"Wait! I did a mistake, I'm sorry." Arthur apologized as he pushed Larza away. However, her eyes were still dazed and full of lust. She pushed Arthur's hands away and kissed him again.
'Is this heaven's retribution?' Arthur felt his head spin as their tongues intertwined. 'My plan worked, but it worked too well that it's backfiring.'
He now had to find a way out of this. Larza was already unbuttoning his shirt as they kissed. Arthur was pushed against the wall as he reached out for the handle. As his hand wrapped around it, Larza grabbed his wrist.
"Are you trying to run away?" Larza's dark-brown eyes met his as she asked softly, but he could feel an edge to her voice. It held a threatening tone. Arthur's body stiffened as he let go of the handle. "Good," She smiled as she kissed him again. "Now, give yourself up to me."
***
It was the wasteland again, bones scattered everywhere. As far he could see, there was nothing. He called out for anyone but there was only emptiness that found its way to its heart. Like a void in his chest, it tried to suck everything into it.
As he wandered into the wasteland, Arthur could hear someone sobbing. He kept following the sound until a small figure, a dot far away, appeared on the horizon.
As he approached the figure, another person was lying on the ground. The one on the ground was a woman that had a cherry flower blooming from her chest.
As he got closer, he realized the one beside the woman was a little child. She was standing in front of the woman, her face contorted as she sobbed.
The child's two arms weren't there, replaced by a stream of darkness. Arthur realized the identity of the doll-like child and he tried calling out but no sound came out.
"Mommy... Mommy..." The young Ellen sobbed as the darkness kept overflowing, covering the world. Soon, the darkness covered the woman, Arthur, and the young version of Ellen as Arthur reached out to her.
"Ellen!" Arthur's hand began convulsing in front of him as the world shook. The next thing he was staring at was the ceiling of the Larza's study as his whole body began shaking.
[A part of your recovery includes the realignment of your soul to your body.]
The words appeared in front of him as his body kept shaking with his body arched backward. Arthur gritted his teeth as two hands pushed his shoulder down to stabilize him.
"Are you alright?!" Larza tried to hold down his body while wearing nothing. However, the shaking didn't stop even with her help until five minutes later.
Arthur panted as his body was covered with sweat. His eyes were blurred out by tears that he didn't know what caused them. As he moved his body, Larza looked at him with furrowed brows.
"What was that?" Larza asked as she covered her body with her clothes. Arthur suddenly remembered the events of last night and found himself naked too.
'Great, my first time having sex was by being threatened into it by a horny demi-human.' Arthur glanced at his body. There were some scratches from the few scales on her thighs. 'Well, I'm the one who drugged her. Fucking inheritance.'
Arthur looked for his clothes and found them thrown by the door. He stood up but Larza grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down.
"Are you embarrassed now?" She smiled as their lips touched again but Arthur flinched backward. "..." She looked at him silently, clarity returning to her eyes before she pushed him away. "Get out."
Before Arthur could say anything, she was getting dressed. He wore his clothes and left her room. On his way toward the cottage, he heard the whispers of many servants.
When he sat on his shabby bed in the cottage, Arthur sighed. He took out the golden book from his subspace.
'Are you worth it?'
Even if he slept with Larza, nothing changed. He still needed to escape and to find Solomon. If he didn't, he would die in the past. He felt weird trying to save his past self.
As he opened the book, the words Larza helped him memorize until now appeared on the page. Of course, how many words can he learn in a little over a week?
There were whole sentences he couldn't understand. He tried to gleam off any information about the kingdom, and he managed to make out its name.
The Freda Kingdom. It was a neighboring kingdom to Alva, Arthur noted after he saw a map. The book went on about the founder of this kingdom.
"The... Inherit?" Arthur tried reading but he was still facing difficulties in the words. He realized they looked different from the Alvan language a bit, although they were 80% similar to each other.
The book talked about them while portraying them as the 'enslavers of the Demis' which was different from what Larza said. Was she testing him?
With this doubt, Arthur returned the book to his subspace before he went out and tended to the garden. As he was treating the dead plants, Bao came over and called out for him.
"You'll be going grocery shopping with Fen." The goat-man said. "He's the cook that feeds you." There was a slight hostility in his voice. "If you try to run away, you'll be killed."
After saying that like it was another item on the grocery list, Bao left Arthur on his own. Arthur went to the kitchen and found the fox-man, Fen.
"Let's go, scum," Fen said with a sneer and led the way. "Don't talk to anyone, don't touch anyone, and never breath in the presence of nobility. Lady Larza is different, she only cares about the value in people. Of course, I don't think you have any."
Arthur was never asked for his name; he was nameless as were all slaves. As he understood it from Larza, names made humans equal to the Demis. This was rejected by all of society because if a human receives a name from their master, he would be considered free.
Of course, as long as you don't get caught by a slave merchant again. Arthur has yet to know if a slave merchant could capture him in the city but he didn't want to hope that Larza would be releasing him soon.
They left the mansion and took a wagon that Fen drove. Arthur took a seat beside him but Fen glared at him until Arthur went toward the back of the wagon.
After he climbed and sat in the empty wagon, the giant reptiles began pulling the wagon toward the city. Arthur looked at the mansion getting further and further away.
It was surrounded by several acres of land. After they left the ground, they headed toward the center of the city using a dirt road beside some farms.
The city was gigantic just judging from the size of the Larza's property. There were many establishments on their ways like inns and farms. All of these people were either Demis or humans working for Demis.
'I've landed in a shitty kingdom.' Arthur sighed. 'It would have been easier if I got transported to Freda.'
The wagon arrived at the marketplace after an hour. It was bustling and as soon as Arthur left the wagon, he could see an endless stream of people of all races with all sorts of traits.
Arthur was curious how the Demis evolved from being a human into being a Demi-human. At some point in time, it seems that there was a difference in the evolution of Earth and Alka.
"Don't stand around, stay by the wagon as I go shopping," Fen said with a scowl before he left the reins of the reptiles in Arthur's hands.
The monsters glanced at him with a conceited look as if they also saw him beneath them.
'You literally pull carriages.' Arthur was speechless. A commotion was raised behind and as Arthur turned to look, he saw a convoy splitting the crowd in two. It was a familiar scene and the whispers around Arthur confirmed his doubts.
"More slaves?" A man shook his head a few feet across the street. He had thick hair that covered his face and two large fangs. "How many is it already? Where do they keep coming from?"
"They're the war prisoners from Freda." The man said and Arthur's interest was piqued. "The war is coming and there's nothing we can do to stop it." He said with a sigh.
"Those bastards had it coming." The woman standing next to him hissed. "They're trying to steal away our livelihoods and enslave us as revenge."
She was reciting the words of the book that Arthur read today. It was propaganda to the kingdom of Solomon. However, he wasn't sure what was Solomon's motives anyway.
As the convoy passed by Arthur, his eyes met with a human. However, those eyes were far from being defeated or enslaved.