Breathing in deeply, Victor walked over to Dorun and the beastkin who had stabbed him. He was losing his cool and was imagining himself having his weapons and stabbing until there was no life left in the person. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time or tools to do that in the current situation.

Getting Dorun out of there and to someone who could do something medically was his priority, but Victor felt he couldn’t just let the criminal go as he took his cards out of their pouch.

Victor had long ago realized that he didn’t need to have his cards touching him to use them. As long as they were close enough to his body he could utilize them, but it felt better for him to hold them. Sort of like how if he pressed a button harder or leaned a certain direction it would feel like it did something to help him in a video game he was playing.

There were two cards that Victor had at his disposal and he was intent on using both of them.

The magic had been saved since he got it. This was something he had saved because he wasn’t quite sure how to get more. Despite that fact, he continued to get closer until he was close enough to the beastkin he cast the stiffening magic on the man’s top piece of clothing as he tried to block his face from further attack.

Instead of an assault, like the beastkin had expected, he found himself unable to move his torso as a result of the stiffened clothing. His legs were still free, but the entirety of his top was still and offered no help as he tried to stand up from his prone position.

Looking at the other card briefly, Victor traced the shape of the fang that it held. It was something that caused so much trouble when plunged into a strong muscle-based part of the body.

While Victor wasn’t an expert on biology and internal anatomy, especially if he assumed the beastkins was actually different, he didn’t think it really mattered. The fang was going to go somewhere that he didn’t feel he needed to have any accuracy to work with and the form of the fang vanished but was not visible no matter where one might look.

When it was gone Victor cried out in pain and grabbed onto his head for a second. It was a pain similar to when he removed the fang from Drelt. It was sharper and felt like it dove deeper into him, but somehow he was able to push past it as adrenaline pumped through his body.

During that time beastkin flailed as best as he could with the magic that was restricting him, cursing, threatening, and demanding to know what happened.

Victor, on the other hand, was struggling to not stagger as he did everything he could to not lose the contest of his stomach. Although he knew if he couldn’t keep it in that he would lose it upon the assailant.

Despite a staggered stance, Victor forced himself to stand tall and looked at Dorun who was hunched down a bit. The slave was about to pull the blade out of himself.

“Don’t!”

The loud demanding tone caused Dorun to stop, “It is in the way master.”

Unable to keep his voice quiet Victor found himself yelling as he started to support Dorun and move him, “If you pull it out you’ll bleed to death. You’ll die because of something stupid like this if we don’t find help. I still got money from when Doliy hired me I can afford to do something.”

Forgetting himself, Victor’s sense of direction was shot. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the stalls seemed to have been closed and that he had come out of the opposite side of the alley.

While trying to get away from the beastkin, Victor tried to get anyone’s attention.

“Master.”

Dorun's words were not as strong as they had been in all the time that the two had been together. They weren’t weak but there was an obvious lessening in how it came across.

“I said I would... protect you.”

“You did,” Victor agreed as he kept going, “And I’m going to find someone and we will do what we can.”

“Finally….. Prote….c.”

Victor saw someone moving and went towards them with all his might, realizing how weak he was and cursing himself for not spending time taking his fitness more seriously. He never considered strength a priority before and only now did he realize that you never know when what you neglect will haunt you.

“You don’t need to talk. We’ll find someone. I think one of the guard stations aren't far from here. Or maybe we can find a patrol.”

Thanks to Victor’s yelling and insistence on searching for help instead of waiting and hoping, it only took about five minutes before a guard patrol came across them.

The two guards quickly took control of the situation and took over helping Dorun who kept saying different things that Victor only partially was paying attention to as he was being asked questions.

Explaining what had happened as best as he could, Victor chose to omit the fact that he had used magic on the beastkin, instead saying that he seemed unable to move. He also neglected to mention that, thanks to his card, he inserted the fang in much the same way that he had taken it out of Drelt. While he was unsure exactly where it might be he had hoped he had gotten into his guts.

Before the questioning was over, everyone was at a guard station that Victor hadn’t been to before. It wasn’t the one that Elya had taken him to and it wasn’t one in the general areas that he tended to spend time around. He dismissed this as being because he was in a different part of the capital for the testing.

A shrill whistle from one guard was heard and got the attention of a few people who started to talk to each other. Victor could hear everything, but due to a lot of people talking over the other he wasn’t able to take it all in.

“_____ was_____ his_____.”

“_____ handle _____ well _____ so might ____ who knows ____.”

“I _____ anyone ____ area _____ . _______ one ___ the ______?”

“Use ____________ quick. _______ good.”

As everyone got moving and spoke with a quickened pace that Victor couldn’t help but appreciate, since it meant that they were taking it seriously, he wasn’t sure what to do. This was assuming he should do anything.

The fact that he wasn’t doing anything brought a wave of milder but widespread pain to his body along with a level of exhaustion.

Victor heard Dorun saying different words when he was taken from the room where they were looking over Dorun.

It seemed to be mostly the same things recited over and over. About protection. Doing his job. Finally something. Failure. Success. He couldn’t put it all together but wanted to know what he meant.

Victor tried to stay close until the guard finally forced him out. He wanted to stay with Dorun, but with his physical state, the one guard was easily able to get him out of the room and into the front of the station.

“Sir, I understand that this is hard, but you would just get in their way. Do you have a medic you have on retainer we could call in?”

Victor was unable to hold his tongue as he yelled out so loud that his throat felt as if it would bleed.

“I don’t have some personal medic, but I have some money. I got some small gold coins I can part with just help him. He has to survive I promised him.”

The guard put a hand on Victors shoulder, “We will do what we can for your slave, we do have some medical training, but we are guards, not medics. I’ll have someone go to that alley that you talked about to see if we can find the suspect. Should we not find him perhaps we can find something to better identify him at least. If not we are going to need a proper statement so we can put out warnings.”

When Dorun saw his master leaving the building, he wasn’t immediately sure it was him. He had worked hard and been late to getting there so it was possible that his master had already left the testing site and returned to the inn.

The slight hesitation lead to him not running after the figure that he later realized was his owner and he regretted it once he realized the situation that had happened as a result of him not being there.

Master Victor was in danger because one of those wretched beastkins was standing over him with a weapon held in plain sight. Even the beasts claws were extended just a bit and a cruel smile that Dorun instantly recognized appeared on his face.

It wasn’t long, but a memory went through his mind from some time ago, well before he had become a slave.

Dorun used to have a family on a farm.

He, along with his brother, had inherited it from his parents when they had passed. They had split the property as well as the jobs, helping each other until they were able to have a proper family to help them tend the land.

They were close enough to a road that they were able to buy passage to a large city to sell their produce and buy what they needed without needing a horse and cart of their own.

After some time Dorun had found a wife on one of his trips, a young woman who looked especially lovely that he was astonished even looked in his direction. She liked to brag that her great great great great grandmother was an elven beauty with nobody who would rival her and that was how she had such radiant, yet subtle, features.

By the time his brother, being the younger of the two, had found himself a wife, Dorun had one child already and another on the way. A daughter named Fairtha who he was glad took after his mother.

Dorun didn’t think himself hideous enough to be mistaken for a troll, but he knew that there were many people who looked better than him and he was lucky to not only have a beautiful wife but an adorable daughter as well. He had been hoping that his next child would be a son so he would have someone to help with more of the hard work on the farm.

When his brother got married the pair talked about their futures. Dorun was happy on his farm, but his brother wanted more and was thinking of selling his half of the farm so he could make a life somewhere else.

Even though Dorun loved his brother, he thought that he was too reliant on others and wouldn’t be able to make it on his own. He tried to tell him this, without being insulting, but he ended up losing his cool and insulting his brother in ways that he had never done with anyone before.

The conversation ended there as his brother left him behind to return home for the night and enjoy his newlywed life. Dorun, on the other hand, walked beyond the borders of the farm into the woods.

Once he had gotten into the wooded area Dorun went to find the stump that he had as a landmark and brought out his ax. As the sunset, he started to cut wood. It was still a long way until winter but he wanted to make sure that there was an excess of wood. He also felt the need to work off some of the stress it would be gone and wouldn't make the day of his family any worse, even indirectly.

Much in the same way that he would defend his brother and help when he was about to make mistakes, Dorun did his all to keep the worst stressors from getting to his beloved wife and daughter.

Sometimes that meant he would go hunting, sometimes it meant he would chop wood, sometimes it meant he would fight someone if it was necessary. No matter what he did, he would do it with them on his mind and bring back something good from the effort whenever possible. This wouldn’t be any different in that regard as he had managed to get enough wood to fill a wheelbarrow two times as well as a partial third.

During the trips to drop off the wood, Dorun heard yelling coming from his brothers’ house. Not wanting to get into another fight so soon he finished his work and returned to his own home.

He had expected all the doors and windows to be closed to help prevent insects from entering the house since they had run out of the herb that would drive them away. Instead, when he walked to the front of the house, the door was wide open in an unnaturally broken way.

Even assuming that the hinges broke the door itself would remain sturdy enough to not fall in such a way to find itself knocked against the wall on the other side of the room. This was a fact even with some of the worst storms that they had experienced.

There was no way that this was a natural occurrence and Dorun gripped his ax tighter.

Walking into the house the scent of blood assaulted him. Having hunted and butchered many animals he had gotten used to the smell of blood, both fresh and old. There was something more unsettling about this than what he had experienced doing either of the activities that acclimated him to the scent of blood and gore.

As he walked to find the source of the fresh blood he quietly prayed that he was wrong about what he would find, but felt there was no way that he could be. Sadly that proved to be the case as he walked into his bedroom and found a body that used to be his wife.

Her body had been cut unevenly with claw and fang instead of neatly like would have been done with a properly sharpened blade of some sort.

The sight of her was more than he could handle as he left the room and emptied his stomach onto the floor loudly without care. Without his wife to complain about the mess and demand he clean it up he saw no reason to care as two thoughts crossed his mind at the same time.

There had been noise emanating from his brothers’ house. Something might be happening and if it was like here there might be a life and death struggle or some corpses already.

The other was the door to his daughters' bedroom that had both her things and the crib for their expected child. A burst of rage erupted as he thought about how his child would never see the world, but his daughter. His dear Fairtha.

Was it possible she was still alive? Would he find her hiding under the bed or in the closet just waiting for his return?

It was the hardest choice that Dorun had to make and he had no time to make it. Before he could even think on the right answer he went into his daughters' room.

He barely had time to rationalize the decision. Dorun thought how his brother had insisted on managing on his own, but his daughter had only him and he had to check on her. He had to know what was going on, but when he entered the room she wasn’t there.

A little bit of blood was on her bed as well as some of her nightwear ripped off of her causing Doruns blood to boil.

Making sure he had his ax, Dorun grabbed a chair and broke it to use as a makeshift shield before he ran towards his brothers home, but he didn’t even have to enter the home to know it was too late.

The head of both his brother and his new wife were just outside the front door. He was barely able to keep his head enough to notice someone climbing on a horse and laughing.

“___________. ______ these ____ live ____. _______________ comes by to collect _______.”

Dorun was about to let the man go when he heard crying and a blunt force hitting flesh.

“_________. You’re __________. _____ brother Izvarta ______ to ____ human brats ___ you ____ slit _________ now.”

Unable to get exactly what was being said Dorun heard enough. Even if he hadn’t he only needed to hear what happened next as the horse ran off. His daughter screaming for his help as the beastkin rode.

The plead for help triggered him to act. He ran for all he was worth, but he was no match for the speed of a horse and soon came submitted to the reality of that fact. Instead, he went home.

Dorun couldn’t stop reminding himself that he failed to protect them. How nobody except his little Fairtha remained because as a protector he was nothing but a failure, but he would at least do what he could to protect one person properly.

His magic had always been good for certain aspects of farm life.

At a young age when hunting with his father, shortly after his mana started to form, he had shot and lost some prey. Over the next season, he kept the patch of fluff that had been left behind and thought of how he would have liked to find his prey.

Eventually, his mana and desires worked together and he learned how to be a tracker using his magic to track. Sure it required a catalyst that he could use as a beacon, but he could track for a long time even if over a season has passed.

Back then it was the tuft of fluff that allowed him to find the prey that he had lost. This time it was his daughters' clothes, blood, and toys.

It was more than he wanted to carry, but with how his magic was he needed to have everything he could bring with him. This was because the magic used to track would start to destroy what he was using as a catalyst.

Once Dorun had gathered everything he could use for both himself and his magic he went back to where he had cut the wood to sleep. He hoped that if someone that the beastkin knew went by to make sure nothing out of their expectations happened that nothing would be found.

Over the next season, he would travel to look for his daughter until he found her. It was a long drawn out journey for him that ended with him taking the life of a beastkin who had befriended the vassal in a fief so far from the capital that it was nearly in another kingdoms territory.

When Dorun found his daughter she wasn’t in one place. There were no less than twenty areas where his magic found her around the community. Because of that he wanted to not just kill the beastkin, but hurt him first.

Because of this mindset, he spent a lot of time pretending to be a wanderer and listened to many of the citizens. Through this, he found out that the beastkin he was after, thanks to him hearing the name so long ago, was of night fox lineage. He was also known for hiding behind friends he had made so he could commit crimes that the peasants were scared to call him out on.

Thanks to the time alone, Dorun had gotten to be a much better man in many ways. He had been able to survive many situations as well as learn from the mistakes that he made. He had even put his life on the line many times against beasts and situations that he would have previously run from.

Because of this, and his experience hunting, he was able to patiently stalk his prey. He wasn’t sure if it was because of this man that his family was butchered or just the one who killed his daughter. He just knew that the one who killed his daughter was here and even if he didn’t order it that the beastkin who did the rest was to lose a family member.

Shortly after torturing and beheading the beastkin, muttered sounds of awe and approval were heard and quickly stifled, Dorun knew that nothing would be the same.

He was quickly caught and tortured. He lost an eye and some fingers and was told he would be executed for his crimes. He assumed he wouldn’t survive long, but unbeknownst to Dorun the lord of the land had come to check on his vassal

If not for the fact that the lord who had the vassal under his employ was a more honorable man to the injustice he saw Dorun would have been executed. Instead, the punishment was changed to slavery for him, execution for the brother of the beastkin once the truth came out and he was found, and banishment for the vassal who had allowed it all to happen.

Thus started his life as a slave. Nothing mattered to him as he was sold, traded, worked, and many other things that started to blend together until he was told he was being brought to the mines to work to death.

Dorun felt it was a fitting end to his life as he counted each day, wondering how many he would have until he could see his family once again.

At least until he met Victor.

A strange man who bought, not just him, but all the broken slaves meant for death and gave them hope for a future.

A man who Dorun felt drawn to protect, to prove to himself that he was no longer the man he used to be.

A curious man who Dorun thought might, even if it’s only a small amount, make this world a better place.

That is why now, with guards fussing about him and his body struggling to survive he only had two things on his mind. One thought was of his family that he kept to himself. The second thought that he was able to verbalize as his final breath left him.

“I finally protected someone... properly.”

Victor had passed out shortly after Dorun had been taken into the back. Much like when he removed the fang from Drelts’ body, the effort of putting it into the man who had attacked him had taken so much out of him that he couldn’t stay awake any longer. Especially with the emotional impact of Dorun being stabbed and finally being looked at no longer keeping him going.

Victor didn’t know how long he had been passed out when someone woke him up.

It was a woman who looked like she had been drained of all her energy. She offered him something to drink and a stale piece of bread to settle his stomach as she sat across from him.

“I take it you’re the one who brought in his slave right? I’m not getting you mixed up with someone else?”

Victor nodded his head lightly, “Yes Dorun. He’s fine, right? I mean you’re here to tell me he’s stable and how to take care of him for a while and how much his medicine or whatever will cost right?”

Waiting for a reply it was soon obvious that either one wasn’t coming or if it was, it wasn’t one Victor would be happy with.

He slammed his hand at his sides and screamed out, “No. You’re lying to me. He’s still alive. Tell me he is still alive.”

The womans’ words started quietly as she spoke, slowly getting more volume.

“Sorry, but your slave lost his life.”

Victors’ heart sank. He didn’t want to believe her words, but at the same time, he didn’t have any reason to doubt it.

“But what about magic! Potions! Something surely could have saved him!”

Putting a hand on Victors shoulder, the woman spoke kindly “Everyone asks things like that when dealing with death, but death can’t be undone.”

Victor wanted to yell scream and beg, but couldn’t bring himself to.

“I want to see him. I want to see his body.”

The woman stood back up and lead Victor to the room where they had taken Dorun.

Once inside of the room Victor slowly approached Doruns body. The knife that had been inside of him was on a table next to him. He couldn’t help but notice a smile that was on Doruns face that made him look more relaxed than he seemed in life.

“You died…. all because I got put in a dangerous situation. You…. you should have just…. Should have…. I don’t know, but it’s not fair for you to die like this. I didn’t buy you to watch you die.”

Tears trickled down Victor's cheek and fell on Dorun. He started to softly laugh as he saw the tears land.

“If this was a book or a movie you would be healed from these tears. If not then some other bullshit would bring you back to life and I would free you saying saving my life is well worth what I paid for you.”

Staring at the body for a moment he thought of Drelt and Alena.

“I’ll free them in the morning. I can’t let them die like you did.”

When he went to leave the woman and another guard stopped him. He was told that they needed to talk to him about what had happened and what to do with the body.

Victor didn’t fight it when he was brought to a different room. He was still struggling with what had happened, but he did his best when questioned and left for the inn right after. As he walked he wondered how long it would take to free everyone from the shackles that he had on them and if it would be enough to just remove them.