Chapter 17: After the Massacre
The metallic stench of blood filled the air. I was walking towards the group of children that are huddled together on the corner of the street. They were shaking in fear as they look at me, A young lady with silver white hair, and pale white skin, walking over the dead body of the slave traders like they didn't exist in the first place.
The noisy village this morning is now dead quiet, save for the scavengers and crows feasting on the dead bodies that are scattered around.
Human body is surprisingly fragile, I didn't even activate my attack skills, I just sent thousands of wind blades, to the crowd of people that tried to attack me. The next thing I know, thousands of bodies that had been dismembered scattered on the ground. It was like slicing butter, it was disgustingly effortless.
"Where are you hiding the slaves?" I asked the cowering children but nobody answered.
"I will count to 3, If you do not answer you will end up like them" I said
I may sound heartless but I knew that despite being young, this children had drove various people before me to their demise, with the words, I just have to do it to survive.
Being in a pinch is not an excuse to harm others. I know I sounded hypocrite for saying that after slaughtering an entire village, but a bigger part of me knew that what I did, was right, that punishing bad people is right.
Humans kill monsters because monsters harm them, I just did what a normal human would do. Since some humans are nastier than monsters.
"1" I started counting
"The-they are in the store room, the low grade once were the only ones left, the high grade ones were sent to the empire" One of the children said with trembling voice
"Take me there" I said but just like earlier they did not move, they just bowed their heads like well trained slaves
"Were you slaves too?" I asked
"Y-Yes, before promising allegiance to the slave town" The same child that talked earlier said
I looked at them and saw that the children had a tattoo on their necks
"What's that" I asked while pointing at their neck with the tip of my whip sword
They backed away to the corner some more and trembled like they were having a convulsion.
"Th-that's the slave contract"
"Hmm, so are you telling me that You were forced to capture unknowing tourists or adventurer against your will?"
They did not answer but they nodded their head earnestly
"Hmm, How about these people?" I asked while pointing at the dead bodies around us
"The-they are slave traders, the-they are under a big organization. Various people had come and gone to and from other places"
"Oh, so this is not all of them?" I asked and the children shook their heads
"How do I dispel that slave contract?"
The children raised their heads ans looked at me with moistened eyes. I felt something prick my heart at the way they looked at me.
I know, I'm such a big mouth, after criticizing them a while ago, I'm empathizing with them and trying to save them.
I do not have any excuse with my actions right now. maybe, I'm feeling guilty after killing thousands of people? Maybe I wanted to at the very least save this children to give my soul relief? or maybe I was just making excuses to give justice to my indiscriminate action? I don't know.
There is only one thing I'm sure of, I did not feel bad. I'm not being defensive or anything, but I did not feel bad, for killing these people and even thinking about killing these children.
I feel bad from the thought that I don't feel bad, It makes me think if I'm still human or not, It makes me feel bad about myself.
Did I lose my humanity inside the seal?
"The slave contract cannot be dispelled without the owners permission and if the owner dies, the slave will also die after a few days"
Hmm so they will die eventually even if I don't kill them now?
"Did your owners die?" I asked
The children looked at one specific grotesque body not too far from us.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know, Can you just tell me where the store room is?" I said without even meaning it
The children slowly stood up and lead the way to the store room
-
In a huge establishment hundreds of people were crouching down, The moment the huge door of the store room opened all their eyes fell on me. Most of them had dead eyes while some had anger in their eyes. The only thing they all had in common was that, they all looked like corpses, they were so thin and dirty. The place also smelled like rotten eggs and human feces, Honestly, I can't even describe what it smelled like, its just too bad that I had to open a barrier to stop the smell from getting in my nose.
"The people that captured you had all died, I will leave this door open, It's up to you if you want to leave or not. There are also food inside the houses so feel free to rummage them." I said before walking away while leaving the huge door open.
I hurriedly went to the boutique I came from earlier and took a bag and stuffed it with clothes, After rummaging the boutique, I went to the magic store and found 3 spatial rings with 100 item capacity each. I wore the rings and stored the bag of clothes to one. I looked around a little more and found an enchanted staff at the back of the store, together with some enchanted armors, weapon and poisons.
I took the enchanted staff to my hand
[The
I tried to look closely at the enchantments and found that the staff had a mana of its own, it even had a consciousness but it was sleeping. Aside from that it also had quite useful enchantments, like lowering mana consumption by 10% when generating a spell using the staff, reducing spell cool down to 50%, Increasing mana regeneration by 10%, strengthening spell by 30%
[Skill
[Appraisal: Active skill
User has the ability to determine an item's worth and the user's knowledge of magic allows the user to determine the exact properties of an item.
Application: Additional information
Limitation: Can only appraise items that the user hold with the user's hand]
oh? a new skill has been generated!
The staff wiggled in my hand
[The
[Item: Magic staff ??]
[Item cannot be appraised]
[The item is looking at you]
I was puzzled by the pop up notifications, I activated Dragon eyes and looked at the enchantments on the staff once again
[The
I tried to read the enchantments once again but something extraordinary happened
A pair of eyes with yellow reptilian pupils was looking back at me.
I immediately let go of the staff but unlike what I expected, The staff floated on the air and did not fall on the floor.
[The item is looking at you]