Chapter 229 Secrets {5} - The Woman In Black
The day she was passed in the blink of an eye for the small demon girl. When her fellow demons gave her food, she ate to her heart's content, almost to the point where she would have fallen ill if she were a human.
But she was a demon.
Demons had different bodies from that of humans. If anything, with the coursing of mana through their bodies, they were closer to being beastkin than actual humans due to the mana that coursed through their bodies like that of a beast.
Of course, they couldn't use mana like beasts. Instead, they used hand signs and sometimes even words to create spells.
After a while, the girl's eyes fluttered before slowly closing and sinking her into a slumber.
Her heart warmed for a moment, and for the first time since the moment of her birth, she had a dream that wasn't a nightmare.
For once, she could smile in her sleep.
When her eyes fluttered open again, she heard a distinct set of voices enter her ears.
Rubbing her eyes, she got up from where she lay and looked around with a riddled expression. Her eyes scanned her whereabouts cautiously, fearing that everything that had happened the night before was just a dream formed by her mind to stop her from going crazy.
Looking down, she quickly patted her neck and sighed deeply.
That sigh was filled with more relief than she had shown throughout her entire life. The slave collar was finally gone; the only thing left behind was her accumulated laceration marks over the years.
Her eyes quickly darted again, locking upon a certain crowd that was chattering among themselves and surrounding a long pole that came out of the ground.
The pole was several inches thick and reached a couple of meters high. She slowly got off the bench she had been lying on for the past couple of hours. The bench itself was quite hard and would have been uncomfortable for the normal person, but for her, it was the most comfortable thing she had ever slept on.
Walking into the crowd, she tapped a young man on the shoulder, causing him to look back with a raised brow. When he saw her ragged clothes and the small blanket, she wrapped around herself to the best of her ability, a pitying expression appeared on his face before it changed into one of understanding.
"Sister... You must be one of the new ones, am I correct?" The man asked with a slight bow. This caught the attention of the people next to him, but they didn't dare interrupt the conversation the two demons were having.
"Y-Yes..." The girl spoke with a stutter, finding it weird to be addressed with so much decency.
"I see. I welcome you to our humble abode." The man chuckled, trying to relieve the slight tension the girl was feeling.
"Don't worry, I understand what you're going through. This must all be so strange to you, right?" The asked while patting her on the shoulder and pulling her into a warm embrace.
Her eyes widened when she saw this, but she didn't resist. Her eyes were slightly watered, yet, as if the tears had run out, she couldn't muster a single one.
"The man let go of her and looked her in the eyes. My name is Arcolo. What is your name?" Arcolo asked with a warm smile.
"N-Number 54..." She let out with a slight hint of shame.
The man's expression turned cold, maybe even angry. His eyes flashed red momentarily while his heart beat so hard he could hear it.
However, he quickly reigned in his rage and spoke in a calm tone, "The leader can name you later on... Maybe you can even name yourself if you wish to."
"Name myself?" She thought before shaking her head.
"Is the leader the one who saved me?" She asked
"I'm not sure. I wasn't here when you arrived. Though, it should be. The leader is the only one who is allowed to leave here freely without any restrictions to her movements. If the rest of us want to leave, we have to be strong in order to recieve a mission outside of this place. It's for a our own safety." Arloco sighed.
"Mission... Won't the humans kill us when they find out that one is us hasn't been chained... What if they enslave us again!" The girl spoke with fear. In her eyes, the humans were unstoppable. This wasn't a fairytale story like those that her mother would read to her before she was eventually killed. People didn't survive just because the universe wanted them to.
Everything she saw about the humans told her that she, and the rest of the demons didn't stand a chance. The humans were armed with magic that none of the demons she had seen in the past dozen years could wield.
Even when some of them wielded magic, it was never to the same extent.
She had watched a single human crush an entire slave colony just because they had done something wrong that cost the man a little gold. And according to the humans who spoke around her without restraint, that man was considered weak in the eyes of the humans.
Yet, it was better to be a slave to a human than to an elf. After all, from what she had seen, the only thing that brought a smile onto an elve's face was the creation or torment, and since they couldn't do that to humans due to the peace agreement they had, demons were the next best thing to use like a training dummy.
Suddenly, her eyes fluttered, and she looked to the side.
Her gaze quickly locked on the pole in the center, and it seemed like everyone else was looking at it, too, as if they felt the same thing she did.
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