Shadow Slave: Endless Souls

[Host, welcome to the Dream Realm!]

Sun shines upon him, forcing him to shield it using his hand; he clenched the reins in his hand firmly so he wouldn't let it go. Riding a horse wasn't exactly something he was good at, but luckily, he had some experience with it. He was wearing a simple leather cuirass, armed with a spear and short sword. It wasn't too heavy, but it wasn't that light either; his eyes landed on the line made of people who were connected by a chain.

He quickly scanned the ground in search of the familiar young man he met at the station, but alas, it was too hard to find a single boy from the back end of the line.

So the next thing he did was observe the guards searching for a man who can be described as handsome and noble. After all, one called Hero by Sunny should look like that according to his description, at least.

Caravan kept going, and from time to time, he would hear a groan from the slaves beside him. Suddenly, someone in front to middle of the line lost their rhythm of steps and stumbled, pulling the chain down with his weight.

'Found you.' He thought to himself as he located his target and soon came Hero, a young soldier that looked handsome and noble as Sunny described.

Hero, after hearing one of the slave's words, sighed and took a flask from his belt before extending it to Sunny.

Sunny was just about to take the flask when a whip cracked in the air, black shadow quickly struck him on his back. He stumbled, once again pulling on the chain and causing the shifty slave behind him to curse.

Another soldier, this one older and angrier, stopped his horse a few steps back. The whip that sliced the back of Sunny's tunic open and drew blood belonged to him. Without even glancing at the slaves, the older soldier pierced his younger colleague with a disdainful glare.

Edward rode his horse closer to listen to their words.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The young soldier's face darkened.

"I was just giving this boy some water."

"He'll receive water with the rest of them once we camp!"

"But…"

"Shut your mouth! These slaves are not your friends. Understood? They're not even people. Treat them like people and they'll begin imagining things."

The young soldier looked at Sunny, then lowered his head and put the flask back on his belt.

"Don't let me catch you making friends with slaves again, newbie. Or next time it will be your back tasting my whip!"

As if to illustrate his intention, the older soldier cracked his whip in the air and rode past them, radiating threat and anger. Sunny watched him go with well-concealed malice.

'Well, I got the main characters of this act now what?'

Suddenly, Sunny's vengeful glare fell on him, too; he probably got caught while staring at him with amusement on his face.

***

Being the soldier who manages the slaves wasn't exactly a pleasant job. He needed to hit ones moving slowly or else he would get scolded, and he also needed to throw away ones who failed to follow the lime too.

He also comes to friendly terms with one dubbed as Hero by Sunny, aka Auro is what his name is. Say the truth he didn't like the guy just like Sunny but for different reasons than Sunny. He just felt that this guy was, how should he put it, narcissistic. He is doing his best not to show it, but he can feel it from his look.

He hated that feeling of being looked down upon by someone else, so he decided not to change his fate, not like he was planning to change it anyway. Now, he was currently on the duty to provide the slaves with food, making him bear the resentful sight of many slaves, but Edward didn't care.

The food provided to them wasn't good. It was bread that became hard and moldy because they didn't take care of it properly. Sadly, even good breads were barely enough for the soldiers too, so there was no extra good bread. This time, he didn't meet Sunny as he had hoped for, but he was okay with it too. As he was leaning to finish spreading the bread, he heard one of the slaves curse the soldiers.

"Damn Imperials!"

Edward looked towards the slave that cursed, following the chain connected to his shackle. He saw Sunny looking at his bread with the grumpy look, too.

"By all the gods, they used to feed me better even in the dungeons!"

He spat on the ground, desperate.

"And most of us innocent men in the dungeon were there waiting to visit the gallows, too!"

A few steps away from them, where the paved road ended and sharp rocks began, a scattering of bright red berries was growing from the snow. Edward had noticed them before, clustering here and there along the road, and just as Sunny said, those things looked beautiful when looking from a distance. The shifty slave's eyes glistened as he tried to crawl toward the berries on all fours.

"I would advise against eating those, friend."

It was the gentle-voiced slave again. Edward turned around and saw a tall man in his forties, lean and strangely handsome, with a dignified look of a scholar. He was someone, according to Auron's words in the original book, who did quite a lot of bad things.

"You and your advice again! What?! Why?!"

The scholar smiled apologetically.

"These berries are called Bloodbane. They grow in the places where human blood was spilled. That's why there's always a lot of them along the slave trade routes."

"So what?"

The older man sighed.

"Bloodbane is poisonous. A few berries might be enough to kill an adult man."

"Curses!"

It seemed like they didn't notice or care about him eavesdropping on them, which was good because now he got the gist of when the attack would happen. He needed to cover his head with something before it started raining in stones.

The shifty slave flinched back and glared at the scholar.

Sunny did not pay them a lot of attention.

Edward took a shield and prepared himself for the incoming attack of the monster that was beyond his level, but there was a silent smile on his face. After all, the moment he bonded with the system and read its name, he had an instinctive feeling that his life here would be anything but peaceful.

As if to agree with his thoughts, a thundering noise rang from above.

And in the next second, something massive came crashing from the sky.

Turning in the direction of the thundering noise, many slaves rose their heads — only to see rocks and heavy shards of ice raining on them from above. They instantly panicked, lurching away in a cacophony of screams. Shadows happily danced on black stones as entangled by the thick chain, those slaves fell to the ground and pulled others with them.

Edward was lucky enough to be not hit by anything that his shield couldn't block him from; now, constant system notification ringing in his head, Edward couldn't help but smile a little bit.

[Ding! You gained 10 SP!]

[Ding! You gained 10 SP!]

[Ding! You gained 10 SP!]

"On your feet, fools! Get to the wall!"

The veteran soldier - the one who had whipped Sunny a few hours before - was shouting angrily, trying to get the slaves to move towards the relative safety of the mountain slope. However, before anyone could heed his command, something massive came crashing down, sending a tremor through the stones beneath their feet. It fell right between the caravan and the mountain wall, plunging everything into silence for a few seconds.

At first, it looked like a lump of dirty snow, roughly round and as tall as a mounted horseman. However, once the creature unfurled its long limbs and rose, it towered over the stone platform like a nightmarish omen of death.

'That's uglier than I ever thought it would look like.' Edward said as he saw the Mountain King.