Night Thirteen #3

Slavery was not such a big thing that would shock Inis too much.

There were many other things that could cause her to be annoyed or angered over and possibly be surprised.

None of what Inis had seen so far had been enough to cause any major disturbances in her overall emotions.

She was able to maintain a level head as she prioritised her main goals before acting out due to her disturbed emotions.

If she was correct in her way of thinking then there was one possibility that stood out from several past events.

A grin began to spread on her face all of a sudden as she became more sure of it once there was several clanging noises coming from within the mountain. 'Back in the time of the dungeons, there were many groups that liked to take control of dungeons.

They cleared the place and began monopolising the resources inside while clearing out most of the creatures that showed up. In order to save on resources or to reduce their own workload, they brought in ordinary people to help gather those resources.

They usually exploited those that were too weak and without experience to enter dungeons alone or anyone who was in a desperate enough situation to resist having a difficult job with low pay and rewards.

The risk of death was high since they could be killed by the creatures of the dungeon, their own employers or even have some other misfortune befall them inside the dungeon before or after they completed their task.

If this is such a situation then it is very likely they are making use of human slaves to gather resources in order to reduce their own workload. Just imagining the kind of treatment that can be going on down there…'

The captured slaves were likely only kept alive after the battle due to them having some uses in the current location.

The stronger people that could resist were killed off while anyone still able to move around and work would be sent to the mountain or would be trained from scratch as a full time slave.

They were all at the mercy of their captors and were unable to resist their fate.

Inis wanted to look further but the guard was still much too tight and she did not know where to go once she got past them.

If it was very deep in the mountains then there would be many paths splitting up and other ways of getting to some areas so she could not go in blind.

Despite her worries about what was going on down there, Inis took a step back and gave it some thought.

After spending some time contemplating over the matter, she had realised that there was little room for heroics since her life would be at risk but there was some merit in pursuing the matter further.

Inis thought to herself. 'Hmm.. if they are digging up resources that are needed by the other human settlements then touching this place could set off some bigger events that I am not ready for yet.

Freeing others would be good and gaining some precious resources would be a decent reward for my efforts but it would not be worth it to touch a place like this that many may have invested in.'

She knew all too well what some groups did during the dungeon era within the dungeons.

There were many groups that wished to occupy and keep everything in the dungeon for themselves not allowing entry to others.

There was usually someone backing them up to allow them to cover up a lot of what they were doing or to provide a layer of protection.

Nobody wanted to touch something that was coveted by someone else when there were big dangers of retaliation from those that had great interest in it.

If one human settlement was working with another to supply slaves to such a place then it was very likely they had a close relationship or a business relationship.

If the two were close enough to be fine with destroying one settlement and to use those still living as slaves then they did not seem to fear others that could see their actions as a direct threat.

It was either that or what had happened was something everyone had agreed upon for it to happen the way it did.

If they were united together for some cause or specific goal then there must be someone who has a louder voice among them unless they served someone even higher.

If they were gathering resources in such a place then they needed to either be distributed to the other settlements or they had to be used to meet a certain quota for someone they were working for.

Touching such a place meant either provoking several settlements that had their interests messed with or those who were possibly backing them.

Either option was something she did not have much confidence in being able to handle for the time being.