by V. A. Lewis
Immense guilt weighed down my chest, as I knew it was my fault he was being tortured like this. When I looked at him, I instinctively flinched, and averted eye contact. I could not bring myself to see him. And he must have noticed this.
Theodore continued to bring out crates and boxes alongside other slaves, until it was time to bring out the cages the Beastkin and I were in. They were being supervised by the guards to prevent anyone from trying to unlock the cages, but Theodore still went for the metal cage I was in.
Along with three other younger men, they heaved and carried us out of the wagon and into the warehouse. As they entered the building and walked up to the room to keep us in, Theodore opened his mouth and spoke softly.
"It’s not your fault."
It came out barely as a whisper; something only meant to be heard by me. And with the sounds of crates and cages being unloaded filling the air, I was certain none of the guards heard it.
Upon hearing that, I looked up and managed to muster the courage to see Theodore. I stared at him, and the discolorations on his skin, and the wound on his face, finally taking it all in.
"I’m sorry," I said instinctively.
I did not force myself to speak, nor did I feel like it was appropriate to say anything at that moment; but I uttered the words regardless. Because I was sorry.
Rin and Shang looked on at this quiet conversation, and exchanged a glance, but said nothing; they were spectators to this moment, so they just watched.
Theodore looked up at me, and we held that look for a moment. I stared deep into his eyes, past his brown iris, through the pupil, and into the darkness that it held within.
"I had a daughter, once," his voice came out, hollow. Empty. As dark as the black circular opening in the center of his gaze. "She looked nothing like you. She had short orange-brown hair that she liked to tie into pigtails, and hazel eyes that sparkled like gold."
Our eyes stayed locked, and although I wanted to blink— to look away— I did not. He continued speaking, his voice dreamy, as if he were under a spell.
"And yet, when I look at you, I can only see her. I see her smile, shining as brightly as the sun. I hear her voice, as serene and beautiful as the birds singing at the break of dawn."
He finally broke away, and stared up at the ceiling as we entered a room. The door swung open, and we were brought to a halt as we reached a row of boxes placed on top of each other. The older man shook his head.
"And when I see you get hurt— when I see your suffering— all I can see is my daughter going through the same. Before she…"
His voice trailed off, and he slowly lowered the cage along with the others. They placed us amongst a bunch of crates, and the other slaves quickly turned and hurried off to continue doing their jobs. But Theodore just stood there. Alone.
"I’m sorry," I repeated the words, and felt like an idiot. But there was nothing else I could say, and it had to be said. So I said it again, even if it made me an idiot.
Theodore turned his head back to face me, and he smiled. It was a bleak smile, like the sun on a rainy day; the kind of smile you gave someone when you wanted to assure someone, but had no strength left to do so.
"There’s no reason to be sorry, Melas. It was my fault. I thought that I could at least save her— that if I had enough money, she could have recovered from the Noxeus. But there is no cure to that plague. I should have known that the moment my wife died. Then my daughter died too. And I couldn’t pay them back," the middle aged man forlornly spoke; his words striking deep into my chest.
I wanted to cry. Why? Why must we suffer? I wanted to scream at the world for being so unfair. But I did not. Because I knew those words hung between every sentence he spoke. I knew that his cry was silently being screamed into the world at this very moment.
I looked at the man. At the father and the husband. At the farmer who gave up everything he had and owned, just to save his family. And it was all in vain; ending with his family gone, and with the loan sharks he approached selling him into slavery.
He stared back into my eyes, and I knew then that the next words he would speak were not meant for me, but for himself.
"May the Goddess illuminate our lives."
Only when he turned away, did I remember to breathe; I stared up his back, as he went back to work, and was yelled at and beaten by the guards for taking so long.
Slowly, so slowly that I was not even sure if I was moving, I looked away. I turned to face the audience; the two Beastkin that shared my cell, and saw the overcast looks they had.
They both had somber expressions, something that was completely uncharacteristic of them; Shang was gripping his fists so tightly into a ball that blood was dripping off the side, and Rin was clenching her jaw so hard you could hear the grinding of the teeth.
"Hrn, we will get out of here, I promise."
"Nn, and we will make them pay."
I looked at the two of them, meeting the both of their gazes. Then finally, I could not take it anymore, and I cried.
I broke down, collapsing to the cell floor as tears ran down my face. My wailing echoed around the room, as the two of Beastkin comforted me, trying to ease my sadness.
I cried and cried, until there were no more tears; until the day came to a close, and the morrow came about to replace it.
After we left the city, our caravan continued on its track to Bys. I sat in the wagon as it hurried on down its path, and gathered every single ounce of willpower I had, then spoke.
"We escape. Tonight."
Everyone in the room, not just Shang and Rin, paused. The white furred catgirl tilted her head to one side and spoke anxiously.
"Are you sure? It’s so soon after our last attempt. And your leg…" she trailed off.
"Rin’s right. You’re still a child, and after what happened the other day— you don’t have to push yourself."
I shook my head, and resolutely stood my ground; I raised myself to my feet, and turned to every single person— not slave, person— in the room.
"We escape," I said. "I’m sick and tired of all this. I want this to be over already. I don’t care what happens— I just want to make them pay."
Shang hesitated, but he saw the determination in my eyes. "Tell me, Young Melas. Does your decision have anything to do with what I said to you the other day?"
"No," I answered truthfully.
"Very well then," Shang said, nodding. "Same plan?"
"Same plan. You guys just have to sleep."
"Nn, sleep! Sure! That’s the easiest thing you could have asked of me!" Rin spoke out cheerfully. A Rabbit Beastkin agreed with her and then it was settled.
They were not fully prepared for this; we had planned to try and break out again in another day or two. Yet, they put their trust in me: they believed in me.
I was not going to let them down.
I believed in myself, and remembered what I asked of the fake-stupid-jerk god; I had made a simple request, one I was granted as I was kidnapped from the world I loved, and placed into this world I hated. What I asked was this:
To become the most powerful spellcaster in the world.
And he granted it. So tonight, I was going to make use of that stupid request, and break out of this place; I was going to use magic.
I was prepared, and I waited for night to come. I waited for us to stop and make camp. I waited to finally escape and make these slavers pay for what they have done.
Then I can deal with the Inquisitors. And then the fake god.
I eagerly waited. And as the caravan continued down the road, I sat and waited.
And waited.
Night came, and still I waited. What’s taking so long?
I sat and waited as the wagon continued down the road. Ugh, did we come across another destroyed town? I sighed as I waited for us to stop.
And finally— we stopped.
Oh my God, finally!
I nearly threw my hands up in the air, and excitedly sat up. Rin stretche
d and sat up in anticipation for the plan to finally start, and Shang sat back relaxed, and ready.
I looked at the flaps of the wagon, waiting for people to come in and begin unloading stuff— or at least give us our meals since we hadn’t eaten since morning. The flaps flew open, and I looked up—
And saw a grinning face.
"Huh, that’s quite the merchandise." A man dressed in plate armor poked his head into the room and stared about, he spun away for a second and shouted at someone else. "Hey, come check out what they brought this time!"
I blinked as the man turned back to face us, with a smug look that was the hallmark of an asshole. As another man came up behind him, the man leaned forwards, and spoke mockingly.
"Hey, animals!" The man spread his arms to his sides, as the second man threw open the flaps revealing an array of towering structures and gargantuan monoliths behind their backs.
"Welcome, to the Free City of Bys."
Chapter 18: Bys, the Free City of Slaves
I had always considered myself to be a good person; if my friends called me for advice, I would help them the best I could; if a homeless man (or woman) asked for some change, I would spare them what I could; and if I somehow struck it rich— if my dreams of becoming a successful lawyer came into fruition— I always believed that I would find the perfect balance between living a life without worries, and a life dedicated to helping those in need.
It was a simple philosophy: it might not have been the perfect philosophy, or even the best philosophy; but it was a simple enough philosophy, one that would let me have a clean conscience at the end of the day
And yet, more and more often, I found myself questioning whether I was even a good person in my past life; because only someone so heinous— someone so maliciously evil— would deserve to go through what I had been going through.
If there was any truly grave sin I had committed as a white girl from Southern California, it was probably the fact that I ate meat! I knew I should have gone vegan! the inane thought crossed my mind. I should have listened to Maddie when she told me eating meat was bad! And now, I was sentenced to suffer in this world as a punishment for it.
Or maybe it was dabbing. I paused, and pondered on the malignance of my actions. Yeah it was definitely the dabbing that led to this.
Maybe I was just biased. Surely there were plenty of people back in my world who went through much worse suffering than me, and did not even deserve a tiny fraction of it; but only because I was experiencing it firsthand now, did I suddenly find the world to be so unjust.
And perhaps, I did deserve this. Not because of any transgressions from my past life, but because of the shortcomings in my current one; because I failed to see the slavers as people.
I only ever considered them to be laughably evil stupid-dumb-idiot jerks; but now I know that that’s not true, and that they were simply laughably evil jerks.
It was not an epoch-making revelation: people generally were not stupid, after all. But it was enough of a distinction to have vastly altered my plans to escape— if I was aware of it.
And that was a pretty big ‘if’ that never came to be, because my judgement was severely clouded by constant stress and anger, from… y’know being a slave and all.
As such, I never once considered the possibility that the slavers— the jerks who had us chained up and locked in cages— would have seen and experienced the same things we saw; reacted to it and formed their own opinions on it; before deciding to alter their plans, which probably were also probably quite arbitrary in the first place. Slavers were people too! Who could have known?
To be perfectly honest, I should have expected this; not anything in specific, just that something would go wrong. Because, let’s face it: nothing had gone my way since I came to this world.
I lost my life, then lost my mom, and was captured into slavery after nearly dying, thrice! That was more times I had come close to death in these last few months, than the entire 18 years I spent on Earth— and that was including the time I died!
So now, as the curtains were drawn, and the stage was unveiled before my very eyes, I was faced with the disconcerting reality that this world hated me as much as I hated it.
"Welcome, to the Free City of Bys."
The flaps of our wagon were thrown open, and a cold chill enveloped me as a gentle breeze blew in from the night sky.
My gaze swept over the city, seeing a network of intersecting streets stretch out for over a dozen miles, lit up by lamps and torches lined up alongside this grid. Roads ran parallel to one another, cutting across streets at a 90 angle from the side, creating a uniformed pattern of lines which formed hundreds of square shaped sections of the city.
It was like looking at a city from back home! (And by home, I meant America of course!)
Unlike Boleria— which was characterized by discontinuous streets and haphazard placement of roads— Bys had a regular layout of city blocks which made navigation within the city far easier. The consistent geography and frequent intersection helped with orienting oneself, giving a far more direct route to one’s destination.
I cast my eyes on the houses made of limestone and bricks uniformly wrinkling the landscape of the city: white structures with red tops jutted out of the ground in overlapping rows, leaving the terrain devoid of any personality, and transforming it into what looked like a dull suburban neighborhood.
These houses stood on average at around three stories in height, and occupied a plot of land almost twice as wide across; each house seemed to be split up into multiple buildings, and formed more of a small complex with a courtyard in the middle rather than a single structure, despite clearly being houses people lived in.
Most of Bys consisted of similar looking buildings, as though the same buildings were copy and pasted thousands of times over vast swathes of land to be as efficient as possible; but it was these sprawling indistinguishable architecture that made what stood at the heart of the city even more remarkable.
It was not a single monolithic structure that was erected in the middle of the metropolis like in Boleria, but rather a vast array of massive buildings that stood far above everything else within the city walls.
Dozens of buildings that rose up to a hundred feet stood amongst each other, forming a superstructure that was built in the center of the Slave City. The sudden transition was the same as going straight from a random town in the Midwest United States to the middle of Manhattan in New York City!
Towers and minarets clustered together to form the centerpiece that emerged out of the rest of the city. Varying structures came together to create an eclectic mix of architecture: obelisks poked out of the ground while pillars protruded from the floor, all just to decorate the land!
There was even a statue of a man standing triumphantly with his hands on his hips, standing 60 feet tall next to a clock tower twice its height!
But even among these mini-skyscrapers and giant monuments, there was a massive structure that stood out like a jewel amongst the unremarkable houses that filled the background; this gigantic amphitheatre almost looked like a brilliant round-cut diamond, where it’s base starts out small and thin, growing larger and thicker the further up the structure you went.
Looking at it from the side, it took the shape of an upside down trapezoid with the bottom being only half the length of the top. This was only possible because of the mana crystals reinforcing the foundations of the stadium, allowing it to not only tower over the city at almost 350 feet, and also be more than twice as wide across at its thickest. It looked like it could fit over 60,000 people in it without a problem! Almost as much as a modern sports stadium!
And next to the amphitheatre was another building erected up to 500 feet at its peak; this building stood as tall as any skyscraper from my world, but did not have the impossible proportions the adjacent monument had.
Instead, this towering structure was built layer by layer, slowly diminishing in size as the structured ascended. The zig
gurat eventually crested into a flat top, which although could still fit half a football field (I mean American football, not soccer!) in it, it was less than a quarter of the size of the first layer that carried the entire building.
The ziggurat looked old, like it was built over a hundred years ago; the stone that built it was worn down, and the architecture primitive compared to the neighboring stadium.
And the fact that it was not made with any sort of mana tool enhancements on it attested to this idea. The design for the ziggurat had a massive base that was necessary to carry its own weight, since there were no mana crystals used to strengthen and support it.
This juxtaposition of the old with the new, of the unremarkable with the remarkable, and of the background with the foreground all painted the breathtaking portrait that was the city of Bys. And the final touch to this painting was the picture frame that held it all together.
The walls that surrounded the city were not as tall as the ones in the Free City of Boleria, but they were still heavily fortified, with bell towers placed every hundred feet. But despite circling the entire city, there were only four main gates— one in each cardinal direction— almost as if it was designed to keep things in, as much as it was meant to keep things out.
The Free City of Slaves unfurled before my eyes, and for a moment, I had my breath caught in my throat.
It was a beautiful sight. There was no denying that fact. But I couldn’t stare in admiration for long.
The sheer amount of manual labor required to build the vast and sprawling city laid before me had to be the work of millions of slaves. Generations of people entrapped in a society that treated them like some sort of tool.
I caught myself from gawking, and sobered up.
It was terrible.
The machinations of pure evil was what created the city in front of me. And I was caught in its system.
