Finding the village was easy. The wagon tracks from the merchant were very deeply pressed into the ground, and the grass was still tightly compressed where the wheels rolled on with their weighty cargo of misery. All they had to do was to follow the trail. "Sloppy operation." Nua remarked to her Teacher.

"They think they're invincible, so they hide nothing, thinking nothing will come for them." Solution's twisted smile told Nua plenty about what her Teacher thought of that.

Nua took out her knife, sharing that opinion, they crept on together as distant sounds told them the village was near. She stopped when she felt Solution's hand on her shoulder. "Remember your promise. You know what to do."

Nua nodded, "Yes, Teacher. I know what mercy is." She steeled herself, and they closed in until cresting a low hill that showed a small village. The houses were larger than those of humans, and built of stone, and shaped with sharp triangle roofs with a thick smooth surface over them of indeterminate make. The village was bustling still, and faint wails of agony reached Nua's ears and caused them to twitch.

"They're being roasted alive." Solution explained, "The Tlalmok think fear adds to the flavor, and it does, in my experience. If you could feel fear still, student… I bet you'd taste even better." Solution licked her lips, prompting Nua to roll her eyes for what felt like the millionth time at her Teacher.

However, Nua stayed silent and watched, "No rescue proposal? No valiant heroic charge? No plea for me to help you rescue them?" Solution looked at Nua's cold expression almost 'respectfully.'.

"There is no benefit to rescuing them, but even if there were, I can't take them back, if I could, yes, I would. That's a terrible fate and… if I can at least kill them, I'll do that. But… pity them as I do, I don't have that kind of power. Not even with this marvelous left hand, I don't think. Not against so many." Nua said as she looked out at the bear man who was carving off a bicep from a living man who was still roasting from a fire beneath him.

Not far away from that, a long iron rod was being used to skewer someone who had been bound to a table. The rod was not pushed into her quickly. Nua winced and said a prayer to the god of justice that the Tlalmok Empire perish soon, and continued scanning. "There." Nua said, and pointed. "Those wagons, I'll bet the place they dropped at, is where the merchant lives and works. At least when out this way."

"Alright, how do we approach?" Solution quizzed her student, and Nua pointed to the darkest area.

"They can see in the dark, most of them, but it's away from where food is being made, attention will be in that direction, and there are lots of obstacles to hide behind. Now, to make sure we're not detected at all…" Nua said pleasantly as she activated her skills. [Scentless] [Soundless] And then she drew her blade out and touched her hand to it, [Paralysis] the blade glowed a faint green before fading to a more ordinary look.

"Alright, Teacher, all I ask is for you to catch him by surprise. Fade through the wall, I come through the door." Nua asked hopefully, and Solution consented silently.

"Good." They moved in, then, running swiftly over the grass toward the carts, until they stopped behind it in unison, their shoulders slapped against it, and Nua crawled beneath, ignoring the mud and muck, she looked at the glowing light within. A faint cry came from within. 'OK, this complicates things.'

Nua raised her hand and waved Solution forward, her human appearance was already vanishing as she went to the wall. Nua sprang up and pumped her legs toward the door, her left hand slammed into it, knocking it inward.

The lionman was staring at Solution, frozen and indecisive, he hadn't even screamed yet. Blood was dripping from his claws, he barely had a moment to turn to respond to the sudden appearance of Nua, before the elf was on him.

Her left hand grabbed his open jaw at the teeth, and she pulled him hard into her blade, piercing his fur, hide, and the flesh beneath. He managed a grunt before the paralysis took effect. "Got you!" She whispered into his ear, before stepping aside and allowing him to fall to the floor.

"Alright, Solution, can he fit inside your body? He's kind of big." Nua asked, only for Solution to look at her like she was insulted.

"I retract the question." Nua said apologetically and scanned the room. The source of the cries was easy to identify. A teenage girl lay bound to a table, her body opened and she had obviously been partially consumed. She was missing fingers, chunks of arm, and as Nua came near, bites had been taken of her internal organs. 'Minutes to live.' Nua thought and her heart ached for a moment.

"I'm sorry this happened to you… but you can go to your grave knowing this… your tormentor will follow you soon… but for him it will seem like forever." Nua whispered, and the girl's trembling lips moved, but no further sound could emerge. Her eyes welled up, her trembling frame racked with agony.

Nua made it quick, she covered the girl's eyes with her left hand, and then planted her blade in the girl's heart. A few quick spurts, a spasm, and she was gone.

Nua looked over to her teacher, the lionman had been wearing rich clothing, 'If he wasn't the merchant, I'll eat my right hand.' Nua thought to herself, then looked around.

"Now what?" Solution quizzed, but Nua answered with actions, shuffling through papers, she shoved them into her pouch, wiped her blade, and sheathed it.

"I can't read the language, but they look like requisitions, requests, maybe something useful, I'll have it translated when we get back. Now, let's go." Nua finally said, and headed for the door, they withdrew quickly, leaving yet more screams in the distance behind them.

When they were well away, Solution gave her a steady look, "You really have changed, fifteen years ago you'd have begged me to help you save them."

Nua bowed deeply, "Weakness is a sin, and it is part of weakness to not know when action is futile. I am sure if you had fought, Teacher, we could have won handily. I might even be able to take on several by myself, but… not so many at once. So no, I won't do something stupid and die for nothing. What I will do though, is something else."

"Oh, what's that?" Solution asked with sudden interest as Nua bared her teeth back in the direction of the village.

"I'll remember that place, and one day, when I have the power to make it happen, I'll come back, and I will wipe it from the face of this world, in ways that would make you turn green and tell me to tone down the violence." Nua said with hate filled eyes.

"When you do… send me an invitation, succeed, and I'll be your… 'food taster' on the campaign." Solution laughed with a twisted, sonorous, evil tone, one that Nua matched with her own.

"Teacher, I will hold you to that, but for now, let's hurry back, there is an interrogation to see to, and an object lesson to impose." Nua said firmly, and set the example by returning back to where they began. When they reached their destination, Nua said quickly, "Alright, Teacher, spit him out. You can play with your food 'after' I'm finished with him."

Solution tittered at the tease, and her flesh became blue as water. She reached within, and drew him out of her chest, casting him to the ground with a thud.

Nua immediately cut him again, this time on his arm, and not deeply, but enough to redo paralysis while she cut off his clothing and cast it aside. When she was done, she let out a clear whistle. A rustling stirred a short moment or two later, and she whistled again.

Finally, her twenty-five began to hesitantly emerge, and cried out in alarm at the naked, massive lionman on the grass in a frozen heap in front of them.

Nua stood over his body, "He's very much alive. Just paralyzed." Nua explained. "I want you to understand something, something down to your very core. You all live in fear of these animals." Nua kicked the merchant slightly in the side of his head. She could feel the hate in his golden eyes as he stared up at her when she nudged him with the toe of her boot.

"But they're not gods, they're not immortal, they're not even especially hard to kill if you know what you're doing. And they feel pain like you do. Watch." Nua said, and crouching next to the beastman, she held the knife up where he could see it.

She leaned over him slightly, and her blue eyes became more golden than that of the lionman himself as she spoke. "I made sure to stab you very shallowly with this back there, and cut you only a little to refresh the paralysis before it wears off. But now, I'm going to start hurting you, just like Teacher showed me about fifteen years ago. And 'after' I'm done making a point with you, I'm going to ask you questions, and you, you are going to answer those questions. Because if you don't, as much as you think it hurts now, imagine it for weeks, months? And I'll even buy healing potions to restore you, and start all over again. Do you understand me?"

He could only stare back, but she read his eyes. "Yes, you understand me."

Nua took the edge of the blade, and put it to the lionman's arm, and began to skin him alive. Unable to move, unable to scream, his body was still able to spasm instinctively, he was able to release his bowels and put the stench of his waste into the air. The twenty-five Breakers stared in incomprehension at the impossible as their Captain skinned a beastman until it whimpered wordlessly.

Solution clapped her hands together happily as she watched her student work. Strips were removed and tossed aside in a neat stack, a few of the twenty-five, unable to bear it, turned aside to vomit, only for Nua to look over sharply.

"Do not look away. Never forget his fear, he is not a monster, incomprehensibly powerful, unbeatable. The key to the word 'beastman' is the word 'man'. They can die, they can beg, they can plead." Nua spat the venomous words as she coldly cut the tendons of its body, rendering its limbs all but useless. "Become better killers, and beastmen become nothing but kittens. You are all too weak. Far too weak, that's your sin, that's why your families were going to be eaten. That's why you were sold to me as slaves. That's why you're still slaves now when I gave you the chance to free yourselves and your loved ones." Nua gave the speech as she removed the kneecaps, prompting another involuntary violent spasm. "You became prey, but you have a choice." She raised her bloody knife at them, "You can stay prey, stay in collars and resign your lives to that. Or you can pursue strength. Grow strong, and gain your freedom. I am not a cruel mistress, I am not an unjust Captain. As you are my soldiers, I will be as a mother to you, stern… hard… even sometimes seeming to be cruel. But it is so that you become something other than what you were. You have things to fight for, follow me, give me your hearts, and I'll help you get there." She said as she removed first one elbow, then taking the beastman in her left hand, she flipped him over, and removed his other elbow.

Nua hammered the words home by flipping the lionman on his back again with a firm kick of her booted foot. "Make no mistake, Breakers. In this world, you're either on my side of the knife… or his. Evil is the only good, Weakness is the greatest sin. You want justice, fuck your star gods, they left you in collars. Obey 'me', follow 'me', and through the gifts of my god, I will make you into 'people' again."

The dumbstruck looks on their faces as they stared down at the mutilated wreck of their nightmares, barely able to do more than tremble involuntarily and spasm on its back, and the bloody Captain who made it so, said plenty.

"Looks like the paralysis is starting to wear off." Nua said as the jaw of the lionman started to move.

Nua went and stood behind his head and bent over, staring down at him with golden shining eyes that now filled his own golden eyes with raw terror. She spoke almost conversationally as she put her left hand over his throat and started to squeeze. "In a few seconds, you're going to be able to talk, when you do, the first thing you say is your name. The second thing you tell me is… Where… IS… BRACER?!' If I don't hear both those things, I'll paralyze you, heal you, and we'll start all over again. I've got all night. Nod if you understand me." Nua said succinctly.

The lionman managed to move its head a little in a semblance of a nod, and Nua removed her left hand. A moment later the head started hacking and coughing. Its limbs flopping pointlessly as it tried to move to escape. [Paralysis] Nua said, holding her assassin's blade up and placing her hand on it.

The lionman stopped moving. "Tlizin… and… north, Bracer went north. He went north because…"

"Because…?" Nua prompted, dangling the knife over Tlizin's body.

Tlizin picked up immediately, through hacks and coughs and spasms, he got the words out. "Because the Komestran Prince is still alive! Prince Sado is alive and is going to be tributed to the God-Emperor! I… I was going to pay Bracer to take the Prince and bring him to me… so… so that 'I' could tribute the Prince of the dead city instead!"

The effect on the Komestrans was electric. "The Prince… he lives…? Our Prince… lives?"

Tlizin spat the words out as fast as he could, as his thoughts raced onward. 'Please let that be true, or at least true enough that this stops… they don't need to know that I haven't confirmed any of this…'

Nua straightened up and looked at her slaves, "Wait, you all actually still like this Prince of yours?"

They nodded rapidly, the baby faced soldier spoke up passionately, "Mistress, ah, Captain Aiwenor, he was a soldier's soldier. Ate the same food as us, fought with us, trained with us, bled with us. Yeah sure, we lost, but we don't blame 'him'. We had six cities coming for us, what could we do? And he stayed in the city rather than run away. He was a good Prince, at least to us."

"I see, and… how common is this feeling among Komestrans?" Nua asked with much greater interest sparking in her eyes.

"He was… is… widely loved. It was widely rumored that part of why he was targeted by the other cities was because he was going to offer his city as a slave haven, like Da'nak in the South. We had good lands, lots of them, and not enough people. So the news got out that he was going to offer sanctuary to any slave who came to his city as long as they took land and started to improve and work it."

"Innovative… and dangerous." Nua admitted. "That sounds like the sort of thing that 'Lady Kaiji' would have definitely advised against."

"Right… Captain… Aiwenor, may I… speak freely?" A man asked who Nua recognized as 'Vargas' , the one who she recalled identified his job as 'elf fucker' when they 'met'.

"Go on, Elf Fucker." Nua said mockingly, and he had the good grace, or good sense, to look down.

"You talk about opportunities for us slaves, that's how he got started. Prince Sado, I mean. It's… wow, that you crossed the border and came back alive, let alone with a prisoner… but even if this to you is just a smart way to run things, it's how it started with Prince Sado. I guess we're lucky you bought us, since it kept us from the tribute… but I'd rather not get sold twice if you get what I mean."

Nua listened to the rather crude exposition, and then casually knelt and cut the lionman's throat.

"Good advice, Vargas." Nua said, using his name this time. "Congratulations, you're my new sergeant. Just watch your hands when you plan on using them." She chuckled, "I'll keep your advice in mind, but… just a 'maybe' or 'what if' kind of question here. But suppose that I were to… 'find' Prince Sado along the way? Suppose… just maybe, I buy up more Komestrans, and Komestran land… would Komestrans be likely to follow me if I had his support?"

They traded looks among one another, and nodded in unison. "To the ends of the world, My Captain." Vargas replied.

"I see, I see." Nua looked over at Solution. "Take care of the skins, we can make scrolls out of them, and… take care of the body, then catch up with us. Looks to me, like we've got 'two' missions to undertake, starting right now."

Solution licked her lips, "Of course, Lady Aiwenor, of course. I'll catch up, this… won't take me very long.

'No, no it won't take very long at all. Not for something like her. Thank you for waking me up, my wielder.' The voice echoed in Nua's head, deep, masculine, and full of malice.