"I'm really starting to regret giving you money" She had a basket in her hand full of fruits, vegetables, and meat. In her shopping spree, she forgot the one most important thing: she didn't know how to cook. Because they were walking through the streets full of people, she was unable to put everything in her space ring.
The further they walked into the inner city, the less crowded the streets got. The paved street they were walking on opened up in a three-way junction. In the center of the junction was a beautifully built water fountain. The marble stone coupled with bright blue sparkling water made the fountain truly a majestic structure. In addition to the beautiful fountain, the buildings surrounding were fancier than the buildings near the docks.
These buildings were built using marble stones rather than granite which gave each building a unique charm. Most of the buildings were three stories with green plants hanging from the roof as decoration. Besides the buildings, the people roaming on the streets were fancier too, especially the ladies.
They wore golden inlaid sleeveless tunics and some of them wore colorful stolas.. Apart from the fancy sparkling dress, each of them had gold and gem placed pieces of jewelry adore their ears as earrings, neck as chains, and hands as bangles.
"I'm standing right here," Gaya said, gritting her teeth. Looking at him gawking at all the ladies began to kindle her jealousy. There were all kinds of hot women walking around the water fountain, redheads, blondes, brunettes, and even some green-haired ladies.
"Ouch!' only when he felt a sharp pain in his upper arm, his focus on the women broke.
"Were you checking them out in front of me?"
"I'm not checking them out as you think, it reminds me of something back at home" Since this place resembled the roman tv shows he watched like Spartacus, he felt some nostalgia.
If it wasn't the truth, she would have seen it in his eyes and began to growl about him lying to her. She was with him long enough to see that he's really telling the truth.
"Plus, they're hot" he teased her to make her mad. Her facial muscles twitched weirdly, making Michael chuckle. She tried to bite him in the shoulder despite the people on the streets. Fortunately, she had a heavy basket in her hand and he was quick enough to restrain her by wrapping his hand around her shoulder. He squeezed her with love mixed with childish playfulness.
Looking at them act this way really made Heinberg wonder what kind of people they are. One moment, he was killing people within a heartbeat, another moment, he was playing with his girlfriend and laughing with old men to their jokes.
"Move it dog!"
A fancy-dressed woman's voice reverberated the area. Michael noticed a man getting slapped by the woman.
"Slave" only took Michael a single glance at the man to recognize the man as a slave. The man had an X shape burn scar on his left chest. He wore nothing but a small piece of worn-out tunic only covering his privates.
The woman kept beating the man with a stick like he was some kind of animal. The scene gave him major nostalgia because he spent years of his childhood working for arms dealers and drug dealers as a drug mule along with the other kids in the orphanage. They were slaves to those criminals which was the reason Michael hated slavery to the core.
Although he knew he can't clean the slavery off of the earth, he killed a fair share of slavers in the dark corners of the world. In this world however, he could gain the power to completely wipe off slavery.
"This is not the time" Gaya knew his hate towards the slavers. Except for the existence of the system, he shared everything with her as she did with him. Michael calmed himself with a couple of deep breaths.
"Lead the way" He signaled Heinberg to lead the way as there were two roads across the water fountain. Heinberg nodded before taking the lead.
Michael silently followed him behind while carefully noticing everything around him.
He saw more and more slaves along the way. They all shared the same burn mark. He even saw some completely naked female slaves. The nobles who owned them had no sympathy whatsoever for the slaves else they would have at least given them a piece of cloth to cover their privates.
"The slavery is worse than I thought" Gaya felt pity for the slaves.
There was no life in the slaves' eyes. They walked behind the nobles like zombies. For the moment, Michael kept walking past them without lifting a finger. After a few more minutes of following Heinberg, an elegant mansion appeared in his view.
From the outside, this mansion looked magnificent. It had been built with marble stones and had blue stone decorations. Small, half-rounded windows added to the overall style of the mansion and had been added to the house in a very asymmetric way.
The building was shaped like a T. The two extensions extended into a covered patio reaching the end of that side of the house.
The second floor was smaller than the first, which created a layered style of look in combination with the roof. This floor had a very different style than the floor below.
The roof was flat and covered with brown wood shingles. Two large chimneys sat at either side of the house. There were no windows on the roof. The mansion itself was surrounded by a gorgeous garden, including hanging grapevines, a couple of lion statues that spit water through its mouth, a pond and many different flowers.
Just like the legionary soldiers he saw at the docks, there were many groups of soldiers patrolling the mansion's surroundings. On top of the legionaries, he could see many soldiers who wore no armor but only briefs and long red capes. The long red cape, golden boots, and shield with the symbol v made it pretty obvious to Michael.
"Are those spartans?" still Michael asked just to clarify.
"Yes they are, Lord Lucifer" Unlike the legionaries, the spartans remained closer to the mansion entrance.
"What are you waiting for? Go ahead" Gaya ordered Heinberg. The Spartans were an elite group of soldiers who only answered to the senators. Therefore, Heinberg's gold card meant nothing to the spartans.
Heinberg showed the gold card to the legionary soldiers while walking towards the mansion as the soldiers saluted at him before moving away from their path.
"Stop" however when they approached the front door, a spartan warrior with dark brown hair and beard stopped them. The spartan had a clear muscle definition. His face was covered by the helm but Michael could see his brows frowning looking at the body on Heinberg's shoulder. The spartan focused on the body as he didn't even take a glance at Michael or Gaya.
"Who is it?" The spartan didn't address Jonah as a body. It was obvious to Michael that the spartan soldier saw enough dead bodies to differentiate a live one from a dead body.
Heinberg turned his gaze towards Michael, waiting for him to open his mouth.
"It's Senator Caius's son, Jonah"
"Jonah?!" the spartan soldier let out a surprised shout.
"Why is he unconscious? No matter" the spartan soldier continued before looking at Michael and Gaya from top to bottom.
"Spartans!" the spartan soldier shouted as a couple of more spartans came out of the house.
"Search them before letting them in, I'll go see Senator Caius" the spartan soldiers went inside as the other soldiers came to search the trio. Michael let the spartan soldier search him without saying anything. After all, both Michael and Gaya had no weapons on them but they kept their weapons in the space ring.
Even though Gaya was a female, the spartan soldier never crossed his line when searching for her. Michael nodded in approval inside looking at their discipline.
"You can't bring this inside" the spartan soldier pointed at Gaya's basket.
"And what's in that satchel?" She could leave the basket outside but there was no way in hell she would show the hydra to the outside world yet. She didn't even trust Maxine with the Hydra or she would have left the little hydra in the ship.
"It's Senator Caius's package" Michael's words stopped the spartan soldier from touching the satchel and probably ended up dead in her hands.
After hearing what he just said, the spartan soldier gave them a look of doubt but eventually decided not to search the satchel because it's a crime to lay hands on packages such as those of the senators. All the spartan soldiers knew about the secret operations the senators do in the shadows therefore, the soldier kept his hands off of the satchel.
"Follow me and don't make any sudden moves" the spartan soldier warned them before leading them into the mansion.
"Humph, not a spartan in this county who could stop these two" Heinberg thought to himself. The spartan always acted so high and mighty because they were the strongest and the elite soldiers a kingdom could offer. This made many spartans extremely overbearing. Heinberg couldn't wait to see the two of them kick some spartan asses and nor could Michael.