Chapter 21

The Capital of Harrelson, 1:48 PM

In a back alley on the southwest side of the city, Chris and Ethan were standing over an unconscious woman who had previously attacked the former. When Ethan suddenly interrupted the fight and carried her off, Chris had dutily followed him without hesitation. However, at this point, he was itching for some answers.

“Hey, dude, the hell is going on?” Chris asked while raising an eyebrow. “You know her?”

“Yeah. She’s a friend from the past.”

Ethan leaned down and placed his hand on her stomach while closing his eyes. Chris stared at this sight from behind, wondering as to what he was doing. He surmised that he was checking on her condition, but it was better for him to be unassuming whenever events pertained to Ethan.

“She has some internal injuries from the fight,” he informed Chris. “Luckily, it’s not overly serious.”

Chris's eyes shot open in disbelief of his casual attitude. “No no no. That sounds extremely serious! Internal injuries are no fucking joke! Should we take her to the hospital?”

“No. There’s a chance that word of it would reach Harrelson. Besides, I have a different solution.”

Ethan then slid his hand into her back pocket and pulled out a small, metallic case that was sturdy enough to have survived the fight. He popped it open to reveal four needles inside, all containing a clear liquid.

“She always carried these in the past.”

“What are they?” Chris asked with curious eyes.

Ethan continued to explain as he rolled her head to the side, exposing a portion of her neck. “Do you remember the shots that Alex Spencer used during his fight with you?”

“Of course I remember. I’m the one who told you about them. How bad do you think my memory is?”

“Just checking. Well, I think their serum was quite similar to this. It’s why I questioned the Krylova sisters about it when they regained consciousness. Both are Geinta-enhancing serums, the distinction being that they have different purposes.”

He stuck the needle into her neck and pushed the butt of the syringe. “This one is specifically made for healing. This wouldn’t work for ordinary people under these circumstances, but since she’s a rather strong Awakened, it should help with any life-threatening injuries.”

Once finished, he removed the needle and put it back in the case (not wanting to just throw it on the ground), which he then slid into her back pocket once more.

“Now, we just wait. If she dies, it means her injuries were just too great to heal in the first place.”

Despair engulfed Chris’s face. “But that would mean I killed her.”

“In self defense. Don’t worry, I won’t blame you. I’m partly at fault for this as well.”

After saying such things, Ethan turned his gaze back towards her face and his eyes grew soft, as if he was secretly worried despite his calm expression. Chris, although oblivious most of the time, did happen to notice this and grew more curious as to who the woman was to him. His guilt over mortally wounding her also began to eat away at him, but he tried to push it to the back of his mind.

***

Half an hour went by as they waited for her to regain consciousness. In that time, Ethan had started to train his senses again while sitting on the ground with his eyes closed.

Chris, stranded in an alley with no one to talk to, sprawled out on the ground to take a nap with his backpack to act as a pillow. Although the location was not an ideal sleeping space, over the past few days, he had begun to enjoy the freedom of choosing when and where he slept, even if he gave up a guaranteed comfortable bed in his home to obtain such a freedom.

Thirty five minutes after administering the serum, Ethan propped open his eyes after hearing a groan exit Michelle’s mouth.

Is she stirring awake?

He waited for a couple minutes, but her eyes did not open. Seeing that she fell unconscious once more, he readjusted his position on the ground and prepared to continue his sensory training, but these plans were interrupted when he noticed someone in his peripheral vision staring at the three of them.

He turned his head to see a well dressed woman with blonde hair and glasses looking at him with wide eyes. It was Harrelson’s secretary, Ms. Till.

“E-Ethan Blade?”

Startled, Ethan leapt to his feat, ready to fight or run at a moment's notice. He glared at the well dressed woman, trying to read what she would do next.

We’re sitting in the back of the alley! How did she recognize me from that far away? Was she looking for me or was it just a stroke of bad luck?

He continued to glare at her, and as he did so, he started to think about how familiar she seemed to him, sparking a flood of memories to flash through his brain.

Oh, she was ...

As a face from his past suddenly began to overlap with hers, he understood how she was able to recognize him with such ease.

He then snapped out of his thoughts and noticed her nervously backing away, preparing to sprint from there and presumably tell someone of his whereabouts. Not wanting to let that happen, he performed Shan Step to appear behind her, placed his hand over her mouth, and dragged her into the alley quick enough to avoid the notice of onlookers.

Once again hidden from the public eye, while keeping his hand firmly pressed against her lips, he shoved her against the alley wall. She attempted to yell for help, but his hand prevented her from doing so.

While she tried, to no avail, to wriggle away from his grasp, using all of her strength to push him away, he stared at her in confusion.

“Melissa. That is you, right?”

She suddenly stopped struggling upon hearing him ask this and nodded her head ‘yes’ in confirmation.

“I thought so. Meeting two unconnected people from my past within an hour. Clearly, fate has something in store for me.”

He then glanced up and down her body with a scrutinizing gaze, and while that worried her, given the situation, he was not doing this for the reason she had thought. Instead, he was observing her clothes, puzzled about their level of quality.

“You’ve done quite well for yourself. Last time I saw you, there was a slave collar around your neck.”

Her reaction to these words were subtle, but it did not escape Ethan's notice. She took in a breath as if she had something to say in response, but gave up as he still hadn’t removed his hand.

“Well, anyways, this is convenient timing. You're going to help us with something.”

She furrowed her eyebrows in a mocking fashion, and from this reaction, Ethan read what she was thinking. ‘You are going to use me for ransom. You’re a fucking idiot.’ Something along those lines.

“That’s not it,” he told her as he turned towards Chris. Like in Border Town, he fired a little ball of Geinta at Chris’s forehead to wake him up, which also elicited the same reaction as before.

As Chris rubbed his forehead and put his glasses on, his eyes suddenly landed on sight of Ethan holding a woman against the wall in a very dangerous fashion.

“U-um. I’m not joining in if that’s why you woke me.”

Ethan grinded his teeth and moved past his absurd misunderstanding. “We’re changing locations. Be careful while carrying Michelle.”

“Ehhhh? Why do I have to carry her? Also, where are we going?”

Ethan turned his head back towards Ms. Till. “That will depend on her. So, Melissa, we need a place to rest, and given your clothes I’m going to guess you have your own place to stay now. Where is it?”

***

As Chris carried Michelle in a bridal style carry while supporting her neck, Ethan had created small bands of Geinta around Ms. Till’s mouth and arms to act as restraints as he carried her on his shoulder.

The two jumped onto the roof of the building to their right and continued to hope across rooftops until they reached Ms. Till’s luxurious (at least by this territory’s standards) penthouse. Upon arrival, Ethan broke the glass of her back patio door and the two slipped through the opening. Chris, while doing so, felt like a criminal, which simultaneously made him worried and excited.

Once inside, Ethan extended these bands of Geinta to confine her to a chair within the room, while Chris gently laid Michelle on the sofa.

He then asked a question which had been eating at his mind the entire trip there. “Um… Ethan? If you don’t mind, could you please tell me what the fuck is going on? Who is she and why are we breaking into her … what is this, a penthouse?”

“She’s someone who has connections to Harrelson,” Ethan said while sitting down onto the floor. “She recognized me and I had to silence her for the time being. I figured we could take advantage and use this place so Michelle could rest.”

“Awww, so you do care about someone,” Chris said with a cheeky grin.

“... Anyways, that’s the situation.” Ethan then turned towards Ms. Till, who had been struggling to break free of her chair the entire time. To her surprise, he released the gag around her mouth which had been preventing her from speaking.

“Ethan! To think you became a fucking Gem user! Release whatever power you're using to restrain me!”

“Melissa, I thought you would be smarter than that. Why the hell would I bother tying you up if I released you upon your request? Secondly, I’m not a Gem user. You can learn this power if you work hard enough and have the right teacher.”

Her eyes opened wide with realization. “So you're a Geinta Master?! I thought those were rarer than a phoenix feather!”

“They are, but I didn’t ungag you to talk about that. I just want to know one thing: how did you find us? Were you looking or was it luck?”

“I-I was just heading back from a lunch break when I saw you. That’s all.”

“So it was luck then. Ok, thanks. Our cover hasn’t been blown.”

And like that, he recreated the Geinta band around her mouth to gag her. She started yelling muffled insults at him as a result, but she quieted down after a minute or so.

Ethan and Chris then began to occupy their time with meaningless chit chat while completely ignoring the tied-up lady in the corner. She had long since grown silent and instead listened to their conversations intently, as she really had nothing else to do.

Then, after twenty minutes, they noticed that Michelle was regaining consciousness, prompting Ethan to move to her side. As he did so, Chris opted to stand behind him, unsure of what to do with himself.

As she slowly opened her singular eye, she could feel an intense pain in her back and ribs, but what really jolted her awake was the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. Her eyelid bolted open and she sat up in a frantic fashion, trying to gain an understanding of her surroundings.

But then, she felt a hand on her shoulder which pushed her to lie back down on the couch. She turned her head and saw that the hand belonged to Ethan, whose face was staring at her own. Upon seeing him, at first she was stunned by his presence but her eye slowly grew soft the more she looked at him, and eventually, she leaped out and hugged him, catching everyone in the room off guard.

“S-so I wasn’t crazy. You really are alive.”

Tears began to well up in her eye and she continued to hug him, leaving Ethan in an awkward situation. He moved his arms to hug her in return, but he found himself unable to do so.

Michelle, after a minute or so, clearly felt his uncomfortableness and pushed herself off of him. “Sorry, I’ve shown you a pretty pathetic sight, haven’t I.”

But then, she is caught off guard by his answer. “You don’t need to apologize,” he tells her, which caused her to stare in disbelief.

“You’re … a bit different aren’t you,” she said while wiping away her tears. However, the emotion and happiness in her voice did not disappear. “I figured you would yell at me for trying to hug you. Looks like you’ve grown up a bit.”

Ethan felt Chris’s stare piercing the back of his head. ‘You would’ve yelled at someone for trying to hug you. You were an asshole in the past,’ is what he was thinking. Ethan ignored him for the time being and continued to look after Michelle.

“I’m not as scared of human contact as I was in the past, but let’s not talk about me. Sorry to ask you while you're still injured…” but he was cut off by her.

“How bad are they?” she asked, regarding her injuries.

“Terrible, but I gave you one of the shots you carry, so you should be fine. Only an hour has passed since the fight and yet you're already awake, so that’s a promising sign.”

“I see. Wait! The fight! How did you escape?!”

Instead of answering her with words, Ethan just pointed to the figure behind him. When she shifted her gaze towards this figure, she couldn’t help but flinch. The same person who supposedly captured Ethan and beat her to a pulp was now standing over her with his arms crossed in an intimidating way (he was simply relaxing his face muscles so he seemed scarier than usual).

“But he …”

“He is with me. I’ll explain, but before I do, what are you even doing here Michelle? I can’t imagine you doing business with someone like Harrelson.”

Her face twitched, as if he touched a sore subject. “Daddy sent me to do business against my better judgement. Since the Rose Corporation is discontinuing many of their partnerships, he’s been sending me to fill their void with the family business. It’s taking up so much of my time that I can’t work on my other ventures. Luckily, my powers have allowed me to keep up with the workload.

“It was merely a coincidence that I saw you being carried by him,” she used her chin to point at Chris, “ and I just reacted without thinking. I couldn’t let you be taken a second time.”

Due to her mention of a past event, the room was suddenly filled with an uncomfortable silence, which Chris was forced to endure as he had zero context as to what they spoke of. Although it only lasted seven seconds, it felt far longer.

The silence was eventually broken when a smile then returned to her face. “But I was beaten pretty badly. It looks like I couldn’t have saved you no matter how hard I tried. Who is he? He’s an absolute monster.”

Ethan turned his body so that his head could face them both. “Michelle, this is Chris Sheffer. He’s my travel partner. Chris, this is Michelle Java. She’s the workaholic older sister I never wanted.”

“Ha!” she laughed while holding her damaged ribs. “How cold of you. And after I all did to take care of you.”

“So you knew Ethan before, huh?” Chris said with a mischievous gaze. “So, what was he like?”

“Even shorter than he is now.”

Chris laughed aloud at her answer, which earned a scorned look from Ethan. He tried to contain himself, but he found it quite difficult.

“He was a handful,” she continued. “He couldn’t trust anyone and it made him very hard to care for. I mean, just now was the most emotion I’ve ever gotten out of him. But if he’s actually allowing you to travel with him, it looks like he’s finally trusting people again.”

“Who says I trust him?” Ethan asked her cold heartedly, but he immediately regretted doing so.

“Oh, the betrayal!” Chris yelled melodramatically while putting the back of his hand to his forehead. He then slumped down onto his knees and clutched his heart. “To think that he wouldn’t trust me! Me! I couldn’t have imagined such a revelation. But I understand. A cold cynic like him could never mingle with an angel like me. ”

His sarcasm was overwhelming. Fed up with his shit, which he had been enduring for the past week, Ethan grabbed the back of Chris’s head. “Can you just have a normal conversation for five minutes?”

“Ow ow ow ow! That’s my hair!”

“Is it now? It would be a shame if you lost it.”

“Ah~ HELP! Help! Michelle, I hate to ask this of an injured person, but I would request some assistance!”

Michelle looked on at the sight of Ethan casually having a playful interaction with another person and she was suddenly filled with a warmth as if she was proud of him.

So he finally found a friend, huh?

However, she didn’t help Chris.

***

After the two calmed down, the conversation continued. Chris held the back of his head with a few tears in his eyes. As pain was still a new sensation for him, his tolerance for it is quite low. Michelle thought him to be the perfect person to offset Ethan, who had already led a tortured and painful life by the time he was Chris’s age.

Speaking of his tortured life, she then brought up a question which she had been meaning to ask. “Ethan, I’ll return what you asked me earlier. What are you doing here? As strange as it is for me to be here, it’s even stranger for you, is it not?”

“Hmm?” accidentally escaped Ethan’s mouth as she said something which caught him off guard. “It’s strange for me? Are you referring to what happened before? How do you know about that?”

“Give me a little credit,” she told him with a wry smile. “Seriously, what’s going on? Why are you here? I thought after you were sold here, you escaped not a few months later. At least, that’s what I heard from some of my contacts, but when I looked for you afterwards, you had disappeared.”

“I see. The reason for that is …” but as he was about to explain that he was off the map training in the Yeti Mountains for three years, Chris suddenly cut him off with a question.

“He was … sold?” Chris asked with a distinctly serious expression not usually found on his face.

“What? Yes, he …” Michelle began to answer, but when she realised that Chris had no idea as to what they were talking about, she turned to Ethan. “Oh … he doesn’t know, I see. Should I tell him or should you?”

“I ...

Ethan, reluctant to reveal information of his past, nodded his head for Michelle to tell him. She noticed his hesitance regarding the matter and thought that his trust issues hadn’t fully disappeared.

“When I last saw him, he was being taken by some pretty powerful kidnappers. It’s only after a year or so did I find out that he was auctioned and sold to this Territory as a slave.”

“Slaves?” Chris mutters upon hearing this. “What? But, I thought slavery was outlawed by the Empire,” he says, turning to Ethan with a genuinely shocked look. “Ethan, is that true?”

“Sorry to disappoint you Chris, but I told you the world was as good as you thought. Slavery is normal here.”

“But I haven’t seen any slaves since we got here!”

“Yes, you have. What do you think those people in the mines and wheat fields were?”

“Eh? But you said that they were …”

“I never confirmed anything. All I said was that if they wanted, there are enough citizens in the city to fill those fields. However, instead, the slaves do the work.”

The energy is Chris’s body seemed to disapate as he thought of how normal the sight of slavery looked. From afar, they appeared like ordinary field workers, a position which was quite normal for the teenagers of Abrhar to have as a summer job.

He seemed to have been experiencing shock stemming from the fact that his ideal world and reality were so different. He knew bad shit happened, and he knew not every place was as nice, peaceful and advanced as his hometown. However, he drew a line at casually abusing humans like tools.

“S-so you were a slave as well? Those scars … that are all over your body, did you get them from being whipped?”

“Some of them,” Ethan answered.

“I-I’m sorry. I knew you were scared of this place … but I didn’t know that was the reason. I thought you were just being a coward.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not scared,” he says unconvincingly. “I wouldn’t take back those experiences either. They molded me into the person I am today.”

***

Rose Kingdom, Auction house

Three years ago,

Sitting upon the stage, with hundreds of eyes staring at him, and a young man being sold at the auction snarled at the crowd of bidders.

“345,000!”

“390,000!”

“450,000!”

The price for the slave continued to rise as bidders, or more specifically, Conqueror’s requiring slave labor, desperately wanted a powerful Awakened such as him. According to the auction house’s Geinta measuring scale, he was a 4th tier Awakened, meaning he was a rare catch.

However, after a while, the amount of bidders began to drop and only the wealthy Conqueror’s remained. Most of them found it wasteful to spend more than a 200,000 on any single slave, let alone this one’s final price.

“835,000 going once, going twice. Sold to # 945.”

This slave, which was bought for a ridiculous amount, was but a sixteen year old kid. However, no one doubted his worth. While on stage, he was stripped down to nothing, which revealed an extraordinarily fit figure with scars already littering his body at a young age. This, the fact that he was confined by a dozen Batrock metal chains and that he never flinched while staring down a crowd of hundreds, everyone counted on his 4th tier strength being genuine.

This young man was Ethan Blade and he was being sold to the Harrelson Territory.