The old man sitting there had a face filled with anxiety. An ordinary appearance that seemed like someone you could meet
anywhere. Though he was an old man dressed in clothes that hardly made him look like a slave, he merely leaned his body against the wall with resignation-filled
eyes.
The other prisoner was a young man. A young man with such handsome features that they immediately caught the
eye. Lying stretched out on the cell floor with an expressionless gaze was none other than Damon.
'I simply cannot understand.'
Immersed in thought, he let out a long sigh. No matter how much he thought about it, it was something he could not
comprehend.
'I clearly changed bodies. The internal energy imbued by the Shaolin Holy Monk should have disappeared along with my previous
body. Yet the Sevenfold Tendon-Severing Technique is still restricting me without
fail...'
By the common sense he knew, this made no sense. Even after becoming a Lich, and despite his soul transferring to a new
body, he still could not escape the shackles of the Sevenfold Tendon-Severing Technique. He had thought until his head nearly split, but it was a situation he simply could not
understand.
'Was my guess correct? That the Sevenfold Tendon-Severing Technique directly affects the soul...'
Given the circumstances, that seemed to be the correct answer. If so, he had to accept as a foregone conclusion that he would be unable to take a life
forever going forward. Recalling this, Damon grimaced.
"This has become terribly dull."
He had tried to kill Count Romain without mercy. Because of that, he had suffered the full brunt of the pain caused by the Sevenfold Tendon-Severing
Technique and had lain unconscious for a full three days.
The prohibition of the Sevenfold Tendon-Severing Technique was just that difficult to endure. Recalling the terrible memory,
Damon shook his head.
"I would rather be tortured by that bastard Berkyse."
Though he seemed to be imprisoned with someone, Damon did not care. His body had already returned to normal, and escaping a prison of this level was nothing more than a post-meal
stretch. If he simply rearranged his mana a little, he could teleport far away from this
place. And if he so wished, he could blow the entire prison away.
But the most important thing was punishment for Count Romain. Because he could not kill him, he could not act
rashly. Jewels and the like were neither here nor there whether he found them or not.
"I can't just leave him be. Simply beating him up won't satisfy me in the
least..."
Becoming an object of male lust was something Damon had never even imagined until now. The more he thought about it, the more his anger flared. A feeble voice reached the ears of Damon, who was clicking his tongue repeatedly. It was a very aged
voice.
"Have you come to your senses now?"
At those words, Damon turned his head. The terribly gaunt face of the old man was looking down at
him.
"Who are you?"
"Me? Well, I suppose I'm someone in the same predicament as you."
A lonesome smile rose on the old man's face. In a way, it was an expression that seemed to have seen through life. Damon decided to reply no further. He had far too much else to think
about.
"Pay me no mind, old man. My head is complicated enough as it is..."
Damon answered coldly and turned over. But a strange gleam was already rising in the old man's
eyes.
"Are you from Truvenia?"
Damon was startled by the old man's words. He sprang up, grabbed the old man by the collar, and snarled
fiercely.
"How did you know that?"
But the old man did not flinch in the slightest.
"Quite the impolite young man. Is this how you treat an elder who has lived many times your years?"
"What? Lived many times my years?"
He was so dumbfounded that words failed him. Had he not lived nearly ten times the old man's years? But Damon silently collected himself. His attention fell on the fact that the body he possessed looked no older than
twenty. He silently released the old man's collar.
"I apologize, old man."
"I understand. Anyone in your situation would do the same."
"What do you know of my situation?"
A knowing smile appeared on the old man's face.
"Count Romain's tastes are quite unique. Looking at your appearance, it's understandable why he imprisoned
you."
At those words, Damon felt his rage boiling up again. The mere thought of Count Romain's leering face brought killing intent to the surface. Feeling a faint pain welling up, Damon quickly hung his
head.
"Damn it. Then why are you imprisoned?"
A melancholy expression rose on the old man's face at Damon's blunt reply.
"At least you can look forward to life, but I cannot. I am in a situation where I do not know when I will
die."
It would have been stranger not to take an interest in the old man's words. Curiosity welling up, Damon looked at the old man's
face.
"Is that Romain bastard trying to kill you?"
"Indeed. The truth is, I know something I shouldn't..."
"Something you shouldn't know?"
The fact the old man had mentioned earlier came to Damon's mind as he tilted his head repeatedly. Unable to suppress his curiosity about that fact, Damon squinted his
eyes.
"But how could you know that I came from Truvenia?"
"That is an easy thing. One can tell immediately by listening to your manner of speech."
"Do not lie. Until now, no one has known that I am from Truvenia. They merely regarded me as a foreigner with a different
accent. So give me a reason I can accept."
"It is the truth. Because..."
The old man's gaze suddenly grew hazy. In a way, it was like the gaze of someone recalling a homeland they could never return to.
"I, too, am from Truvenia."
"Is that true?"
Damon was greatly astonished. He had never imagined there could be another person from Truvenia besides himself. The sea route between the two continents was that treacherous. For a Truvenian who had become a slave of the Orcs, struggling to survive day by day, crossing over to this place was as difficult as plucking a star from the
sky.
"Remarkable. When on earth did you cross over?"
"It was when I was ten years old, so fifty years have already passed."
The old man began to explain the circumstances of his crossing in a desolate tone. It was a very long
story.
An enormous distance existed between Truvenia and Arcadia. One had to sail for over a hundred days to reach it. Moreover, it was by no means a smooth
voyage. They had to overcome strong winds and storms, hidden reefs and whirlpools everywhere, and also deal with Serpents and schools of sharks that occasionally
attacked.
Only a considerably large ship could cross the great sea. A small vessel would clearly be sunk in a single blow by a Serpent's tail swipe, and those aboard would all become food for the
Serpent.
Five hundred years ago, when Truvenia fell, many people boarded ships and headed for Arcadia. But only a handful achieved their goal. Their sailing skills were inadequate, and crossing the great sea in small boats was truly no different from leaping into a bonfire carrying kindling on one's
back.
Most ships met with the fate of sinking before achieving their goal. Because of this, the two continents had no choice but to remain cut off for a very long time. But that did not mean there was no exchange at
all...
It was exchange carried out by the knights of Arcadia. After subjugating all of Arcadia, the knights could not help but cast covetous eyes on Truvenia. Monster hunting was essential to having one's skills recognized and advancing in rank, and no monsters remained in Arcadia to hunt. Of course, numerous Ice Trolls inhabited the northern regions, but hunting them was of little help in proving one's abilities. Because of this, many knights crossed over to Truvenia on a large scale in search of monsters to
hunt.
Typically, 'knights' referred to the highest elites of their respective nations. Therefore, their expeditions inevitably mobilized experienced sailors and massive vessels. And so, countless ships carrying young knights headed for Truvenia... It was against this backdrop that many Truvenians came to Arcadia. The hot-blooded young knights could not contain their fury upon seeing people living as slaves of the Orcs.
"Such wicked Orc scum..."
The indignant knights rallied their strength to strike the Orc tribes. So much so that they forgot their original purpose of hunting medium-sized monsters. As a result, countless knights lost their lives, but conversely, the number of Orc tribes subjugated was also innumerable. The knights who fortunately chose small and weak tribes were without exception able to reap the fruits of victory.
But even after savoring victory, there was no lack of problems—namely, the matter of dealing with the humans who had been living as Orc slaves. If left behind, they would become targets of Orc vengeance, but there were too many to take along. The number of people that could be loaded onto the ships they had brought was strictly limited.
"It cannot be helped."
Some knights abandoned them with tears in their eyes. They knew that leaving them behind meant they would not survive, but they had no choice. They coldly shook off the clinging hands of those begging to be saved and departed. But not all were like that...
The majority of knights, so to speak, took the risk and loaded them onto the ships. Until the waterline rose to the gunwales, ignoring even the sailors' warnings.
"If we carry this many people, it will be extremely dangerous if a storm hits. In the worst case, we may sink..."
"But it cannot be helped. If we leave these people behind, they will surely die at the hands of the Orcs."
This was precisely the background against which the majority of Truvenians came to Arcadia. The old man, too, had set foot in Arcadia through a similar process. Though the circumstances were a little different...
"As time passed, the knights of Arcadia no longer raided the Orc tribes. Because they lost more than they gained. So they hunted only medium-sized monsters as intended and quickly left Truvenia. From that perspective, my rescue was truly a stroke of luck."
This was something that had happened over fifty years ago, when the old man was a boy of about ten. At that time, the old man had unfortunately faced the fate of being offered to a dragon along with his friends. The Orc chieftain, having received an order that humans were needed for the dragon's lair, had rounded up ten boys including the old man, and they were forced to set out on a path leading to certain death, parted from their parents and siblings.
"At that time, I headed for the Pellusia Mountains with ten friends under the watch of numerous Orc infantry. Our destination was the Red Dragon's Lair, and I had given up on life. Because rumors circulated that no one who went there ever came back alive..."
"I-is that so?"
Damon felt a pang in his heart. The Pellusia Mountains were where Berkyse's Lair was located, and also where he had spent five hundred years.
Given the circumstances, it was clear that the children, including the old man, had been offered as living sacrifices. Living sacrifices from which a Lich could drain life force if injured while repelling intruders. Because of this strange twist of fate, Damon could not help but feel sympathy for the old man's plight. Thus, Damon gradually became absorbed in the old man's story.
"So what happened?"
The old man recalled the events of that time with a melancholy expression.
"Should I call it a stroke of fortune? At that time, knights who had come from Arcadia to hunt monsters happened to clash with the Orc infantry escorting us. Soon a fierce battle ensued, and the Orc infantry were all killed without a single one remaining."
The Arcadian knights who annihilated the Orc infantry decided to take the boys, who had been captured to be taken to the lair, back to their homeland. The boys were in a situation where they could not return home anyway. Even if they went back, the Orcs would never leave them alone.
That was precisely the background of how the old man set foot in Arcadia. But that was by no means the end...
"The knights who dropped us off in Arcadia immediately headed back to their kingdom. They left us with words saying that now that we had arrived in the new continent, we had to survive by our own strength."
Young boys cast alone into Arcadia without a penny to their names. But the environment of the new continent was far too barren for them to survive. It was full of people solely obsessed with making money, and the simple hearts of Truvenians did not work at all in Arcadia.
Damon, too, was not without feelings on that matter.
As he felt it, the shrewd people of Arcadia were markedly different from the honest, pure, and docile Truvenians.
"Still, it was fortunate. It was far from uncommon for some wicked knights to sell all the Truvenians they had brought to slave merchants..."
Ten Truvenian boys cast into a harsh world separated from their families at a young age. They truly had to struggle with all their might to survive. But unlike Truvenia, Arcadia was literally a place where they would cut off your nose while your eyes were closed.