Start Over

(Adam the mage’s POV)

I waited for about an hour while I quickly glance through the slave-dealing book. The book is small, but is packed full of contents. They teach from the fundamental to advance on the method and nature of magical seals, curses, and spells that deals with slavery. To be honest, the nature of the book is almost demonic. I crammed as much of the knowledge as possible into my head in quick succession, flipping the page in the thick book and memorize all of the incantations needed to run the slave dealing operation. I don’t intend to run the slave-dealing business, but I at least need to know as much to properly steer our next step of the plan, which is to escape this wretched kingdom.

I can hear some noises outside, and I check it with my lenses. It doesn’t seem to be people, as I only saw some wild animals in my vision. I continue to absorb the content of the book.

I take out several parchments I got from the drawer earlier from my pouch. They seem to be the catalog of slaves available in the warehouse. Most of the slaves listed here are demi-humans. There are some beastmen too, as they made excellent hunter and warrior. There is a demon in the list too, and it seems to be a succubus. It is a rare subspecies at that too, called grand succubus. There are quite a number of human slaves too, mostly girls. Some other species are also mixed in between, like the insectoid scorpion and praying mantis. It seems their main attribute is they are excellent at fighting. The amount of assortment of slaves the slave dealer deals with really shows-off how influential and wealthy he is, with deep ties and connection to obtain rare slaves that no one can even imagine existed in this kingdom.

I glance and memorized the entire list, then put everything back into my pouch. I noticed the wine bottle. This would be something that has to be taken little by little, as drinking too much of them will induce sleepiness and foolish actions. I keep this away to avoid Lillie from taking them by mistake. I don’t want her to drown away her sadness with this intoxicant. It won’t give her real escape from her predicament.

While thinking of all the miscellaneous things, I come across the dead bodies. I will have to carry my sister later, so I will leave all the cadaver handling and item collecting for now, and return to them after I had properly secured my sister’s safety. I went to the kitchen and take a look. The food is over-boiled and the content of the pot has spilt and extinguished the firewood. The food’s condition doesn’t look edible and looks terrible. The content of the pot of soup doesn’t contain anything nutritious and mostly filled with barks, leaves, starchy roots, and gravel. I pour out the content into each bowls. The bowls are assigned a number, so I just use the ladle and scoop them out and place them into it. I believe the food just now is to be served to the slaves.

I don’t plan to starve the slaves, so I plan to add another dish, so I pour water from their prepared flask into the soup pot, and rekindle the fire to burn at medium temperature. The fire won’t start no matter what when I use my bare hands, so I equip my gloves and the flint stones ignite the leaves properly. I open the cabinet to see what the slave dealer has stocked for the slave foods. There are some meat and meat stocks, some pickled roots, and salted and dried leaf vegetables. I may not be a professional cook, but I used to cook in the castle. The hero’s party has a party candidate that works as their personal chef, but we always work at the kitchen table together when we are in the castle. I used some seasonings and learned the cooking style of this world, but with my previous life’s knowledge, I realized that there are many more ingredients that can be used as seasonings in this world, they don’t cost much and are abundant in this world.

I put in a meat stock into the soup, then diced some of the salted vegetable and put it in the soup too. Next, I cut a several slice of the meat, diced and lightly fry them in a pan. I lift them up, and put them onto the earlier inedible food in the bowl. The salted vegetable soup is ready, and I scoop them out onto a separate smaller bowl, the number corresponding to the number of bowls labeled with numbers. There is a total of 113 slaves altogether. I won’t have enough time to serve them all if I go one by one, so I send them all in three batches of 38, 38, and 37. They were quickly passed out into their cage, and I told them not to destroy the bowls and put them nicely at the gate entrance after they finish, or they will not get the next meal.

After making sure all the slaves get their meals, I go to see my sister. I knock on the door softly, but there is no reply. I tried knocking harder several times after some pause, to make sure I don’t look like rushing her. I begin to panic and imagining that she did something foolish like taking her own life. I was careless that I forgot to remove the knife and fork tableware. I tried pressing the lever, but the door is locked. I use the set of 5 keys to reopen the door. My heart is racing. After managing to open the door, dashed inside only to see Lillie lay unconscious on the bed with a glass at hand. I begin to suspect that she might attempt to take her life with a glass shard. I look around the bed and I saw red stains over it. My heart sank, and I couldn’t forgive myself for letting this happen.

I kneeled beside her bedside and bow my head deeply on the ground.

(Lillie’s POV)

Tears start welling up in my eyes. My big brother brought big misfortune to the house. Dad and mum were taken away from me forcefully. I heard shouting about the decree to burn our whole family alive, but they somehow decide to spare my life. I wish I can company dad and mum to the last moment, but they told me to continue living, and don’t hate my brother for what happened. Dad and mum keep telling the villagers and the soldiers that my brother is a responsible person and he didn’t abandon the kingdom or the people in his duty to fight the Demon Lord’s army. They believed in brother until the end. The imperial army just laughed it off as nonsense ramblings as the decree they produced has the royal insignia on it. The imperial lawmaker said that the sin on my dad and mum just doubled because they just committed lèse-majesté, by indirectly saying that the king has erred in his judgment. The lawmaker continued that originally the punishment of my parents are pardonable if they pay a fine of 500 gold crowns or work in the castle for 50 years without pay, but their initial punishment stands for now because my parents just committed another new offence, a royal one at that.

I saw them being dragged outside the house, and I heard a huge scuffle outside the house. I was forcefully dragged into the house and I can’t see what happened to dad and mum. In the house, I fought against the four idiots. It takes everything I got to stop them from outraging my modesty, but when the imperial army and soldiers participate, I was totally outnumbered. My mind hurts when I tried to recall any further, and I just don’t want to think back about what happened back then. My heart and mind, and body hurts so much, and I just feel myself as very disgusting. The feeling of wanting to shed my body away, and these down and dark feelings like dark hands of the shadow grabbing and dragging me into the darkness of the shadow world keep haunting me ever since.

My anger and hatred is so much, but I don’t know how to deal with them or even what that I’m upset about. I hate my fate and condition, but I can’t do anything about them and felt so powerless. I hate the kingdom, but this is where we live and they protected us from the demons. My parents told me to forgive my brother, but it’s impossible. They got unnecessarily punished because my brother that is not directly related to us, did a mistake in his duty. He should just get punished alone, as his family is not involved.

When he said he would take responsibility for me, I couldn’t take it anymore. What did he understand about my pain? My parents weren’t his blood parent, so he wouldn’t understand. I just can’t find an outlet for all this anger. This feeling makes everything around me looks irritating to me. I noticed my body is cold down there, and I saw the coat that wrapped around my body. It looks similar to the one at home. I check the button design. Yes, I recognize it because I helped mom to make it. Next, I saw the clothes on the bed. The design is properly made, and the material quality is very good. This design is revolutionary, and I have never seen any clothes being made like this before. I saw the pink clothes beside it. Is this undergarment? They look so adorable, and the design is so intricate. Would they fit me?

I take a look at the door and realized it’s not locked. I lock it first, and then I go and try on the clothes in front of the mirror. I tried on the undergarments, and it is really comfortable and fit snugly on my body. The upper garment has some straps that support my body well, and I feel less pain in my shoulders. Next, I put on the dress. I’m not used to it, and I have to struggle for some time to get it right. It looks really elegant, and I love the design. There is a tag with the word “Maid” attached to it too. Do maids really wear such elegant clothes? I found a toilet attached to this room, and it has a bath and a sink. I wash my face in the sink, and go to look at the food on the dining table.

The dishes look appetizing, but I am not in the mood to eat. I took the steak. It has a little bloody taste, so I place it back. The other yellow stringy thing is soft to the bite, but the taste is plain. I taste something like a round cracker, but it’s soft. It tastes good, but there are only two of them. I take some water to drink, but I want to taste something sweet to drown my sorrow. I look for them in the drawers and cupboards, but they are mostly papers and dried stuff. I finally found one bottle of red colour liquid. It has a strong fragrance, and I heard it was called wine in the capital. I take a glass to hold some of the wine, and take a sip. The taste is mellow, and I can feel that my mind has calmed down a little. The aftertaste is exquisite, so I begin to drink more and more until I lose sense of time and myself. I want to drown in this mellowness and forget everything, including my sorrow.

(Adam the mage’s POV)

I quickly got up from my kneeling pose and sad stupor. I got to Lillie’s bedside while kneeling, and check her pulse. Yes, it is still pulsing. I check her body for any bleeding. I saw a dark red spot near her heart region. My heart sank. I can’t utilize any magic now. Even if I’m sufficiently proficient in healing magic, I have never attempted to heal a severe damage to the heart before. I begin raking my brain about what to do in this situation, and I can’t think of one. Maybe Amanda can do something, that’s what I can think of now. When I lift her up, I can smell some strong liquor from her whole body. The wine bottle (that I didn’t confiscate) is tightly wrapped between her twin hills that swallow the whole bottle.

I slowly remove the bottle, trying to avoid injuring her already bleeding wound. After managing to remove the entire bottle, I didn’t notice any broken glass. Even her glass cup is not broken. Did she use the tableware? Regret struck me, as I never put it past her that she would injure herself with them.

I put Lillie on my back, and I ran back to find Amanda as quickly as possible. I don’t want this reunion to be so short. I haven’t given her any happiness. I owed her so much. I can’t repay the kindness of dad and mum back anymore. If I lose Lillie here, it would upset dad and mum greatly and I wouldn’t be able to face them in the afterlife.

I dash through thick jungle shrubs and jump from branch to branch in the dark. I adjust my lens to help me look for any attackers or traps set by the slaver dealer’s renegade mercenaries. I saw two stray ones, but I can’t waste time to stop and take aim at them, so I just avoid them and move quietly to avoid alerting them of our presence. I pick up my pace and we reached the waterfall soon. I picked up the yam leaf I prepared nearby before I went to the slave dealer’s place. I dash into the cave, and saw Amanda is keeping the fire, but her rope is still tied to the cave entrance.

“Please help me Amanda! Lillie, she’s bleeding a lot! Maybe she tries to take her own life. I saw a lot of blood near her heart. I couldn’t do anything. Please, save Lillie!” (Adam)

“Gasp! Lay her down here. We have to find the wound and stop the bleeding” (Amanda)

I laid Lillie on the futon, and start unbuttoning the maid uniform on Lillie.

“What is this dress? I have never seen something like this. Where do you get it?” (Amanda)

“I got this from the slave dealer’s closet. I have unbuttoned her clothes. I couldn’t see the wound. Please help me find it so that we can stop the bleeding” (Adam)

I have completed unbuttoning the maid uniform. Amanda may not be able to handle such dress, so I need to help her to quickly remove the maid uniform and check for the wounds. When I tried to open her dress to reveal her pale white skin, Amanda stopped me with a soft slap on my cheek. She then kissed the spot where she slapped.

“You wouldn’t want your sister to wake up hating you even more than she currently do, right? Go sit outside, and don’t peek. You are still a brute that don’t understand a maiden’s heart like usual. I will do my best to save Lillie, so don’t worry” (Amanda)

“Please do” (Adam)

I trust that Amanda will not do anything that harms her friend. I take the yam leaf and exit the cave, and sit outside the cave’s entrance, under the waterfall. I still feel worried about Lillie, so I can’t sleep. While keeping guard at the cave’s entrance hidden by a waterfall, I check for the surroundings to make sure that none of the stray mercenaries earlier made it nearby. I set up several traps in the surrounding and marked them. After completing all the tasks, my mind begins to get cloudy, and I accidentally yawn, and just fell asleep on a large rock near the cave’s entrance. I guess that’s my brain shutting down after forcing it to stay awake and keeping a sharp mind for more than a day without rest.