Captured

Cole was feeling very lucky today. His caravan was just passing through the forest to get to Dewsbury Town when he came across rare merchandise: a boy with golden eyes.

Cole is what you would call a slave trader. He's been capturing orphans, men, women, and sold them to rich customers. This time, however, he found something precious. A blessed child would sell for so much money. If one could see him right now, they might think they're seeing dollar signs in his eyes.

At first, he wanted to sneak behind the boy and knock him unconscious, but a wolf got to him first. The boy killed the wolf and was injured. In his line of work, damaged goods are very bad, but the boy only received a bite to his arm, nothing a small healing potion can fix.

When the boy fainted, Cole started to move. He approached the unconscious child and took out a small vial of green liquid. He popped open the cap and poured the contents on the bite wound. Healing potions don't heal injuries immediately, they only stimulate the healing process to heal faster. Low-end potions will leave scars, because of that Cole used a more potent potion on his merchandise.

The wounds started to slowly heal after absorbing the liquid. Cole smiled and lifted the boy and carried him on his shoulder like a sack.

He returned to where his caravan camped while feeling good about himself.

========================================

"Mmmm... w-where am I?"

I woke up from the sound of rattling. What happened? I remember walking away after killing that gray wolf. I think I fainted right after.

I looked around to see where I am. I'm in a cage? What the hell? Why am I in a cage?

I tried to escape by kicking the bars. It didn't budge. I channeled aura to my body and bashed the cage with my shoulder. It still didn't budge, and it only made my shoulder hurt.

"You should just give up. The cages are made with metal that can resist Aura."

I just noticed but there were more cages around me. Inside them were people of varying ages; some adult and some in the younger side.

I look to my left to see who spoke to me. It was a boy around my age. His skin was pale white, but he doesn't look sick. His ears... wait... his ears are pointy?

"Um, are you..."

"Yes I'm an elf. You humans are annoying."

ELVES EXIST?! Oh damn. I really am living in a fantasy world. I wonder if the female elves are hot?

"Sorry... it's just that I've never seen an elf before."

"Uh huh..."

He's not much of a talker huh?

"Don't mind me asking but why are we in cages?"

"Did you live under a rock? We're gonna be sold as slaves. We're currently being transported to a town."

Slaves... so they're real here too. As someone that lived in the modern world, it doesn't feel real to me.

I look around. Other than the cages surrounding my own cage, there's a sort of cloth roof above. We were on a big wagon, I could feel the rattling from the movement of the vehicle. I look to my right and saw the driver. Peeking through the gaps of my cage, I saw horses pulling the entire thing. A horse-drawn wagon—very medieval.

For some reason I didn't give up. I channeled Aura into my body again and tried to escape.

I failed as expected. That elf guy did say something about the cages being made of metal that are resistant to Aura.

My futile attempts of escape attracted the driver.

"BE QUIET YOU MAGGOTS!!"

"Fuck you baldie!" I retaliated

"What?!"

The driver turned around and looked me in the eye. He was enraged pretty easily, I guess calling out his bald head struck a nerve.

He stopped the wagon and took out a thick stick. He squeezed through the cages and got in front of my cage. So he's trying to beat me up for insulting him huh? That's fair.

He opened the top of my cage as he raised the stick, eager to swing it at me. But before he could enact punishment, someone held his wrist, stopping him.

"Stop. If you put a bruise or even pluck a hair from him, you die."

The bald driver turned his head to look at who stopped him. Almost immediately his furious expression was replaced with one filled with fear.

"Boss Cole... I-I was just trying to teach the kid a lesson. What's so special about a little brat?"

The man called Cole let go of the bald driver's wrist. I could clearly see that his wrist was bruised red. That guy is strong.

"Look at his eyes clearly you moron."

While rubbing his wrist, the bald driver turned to look at me.

"B-blessed One!"

"Now go back to driving."

The bald driver nodded meekly and went back to driving the wagon.

Cole looked at me and smiled. Man what the fuck? Is he a pedophile? And what the hell is this Blessed One bullshit again? I just have pretty eyes, there's nothing special about that!!

...

After several days we reached the town. We were unloaded from the wagon and finally got sunlight touching my skin.

The other cages were handled poorly, the people inside were thrown around, getting minor bruises. Only my cage and the elf's cage were unloaded carefully, as if they were afraid to get us even a little bit hurt.

I look around. There were a lot of buildings and even more people. They were all minding their business. It looks like slavery is legal in this world, and quite a common occurrence as there were even more wagons containing more slaves other than us.

We were moved inside a building. The building looked fancy outside and even fancier inside. Our cages were lined up in a display in a big room.

A man wearing expensive-looking clothes entered. He had a big belly, a monocle, and a handlebar mustache. He looked like a typical medieval rich guy stereotype.

He inspected each cage, looking at us with scrutiny. When he reached my cage he suddenly wore a bright smile on his face.

"Interesting. I'm going to make loads of money."