colour is higher or lower up the rainbow and it lets me see in colour. Took me a while to get used to it, but now, I can do it as natural as breathing.” He said smugly.

Sand didn’t have to fake his amazement this time. With his life experience, acting out the role of a child wasn’t that difficult. But the medic’s magical achievement was truly shocking.

There were innumerable skill shards in the world and they granted similarly varied skills. Some skills were common. Some uncommon. Some exceedingly rare. But a rarer skill wasn’t necessarily stronger or more practical. A common Strength shard was much more practical than an Illusory Butterfly shard even though the latter was considered one of the rarest skills in existence. But above and beyond that was how well the Mage could utilize their shard.

The slightly uncommon Estimate skill shard that was used by merchants and pharmacists to quickly compare quantities, in the medic’s hand, had turned into his second sight.

‘And it is only at Tier 1 right now. If he manages to promote it to Tier 2? Tier 3? Tier 5? To the level of a Dungeon?’ Sand could only imagine what the man could achieve. A thought floated up in his mind, ‘Can I use him?’ He immediately discarded the notion. The man was too old. Too far past his prime to achieve anything significant. His natural talent was bad otherwise he wouldn’t have remained as a Red Mage for all his life. And only this one skill wasn’t enough to determine his value. If he wasn’t equally talented in the other four of his major skills, he wouldn’t be able to merge them to create his Dungeon in the end.

Sand gave up on recruiting him but decided to maintain a good relationship with him in case he came in use later.

“But…” the medic seemed hesitant to say something before finally clenching his teeth and making a decision. “You… you want to be a mage, right?”

“Of course!” exclaimed Sand.

“Listen to this old man. Don’t.” Seeing Sand’s scowl, he hastily continued, “Wait! Don’t interrupt. Hear me out. Look, they’ll give you a shot at becoming a mage…”

“What!”

“I said, don’t interrupt! Just listen to me! They’ll give you a shot at becoming a mage. It strengthens the endurance a lot. It’s so you can work for them more with less breaks. That’s fine. But if you show too much potential, your fate will be very pitiful. Much worse than staying here. So, whatever you do, if you follow their instructions and see yourself getting quick results. Hide it from them. Keep it secret. Slack off. Just don’t let them find out. Wherever they send you will be much worse than here.”

Sand stood up angrily, knocking his stool over. “You’re a mage!” he exclaimed loudly, “I don’t see you any worse off. You’re the oldest person I know. You have a comfortable place to stay and sleep. You get enough food and water. I think you’re just scared! You’re scared that I’ll be a better mage than you!”

Slamming the desk with his palm to emphasize his last word, Sand spun on his heel and strode towards the door.

“Wait!” the medic called out.

Pausing in his tracks, “What!?” demanded Sand irately without looking back.

With a deep sigh, the old man shuffled over to a cupboard and brought out a neatly folded tunic. “Just take this with you.” he said as he walked over to Sand and handed it to him.

“Hmph.” Snatching the clothes out of his hand, Sand stormed out of the clinic with a snort, slamming the door behind him.

Once in the corridor, when he was sure no one was watching, his face became an emotionless mask, his eyes two portals into the abyss. He glanced down at the tunic in his hand and ran his fingers over the rough but well-worn cloth. He had been quite surprised at the medic’s warning.

By leaking such an important piece of information, the old man was putting himself in substantial danger. His concern was sincere, not a façade.

It wasn’t that Sand was being over-suspicious. For the medic to live that long, become a mage and even get a shard, he must have been the Favour of his previous master. Who knew how many times he’d suppressed his fellow slaves with schemes and tricks – how much benefit he’d brought to the orcs by infringing on the benefits of the humans – to finally crawl up to his current position.

Trusting him outright would have been foolish to say the least. But now, it was different. He was the current Fool. Helping him was taboo. Leaking important information, to him, was nearly suicidal. Why did the man do it? The pangs of his musty conscience? Sand didn’t know. He didn’t care.

But since he had tried to help him, Sand wouldn’t implicate the man. That was why he had pretended to part on bad terms with him for the benefit of any watchers.

As for where the slaves who displayed excellent magical talent went? Of course Sand knew about it. It had become his goal the moment he had realized his situation. As a future Dungeon Mage, his magical talent was obviously extraordinary. There was no doubt he’d be selected.

His next step towards freedom: becoming a Gladiator in the Arena of Sin.

There were no thin orcs.

Not surprising, considering that their entire race was an amalgam of human and swine. A young race at less than three millenniums old, they originated from the Chimaera Project: vampire High Lord Enzeal’s attempt at creating a new race by merging existing species.

Composed of the skill shards: Variation, Evolution and Mutation among others, the interior of Lord Enzeal’s Dungeon provided the perfect environment for the study of the origin of species. Rumour has it that in his reckless enthusiasm, the High Lord ended up creating a monster too powerful for him to control, perishing together with it, shattering the Dungeon in the process.

The orcs, along with the nagas were the only two viable races that survived the collapse of the Chimaera Dungeon. Their high sex drive and corresponding fertility was the reason for their subsequent rapid expansion.

Ashamed of the death of one of their High Lords at the hands of his own experiment, the vampires sealed all knowledge of the Chimaera Project, forcing the orcs and the nagas as far away from their metropolises as they could.

Driven into the Tyhr Desert, the orcs were forced to survive on the harsh sands, while the fate of the nagas was left to the whimsies of the Thousand Seas.

Sand stood at the very end of the line of slaves, with several paces separating him from the next person, watching the orc slaver pacing from one end of the line to the other. Idly, he contrasted him with his previous master.

Unlike Gura, whose tunic often found it difficult to constrain his jiggling stomach and breasts that would put most women to shame, Kreg’s shirt revealed barely any wobble as he strode from one end of the line to the other. His sleeves, that were rolled back to reveal his thick forearms, bulged over the corded muscles of his upper arms.

‘A Strength shard; most likely at Tier 2,’ judged Sand with an experienced eye. ‘To support the energy demand of that, he needs to be a Yellow Mage at the very least. Green Mage is unlikely. If he was so strong, he wouldn’t be assigned such a dead-end job. So, Yellow it is.’

Some skill shards had very distinctive effects on their owners, making it easy to pick them out by mere visual examination. Of course, a broad knowledge base and experienced eye was required for such analysis, and even then, the information obtained was very fragmentary. For example, Sand had no idea what Kreg’s second skill shard could be, or whether he even had one.

All sorts of strange and unusual skills abounded and without completely figuring out every detail about the orc, Sand was unwilling to commit to any plan of action. For even the best laid of schemes could be derailed by the appearance of the wrong skill.

As Kreg passed by each of the slaves, they would subconsciously try to stand straighter even if there wasn’t a single curve in their spine. Not standing straight enough, fidgeting and even blinking while the orc was passing by could be grounds for a whipping. Back when they were still part of the slave caravan, this sort of hazing was a part of the takeover ritual. The batches of slaves would often be shuffled internally to break up any possible relationships and right afterwards, the orc in charge of the newly formed batch would pace in front of them in a re-enactment of some primitive dominance ritual. The slaves would be conditioned to stand straight, motionless and unblinking as a sign of submission. It was supposed to make takeover much simpler for their subsequent owners.

Sand observed it all detachedly, finding it ironic that the humans standing the straightest had the least iron in their spines.

There were only two slaves that didn’t need to worry about this ritual. The Favour, who was standing apart from the rest of the group facing them from behind the pacing orc, because he had been exempted from it. And the Fool, because no matter how well he performed, it wouldn’t change the result of him getting picked if none of the other slaves slipped up.

As he had been unconscious the other day, Sand didn’t know who it was that got picked as the Favour. Now that he saw him, he couldn’t help but commend Kreg on his choice. It was the sturdy slave who had been ordered to carry him by Gura. It appeared that even pigs could be poetic.

Finally satisfied by the performance of the slaves, Kreg walked up to Sand, towering over his diminutive form with his two-and-a-half metre tall frame. The flickering flames of the sconces cast the orc’s shadow over him, yet Sand kept his eyes on the ground.

A large hand gripped his hair and jerked his head back, forcing him to look up into the eyes of the orc. “Did that ol’ medic wrap ye up right?” asked Kreg, in mock concern.

“Yes, Master Kreg.” replied Sand, concealing his desire to slit the orc’s throat behind a scared expression.

“Tsk..” Kreg clicked his tongue, obviously regretful that he hadn’t been able to trip Sand up on how he was to be addressed. “Smart kids ain’t any fun,” he pouted, causing his grotesque face to distort further. His eyes flashed with a cruel light, “But since yer so smart, I’ll do ye a big favour.”

Dragging Sand to the front of the line of slaves, Kreg barked out, “Listen up ye worthless maggots! I feed ye. I clothe ye. I give ye a place ta sleep. Without me, ye’d be dying on the sands. Freezin’ at night, burnin’ in the day. Ye’d think that ye sorry lot’d be a bit grateful, eh?”

Looking down at Sand, he spoke in a stage-whisper, “Yer grateful, right?” then he forced him to nod with the grip on his hair.

“See that! Even a kid knows to be grateful. And ye? None of ye even said a thank you. Hurt me poor little heart.” Turning to his side, he slapped the back of the Favour with his free hand, making him stagger and cough from the force of the blow. “Only this lad ‘ere had the sense ta thank me. So ‘e gets ta be in charge.” Pointing to a pile of pickaxes, he said, “Take those and get ta the end of the tunnels. There’s some ol’ hands waiting ta show ye the ropes. Hand over whatever ye get by the end of the day ta the lad, he’ll tell me how each of ye did and I’ll decide who gets the whip and who gets the meat.”

“As for ye,” Kreg sneered down at Sand, “I wouldn’t want ye ta hurt yer back again, now would I? So, ye get to carry whatever they mine to the cart. Aren’t ye grateful now?”

Carrying the baskets laden with ore to the cart was the most strenuous part of the job and Sand had to do it in the place of all the other slaves.

“Thank you, Master Kreg,” he replied, maintaining the nervous façade.

Kreg seemed to lose interest at his servile attitude and with a contemptuous snort, he released his grip on Sand’s hair with a push, sending him sprawling on the ground. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode away.

After he was gone, the slaves went into a tizzy of discussion as Sand picked himself up and tamped down his hair. The orc had nearly pulled his hair out by the roots. Maybe he was jealous of his lush crop of hair when all he had was three limp strands.

It didn’t take long for the slaves to get their pickaxes and make their way down the tunnel with the Favour taking the lead with Sand following behind them. At the end of the passage stood a broad-shouldered, middle-aged man leaning against the wall with a pickaxe resting on the ground beside him.

Noticing their approach, the man shouldered the implement and stepped forward to greet them. “Follow me.” he ordered in a gravelly voice, leading them down a couple of corridors to a region where the mine tunnel widened out into a cavern. Several large baskets along with a wooden cart presented themselves to their view.

“This here’s your spot.” Walking up to one of the walls, he pointed out a mineral vein that glinted under the flickering torchlight. “Find these veins in the rock then dig them out, like so –” he said as he unshouldered his pickaxe and in one practised movement, swung it down, embedding the piton deep into the rock. Then with a twist of the handle, he dug out a large chunk of the glinting, mineral-veined rock.

“Got it?” he asked. Noticing the unsure looks on their faces, he shook his head. “Alright, just try it out. I’ll help you get the hang of it.” As the rest of the slaves moved into position, the Favour walked up to the man and whispered something into his ear. Seeing that the man looked at him, Sand could approximately guess the contents.

Sure enough, on the grounds of his recent injury, he was forced to sit out while the man helped adjust the stance of the others.

If he’d been a common slave, this method was sufficient to ruin his future. Without the knowledge of how to correctly mine ore, his output would be much lower than the others, resulting in repeated penalties. But now, his memories of the future insured him against such mishaps.

He might have never held a pickaxe in his previous life but his combat experience meant that he knew just where to strike and how hard, to eke out the maximum effect.

The man left after about an hour of instruction, leaving them to their devices.

“How long are you gonna keep slacking off?” asked the Favour, swaggering up to Sand. He was named Crooked after his nose, which hadn’t set right after one of the orcs had punched him in the face.

Ignoring him, Sand silently walked up to one of the baskets that had been filled and bent down to lift it up, wincing as scabs on his back split at the exertion, causing blood to soak into his bandages. ‘Since, I’m already exerting myself, I might as well start training my magic,’ thought Sand as he staggered towards the cart, strenuously carrying the heavy basket full of ore.

Unnoticed by everyone present, every single pore on Sand’s body shut tight, isolating the inside and the outside. The heat produced by his straining body began to accumulate, making each of his breaths scalding hot.

The temperature of his body rose drastically, making his line of sight fuzzy as he was hit by a bout of dizziness. Yet his expression remained the same. No clenching of jaws, no bulging veins, no rapid breathing… just a mechanical uniformity in his strides, an unchanging countenance and steady breaths as he put each step before the other towards the cart, dumped the contents of the basket into it, returned to the miners, exchanged a full basket for the empty one, then walked back towards the cart. Again, and again and again… and again.

It wasn’t the time for desperation. It wasn’t the time to go all-out. It was just the beginning of his journey. The first step of many.

It was the time for a firm heart, a still mind and perseverance.

The slaves had been deriving sadistic pleasure from watching him struggle. Some had even used this feeling as a motivation to work faster. The more ore they mined, the more baskets Sand would have to carry. That was the kind of thought driving them to work. And in fact, that was the purpose of the Fool’s existence.

They even taunted him when he came to pick up their basket.

Slowly but surely, they grew silent as they watched this child, aged no more than ten, work tirelessly without complaint. Shame welled up in their hearts and they turned away from that emaciated form, unable to keep watching any longer.

Yet their ears couldn’t help but pick up the sound of his steady footsteps no matter how loudly and vigorously they used their pickaxes. Each step seemed to tread upon their heart, guiding its rhythm.

The sound of metal against stone slowly faded away. What replaced it was the sound of a child’s footsteps, each step deliberate, measured… as if it wasn’t a basket of rocks he carried in his arms but the future of an entire race.

Caught up in that mood, the slaves watched silently as one basket after another was emptied into the cart. A voice ascended in their hearts cheering the little figure on. They had an inexplicable feeling that they would gain something if the boy succeeded.

The final basket.

Sand’s steps seemed heavier, more ponderous, yet just as steady as before. ‘Do it.’ ‘Just a few more steps.’ ‘Don’t stop now.’ ‘Come on.’ The slaves silently encouraged him in their hearts.

Just a few steps from the cart, Sand stepped on a loose rock and stumbled, the basket spilling out of his hands and scattering the ores everywhere.

The hearts of the slaves dropped into the pits of their stomach. A desolate feeling welled up in their minds. Some even turned their back and sobbed silently. Would it always be this way? Was there no hope?

Smiling sadly, they turned back to their tasks, the dark thoughts already creeping back. ‘Damn that Fool, making me waste so much time.’ ‘It’s all his fault.’ ‘What if they don’t give me my ration because I didn’t deliver enough ore?’ ‘Damn!’ ‘Bastard!’ ‘Idiot!’ ‘Fool.’

Face twisted with anger, just as a slave was going to swing his pickaxe –

*clack*

They all turned around at once. While they were busy cursing him, Sand had struggled to his feet. His expression was still that calm. His gaze was still that steady, as if staring at some goal deep into the future.

In his hand was a stone – one of the pieces of ore that had rolled away.

Meticulously, he placed the stone back into that basket.

*clack*

It was like he wasn’t handling a stone, but a human life. One after the other, until they had all been gathered back into the basket, he worked without cease, heedless of the blood that now flowed freely from his reopened wounds, soaking through the bandages and through his shirt. When the blood touched his heated skin, it evaporated, wreathing him in a light bloody mist.

Bending down, he picked the basket up yet again. Then he began to walk the final three steps.

One step.

Two steps.

Three.

*crasshhh*

The moment he dumped the contents of the basket amidst the cheers of the slaves, an airwave proliferated from him, blowing away the bloody mist.

He had broken through.

Yet, there was no change in the expression on his face.

Success, failure, it mattered not.

For his goal was still far away.

---

I couldn’t help it, my inspiration for this was overflowing. I couldn’t write anything else.

[4803 words] OMG dat word count = 4 STC chapters.

Kreg 

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Chapter 140 – 142

The world is a Dungeon. The Dungeon Core shattered long years ago in an event called the Splintering. The shards of the Core scattered across the world. The large ones formed mini Dungeons of their own. The smaller ones turned into Skill Shards.

The inhabitants of the world can fuse with Skill Shards to get skills. Duh. But there is a catch: each skill shard when fused with its owner requires the owner to eat certain magic rich foods in order to grow and improve.

That’s where the Dungeon Chefs come in.

Our MC travels back in time from the future and uses his knowledge to become OP.

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*crack*

A whip lashed out and hit on the back of a child aged no more than ten, the force of the blow sending the kid sprawling onto the sandy ground. Blood oozed out of where the whip had broken skin on his shirtless back. Much to the supervisor’s surprise, the boy didn’t even cry out in pain. He simply struggled to his feet and continued walking.

Gura narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that one bit.

He was the supervisor of this slave train. Twenty slaves in total. There were men, women and children among them – all of them with their hands tied in front of them with sturdy ropes and wearing little more than rags. Their feet were bound together as well, with just enough slack to let them shuffle forward without tripping.

Without exception, the slaves were all human.

Gura most certainly was not.

The beady eyed boar-man, commonly known as an orc, was nearly two and a half metres tall and a metre wide. His ugly mug was a misshapen lump of fat and his nostrils were clearly visible on his upturned piggy nose.

And like most slavers, he was a sadist. He loved to hear his slaves scream. To call him a bit free with his beloved whip would be an understatement.

But now, he had used his whip but no one had screamed.

He studied the child carefully. There was nothing extraordinary about his emaciated back or small stature. That was how all children born in captivity looked. The enforced march as the slaver caravan travelled across the desert to peddle their wares coupled with the infrequent meals robbed most slave children of their chance to grow.

Yet, Gura couldn’t help but feel that there was a dignity to the boy’s gait that hadn’t been there a moment ago. A mental oppression that made his spine tingle and his hand, that had been raised to lash him again, loosen its grip on the ebony handle of his leather whip.

He nearly took a step back before he realized what he was doing and grew furious.

His hand tightened on the whip and he brought it arcing down with all his strength. The whip whistled through the air and with a sharp crack that sent flesh and blood flying, it sent the child sprawling yet again.

This time, the child’s heart-rending scream echoed through the dry desert air.

Gura didn’t stop. Once, twice, three times he lashed the helpless kid with all his might leaving his back with gaping wounds. He revelled in the boy’s screams; using them to assuage his injured courage. How could he – Gura, the slave master; the man with the power to decide the life and death of each and every one of these human slaves be scared of a mere slave-child. Absurd!

Gura stopped just before the wounds grew dire enough to threaten the boy’s life. After all, he was merchandise and if he croaked, Garo, the leader of the caravan would cut the cost out of his pay.

Pointng his whip at the healthiest looking slave in the train, he grunted out, “Carry the whelp. And if he croaks, or ye slow down, I’ll lash ye to an inch of yer life.”

The slave immediately scrambled to shoulder the unconscious boy, stripping off the boys clothes to make a makeshift bandage to stanch his wounds. That’d last the couple of hours needed to reach Gehenna and then he could sell the boy.

After that, whether he lived or died was no concern of his.

As Gura turned around to get back on his sand-surfer, he couldn’t help but lick his one protruding tusk – the other snapped off in a bar-fight long ago – as he recalled the taste of all the meat dishes one could only find in The City of Sinners.

He knew where he was spending his coin that night. His belly-fat jiggled in agreement.

 

***

 

Sand.

That was his name.

It was the name the slavers gave to every child born to the humans under their thrall. Sand supposed that the name was supposed to remind them, frequently, that they were as insignificant as the endless grains that composed the Tyhr Desert. Remind them that they didn’t even have the freedom to name their own children.

Even after he became a full-blown Dungeon mage.

Even after he gained the inheritance that would allow him to tread the path of a Dungeon chef and his name was whispered from one corner of the Tyhr Desert to the other.

Even after his ominous reputation for using the blood of his foes as kitchen ingredients spread to the ears of the Orc Chiefs and they bayed for his blood in return.

After all that was left of his pursuers was a desert strewn with mummified corpses and all twelve Orc chieftains gathered together to hunt him down. When they found him. When they fought him. When their wounds refused to heal and dyed the sands red with their blood.

Specially then.

He called himself Sand. To remind them of the name they had given him. To remind them that children like him were as numerous as grains of sand. All waiting for a chance to spill their blood.

In their fear, they had called him the Devil – Blood Devil, Sand.

He should have died that day. In that hopeless situation, he had used a skill. A skill he had obtained from a Time Dungeon. A single use skill that needed to be fed everything he had for it to work. His mana. His skill shards. His life. Everything.

Whether it would work or not wasn’t something he could know in advance. After all, it wasn’t like he could test it.

It was a gamble.

And it succeeded.

 

***

 

Sand awoke with a jolt of pain as he was unceremoniously dumped on his back into a wooden cart. Instincts ingrained over years of battle demanded that he sober quickly, that he get into a position ready for fight or flight based on the circumstances.

His young body, though, wasn’t so cooperative, flopping about weakly on the bed of the cart as his muscles weakened by blood loss and malnutrition gave out. All his flailing managed to achieve was aggravate the wounds on his flayed back, causing blood to seep out of them and dye his already bloodied loincloth, that had been used as a makeshift bandage, a darker shade of red.

The grotesque mug of an orc intruded into his field of view. A scar ran across the orc’s forehead, drawing a jagged line of white in his pale pink skin. Exactly three strands of hair were lovingly combed back over his otherwise bald head in a pretension of coverage.

“Oi lookie ‘ere. The freebie’s awake. Who’s putting some cash down on ‘im croakin’ by tonight, eh?”

The orc’s intonation was guttural, just like every other member of his race. Their voices didn’t handle anything outside their grunting and squealing language very well. Definitely not the common tongue he was using now.

Sand’s mind groaned and clanked as all its cogs began to fall into place as he rapidly took stock of his situation through the obscuring haze of pain and exhaustion. He had used the skill he had obtained from the Time Dungeon. Without an Appraiser’s help, all he had been able to make out was the skill shard was a consumable one and that to start, it required one to feed it everything one had.

As to its effect, he knew nothing. At the end of his rope, he had decided to take a gamble and activate the skill. After that, he had blanked out, unaware of what was happening to him.

When he came to, he found that he had returned to the body of his younger self. No mana. No skill shards. Not even the honed body he had built up over the hundred years of his freedom. Just an emaciated boy in a slave train.

As he stood frozen on his spot, trying to come to terms with his situation, the orc supervisor’s whip had fallen on his back. Just a ‘gentle reminder’ to move his legs.

What kind of existence was Sand? The Crimson Chef… The Blood Devil… The Terror of the Tyhr… Could mere physical pain cow him into submission. The Supervisor was a mere Red mage. He had been a Dungeon mage. He had killed Dungeon mages. The blood of three Orc chiefs dyed his hands. Even in his emaciated younger body, the Supervisor’s whip couldn’t even elicit a grunt out of him.

That was his mistake.

The sheer variance in status between one moment and the next had given him no time to adjust his mentality. A mere slave-child silently bearing a whiplash and getting up and walking without a single cry of pain was an anomaly. A clear sign of rebellion.

And slavers, the craven control freaks that they were, detested any sort of uncertainty. They baulked at the mere whiff of rebellion. His ‘insolence’ had earned him a lashing unto unconsciousness. If the survival instincts ingrained into his younger body over the ten years of its life as a slave hadn’t taken over and made him wail miserably – the whipping wouldn’t have stopped till he joined the innumerable human corpses under the sands of Tyhr.

Another grain of Sand to join the many.

The orc reached over and roughly slapped his face a few times. “Oi oi oi. Did that Gura whip ye silly? Eh?” Pinching Sand’s face so that his lips puckered up like a fish, the orc roughly raised Sand by his face, causing his neck to creak ominously as his entire body weight hung by it. “I knew somethin’ was wrong with ye when that miserly bastard gave ye away as a freebie with ‘is other miners but he never said ye couldn’t talk. Now be a nice little birdie and call me ‘Master’. Sing sweet enough and I might jest get the medic to give yer wound a little look-see? Hmm?”

He shook Sand’s face a little causing his neck to creak further as his entire body swung in the air.

“Hmm?”

“M-aster.”

The orc put his little finger in his floppy pig ear and jiggled it about. Taking it out and flicking the wax away, he leaned in and said, “Didn’t quite catch that.”

“Master.”

“The name’s Kreg. And to ye, it’s?”

Sand’s eyes were like two portals to the abyss.

“Master Kreg.”

“Ahaha. Clever little bugger, ain’t ‘e?” Kreg laughed as he rhetorically asked the other slaves arrayed behind him, eliciting murmurs of flattery and assent. “I quite like ‘im. Pity if he croaks so soon, eh? Get ‘im the medic…” Looking down, he chuckled and flicked Sand’s balls with his finger, making him go cross-eyed in pain and clamp his legs even as he hung helplessly in Kreg’s grasp. “And get ‘im some clothes to hide that little wiener… maybe he’ll live long enough to use it. Ahahaha.”

Tossing Sand back onto the wooden cart, Kreg walked away laughing raucously at his own joke as Sand lay curled up, enduring the dual waves of agony radiating off his flayed back and injured balls.

That and the ache of his shattered pride.

A hundred years, he had been a slave in his last life. A hundred years of humiliation before he had the chance to break free of his shackles. Then for the next hundred years, he had wrought bloody vengeance on those who would clap him in chains once more. An entire two centuries of effort lost to the backwash of time.

He had been sent back to the past.

He was weak and a slave. Again.

This time though, he would free himself faster. Two hundred years of experience and fore-knowledge was the wind in his sails. Although things had changed already with his assignment to the mines instead of as a scullery boy in a restaurant in Gehenna, the major events should still occur when they were supposed to.

Since life had given him a second chance, he would erase every regret he had in his past one. And the regrets had names:

Garo.

Gura.

And now, Master Kreg.

 

***

 

The medic was human. An old man with thinning grey hair and a skinny frame. His wrinkled skin was leathery and burnt a dark brown from his years exposed to the abrasive winds and harsh sun of the Tyhr Desert.

His most distinctive feature was that he was blind.

Some sort of corrosive substance had splashed upon his face and burnt his sight away. Milky white sightless eyes remained fixed in a motionless stare from under lids that had been melted into a half open state forever. The skin around his eyes had been bleached a bone white, drawing even more attention to his disfiguration. Eyebrows and eyelashes had been burnt away.

Yet, when Sand somehow managed to drag his weary and aching body through the wooden door of the ramshackle clinic, the old man looked up from where he was fiddling with a few bottled ingredients on his table with his slender, spidery fingers.

Despite the obvious disability, Sand had a clear feeling that the man could see him and see him much better than many with perfectly functional eyes.

‘Some sort of ability.’ He concluded. He had long since come to trust this intuition of his. It had saved his life several times.

“Another unfortunate one joins the ranks of the walking dead. One so young too. A pity. Such a pity.”

“H-heal me, old man.” Sand rasped out, his parched throat roughening his tone. Letting go of the frame of the doorway that he had been clutching for support, he staggered into the room.

Utterly exhausted, hungry, thirsty and in pain, his young body had been teetering on the verge of collapse. Only his strong will had been holding him upright, and even that had been worn down by the combined protest of his body and the humiliation dished out by Kreg so recently.

As to why the other slaves, the healthiest adult males in Gura’s train, had simply watched on without bothering to lend a hand to a mere child. It was simple. They didn’t want to become a source of amusement for their new orc master.

It was a common tactic employed by each slaver whenever they took in a new batch. They even had a name for it – the Favour and the Fool. They would choose the strongest or most skilled amongst the slaves and lavish them with conditions much better than their brethren. He, or she would become the Favour, the lackey of the slave-master. Of course, such disproportionate treatment would breed discontent among the other slaves and estrange the Favour from their ranks. But that didn’t matter to the Favour. As long as the master was in charge, the Favour would continue to prosper and to maintain their advantage, they would often try their best to ingratiate themselves to their master by snitching on the other slaves.

The Fool on the other hand was in a diametrically opposite position. Having only the Favour could cause the other slaves to unite against a common enemy. To alleviate their sense of dissatisfaction, a random slave, mostly the one who was the smallest and weakest or the least skilled, would be chosen by the Master and utterly humiliated for the master’s amusement.

It is true that we judge our happiness in comparison to other’s. So too do we judge our misery.

The presence of the Fool would create a clear feeling of ‘at least I don’t have to suffer that’ within the slaves. ‘If I go against the master, I might degenerate into the Fool,’ they would think. ‘But if I flatter him, follow his will, I might someday receive equal treatment to the Favour.’ Obedience born of a system of rewards and punishment. The oldest trick in the book.

And in this batch, Sand had been clearly chosen as the Fool. Association with him was taboo.

A sorrowful feeling welled up in Sand’s heart. An entire sentient race treated with little more dignity than domestic animals, sometimes even less. It was what he had been fighting against for the entirety of his last life. Now, all his achievements, the flower of freedom that had budded on the sands moistened by the blood of martyrs, all of it… gone. Washed away by the river of time’s sudden reversal of course. The waters of the errant river had flooded its banks washing away the dark red marks left by human heroes on its banks. History had been washed away and a fresh slate prepared to record facts anew. And the cause of it all – Sand. The Bloody Devil who had been one of the leaders of the human emancipation movement.

Did he feel guilty for invalidating all that his fellow heroes had achieved? Yes. Did he feel guilty for erasing the fact of their conversion from heroes to martyrs? No. Not at all. This time, they would live. They all would.

As Sand somehow managed to make his way to the bed in one side of the room, he felt the sightless gaze of the medic following him all the way. Collapsing onto the bed, he lay face down on what amounted to little more than a sheet laid on several wooden planks nailed together.

The medic cocked his head to the side, “Really, the vigour of youth. You burn so bright, it hurts even these eyes of mine.”

Sand snorted impatiently, “Hurry up.”

Slowly, languorously, the man stood from his seat behind his desk and shuffled towards Sand, reaching him just as he finally lost his fight against the darkness pressing against the edges of his vision.

The last he heard before he lost himself to the comforting embrace of darkness was the rustling and ripping of cloth as the medic’s deft fingers gently pulled away the makeshift cloth bandage that had become stuck to his wounds by the clotting blood.

“A pity you burnt too bright.”

---

If you have any questions about this, anything at all, then ask in the comments below. I am planning for the guy to be enslaved to a Succubus as her ‘meal’. Anyway, I’ll judge the interest level in this story by the number of comments. I even accept binary answers. This entire text contains ~18000 characters, you need to type just one. So, move those lazy fingers and type a ‘0’ for no or a ‘1’ for yes.

Kara brought me past Lin’s dwelling to the backside of the mountain where she lived, with Lin following us. As inner disciples of the Yin Demon Sect, they were quite high up in the mountain, a bit above the half-way mark. The outer disciples resided in accommodations that were located at the broad base of the mountain while the top was occupied by the sect elders and the core disciples.

The sect master lived in the dwelling at the mountain peak.

The different heights weren’t just a symbol of their status, it was also a measure of the cultivation resources available to them.

The mountain was special. No, I don’t mean its location in the middle of a forest with no other raised landforms in sight.

While there was that, what I mean is that it had magical properties. A Corpse mountain to be specific.

It was just as it sounds. the entire mountain was actually the dead body of a humongous beast. When Kara pointed that out to me, it took me a long time to actually wrap my head around it. I was so stunned that I stood about gawking at the soil beneath my foot for a solid minute like the hick I was, much to Lin’s amusement.

So, that was one mystery solved. Hmm hmm. Quite reasonable. If you see a mountain in the middle of a plain, it has to be a giant beast’s corpse. NOT.

What the hell. Even the dinosaurs never got that big. How would the things even support their body weight without their bones snapping under the pressure? It’s unscientific!

Maybe that’s the point. I wasn’t in a scientific world anymore. Magic existed. Why not giant beasts? Just, I hoped that such terrifying things weren’t a common sight.

When I asked them, the girls informed me that these beasts had become extinct in an Era known as the Desolate Period. At that time, these beasts shared the position of the overlords of the world with a race of giants known as the Titans. In that period, magic was much more prevalent, able to support the survival of such gigantic creatures.

Unlike now, when magic has to be extracted as Essence from various substances, in that period, magic could be easily extracted from a formless substance that was present everywhere called the Aether.

Prosperity and decline go hand in hand.

The very Aether that brought about the magnificence of the Desolate Era became its downfall when it disappeared. The meagre amount of Essence that could be extracted from physical substances wasn’t enough to support the magnanimous demands of the giant beasts or the Titans and a war that spanned the world broke out over the scraps of Aether permeated land that remained.

In the end, all of it was futile and the gigantic races began to die out one after the other. Some tried to seek for a way to escape their inevitable demise.

Their means were many and varied. Some special insects used their unique skill to wrap themselves up in a cocoon and fall into a state of stasis – waiting for the Aether to return while frozen in time.

Some others tried to reduce their builds in order to curtail their demand for resources. Many were successful. That is the origin of the current Beast races. The humans and other humanoid races (yes, there are other races) are apparently the descendants of the Titans.

The mountain we were currently on was actually the cocoon of a Giant insect named the Silver Yin Mantis. Over the thousands of years of its dormancy, the cocoon had developed a leak and its life had steadily passed and now, all that was left in the interior of the mountain was a corpse. That’s why it was called a Corpse mountain.

As to why it was advantageous to live near the top of the mountain, it was because the position of the leak corresponded to the peak of the mountain and as a Giant insect, even a corpse, the amount of Yin Essence it contained was enormous.

After its death, the Essence was slowly being released into the world. Actually, the Yin Demon Sect’s grand formation’s main purpose was to lock the yin Essence from leaking out, thereby causing the Essence to become particularly rich within it. The gathering of Moonlight Essence was just an auxiliary function.

Even if one didn’t cultivate, their Spirit would slowly grow by just living here. But the actual spring of Essence was at the peak. Thus, the closer one lived to the mountain peak, the faster they could cultivate.

So, the sect mistress had the most abundant amount of resources with which to cultivate. It was to the point that actually using men to cultivate would pollute her Spirit – doing more harm than good. It was ironical that the head of the Yin Demon Sect would be the least Demonic in her actions. Of course, she must have done her fair share of evil to crawl up to that position in the first place.

Was this what the Buddhists meant by the phrase putting down the butcher’s knife and reaching Buddhahood?

Judging by the drastic fluctuations of both Kara and Lin’s emotions at the mention of the sect mistress, I hazarded a guess that there was some hidden history there. But, now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.

We had reached Kara’s courtyard.

It was much larger than Lin’s courtyard. Actually, it was much larger than a lot of the other inner disciple’s courtyards. What was going on? Was I mistaken and was Lin secretly the illegitimate child of the sect Mistress? Come to think of it, could the Demonesses even get pregnant? The way they sucked the Essence out of the semen, I didn’t think normal intercourse would work. But, what if…

Oh shit, I hadn’t used protection. Was it her safe day? Was I going to become a father?

Even when Kara pushed open her gate and let us in, I was still worrying about this issue, so I didn’t notice where I was walking till I was half-way through the garden. But when I did notice, my jaw dropped.

Due to my activities as a public figure, I had to travel quite frequently. Wherever I went, I would be sure to put some time aside for sightseeing in my agenda. As a result, I had seen quite a few magnificent sceneries back on earth but all that had been trumped by my one-day stay in this world.

First the beauty of the enlarged moon illuminating us through the grand formation. Then the sight of the Viridian forest at night. And now, Kara’s garden.

It was… beautiful.

Now I knew why her courtyard was so much larger than the others. Most of the area was taken up by the garden, with the small wooden cottage taking up one corner of the yard. It was a sea of flowers, glittering silver and gold under the curtain of moonlight. Their stems and leaves glowed with a blue iridescence, increasing their mystical nature.

Noticing my stunned expression, “These are moon lilies,” announced Lin proudly. “Senior sister is the best Cultivator of moon lilies within the inner disciples.”

The way she puffed up in pride almost made me think that it was her accomplishments she was talking about, not Kara’s.

Running up to a blooming flower, she called me over. “Come here. See this.” Noticing the bemused expression on Kara’s face and the happy undertones in her signal, I concluded that she was enjoying the chance to show off. As for Lin, her enthusiasm was clear for all to see.

I was curious too. Walking up to her, carefully avoiding stepping on the flowers, I crouched down beside her.

“See this?” she said, indicating a flower whose petals were in the process of transitioning from silver to gold. “These flowers are really special. They absorb moonlight and convert it into yin and yang essence. Usually a single material can usually produce a single essence but yin-yang is special. These flowers are born both stamens and pistils but either their stamens or their pistils are immature while the other one is mature. If the stamen is mature, the flower petals are golden. If the pistil is mature, the petals are silver. But over the course of the flower blooming, their mature part withers while the immature organ becomes mature. The colour of their petals changes as well. So, a flower that buds as male will fall off as female and a flower that buds as female will fall off as male. Due to our grand formation, there is abundant moonlight and these flowers grow really well. The nectar produced by the pistil contains abundant yin Essence while the pollen has yang Essence. Usually, we would have to sell off the pollen at very low prices as cheap alchemy ingredients as nobody in this area cultivates with yang essence but now that you are here…”

Without warning, she suddenly smeared something on my nose with her finger. Before I could check what it was, I was overcome with a violent urge to sneeze.

Ah-choo..

In my crouching position, the force of my sneeze made me lose my balance and topple backwards. But if I fell, I’d crush the flowers. With a superhuman body and the youth title of Twister King, I managed to somehow hold myself off the flowers by throwing out my hands, contorting myself into an impossible position in the process.

Looking up, I glared at Lin who was covering her mouth and giggling as she watched me struggling up from my pose. Getting to my feet, I rubbed my nose which was still tingling from whatever she had smeared on it. My fingers came away with a golden sheen. Then the skin on my fingers began tingling as well but when I made to wipe them on my shirt, Lin stopped me.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s the pollen of the Moon lily. Use your Inner Vision.” She replied.

Following her instruction, I looked within myself.

Thin strands of golden Qi were penetrating my skin on my nose and fingertips that had come in contact with the pollen.

Some of the golden strands merged with my body while the rest joined my Spirit. When I looked very carefully, I noticed that this Qi was a different shade of gold from my Spirit. Now I knew why Lin and Kara talked about the Spirit becoming impure along with the cultivation with different resources.

Kara’s voice woke me from my contemplation. “Come on, you’ll be seeing a lot more of that stuff soon. For now, you should worry about other things.”

As I followed Kara into her house, I finally couldn’t hold in my curiosity and asked Lin. “Hey, aren’t you worried about getting pregnant?”

She just looked at me blankly. “Like… bearing a child? We had sex, you know? We didn’t use protection. You might get pregnant…” I explained further.

But noticing the blank look on her face, I had a premonition that she would say something really ridiculous.

“What does sex have to do with babies?”

Sure enough. Well, at least, I had my answer. What had the Demonesses turned sex into?

Ah well, Lin’s re-education would have to wait.

For now, I had a Kara to impress.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 137

Sorry for the delay, had a fever. Fine now.

---

Lin, her senior sister and I. The three of us stared at each other in silence as we let our thoughts wander.

Lin had already brought her senior sister up to speed on the current state of affairs. Now we were waiting for her to make her decision.

In the silence, the music of their emotions was that much clearer. Lin’s melody was the muted trill of anxiety modulated with hope. Her senior sister’s on the other hand, despite her poker face, was a chaotic ensemble of instruments indicative of her current confusion.

All of a sudden, the ebony woman sighed and turned her amber eyes to meet mine. “Call me Kara.”

“Thomas Yang.” I decided to keep the poor bloke’s surname since I was in his body while getting rid of his first name. Once I said it out aloud, I somehow felt much better about my situation. I was still the individual from earth but now, I resided in a magical body in a magical world.

Thomas Thornton was no more. Neither was Liu Yang.

I was Thomas Yang.

My Soul glowed brighter momentarily before becoming much clearer than before. I could feel its conjunction with my body increase. Even the clarity with which I could sense Lin and Kara’s emotions shot up. I took it to mean that the name change was a step in the right direction.

“Thomas?” Kara’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you say that you were a local? What kind of name is Thomas?”

“What kind of name is Kara?” I shot back.

“I’m not local.” She replied.

“Thought so.” I nodded.

“What’s your excuse?”

“Since I escaped death, I decided on a new name for a new me.” I bullshitted with a straight face.

“Ookaay. Then what do you want of us?”

“Food, shelter, cultivation resources…”

“And sex.”

“Now that’s something you two will be wanting from me. It’s a give and take. You get full use out of your resources and a boost in cultivation speed. I get safety and a promise of safe egress from this man-trap of a Sect at some point in the future.”

“But you do know that I’m the biggest loser in this arrangement, right? Lin was at stage 3, you were a mortal and I was at stage 6 of the Qi condensing stage. Now, all three of us are at stage 3… You owe me three realms.”

“You owe me a life. No, two.”

“…Fair enough. I guess. Though if I hadn’t brought you away secretly, you wouldn’t be here to double down on deals with me. Instead, you’d be strung up on a pole and treated like a living artifact. So, don’t try to use that as leverage again.”

“A business arrangement, huh? So that’s how you want it?”

“How else would I want it?”

“No… that’s fine. It works out for all of us. So, what next?”

Kara turned to Lin. “Well, since most of the sect will be up all night welcoming the newcomers and celebrating, there won’t be much happening till tomorrow noon. Then, there will be a tournament for the inner sect disciples. More of a demonstration of our strength to the newcomers, really. But it still has some lucrative prizes. Lin will be participating in the junior bracket. With her Spirit purity – she has a good chance of snagging a position.”

She turned to me, “As for me… I’m screwed. I will have to sit this one out. Instead, I’ll be testing how much you’re really worth. Lin and I have some resources stockpiled. You better deliver what you promise, or else…” She bared her teeth in a lopsided grin, her white teeth in sharp contrast with her skin. Her form blurred as she closed the distance between us in an instant. Though I could follow her speed with my eyes, reacting to her was a whole different story and before I could even twitch, she was pressing her elbow into my throat, her amber eyes inches from mine.

I felt her warm breath against my face as she spoke, “I could have crushed your throat right now. You can have all the power in the world but without the knowledge of how to use it… you are just as weak as you were as a mortal. Don’t let your cultivation get to your head.”

I swallowed nervously, my Adam’s apple bobbing up and down and grazing against her elbow. She had one thing right. Even with similar cultivation level, I couldn’t put a scratch on her. It was like a gym-rat facing off against a martial arts master. They both had the muscles but the martial artist would easily run circles around the gym-rat using his technique.

But she had one thing wrong too. Judging by the quiver in her emotional tone, I could tell that she knew the loophole in her words. Out of the bed, she could easily overcome me, but once we were under the sheets, she would be totally in my power.

Agreeing to cultivate with me meant that she had to be mentally prepared to put herself under my power. Once we started intercourse, she wouldn’t be able to hold on to her sanity. Even if I couldn’t suck her dry as she had first feared, it wouldn’t take much effort for me to take her life.

Even based as it was on the fact that killing her had absolutely no advantages for me, only disadvantages, it was still a huge leap of faith. One she must have struggled to take.

From the uncertain wavering tone of her emotions, it was a decision she still hadn’t fully committed to.

The only foreseeable result of her deciding that the cooperation was too risky was my corpse lying on the ground. And this time, I might not be lucky enough to reincarnate.

Taking a deep breath, I locked eyes with her. “If you are scared, you can tie me to a chair before we try this out. In return, I get to tie you up the next time.”

From the spike in the intensity of her signal and the total disappearance of the fearful undertones I guessed that she liked the idea a lot. The feral grin that spread across her face told me that maybe, she liked the idea a bit too much.

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Table of Contents