The Misfits meet System-san

Cassy and Drayden:

After five kilometres, they came across three bodies.

"Those two hugging each other, do you think that might have been siblings?" said Cassy.

Drayden didn't say anything; he looked away and stared into the universe. So Cassy hugged him.

"It's all right; we are both allowed to cry, you know."

After a while, they resumed moving.

"There are two horrible slave masters and four slaves remaining," said Drayden.

After another ten kilometres.

"So, that's only two slaves left now," said Cassy.

Both slaves carried backpacks, but neither teenager had the heart to rifle through them. So they kept on going.

After a few more kilometres, it became clear that another sedan chair was ahead, plus two more bodies - one who had been a grey-collared slave and one who had been a blue-collar. They approached very warily, but nothing moved. They circled the remains, then looked further ahead. There wasn't anything visible.

"Well, that injured slave master and the grey slave must be ahead," said Drayden.

Cassy felt extreme reluctance to examine the slave master, so she first checked out the body of the slave. He slumped over one of the handrails of the sedan, with blood soaking the front of his tunic and splattered on the ground below him.

Consciously exerting her [Emotional Control], she used a bit of [Foresnic Pathology].

"He died from extreme exhaustion, compounded by starvation and dehydration. Furthermore, all that blood is from coughing up his lungs; maybe he was also ill from something? And everything conspired together to kill him." she said.

They moved to examine the middle-aged man who used to have a blue-collar. After much discussion, they reached their conclusion.

"So, he was in relatively good health but with recent malnutrition. He must have had some strength and regeneration abilities. Also, there are still no signs of any collars." said Cassy.

"Yeah, why do they keep taking them?" said Drayden.

"To reuse, perhaps?"

"Anyway, it appears he met his end while sorting through the pile of stuff to make up a single backpack. He got stabbed in the back, but there are no signs of any weapon, so perhaps it was a [Bonded Sword] or something?" said Drayden.

"So the injured master must have cowardly attacked and killed him. Possibly because they didn't have enough food to last for all three of them?" said Cassy.

"Well, there's no food left behind now. So that blue-collared master, plus his remaining slave, is ahead and aims to live off the food until he gets back down to ground level."

"It's going to get dark soon. Let's go to the edge and camp out for the night?" said Cassy.

After discussion, they decided they wouldn't take the man's clothes. They were of good quality compared to the slaves' and even better compared to their own crudely made costumes, but no, they couldn't bear the idea.

They ate some more bread and slept.

The following day, after waking, they briefly searched through the contents of the sedan and the backpack the master had been making up before he met his end.

"No slave collars. The injured one must be planning to use them at some stage," said Cassy.

"So, if we meet him when he's still alive, we keep well away from him," said Drayden.

"And we have our swords out and ready," said Cassy.

"But I still don't think I could kill him..." said Drayden, "Unless he attacks you."

Cassy kissed Drayden, and they resumed.

Another ten kilometres into the morning, they caught up with the remaining two.

The slave master was staggering along, leaning heavily on the shoulder of the remaining slave. The slave was a teenage girl and was obviously on her last legs. She was weaving side to side and kept on sagging. Every time she was about to collapse, the man harshly ordered her to keep going.

“What do we do now? Do we try to rescue the slave? But, if we do, he will merely order her to attack us, then try to put a collar on us,” said Cassy in a whisper.

She clenched her fists. “That despicable little shit!”

She took a brief sideways glance at Drayden, who was currently grinding his teeth in rage.

Drayden, noticing her looking at him, said, "If we stay a hundred metres back, we should be safe enough. I suppose. But I can't think of any way to save the girl without risking our lives. Remember, he killed that other slave master, so he's got some fighting skills."

The man was suffering so much that he didn't even notice the two teenagers following him at a very leisurely rate.

The status quo came to a miserable end. The girl coughed, her body shuddered, and then she collapsed onto the ground, not to move again. The man was furious. He kicked the girl and hurled abuses at her, but she still didn't move.

"What a worthless piece of shit!" he said, "Why couldn't we have had more money to buy something more decent?"

The slave's collar, formerly grey, faded to black and then disconnected and fell off her neck. The man sank to his knees, grabbed the collar and put it into his own very light backpack. He struggled to get up again but couldn't make it. At this point, he noticed Cassy and Drayden standing there, shocked looks on their faces.

"Hey, slaves! Come here, you feral bastards and help me along!"

Inexplicably, Cassy and Drayden didn't move one little bit.

"You shits, as soon as I touch you and claim you, I'm going to make you suffer... Hey, the female is pretty!"

His lewd face left no room for doubt about what he was thinking. Cassy promptly put herself behind Drayden and tucked her tail down her legs. Drayden snarled but otherwise didn't say anything.

"What, they're unclaimed vermin! And if they got up to here, they probably have strength abilities!"

He fumbled at his backpack and took out two slave collars.

"They're mine!" cough, cough, "With those two, I can get down from here. I can recover!" cough, hack, cough, "I can grab some more vermin and start my own colony!" cough, cough, hack, cough, "By the time the slaver invasion comes to this forsaken corner in a couple of years I can register my own territory! Maybe even be promoted to green!"

At this point, he began coughing in earnest.

"Get here, you shits!"

"Hey, Drayden, he's not very nice, is he?"

"No, and a bit monotonous with his swearing, too."

This enraged the man, "I'll have you whip each other for that insolence, you shits."

He stood and dropped his backpack but kept hold of the two slave collars.

"Get here!"

Two teenagers refused.

He leapt up and sprinted for them. They jumped and raced backwards a lot faster. Thus increasing the separation.

Then the man stopped, collapsed, and was still.

Casy and Drayden looked at the man, then looked at each other.

"Is he faking it? Trying to ambush us?" said Cassy.

"Let's just wait, shall we?"

They waited. Ten minutes passed.

The man didn't move. But his collar, originally blue, faded to black and fell off his neck.

"I suppose that means he really is dead?" said Cassy.

'[Inspect]' went Drayden.

Ding! Felixian, a middle-aged man and formerly a Blue-ranked slave. And, yes, he is dead.

"I guess we should be grateful that it was this easy," said Cassy.

"What do we do with two more bodies?"

"I don't know. I guess we might as well leave them," said Cassy.

"Wait, those slave collars!"

"Right."

They searched the slave's backpack and didn't find much of use - not even any food. But in the man's backpack were nineteen slave collars, which, with the two he had dropped and the one on him, made twenty-two. They carefully, using the tips of their swords to drag them, arranged them in a single straight line on the ground.

"Let's try using our [Fireball] ability stone-cutting thermal lances this. Maybe it will be quicker," said Drayden.

It was. It only took a minute of heating each one to get them to self-destruct. In the end, there were twenty-two small piles of what looked like sand, each next to a black burn mark.

Ding! 2200 points were awarded for 22 slave collars destroyed. Keep up the good work, kids!

"That's a pretty generous reward for half an hour's easy, not to mention safe work!" said Cassy.

"Yep. Let's allocate some of them."

They ended up maxing out everything they could.

"Yay! An unexpected gift for Alice and Bronsen!" said Cassy.

"Ooh, wow, our maxed out [Perception Boost] is fantastic!" said Cassy.

They were now leaning on the inside handrail, looking toward the shoreline.

"Yeah, we can see the individual trees along the top of that cliff face! And the waves, breaking on the base of the cliff."

"And now we have a whole collection of [Bonded Implements]!" said Cassy.

They had a dagger, a short sword, a long sword, an axe, a shovel, and a hook-like thing with a handle.

"We're overpowered!" shouted Drayden.

They spent an enjoyable hour summoning various combinations of weapons and having mock battles with each other.

"Nobody can beat us!" said Cassy.

Then, they switched to athletics.

Cassy did a forward flip, landing perfectly.

"Oh wow!" she said.

So Drayden did a backflip, landing almost perfectly.

Cassy snickered. "You need a bit more practice?"

She got a glare. He tried again, and this time, he got it spot on.

"If we were on Earth, we could win every Olympic event ever!" he said.

"Nyah, that would be cheating. They would never allow us," said Cassy.

Eventually, they calmed down and remembered two bodies were kind of watching them.

"Ah, sorry, unknown slave girl," said Cassy.

"And, no sorries at all to the unknown shit," said Drayden.

"By the way, since this man didn't have any food left, why did he leave that bread behind for us to find?" said Drayden.

"I suppose we can only assume the other slave master hid it. After all, it was under the seat."

"Certainly no love lost between those two."

They resumed jogging and walked another ten kilometres before quitting for the day. The next day, they finally reached the Manifestorian stairwell.

"This is handy," said Drayden.

They were standing next to the stairway, in front of a sign. On it was written 'Manifestoria'. Going by its state of repair, it had been constructed at some stage, then knocked down, then crudely repaired and stood up again. And, all the way around, there were heaps of rubbish. Like, every few metres. None of it was of any worth to them, however.

They moved to the inside rail and looked over and down.

"Look, there's a couple of buildings! And some people!" said Cassy.

"Oops, it appears that some of those people also have enhanced perception as they are pointing back at us."

"Oh. Well, according to those slave master shits, the Manifestorians hate slavers, so I guess we go down?"

"Might as well. Otherwise, they might come up here and chase after us," said Drayden.

They started their descent.