"Where are you taking me?" Damien asked as this woman trailed him along for a while. Because of how fast she was, he couldn't even tell how much distance they had covered in the last ten minutes.
But despite being fast, she would momentarily take breaks all of a sudden as if she was being careful about something.
And on the way, she even obliterated some weird monsters who didn't even have the chance to let out a screech before getting pulverized by her dark purple lightning.
Still, as someone who couldn't shake off his paranoia and curiosity, Damien had to ask her where she was taking him.
"I am taking you to a place where you will be safe the most," Akira said with a subtle smile as she briefly glanced at him.
'A safe place? Haa….should I be feeling reassured or what?' Damien didn't know what to think, but before he could think further, Kalypso chimed in, "Master, after thinking about it, I think this woman seems to be connected with your past somehow."
"Yeah, no shit, genius," Luna's lazily said with an eyeroll, to which Kalypso put out her tongue petulantly.
"Of course, I know that. She also acted as if she actually knew me. But the strange thing is, I don't remember her. As far as my earliest memories are concerned, all I could think of was the Ward Family into which I got adopted," Damien mused as he thoroughly searched his memories again.
"Just because you can't remember doesn't mean you have access to all of your memories," Luna said as she sat cross-legged in the soul space and continued, "Even if you have come a long way from a weak nobody, you aren't powerful enough to reach till the deepest depths of your mind. Your memories before you were two years old lie in your subconscious and are not something you can access just like that. If only you had those memories, then maybe we could have solved the mystery of your origin. Or...we can do this the hard way and let this woman bring you to whatever place she plans to. But…whether she plans to eat you or not is another matter, hehe," Luna giggled as she amused herself by observing his reactions.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"Seriously, Luna. You can still joke at a time like this?" Damien couldn't understand how Luna could be so laid back in times like these unless she knew something.
Suddenly a bright purple light flashed before him, making Damien squint his eyes while wondering what she had done.
"Here we are. Your real home," Akira suddenly said as Damien saw himself descending down through the clouds, only to have his eyes widen upon seeing the region below him.
He saw a large city-like structure below him that spanned at least thousands of miles. Only upon a second glance did he realize that he was probably looking at a combination of multiple cities, towns, and so on. The strange thing was that all these were connected intricately as if there were no borders or boundaries.
The lands here were a pale, ashen color, just like the trees spread around throughout the region.
And the next thing that caught his sight was that this entire region was heavily populated by these pale gray-skinned people. But unlike the savages he met first upon his arrival, these people were wearing proper clothes and garments.
There were a lot of men and women carrying weapons, but most of these weapons weren't crude and seemed like they were made by blacksmiths with considerable experience.
The society here also seemed organized, well structured, and maintained just like a human society. This was no unorganized tribe like the one he came upon before.
He could spot these people selling and buying various things, but when his gaze landed upon something, his eyebrows raised.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})He saw a few humans here and there, but all of them weren't looking good. In fact, they seemed quite sick and impoverished. He wouldn't even be surprised if they were to collapse any second.
But what caught his eye was that these humans had steel collars around their necks, just like the ones he saw those beastmen using before to drag and force people to work as their slaves.
And seeing something similar here where the humans were being dragged around, Damien came to the conclusion that humans were being treated as slaves here.
He could even see markets where humans were tied up and put on a platform to sell them off while others were kept in large cages.
This was a strange sight for Damien since even back in the Rising Sun Continent, it was against the law to have a slave…at least without consent.
The Xeton Empire was the only place where xetonians like Ruthren secretly forced Zirians to be their slaves. But even then, their evildoings weren't public, and nobody knew.
However, the slaves here seemed to be in worse conditions to the point Damien got concerned.
He took a deep breath since, because of his skin color and features of a human, he would surely stand out as a sore thumb. What if he ends up just like these slaves here? As far as what he learned about how things work on this side of the world, humans weren't the dominant race. Instead, they were oppressed and suppressed in many ways.
Still, when he looked at the back of this woman flying in front of him, Damien felt a strange sense of safety even though he had no idea why he was feeling like this. He remembered her mentioning that this was his real 'home'. Could it be that she really meant what he was thinking? Even if he was related to her somehow, why wasn't he looking like them? It just didn't make sense.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})But no matter what he felt, he knew he could only follow her and hope for the best. At least he was still breathing compared to his earlier situation, where he could have gotten killed.
