Author: Slept in so chapter is a little late. Don't worry I had some tea and such =)

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We transferred locations again and situated ourselves in a suitable location for Shiro to fully recover. Puerial looked on worriedly as she slept, but I assured her she will be fine. My healing ability seems to be influenced by my knowledge of the body so the body reforms properly. [Magic Hands] can also fix any scar tissue and strengthen her body so it won't even seem like she was ever injured. It takes time though and my healing ability is very taxing on me with extended use.

For now I’m satisfied with the fact that she will be good as new with enough time.

In order to grow as a team and better prepare for any future fights, me and Puerial discussed what happened. I recapped everything to see if there were anything to improve upon. If I had more grenades or elaborated on escape procedures before taking position in the building things would have gone better. Unfortunately materials for the grenades are now hard to get since I can’t get enough monster cores and other materials.

When Puerial discussed when she used [Mana Wave], I had some reservations about using it in that situation. It was indeed effective, but it left her unable to continue helping Shiro and made her a liability. It would have been better to fire minor spells in order to last longer.

I myself have also started to learn how to cast spells, but the chants are annoying and long. They don’t even come up as skills, most likely because they are not cast automatically but with chants to cause them to form. Maybe if I can produce the same spell without chants I will gain a skill. That may also be why I got the healing skill since I performed it naturally. Experimentation will be needed, and getting Puerial to learn this method will help too since her chants are really too cumbersome.

After giving her my analysis of her actions, she became dejected. Since she isn’t really experienced with this sort of thing I just encouraged her to work hard. Again she looked at me with starry eyes with meanings that I can’t seem to grasp. I wanted to start discussing the plan but it will have to wait till Shiro gets up. We bought some time so waiting a bit won't change anything.

In the meantime I decided to ask her a question that has been bothering me for a while.

“Hey Puerial, why is it that you follow me and Shiro so devotedly, it's obvious that you aren’t used to living like this. No matter how I see it, you could stay at base while we handled everything.” She seemed to be a little hurt by my words but I continued before she could speak. “You're not a bad companion to have around or anything, but it's obvious you are pushing yourself.” (Kuro)

“I’m not...and even if I can just relax at base, I wouldn’t. When I was taken I really thought that no one would help me, but you and Shiro did. Even if you were a bit cold...out of all the people I met when I left the village…*inhale* you are the first person I met who treated me like a person and...the first person I...I...LIKE!” (Puerial)

As she got to the end of her words her face became as red an apple. If it was possible there would have also been steam coming out her ears. I couldn’t even respond when she suddenly looked at me with determined eyes as she spoke.

“I LIKE YOU! I...I know Shiro does too, but if I don't say it now I feel like I never will. She is very pretty…*whimper*...and I see how well you treat her...but i don't want to just watch...*sob*...I want to be strong enough to be at your side too...*sob*...Shiro is strong and she is starting to learn magic too. If I don't do anything now I will only watch and I don't want that.” (Puerial)

Saying it this far, Puerial seemed to lose her ability to speak further and looked down afraid of my response. It seems she feels that unless she is strong she can't stand by my side, there may also be a fear of being helpless again but…

“How foolish…” as I said this Puerial visibly shuddered but I paid it no heed and continued. “Do you think I’m so shallow that someone needs to do impossible tasks to stand by me. Me and Shiro may be crazy enough to fight against people with far more resources and might, than the two of us together can muster. But this isn’t by choice but because this world is cruel. We are growing strong to protect each other, not because of some foolish bravado to stand above others. I have never looked down on anyone who would be considered weak. The only ones I truly hate in this world are those who are disloyal, give up, or cause innocent people to suffer.”

I didn’t raise my voice as I spoke, each word was said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I have no reason to look down on others, I only have a head start compared to others in my age group. If anything I’m just a guy who got lucky, if you can call being left in this crap world lucky.

Puerial seemed to just stare blankly at me while trying to process my words. To be honest if she wants to get stronger than I’ll help her, but that isn’t a requirement to follow me. Whether these words has reached her I don’t know.

“It’s fine if you need time to realize it...Kuro is different from others.” (Shiro)

I was shocked hearing Shiro speak. Its seems she was listening to our conversation and waited till now to join.

“Kuro is different?” (Puerial)

“Yea different.” (Shiro)

At this point I was starting to get confused, I wanted to retort ‘what do you mean’, but felt it was inappropriate.

“Well...until this situation is cleared...this conversation should be put on hold. It’s better to have this type of talk with clear understandings of our own feelings.” It could be that I was running away from the fact that Puerial pretty much confessed to me. However i don't want to treat relationships to willfully. I saved her from slavery and I'm also helping her to one day get home, I would rather her confession be under more natural circumstances.

So if she doesn’t change her stance on how she feels about me than I will do my best to properly return them. Amare would kill me if I acted differently. She made it clear how she feels about the proper way to cherish someone and many other things concerning how to form relationships. Receiving her halfheartedly would earn her anger, and I would also rather be in a proper relationship than just accept her to make her happy. The feelings of both parties are important after all, well that's what I was told anyway, I don’t really know about these things.

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To get things in order now that Shiro is up, we can now discuss the plan. I spent a lot of time gathering information on the Lord and his family. A tribute to my experiences in my past life of snooping around.

The Lord is not in a relationship since his wife died under mysterious circumstances. Only two of his kids are from his wife and the remaining four are from his concubine slaves. Rat was included in this. The one who stopped us from leaving the city was his second son Bolier and is known for taking woman he fancies and...torturing them. Bolier is skilled in intelligence gathering and is the reason my group always ended up discovered. He has been known to be eyeing his father's position but has yet to do anything.

The first son Persian was away on business to gain experience for when he inherits his father's position and has recently returned. His skills lie mostly in negotiations and is a very deceptive person. The animosity between him and Bolier is well known. His father does nothing about it, as if he wants both to fight and earn the position rather than settle it outright himself.

The Lord has three daughters, two of which have been married of to some middle aged men for business deals. The last one has yet to come of age but is already being used as a bargaining chip for one of his latest business endeavors.

Rat is the youngest son and is also an extreme pervert who enjoys taking woman, who Bolier is not interested in, and performs many abusing acts. He most likely has an inferiority problem, and a heavy one at that. Most likely when he turns 15 in a few months he will be kicked out of the house since he doesn’t seem to have any value in the family.

The mansion they live in is separated into three buildings. Each one is meant for specific purposes. The first building is for greeting guests and to hold events, the second is where they live and manage their finances, while the last one is where they situate the guards living quarter and a portion of them are actually slaves that strictly guard the manner only.

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The plan was simple:

1) The slaves are trained and hate the Lord and his family. I already snuck in and broke their collars which took the most time out of the plan. They already know the situation and are simply playing along. Since they are outnumbered, they are biding their time to strike.

2) I laced the buildings in key points with explosives to cause mayhem and chaos among the rest of the guards. and told the former slaves were the charges will be set.

3) The armory closest to the slave holdings will be left spared so they can quickly arm themselves to fight the guards.

4) Use the mayhem left by the explosives to attack the family and end their reign.

5) With an addition to the fact that the Lord is injured and may not recover, further instability may rise in the household between his two sons Bolier and Persian. Which can cause in fighting within the clan.

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It was far from perfect, since the slaves are only meant to fight outside and escape since they are trying to regain their freedom. But this distraction will focus the Lord’s attention to allow us to strike him from behind. Hell if I had more materials I would have made enough explosives to level the entire compound and be done with it. The problem is these explosives were a bit different from the [Mana Grenade] and are packed to cause serious damage, but at the cost of needing more material and are too cumbersome to carry normally. They weren't discovered because they were hidden beneath the ground.

If I wasn’t trapped in this town with a bounty, getting materials would be a lot easier. *Sigh*

But there is nothing I could do about this. I already know the layout of the mansion and the former slaves showed me a few of the hidden passages to make things easier. Now all we have to do is wait till nightfall to begin the plan, since it’s better to act when they are resting.

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Blazingfrost - you trying to spoil the fun with your comment in chapter 13 huh. lol

I don't really mind though and the mc is into explosives so it wasn’t much of a surprise.

I hope you guys didn’t mind the character development and analysis on the creation of skills by the mc. It may slow things down but it’s needed to make the story have a more thorough development than just say: “Things are like this” and such. Plus I prefer when emotions aren’t just “I like you” then that's it. So yea sorry for just making things a bit simpler for this one. Look forward to the mayhem though.