NOVEL WEB Chapter 198: Slave or not
"Absolutely, no fucking way." Thinking about this, the current situation was pretty similar to what has happened just a few days earlier. The only difference laid in the fact that this time it was me fervently protesting the idea that Teria brought up.
"So you would rather die, am I right?" Putting a victorious smile on her face, Teria replied with glee. At this point, I didn't even need my witch abilities to see how satisfied she was with this reversal of the situation.
"What I asked of you back then… It came from my lack of knowledge. In other words, you could tell me that there was a barrier that you would have some trouble crossing." Attempting to calm the situation down, I explained how I saw the situation from back then. "I believe you can see the difference between asking you to just fly over an obstacle and asking the two of us to act like your spoils of war!"
This proposition for Teria to bring us inside her hometown, the capital of the winged tribes federation, was outrageous on many levels. From how little I trusted such clever-in-another-way plans, through the disgrace I would have to go through by posing as a prisoner…
And even if the two above wouldn't be enough, just the chances of such a plan succeeding enforced me to refuse this proposition. In the end, if any of Teria's superiors were to appear, she would have a hard time refusing to give us up for his own pleasure, be it raping Arsha or just killing us both to exact vengeance on Teria's potential superior's fallen comrades.
"I refused back then and I ended up forcing my way through. If you feel like you can challenge our damned capital, feel free to just waltz through the gates and demand an audience with my father for all I care!" Just like I did back then, Teria snapped when listening to my refusal for the nth time.
"You know that if I do that, I will be likely to eradicate the entire city of yours? Is that what you really want?" That was the current drawback of my means and abilities. For now, I had no balls to challenge Teria or actually any of the locals without either Sander's stones or Heckler and Koch that I still had some ammunition for. Yet, in the middle of an entirely hostile city, even a gun wouldn't be of great use.
That limited my means of defending myself to the recurring stones… But I wasn't without soul. As obvious as it would sound, it wasn't that easy to just kill scores of innocent people that had nothing to do with me or my problems just because their defenders were too hasty to plunge their swords into my flesh. While I could tell that any feelings of guilt or moral remorse were muffled while in other words, I didn't want to end up like the pilots of the bombers that dropped the first and only two nukes to be ever used in warfare.
"Huh? Isn't that you, Teria? What are you…" Before we could come to an agreement, the repetition of the problematic situation from before diverged from how it happened the last time. Because right now, a third party actually got involved. "…doing with those people…" Finishing his words while staring at me and unconscious Arsha, the man who noticed Teria suddenly stopped.
"They are my slaves. Got a problem with that?" Not waiting for some miracle to happen, Teria instantly went on the offensive. Sending me a quick yet angered stare, she stood up. In such a situation, unless I was willing to just kill that man for no reason, I had no other choice but to agree to her actions.
But that didn't mean I was willing to deprive myself out of all my options.
"I will follow your plan for now." Standing up, I pretended to trip on my own legs. "But if anything excessive were to happen…' Using the short window as I was standing up to flash the very same barrier stone that I constantly used to threaten the girl, I could see her expression changing a bit.
From the victorious smile of someone who achieved his or her objective, to a terrified expression of someone who learned about the potential consequences of his or her victory.
"No, why would I?" On the other hand, the man who found them out didn't appear to be some kind of bully or overdutiful guard. "While I'm curious just where did you found those two… No, I would rather know just where the hell was you for the last few days! Your father almost called for the holy crusade to rescue you!"
As I heard the words of that stranger, I couldn't help but prick my eyes in order not to miss a single word. Teria's father was capable of doing something like that? Just what did that mean about the background of the girl?
Now that I thought about it, a few more dots, scattered around my mind up to this point, started to connect. Just how did this girl know about the background information that the entire wingless tribe appeared to be ignorant about? How did she know about the importance of the sacred core, something that I received as if it was a meaningless trinket?
Bit by bit, more and more memories continued to connect, bringing forth all the scenes when Teria revealed bits of her knowledge. And with the clear respect visible in the man's eyes when he looked at the girl, I didn't need any more evidence to figure out her real standing.
"I need you to bring me and those trash to my father. I have some pretty dire news about the frontlines." Grabbing my hair, Teria suddenly lowered her own head. Hiding her face from the man, she showed me her tearful eyes. At the same time, I noticed that her hand was trembling and only pretending to actually grab my hair.
'Is she scared I will overreact?' Unable to answer this question for sure, I stumbled forward, pretending as if Teria holding my hair was a pretty painful inconvenience.
"I understand. Are those two some spies or maybe officers?" Turning around and clearing the way for the three of us, the winged warrior smiled. "They will never learn, won't they?"
Hinting at something I wasn't any wiser about, I could only stay silent and listen to the talk of Teria and her colleague in hopes that some more bits of information would fall off the table.
From then on, the rest of the journey turned out to be far easier than I expected. Maybe it was Teria's social position that kept any annoying pests that could otherwise appear at bay, maybe it just wasn't in the nature of the locals. What mattered though was the fact that before I could ever get tired of walking in such an awkward position before Arsha's unconscious body could turn too heavy for me to carry, we finally stopped in front of the massive gate.
Raising my eyes for the first time since we passed the outer walls of the city, I could see a magnificent castle raising high to the skies. And then, the illusion of my expectation wore off, replacing that glorious castle with a simple, wooden mansion. While there were some barricades and even stone walls here and there, it was clear that this mansion was actually rebuilt on the ruins of a building that used to occupy this place…
But it was rebuilt by people either lacking the technology or the materials for the finished product to be the same as what it was in the past.
"Teria?" As the peeking hole opened up within the gate, a surprised voice rang before the entire gate started to open. As soon as the crack between its two halves was big enough, a petite body of a child rushed out of the mansion only to slam right into Teria's abdomen. "Sister, I missed you soooo much!" Rubbing her head against Teria's stomach, the young girl's face was smeared with tears and snot.
"Don't worry, Belika, I'm back. Now, if you could go and inform father about my arrival…" As soon as Teria finished her words, the massive, wooden gate finally opened up, revealing a body that should exist only in cartoons.
Unable to lower my eyes once I laid them on the man who appeared behind the gate, I ended up silently swallowing my saliva. At the same time, the stone that I was hiding in my palm started to heat up under the influence of the sweat that started dripping all over from my hands.
"I heard that you brought some slaves with you…" The mountain spoke. Only at this moment, I realized that the eyes of this enormous man were actually glued to my face. And what was worse, they were filled with suspicion.
At first, I thought that not doing anything at all would be the best course of action. With my eyes slightly leaning towards the girl, I quickly understood why such a plan had absolutely no chances of working.
Teria was terrified. Her face was perfectly still, while her hands only continued to shake even more. Even after a few attempts at opening up her mouth, she failed to produce a single sound. As such, I only had one thing I could to save the situation.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." Raising both my head and straightening my spine, I looked at the insanely huge man on the other side of the opened gate. With Sander's barrier stone giving me confidence, I lowered my head with respect before introducing myself.
"I'm Marius, the aide of the God himself sent to this world to set certain things straight."