Reborn in hell with a skill creation system

Chapter 9: A Slave

Mael was in a pretty bad mood.

Why?

Where should he start?

Well, the simplest explanation was that he was now a slave, following behind the demon that was his new master.

How did that happen?

Turns out, the battlefield he had claimed as his farm was a competition of sorts, one where the demon that was last standing will get the chance to serve one of the master of the pit.

And he had apparently crashed into that battle and somehow ended up being the last standing, hence, the reason a slave collar was around his neck and he was being led by the master.

Speaking of the master, she....yes, his new master was a she... Anyway, she was nothing like what he’d expected.

Not that he’d had much time to form expectations, given that the collar had appeared around his neck roughly thirty seconds after the fight ended, but still.

He’d assumed, reasonably he thought, that the masters of the pit where demons tore each other apart for the right to feed would be something enormous and terrifying.

What she actually was, was small.

Smaller than him even, which was saying something given that he was a freshly hatched lesser demon who’d spent his first day getting thrown around by things twice his size.

Her skin was a deep, almost polished black compared to his dull grey, and unlike the rough stone texture of his own, hers looked almost smooth as smooth as a human’s skin.

Two small horns curved back from her temples and her eyes, when she’d briefly glanced back at him after the collar appeared, were a sharp gold that had looked at him the way someone looks at a piece of furniture.

She hadn’t said a word to him since.

She had Just turned and walked, and the collar had made it immediately, uncomfortably clear what happened if he didn’t follow.

The damn thing started chocking him the farther away he was from her, and for some reason, his system screen had refused to appear since.

And he suspected it had something to do with the collar around his neck.

Mael looked at his new master leading the way before he said, "are you really not going to say anything?"

At least, that’s what he wanted to say, but all that came out was a garbled gibberish.

His new master suddenly stopped in her tracks, turned to him and lifted a finger, the next second, Mael’s eyes widened as a massive hole was formed in the Cliff behind them.

The very same one he had been previously laying on, and he hadn’t even seen or felt the attack.

"If you make one more sound, your head will be next," she said before turning around again and resumed walking.

The language she spoke in wasn’t English, but he had somehow perfectly understood it.

He also understood that she was clearly in a bad mood and if he had to guess why, it was probably because she had ended up with him instead of the much larger demon that had actually won the battle.

But it wasn’t like he wished to be a slave either, he was only there to farm souls and stats points, who knew that it was a battle ordered by one of the masters of the pit.

He followed in silence.

Mostly because he valued his head remaining attached to his neck, but also because he was busy thinking.

The language barrier was the first thing that needed solving, not because he wanted to talk to her specifically, but because information was currency and right now he was broke in that department.

He’d understood her perfectly when she’d threatened to remove his head, which meant comprehension wasn’t the issue, production was.

His mouth simply couldn’t produce the sounds this language required yet.

He put that thought away for now and moved his attention to his surroundings instead.

They were moving away from the battlefield and into terrain that was noticeably different from the rocky wilderness he’d spent his first day in.

The ground was more even here, with the rock formations less jagged and random, arranged in ways that suggested they hadn’t always been natural.

There were markings on some of them and the distant sounds of The Pit’s usual chaos were fainter.

Which meant they were close to a civilization, or the closest thing The Pit had to it.

He looked at his master’s back as she walked.

She was angry, that much was obvious, but more than anger, he could sense frustration within her.

They soon came upon a pair of large gates and without question, the large demons guarding it let them through.

Though, their gazes did linger on the little demon behind her.

The houses beyond the gates were as crude as possible, but it was surprising to him that demons had houses in the first place.

Walking around what seemed to be a city were demons of different shapes and sizes, but Mael didn’t get the chance to look around for long before his new master stopped in front of a certain door.

Without ceremony, she pushed the door open and led him into a smaller room before walking into a second one.

She reappeared from the second room carrying something flat and wide, a kind of board covered in markings that she set down on a surface between them and looked at him for the first time since the threat about his head.

"You understand me," she said, though it wasn’t a question.

Still, he nodded and she nodded in satisfaction.

"And I’m also guessing you’re freshly hatched," she said again and again he nodded.

"A hat hatchling managed to kill a Grath," She muttered to herself, "how ridiculous."

Mael assumed Grath was the large demon, so he nodded a third time though she wasn’t asking him.

She was quiet for a moment, looking at him with an expression ranged from anger to resignation.

"My name is Zara," she finally said without looking up, "you will address me as Master Zara or not at all. You will not leave this structure without permission, you will not speak to anyone in this settlement about me or my business."

She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, "I’ll find a way to fix your speech. A slave that can’t communicate is only half useful."

Mael nodded at her words.

She pushed then board toward him. On it she’d drawn what looked like a map, rough but detailed, with a location marked near what appeared to be the center of a large area surrounded by boundary lines.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked.

He looked at it for a while and shook his head honestly.

She tapped the marked location.

"The Envy Tree."