Black Armour

Rudeus woke up, slowly and groggily. His vision was a little blurry as he opened his eyes and started getting used to the light. He sat up but tensed upon realizing that he did not recognize his surroundings.

Instead of his rather lavishly decorated room in the Boreas mansion, he was instead in an unfamiliar room with brick walls that had a black tint without any windows. Though the room was larger than his own in the Boreas mansion, it was considerably more Spartan looking, with minimal furnishings. There was only an end table, closet and the bed he was currently sitting on.

'Oh, right… I was transported to the Demon Continent. I should be in Fort Necross, ruled by that Demon King. Shit. What am I going to do now?'

But then he felt an odd weight on his body. Rudeus looked down and saw that he was now wearing a familiar black armour. It was the same one all the knights guarding Fort Necross was wearing. Of course, it was somehow appropriately sized for his still child-like body.

He brushed against the armour, feeling cold hard metal, but also a soft hum of mana flowing through the armour. He didn't see any arcane inscriptions engraved on the outside of the armour, or it might have been on the inside or on his back, so he couldn't tell what the purpose of the mana flowing in it was.

'The hell? Did they strip me?'

Rudeus checked and felt relieved he was still wearing his trousers and underwear. He had been a little worried he got violated while he had been unconscious. Of course, he might not have minded it much if it had been Atofe who- no, she's still the one who refused to let me leave. That bitch!

The mana in the armour was still a concern however, so he started searching for a lapse or a clasp to open up the armour. However, he could not find any.

'Forget it. First things first, escape!'

He looked around, and found no one else in the room but him, and there were no surveillance equipment as well.

'Hah! That Hitogami said it was impossible to escape? What a jackass. There's no one watching me! I can just run away right now!'

Rudeus even found his sword propped neatly against the end table. It was like they were just begging for him to escape!

He recovered his sword, latching the scabbard on the back of his waist and walked over to the door of the room he was in.

Cautiously testing out the door knob, he heard a faint click as the door opened with ease.

'It's not even locked? Wait a minute, isn't this a little too easy?'

He decided to check out the rest of his room first, before trying to escape through the door. He started feeling a little suspicious about how careless they were with his confinement.

Rudeus went over to the wall on the opposite side of the door and placed a hand on it.

'If I cast Earth magic, I should be able to create a hole here.'

To test his theory, Rudeus started summoning his mana and channelled it into the wall. Unexpectedly, the mana slid off the wall like water on a hydrophobic surface. The spell had no effect whatsoever on the black-bricked walls.

'Damn it, what's this, magic-proof bricks? Forget it, I'll just carve out a hole with my sword then.'

He raised his sword and leaned back. Mana started filling his muscles, layering his Saint-rank Battle Aura on his body, before his blade was thrust forward towards the brick walls.

Ping!

The tip of his blade hit the wall and was deflected, resulting in a recoil that reverberated up the sword and along his arms.

'How tough are these bricks, what the fuck?'

It was a castle belonging to a Demon King, he should have expected for the walls of the castle to at least be able to resist Saint-rank attacks. The only evidence of his attempted attack was a white line that barely scratched the surface of the brick he struck.

'At this rate, forget 332 days, I might not be able to open up a big enough hole in 10 years!' Rudeus concluded, a little dispirited. 'Front door it is then.'

Before leaving through the door, Rudeus cast a few spells. One was an illusion spell that made him invisible, while the other was a Wind magic that eliminated sound and smell emanating from him. He truly resembled a North Saint more than a Sword Saint with all these tricks up his sleeve.

He cautiously opened the door which opened up to an empty hallway. With how big this castle was, this hallway was only a small fraction of its total size.

With no map or any indication to tell him where he currently was, Rudeus randomly chose a direction and started to sneak his way through the castle. Walking through the hallway, he realized that the room he had woken up in was only one of many along his corridor.

The inside of the castle was just as bare as his room. A few paintings were hanging here and there, but there were no other decorations.

Occasionally, he would encounter patrolling guards, but he would hide and withdraw his aura to minimize any chances of detection. Thankfully, he succeeded and managed to evade these patrols.

He started being able to orient himself, realizing that his room was on the second level of this palace.

Soon, with no one around to stop him, Rudeus found his way to the courtyard where he had first landed. There were still the knights guarding the courtyard and the castle's portcullis, so he ruled out trying to escape from the main gate.

Surrounding the castle itself were tall, thick walls with battlements and several watchtowers lining the walls. These watchtowers weren't being manned, though he'd imagine throngs of soldiers and archers on them if it was a time of war.

Since Rudeus had no problems with aerial travel, he moved to a more secluded part of the wall and readied his spells.

He pumped mana into his legs and with a single leap, ascended as high as the walls were tall. He then materialized platforms of air, using [Air Step] and started running up like he was climbing a staircase.

'Well, I guess this is farewell, Demon King Atoferatofe. It was a short, but unpleasant meeting. I will miss those thighs of yours though…' Rudeus mused as he leapt out off the castle walls and towards freedom.

Or at least he tried.

Just as he crossed the threshold demarcating the castle wall and freedom, his armour glowed before he felt a blinding pain surge through his body. Volts of electricity were discharged into his body and he almost lost consciousness from the pain.

His concentration on [Air Step] was lost and he collapsed on to the battlements in a smoking heap. The illusionary magic that made his body invisible also faded away from the lack of concentration.

The light and noise from the activation of his armour drew the attention of the knights guarding the gates, and as Rudeus was still recovering from the lightning in coursing through his veins, he found himself surrounded by the black armoured guards.

"Oh, you're up, newbie. I see you've already experienced the punishment for trying to escape."

Rudeus slowly got up, his hair and skin still smoking from the aftereffects of the electricity. He saw that the knights had not drawn their weapons after catching him red handed trying to escape. Instead, they looked oddly sympathetic to his plight.

"P-Punishment?" Rudeus stuttered, his body still a little numb.

One of the knights removed his helmet, revealing a human face underneath. He looked older, around middle-age, but still had a nice head of long blonde hair.

"Steady your breathing, and let your mana circulate your body. You will start feeling much better."

Rudeus nodded and followed the advice. And true to his words, his muscles stopped spasming and he slowly regained feeling to his limbs.

As he was circulating his mana, the knight continued talking.

"You're from the Asura Kingdom, newbie? I was from the Central Continent too – the Dragon King Kingdom. My name is Grayson. Nice to meet you, and welcome to Atofe's Imperial Knights."

Rudeus exhaled deeply, feeling the last of the aftereffects leave his body, "Uh, yes, nice to meet you too."

"I'm from the Millis Continent."

"I lived in Rikarisu City."

One by one, the other guards started to introduce themselves and where they lived. Their tone was one of affection and sympathy, but also slight longing for the places they once called home.

The human named Grayson continued, "Since you're new here, we as your seniors will explain the most important rule here, which is obviously, don't try to escape."

"That's impossible! I need to get back to my family! I can't stay here for 10 years!" Rudeus interrupted.

Grayson sighed sorrowfully and a few others did too while the rest chuckled bitterly.

"You think we don't have families too? We were all just like you. Some of us came for strength, others sought fortune or fame, but inevitably, once we arrived, we were all beaten up by the Demon King Atofe and forced to join her personal guards. I haven't seen my family for over 6 years."

"Then why don't you just run away?" Rudeus asked incredulously.

"You really think we are staying here because we want to? You see the armour we're wearing? The one that you're wearing too?" Grayson pointed at the black armour on Rudeus.

"That's a cursed artefact. They may look like armour, but they are in fact shackles."

Rudeus widened his eyes at that, "Shackles…?"

Grayson nodded, "That's right. The moment someone wears the armour, they are forever bound in service to Demon King Atofe. You are forced to obey her every command, and disobedience will result in a punishment as you have just experienced yourself."

Hearing this, Rudeus immediately started pulling at the armour, trying to remove it from his body.

Grayson shook his head, "It's useless. Once a person wears the armour there are only two ways to take them off – the first, death; the second, is for Atofe to willingly release you from the curse."

"What? How can she be so unreasonable? This is slavery!" Rudeus protested.

He shrugged, "Well, Atofe has made it known that there is a simple way for her to release someone from the armour's curse."

Rudeus leaned in, with hope in his eyes, "What is it? What's the condition? I'll do anything!"

Grayson smiled bitterly, "You just need to defeat Atofe in battle, and receive her acknowledgement."

"That's, that's impossible…" The boy muttered, remembering the mountainous pressure Atofe had released just from putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Running away is useless too. This castle is not very good at repelling intruders, since Atofe likes to receive challenges from Heroes. But it is very good at keeping people in. Once one of us tries going past the boundary, we will receive the punishment and get pulled back in."

"Then, that means…"

"Yes. There is no way to escape, newbie."

Rudeus fell to his knees in despair, "This can't be happening!"

"Well, it's not all bad." Grayson bent down to comfort Rudeus, "Atofe wasn't lying when she said she will reward you with strength. She is, after all, the person who trained Kalman II, the second generation North God. All of us rocketed in strength after learning from her. And though she is a stubborn lord who can sometimes get violent, she is usually quite laidback. Besides, we get 2 year vacations after every 10 years."

"No! I refuse to accept this!" Rudeus declared defiantly.

The guards looked at each other and exchanged amused smiles, "Well, that's what all of us thought when we first arrived. Trust us, the first few weeks will be the worst. After a few months, you might still have some hope. But after a year? You will have already calmly accepted your fate."

Though their words were well intentioned, they only brought more crushing despair on the boy.

'It's no use. These people have already completely given up. Looks like I have no choice but to rely on that shady salesman. 332 days… Hitogami, if you lied to me, I don't care if you are a god. I will find you and beat you up!'