“Have you decided what we’re going to be doing today?” Eliquis asked, once Bellamort and Gavin started getting up.

“I have a general idea, but before that,” I eyed Eliquis over and realized there were a few subtle changes in her since I marked her with a bran. “Have you felt anything weird since I put that mark on you?”

“Weird? Well, I don’t feel as sad anymore. Oh and my body feels lighter. And, uh… uhm…”

“That’s fine enough. I just wanted to make sure it was safe to place on other people. Anyways, I think our numbers are good enough for us to start preparing on a larger scale. Well, I haven’t really considered Gavin or Bellamort in those numbers, but it’ll go faster with them.”

“What will go faster with us?” Gavin asked as both him and Bellamort stepped outside.

“Well, my plans. Of course, you’re free to leave at any time, but if you’re going to be following us, you should become one of us permanently. Otherwise we’ll have to drop you when we move on.”

“Well, let’s think-”

“Okay,” Bellamort was cut off by Gavin agreeing immediately.

“Wait. Why are you just jumping into this?”

“Because, we’ll have a better chance with them, then anywhere else in this country. Actually, I’m pretty sure no matter which country we go to, it’s safer with them. I’m not sure why but… he seems better to have as a friend, not an enemy.”

Bellamort blinked at his friend, shocked. Apparently he wasn’t used to Gavin actually thinking things out properly. I cleared my throat to get their attention.

“Then Gavin, I’ll be placing the same mark on you that I put on Eliquis. Bellamort, you can take some time to think about it. As for-”

“Is it a slave crest?” Bellamort glared at me as he asked.

“Probably not? Actually, I’m not sure if I’m gonna be honest with you. But Eliquis doesn’t seem to be hindered by it, so I guess it's safe,” I replied with a shrug and then pointed to some of the slimes preparing themselves. “Even the monsters have the same mark and they’re doing just fine. Anyways, there’s a reason why I want anyone who follows us to have it. You won’t get any answers out of me unless you’re one of us, so don’t bother. As for right now, I’m thinking of having you and K and two amus go with us into the village to get some stuff and take a look around. Eliquis, just focus on muscle strengthening for today. Gavin you should probably try doing some of what she’s doing. I’m gonna have some of the slimes, amus and the spider go test something for me while I’m gone, so don’t go too far until they get back, okay?”

“Okay. Make sure to bring back some better daggers than these,” Eliquis pointed to the daggers we took from the thugs. They were pretty much useless since they were overused and never taken care of. But we were keeping them as something to use in the meantime.

“Aight. Let’s go,” I said as an amu came over and knelt down so I could climb on top of it’s back.

K and Bellamort got on the other Amu and we took off towards the city at an amazing speed. It was so fast, yet the amus didn’t look like they were even trying to go fast at all. Damn, at a comfortable speed, these things can easily travel thirty kilometers in half a day. I should probably invest in a few more of them when I get a chance. It didn’t even take us thirty minutes to get to the town.

We arrived in the village without issue, but we were told to leave out amus at the front gate. I wasn’t really worried since they would just kill anyone that tried to take them anyways. We moved forward slowly so that I could get a good grasp on how things operated in this village. I looked like any other traveler, based on what I saw so far, since all travelers were mostly walking with a cloak in small groups. Bellamort looked more like a middle class citizen, since he didn’t look as impoverished as most of the villagers here. We did see the occasional rich person, but after an hour of studying the people, I realized that there were only six wealthy people in this entire village. I had to assume that they were the local lords or someone working with them. I tucked that information in the back of my mind as I went around, continuing to study the town. K was the only one who stood out, since he was currently wearing clothing from the thugs I had killed yesterday. So, he looked like a bodyguard. I had planned to use that to my advantage as we moved around.

“We’ve been walking around for an hour. Is there a reason for that?” Bellamort asked after I stopped to sit outside of a textile store of some sort.

“Not particularly.”

“What?”

I sighed and looked at Bellamort out of the corner of my eye. “Have you been paying attention to anything since we got here?”

“What do you mean?” he lowered his voice when I lowered mine to ask the question.

“There’s only a few guards in this village, if you want to call them that. But there’s plenty of people passing through this village. It’s like a third of everyone here is just passing through. On top of that, the people here don’t seem to be very lively. They’re just going through the motions. And the final thing to point out, is the number of children sitting on the side of the roads.”

“Okay…? What’s that have to do with why we came here?”

“Everything. We came here to both get supplies and see how long we could stay in this area before moving on. The villagers themselves wouldn’t do much, but with how the village is it makes me wonder why and how there are any wealthy people here.” I nudged my head in the direction of someone wearing a gaudy purple suit walking out of a store with six armed men surrounding him.

“Oh, I see. That does raise some questions,” Bellamort watched the figure for a while, before turning his attention to K.

K had been looking at a small alleyway between two buildings that were across the street. He watched in silence while glancing in other directions periodically.

“Well, let’s go greet our little stalker,” I said while standing up to stretch. “K, do you remember what size Eliquis is?”

“Aye.”

“Then let’s go set up the stage.”

Bellamort stared at us blankly, clearly confused by the lack of information being said. But he followed us into the store anyways and helped pick out some clothing and boots that would fit Gavin and himself. K grabbed a few things for Eliquis and we paid for them. So nine outfits and four sets of boots only comes to one small silver? Then that would mean a cooked meal is only worth about one copper coin, right? We’ll have to investigate this later. Upon leaving the store I slipped two small gold coins to K. Depending on how things went, he would need to hire some people to cause a distraction later on, so I wanted to prepare for that.

I made sure to have Bellamort be the one carrying the backpack and put everything inside of the backpack outside. Take the bait. I thought to myself as we quickly headed through an alleyway, pretending not to notice the three people following us. Right before Bellamort exited the alleyway, he tossed the bag to the side and turned around, as K rushed in front of the three people following us, while I dashed passed them and stood behind them.

They weren’t good at stalking at all, but after assessing them, it was painfully obvious as to why. They were just children and it seemed they were fairly new to pickpocketing. Not that I cared if they took the money anyways. I had thought they were following us for a different reason. I sighed as I looked the kids over one at a time.

There was a girl slightly taller than me with black hair that fell to her shoulders. It was matted and her black eyes burned with hatred. Her clothes were in decent shape, so I had assumed she had recently become poor. The figure behind her was just as tall as her and he had long green hair that covered half of his face, and draped to his shoulders. His eyes looked like they belonged to a dead fish. He was clearly malnourished, and it looked worse on his lanky figure. The third was a kid probably a year or two younger than myself. He had bruises and cuts all over his face and had a piece of cloth tied around his head to cover an eye. I had assumed someone took it out of him to teach him a lesson about stealing, but obviously people would do whatever they could to survive. As I looked these three over, it was clear to me that this situation was abnormal.

“Okay, spit it out. Who sent you?” I let the words spit venom for themselves as I pulled out a mana blade to make my point.

“A deal,” the girl said looking at me in the eyes.

Defiant, aren’t we? Okay, I’ll bite. I waved my hand to have her continue. “We were told to find anyone wealthy and cause a commotion with them so the guards could… ex-tor…”

“Extort us?” I sighed and put the mana blade away. “Okay. Well, what’s the deal, then?”

“You have money, right?” Well, aren’t you blunt. I nodded and let her continue. “Then, can you buy my brother?”

“Huh?” It wasn’t just me who was confused. Bellamort was listening intently but when she came out of nowhere with that, he was the first to make a noise.

“Why don’t we go over there and have a discussion,” I said pointing to a barn not too far away from us.

The girl nodded and we moved towards the barn. The owner came out from the fields to ask us what we were doing on his property, and I quickly informed him that we were thinking about purchasing amus and possibly a carriage and wanted time to discuss what exactly we needed so we knew how many to buy. The farmer was confused but more than happy to discuss pricing, so I left K to do that and buy us some time to talk.

“Okay, start from the beginning. Oh, and your names while you’re at it,” I barked sitting on a bail of hay.

“I’m Luna. These two are Alex and Josh. And the beginning is difficult since I don’t understand much of it, but…” she looked up at the ceiling collecting her thoughts before turning back to me. “This village is part of Jumail, which is a city pretty far away. They’re apparently planning to extend the city out in this direction eventually, so they brought one of their uh… council members here. Council members? I don’t remember his name but he walks around in a purple suit. And since he got here, a lot of people have gone missing.”

“So basically the city had plans to develop further by expanding and so this village was created to be the edge of where the city would be. But people clearly forgot that was the plan and so they sent someone to force everyone to cooperate?” Bellamort asked.

Luna nodded and continued where she left off. “He brought some slave traders here and whenever someone went missing, he took their kids. Sometimes they just took the kids in front of their parents, and other times the slave traders took the parents instead. I don’t quite get it but eventually they took my brother, Fayne. And he told me that if I wanted to see my brother again, I would have to work for them to make money.”

“I see. And since he’s a slave, we could just purchase him instead since the guy just wants money?” I concluded. “Okay, so what’s the deal?”

“Well, if you save my brother we won’t have to get you involved.” Girl, you’re horrible at making negotiations. Honestly, you’re making me feel bad that your brother has a sister as useless as you. Hell, I don’t even feel like helping you anymore. This is a bullshit one sided deal.

“I’m gonna have to pass,” I said waving my hand. “Whether or not you get us involved isn’t really an issue. If you try to cause a commotion, we’ll kill you. And if you’re dead, it wouldn’t bother them. So if you want to go save your brother, go get the money from someone else.”

“Then what do you want?” Luna was clearly getting frustrated. Her anger was actually turning her face red. Wow, it might be fun toying with her for a bit, since K is clearly dragging his feet longer than he needs to.

“Nothing. Well, nothing you’re willing to give me. What about you Bellamort?”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Bellamort sighed. Clearly he didn’t want to get involved with her either.

I eyed Josh and Alex seeing how they felt about it, but it looked like they both had given up on the idea of freedom. They didn’t really care which way this conversation went. Can’t fix what’s broken. All you can do is destroy it and build it from scratch.

“Well, there you have it. Is that all you want from us?” Please give up. You’ve made me interested in something else entirely and I want to go check it out.

“Then…” Luna looked at the ground and then back at me seething in rage. “What if I offer you me, and in return you free my brother?”

I laughed. I laughed so hard I fell off the bail of hay I was sitting on and started tearing up.

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week. Okay, I’ll bite. What can you offer me that I can’t find anywhere else?”

Luna looked at me first in seething anger, clearly wanting to say something when I started laughing. But once she heard my question she was at a loss. Don’t understand? Well, one more push, I guess.

“You told me there’s slave traders here, right? That means I can purchase any slave I want. If you’re offering me you, couldn’t I just buy a slave cheaper than your brother and get the same thing? And if I purchase your brother, he’s mine. If you want to be with him when I have him, you have no choice but to stay at my side. Meaning I get two slaves for the price of one. Honestly, you have no real value here, only your brother does. If you want to make a deal with someone, you have to make it more appealing.”

Luna dropped to her knees in tears and I made sure to burn the image of her despair in my mind. It’s not like I wouldn’t help her, just not on her terms. But in reality, I can’t save everyone and if I keep getting distracted by the few people I can save, I’ll never accomplish my own goals. I could offer her an alternative for giving me some information that could prove to be useful, but making her face reality is a better gift.

K walked into the barn a few seconds after Luna started to despair and moved to whisper in my ear. “Two amus for one small silver, and one carriage for two silver. I told him that we would be back for them in a few hours and to have a receipt drafted, as you requested.”

I nodded at K, then looked back to Luna. “Here’s my offer. You three work for me and I will purchase your brother. Prove useful, and I’ll eventually free your brother. If I’m not satisfied with you, then your brother will be the one to suffer. If you don’t like this deal, you can keep things the way they’ve been.”

“I want my brother's safety guaranteed,” Luna said through sobs.

“His safety is based on your performance. If I’m unhappy with how you serve me, I can’t guarantee he’ll be alive the next day.”

“What? Why would-”

“My priorities lie with someone else entirely. Make your decision.”

“What would you have me do?”

I shrugged. “Who knows?”

“I’ll do it,” she whispered after a minute of silence.

“Good. Bellamort, you’re babysitting. K, let’s go.”

“Seriously?” Bellamort grumbled as I handed him the money the farmer would be asking for soon. And I also made sure he knew not to give the money before reading the receipt carefully.

Now that the stage is set, let’s see how far I can get. I don’t necessarily want to cause problems, but this is a chance that I can’t pass up.