Mike stumbled through the canyon back towards where the slaves spent their off time, every inch of his body aching from the last 12 hours of hauling Mythril to the storage locker. If it wasn’t for the forced nap from using Hands of Healing near the beginning of his mining shift, he was positive he would have passed out from exhaustion already.

The shift hadn’t been without gains though, all told, he had gotten another 6 points in Strength over the last 12 hours–putting his base Strength at exactly 40, which finally put his ratio of Dexterity to Strength at less than 2:1. He had found in his early testing of Footsteps of the Wind that that ratio was important in still being able to function and maintain balance.

When he got the second point of Strength within an hour of the first one, he had thought he had stumbled upon a way to infinitely increase his Strength: simply carry a heavy load right at the bounds of what he was physically capable of doing. But he soon found out that despite keeping his Strength and loads constant, he found that each point came slower than first. Why that was, he wasn’t sure. It was just one more question that he had stored in his backlog for when he could find someone trustworthy to talk to. He was confident that he would get a few points of Strength during his next shift though, but it was doubtful that it would be more than 4 based on the mental calculations he had done while blundering along in the line.

All thoughts of his shift fled as the slave valley came into view. He quickly made his way to the empty area bordering the canyon walls where he had rested before his first shift. His exhaustion greatly exceeded his paranoia of others attacking him in his sleep, and after one final Beast-of-Burden-powered exertion to pile up some rocks so that he could only be approached from directly in front of himself, he promptly fell asleep.

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Mike awakened abruptly after only 6 hours. His joints felt stiff in a way that he hadn’t experienced since the System integration. Despite the soreness, he found that he felt almost completely refreshed, and he felt a momentary flush of satisfaction that the insomnia and fatigue of his advanced years no longer plagued him.

Yep, I survived a lot in my life, but nothing was worse than waking up every two hours, completely exhausted but still unable to sleep night after night after night. He inwardly confirmed.

As he gingerly crawled out of his minimalistic shelter, harsh laughter caught his ears followed shortly by some whimpering. His fatigue vanished in a moment as he quickly stood up and looked towards the noises. Not 200 yards from his position, a few slaves were surrounding one that was curled up on the ground. Deep down, he knew that he was vastly weaker than every other slave, despite the suppression collars that everyone else wore, but he found his legs making long strides towards the scene without conscious decision.

As he got closer, he noticed small clusters of slaves watching the scene, some were laughing, others seemed to be viewing the spectacle in disgust (though whether their disgust was for bullying or for the weakness displayed by the fallen slave was unclear. Whatever their reasons for disgust, he was sure that it was dwarfed by his own feelings of disgust that so many could witness such cruelty without any intervention. A pang of sorrow broke through the disgust as he saw the beautiful woman among the spectators. His budding feelings for her began to erode under his contempt towards her indifference. While he acknowledged that her face at least looked sorrowful, he couldn’t excuse her inactivity.

Shifting his attention back to the assailants, he realized that at least one of them he recognized as one of the slaves who had stood by Mustela earlier while Mike’s punishment was administered. Corruption always thrives in the upper circles. The saying came from one of his squad mates from his days behind the Iron Curtain, where the promises of equality that Communism offered had fallen prey to the reality of men’s baser instincts.

I guess it is safe to say that that applies to all enlightened species, not just humans. He concluded as the distance between him and the group diminished to only 15 feet, at which point, he was able to make out the downed form as non other than Guigui. The knowledge filled him with trepidation, that such a strong being was cowering confirmed that the other slaves were miles ahead of Mike’s own strength. Still, his sense of self compelled to intervene.

“Why does it take three of you to fight one prone individual?” He said, interrupting the largest mid kick, while mentaling checking off Step 1 of his tried and true process getting a bully’s attention. Publicly question the bully’s strength.

The process proved as effective as always, as all three of the bullies’ heads snapped in his direction, while a quiet murmur spread throughout the camp.

“You’re new here, so I’ll graciously allow you to recall your statement, in exchange for your next three rations and an apology.” came the predictable response from the slave Mike had seen with Mustela earlier as he slowly advanced towards him.

Step 1 always works and their answers are almost always the same. Mike thought before replying.

“That isn’t going to happen for two reasons. The first is that I am really curious to see how Helios Flank does with a pinch of salt, pepper, and garlic.” Mike replied as the three assailants slowly surrounded him.

The one directly in front of him had scales rather than skin, with sharp fangs that slightly extruded from the otherwise very human looking face. This was Mustela’s crony. The ones at his 4 and 8 o’clock looked to be the same species, possibly even brothers based on how similar they appeared. They stood roughly a foot taller than his own bald head, and thick, corded muscles shone through their purplish skin. Each had a third eye in the middle of their foreheads, the purpose of which Mike couldn’t begin to guess at. An eye on the back of the head made more sense, as it could see in a direction that was otherwise a blind spot. If anything, it proved that God must exist, as the idea that a third eye would develop through evolution was ludicrous.

“The other is that I really don’t like your type. And would sooner die than become on of the prawns that cowers to your will.” Though he was unsure if they knew what a prawn was, they must have gotten the gist of it as they started moving towards him cautiously.

His only advantage lay in the fact that they didn’t know he was much weaker than them, which would force them to be cautious, well that and Damage Premonition, which allowed him to step aside in time to avoid the punch which would have obliterated his right kidney. From there he sunk into a squat, where he felt the wind of the draconian slaves tail flap above his head. Then it was a jump to his right to avoid yet another punch, putting himself in roughly the same position he had started out at.

Their probing attacks completed, the three slaves went at him in full force. Their suppressed, albeit much higher stats, made continued dodging impossible, and Mike was forced to put himself in the one position he could think of that gave him even the slightest chance of survival.

Pivoting to his right, he broke apart the formation of the attackers, causing one to be directly to his side while the other two stood opposite each other, directly in front of and behind him. As Mustela’s peon whipped his tail with blinding speed, Mike activated Unflinching Meteor, and just like when he had been struck by Jake back in his clearing, he felt his body lift off the ground and fly through the air like a home run ball. He didn’t feel the collision as his body struck one of the three-eyed brothers, but he saw the visceral goop that flew on either side of him. The awestruck face of the slave who had struck him faded rapidly as he gained altitude. His ascent ended early as his body struck the canyon wall some 150 feet above his starting position. He couldn’t feel his body as it slowly peeled off the wall, but he was forced to watch the ground approach at an alarming speed as he body flipped end over end with nausea inducing speed.

He felt no pain as he lay face down in the dirt, a position with which he had become overly familiar over the last year of his life. This wasn’t the outcome he had been hoping for, and he waited for the two remaining slaves to finish him off as watched his countdown timer, but the follow-up never came. When he could again stand, he found his feet and looked towards where the scuffle had taken place, only to see the scene abandoned save for the still screaming, half destroyed body of one of the brothers and the prone Guigui. Even the spectators had vanished over the last 10 seconds, and it was clear to see why. A stream of guards was entering the valley.

Unsure of what was to come, Mike prepared himself for the worst.

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“You couldn’t even a single penteel without causing problems, could you?” Blarney said, his voice full of simmering fury. “I thought it went without saying that fighting amongst the slaves was prohibited, so I didn’t bring it up during our first meeting, but I guess I was mistaken.”

“I was just protecting Guig..” Mike tried to explain.

“It doesn’t matter! There is no fighting period! End of story!” Blarney raged over him. “There will always be a reason for slaves to fight, and the only way to prevent it is to harshly punish it every time. You are just lucky that slave 24573 won’t succumb to his wounds or else it would be an automatic execution sentence for you”

The myriad of prepared excuses dies in Mike’s throat as Blarney’s words struck home. Mike understood perfectly. It wasn’t like this was a fight in school where each individual was there voluntarily. Fights between slaves damaged the business’s bottom line, and profit was the only true decider of Right vs Wrong in these types of circumstances.

Mike’s sudden silence seemed to soften the granite lines of Blarney’s scrunched up face, and he breathed out in a whoosh of air.

“Look, the punishment needs to be overly harsh, but I will still do what I can to help you, if for no other reason than that I hope to see you cost the Assimilators some of their investment. You wouldn’t survive the types of beatings we administer here, so I’ll assign you to wurm detail instead. Hoosefelt, see to it.” Blarney concluded, with a nod to the lead guard.

A mountainous hand rested on Mike’s shoulder and he was guided out the door.