"The dragons saw many castles that had the same kind of gates on top of them," the spearhead said and I simply shrugged.
Dude, don't tell me this was the bad news you were referring to! If so then they weren't. I already was aware of such a thing.
"And?" I simply asked.
"They saw many humans captured and sent into the gates," Isabella added while the three of them noticed my calm reaction.
"I already am aware of all this," I said to calm them.
"But were you aware that they stored humans inside cages like animals? Steel cages that held ten humans in each one?" Angelica exploded in anger before pointing to the dragons, "they saw them, cages in the size of five metres square where humans are stored like animals in the buildings of the castles!"
"This…" I frowned when I heard that. Inside my heart, I never took myself as the saviour or the sole hero of the human race.
But when I heard such words, I didn't know why but my blood boiled in anger.
"Did you say they stored humans inside cages?" It seemed that Angelica's explosive voice was so loud that it reached the jumper far away from us.
And that dude managed to calm himself down, controlled his curse and came back with a cold look in his eyes.
And the other three nodded. But that wasn't the issue that made me frown.
"Did you say they store them inside the buildings in the castles?" I turned around and looked up at the various buildings here. There were ten buildings in various sizes and heights in the region dominated by the castle.
"Did you check these?" I pointed at these buildings and my words made the four of them realise what I was referring to.
In a flash they all dispersed without agreement, each went to check on a building. I also didn't stop and moved towards a big building that reached five stories in height.
All the buildings here had the same look from the outside, built from strange ore that was in the size of half a metre length and ten centimetres in width.
They all had the pale yellow colour at the surface, big one single door that led to the inside which was made out of wood.
Just using little force opened the doors wide, and if someone used dragons just like me, then the doors would be smashed into pieces, vanishing from sight.
It made me realise that these buildings were made out of the system, but modelled by the actions of the races controlling the castles to suit their needs.
Even before entering the building, my heart was already dead cold.
And when I went inside, I couldn't help but feel icy cold air coming from the depth of my soul.
This… the inside of the building was simply a single floor, with a height reaching for five stories. It was like a gigantic hall that was made for giants to live in, or for hundreds and even thousands of steel cages with humans stacked inside like animals to be stored within.
Damn! I clenched my two fists while feeling more rage swelling up in my heart. I knew the other races looked at us like we were nothing, but I never imagined in my entire life to see such a scene.
"Ahh!"
Just as I was petrified in front of such a brutal scene, I heard many shouts of anger and agony coming from outside. It seemed this building wasn't the only exception here, and the others were filled with such brutal scenes.
"Go," I took out my soulers and other warriors, "take down all the cages with utmost care. Open the locks and smash the metal if needed, just don't hurt anyone inside, got it?"
*Roar!*
As if my boys sensed my rage, they all roared in unison. I stood at the smashed door while watching my warriors work in teams, freeing a large number of humans from their prisons.
The faces of those humans made me see another face of the apocalypse that I never saw before. It wasn't fear, but despair. Their faces were ashened white, with eyes that lost any signs of life or hope.
"Come," I pointed to the outside, "come and have a rest out there."
Like puppets controlled by strings and with no souls they moved under my orders to the outside. I watched them, feeling more anger the more people passed by me.
"Hye, Hye…" as I stood at the entrance, the two girls ran with the spearhead while the look on their faces was enough to tell me what they were feeling at the moment.
They weren't any better than me. Even Angelica and Isabella had their legs shaking and were almost on the verge of collapsing and exploding in crying.
"Stand firm," but this wasn't the time to act like this, "raise your heads high up and show our people what humans should behave."
"But…" the spearhead wanted to say something, yet one look from me forced him to stop speaking.
"You should go and help others to be freed," I gave them the order, "once I'm done from here, I'll come to help all of you. Go now, every single second passing will add more torture to our people."
Despite the fact that I didn't know any of those people, in my eyes they were all humans. I might be lucky to come back in time and have all this knowledge to back me up.
But if I was in such an apocalypse without any strength at all, I might have ended up being like them. In fact my great grandfathers weren't in a better spot than these people.
After all they never managed to get a class of their own, and cursed their offsprings including me.
Freeing them was just like helping my ancestors, helping not only these people but also long lines of generations yet to be born.
The more I thought about this, the more enraged I became. I didn't do anything wrong to have such a bad life, and I wasn't the only one in my previous time to have such bad luck.
Enough with luck, damn luck! If I had a chance, I'd rather smash that luck or even go and kill all the gods controlling it! I believed in fairness, in everyone's right to have a chance to fight for their own lives.
After releasing everyone here, I went up and helped the others. The only one doing good was the jumper. He didn't say a single word, yet from the look of his eyes I could tell he was on the verge of exploding.
These icy cold eyes of his made me realise if I ordered, he would venture all alone into any castle and use all his strength and abilities to the maximum limits to free humans from such tyranny.
And he wasn't the only one feeling that way.
"Hye… who are all those people?"
Just as we were about to free the people in the last building, I heard this long missed voice that came from the direction of my chariot.
Finally the two girls woke up, looking fine and healthy. Karoline was walking in between the large number of humans, consoling and patting them on their backs while the response she got was only a flood of tears and shaking bodies and lost souls.
As for the one who spoke, she was Alex. her eyes were all red, and tears flooded her eyes as well.
"Calm down," I said, "everything is under our control."
"No, there are still many castles like these out there!" The jumper finally couldn't take it anymore and exploded in immense hatred and pure enmity, "let me go and save them, let me go and kill them all!"
Of course he meant humans in the first sentence, and other races in the second one. Dude, I understood what you were feeling and I could tell I was also agreeing with your point of view.
But we needed to act rationally here. We have tens of thousands of people who were just released. Aside from their great number and the fact that their immense hatred from such brutal experience would turn them into perfect soldiers in the future, they needed more support right now than anything else.
"Let's start treating their trauma first," I said, "next we will go and hit all the castles together."
"Are we going to wait?" even Isabella wasn't by my side. She exploded in tears a long time ago, silent tears with muffled sniffing from time to time.
Also Angelica looked the same, and even the all firm and hard spearhead was showing such signs as well.
"We can't just free them without treating their trauma," I said while trying to act as calm as I could, "let's give them food, weapons, and tell them some good stories about our adventures. Let's ignite hope and the will to live inside their dead souls first. If our enemies could be this brutal, at least we will act with more kindness and care towards our people."
The jumper stood in silence, watching me with burning eyes that made me worry his curse was revolting again. His body kept shaking while clenching his fists and opening them up in a repeated cycle.
"Ok," saying just this, he turned around and went towards the people who were mostly laying on the ground while burying their heads into their bent knees.
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*
Like a rich dude he waved his arms, releasing hills of gears, stat points, and even potions everywhere he passed. I looked at him in surprise. That dude… he was a really straightforward dude!
"I'll help," Angelica wiped her tears, grabbing the other girls' arms before leading them back towards the devastated humans.
"What should I do?" the spearhead asked, while the look on his face changed. It seemed seeing even the girls going there to console the people and telling them stories of what we did had ignited his will to fight, or do something useful at least.
"You can go and distribute these gears over them," I said in a tired tone, "also take a few warriors of mine with you. Show them how we dominated other races, and even turned them to our slaves."
Of course this wasn't totally right, but to ignite a spark of life inside those looking dead humans needed a few lies here and there, plus more exaggeration indeed.
"Leave it to me," the spearhead looked at the warriors I had before pointing at the soulers, "give me a bunch of them. Also pray those people won't tear them apart."
"If they did, then they wouldn't be held captive in the first place," I rolled my eyes. Whom did he think my warriors were? The soulers were one of the formidable pillars in my entire forces.
Even facing an army of other races, I was sure they wouldn't get killed that easily.
"Go," I motioned to a group of twenty soulers before reminding the spearhead, "don't forget to teach those people how to raise their stats and get stronger. Ah, don't let them accept any god blessing for now if anyone got any."
I took out my compass and threw it towards him, "caution won't hurt, right?"
He understood my point and nodded. It seemed ridiculous to have traitors locked up with these people, but it was better to wipe all the doubts before we move a single step forward.
As everything was settled here, and everyone was doing their best to help those traumatised humans, I finally got time to check the two treasures I got from the Anubis god statues.
But just as I opened my inventory, I was shocked to see the number in front of my eyes. It was the current wealth I had at the moment.
"Z… Zero?!!!" I was shit scared when I saw that big rounded figure in front of me.
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