Ian and Asuna was dragged through the forest until they arrived at a large boulder by the foot of the mountain. The place was hidden and hard to spot with all the trees and bushes around.

And the boulder suddenly moved, revealing a cave. A man in dark robe was there, waiting for them.

"Took you long enough, Barry." The dark-robed man stared at the bandit leader. He seemed to be middle aged.

"Shut up, Thomas. That guy is a tough one. Took a few of my guys before I can capture him."

Thomas snorted. "You better clean the corpses later. We don't want anyone to find out."

Barry clicked his tongue. "You don't have to tell me that. I know what I'm doing."

"Well then you must know that the boss has a new mission for you."

"I just got back. What game are you playing."

"This is an important mission. A group of wounded soldiers are on the run. Capture them and bring them here."

"It's always me who runs these errands. Fuck." Barry knelt down and grabbed Asuna's cheeks with his hand. "Wait here, little girl. After I come back, I will make sure to savor your taste."

His men laughed as they stared at Asuna with lust. They too wanted to join in on the fun.

"You capture a fine one," Thomas said.

"Don't tell the leader about this yet. Let me have my fun with her until then, hide her in the basement."

Thomas did not say anything, but Barry knew he received the message.

Barry then left the area with his men.

"What a dumbass. Sooner or later the leader will know and cut off their dicks." Thomas snapped his fingers and two guards came from the cave, dragging Asuna and Ian inside.

The sunlight slowly disappeared as the boulder blocked the cave.

The crystals on the walls and ceilings of the cave suddenly glow, giving out a soft, dim light enough to see around.

After a while of walking through the cave, they arrived at a wooden door. Thomas opened it, and told the guards to drag Ian inside.

"Put that woman in the basement."

Ian gritted his teeth inwardly. He couldn't move or talk, but he gave Asuna a gaze that said: I will save you.

Asuna gazed back at him, but he was not sure if she received his message or not. He had to be quick. There had to be a way to escape this cave.

Thomas was walking by the shelves, picking his list of potions. He grabbed one with thick green color. Ian did not like the look of that. Whatever it was, it must be bad.

Thomas turned around and looked at him with a smile. "Don't be scared. I won't hurt you. You know why? Because I like you. You killed a few of Barry's men. I hate that guy you see, but I am also disappointed that you fail to kill him."

Thomas pulled out a short blade, but the tip of that blade was hollow, almost like a needle. He stabbed through the soft cover of the potion on top, and the liquid inside the bottle was sucked by the blade.

'It's a needle!'

Thomas grinned. "Now, stay calm. It won't hurt you."

Stab!

Ian shook. His whole body experienced a spasm from pain. It felt like being burned from the inside and he was bitten by large fireants all over his body. He felt like screaming, but he couldn't move his tongue. Only his eyes were rolling around in desperation.

Eventually, the world turned dark.

When he woke up, he realized he was in the same room. All of his limbs were tied with the paralysis rope onto a table.

An orb was shining his eyes with light, hurting his eyes, but he couldn't squint.

Thomas was whistling as he swirled a potion bottle. "Do you know what this is? It's an enslaving potion. The first of its kind. Well, of course, you know, there are those who can cast enslavement spells in this world, but they cannot be mass produced, so our boss need something else. Something cheap and easy to make, and WALA! Here it is."

"HAHAHA! Sadly, it rarely works. Most people that I injected it to die by rotting from the inside. But I don't mind. I love the smells of rotting organs. They're so fragrance don't you think?"

Thomas stabbed the blade into the potion and inserted the liquid into the blade.

"Have you go to a dead dog in the street and watch it rot for a few days. And after that you walk by it, knelt down, and smell it. It's the most wonderful thing I have ever done as a child. I been wondering why people don't do that."

His happy expression then turned dark. "Oh great. You just make me remember some bad memories. My parents you see. They don't like it when I smell rotten corpses by the street. They take away all the dead birds, rats, squirrel, and everything else out of my room. Can you believe that?"

"But." Thomas smiled. "Every story ends with a happy ending. And so does mine. At night, when they were asleep, I took a knife by the kitchen and stab their necks. HAHAHA! I waited their bodies to rot, and smell them for months! MONTHS! I did not eat or drink during that time which was stupid of me because my weak body couldn't handle it."

"But enough story telling. It's time for you to be brainwashed."

'Crazy bastard! Did he just say brainwashed? Shit! I am fucked!' Ian panicked, but then he thought of something.

As Thomas raised the short blade, the steel reflected his eyes, Ian used that chance. He activated his sharingan and used genjutsu on himself.

Stab!

[You have been injected with a potion. Endurance increased by 5. Agility increased by 5. Strength increased by 5. Concentration increased by 5]

[You are currently being brainwashed]