Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) V.A. Lewis (feel good books to read .TXT) 📖

nodded his head in agreement. "But we can’t let ourselves be broken down by this. We can’t let them break our spirits. If they do that, that’s when these people win."

Shang spat on the ground in front of him, and Rin nodded her head. I looked up at them in shock. Win? They’ve already won. We’re slaves! I was absolutely dumbfounded, but it seemed like Shang read my mind, because he continued.

"The city the Mancis Company operates in— which is the same place we’ll be heading to— is Bys. It’s the largest city in Besha, and it’s also one of the biggest cities in the Free Lands. Just like Boleria, it’s known for one thing that makes it stand out from all the other Free Cities. Do you know what it is?"

I shook my head, but I could already guess what it was. And I was right.

"Slavery," Shang said the words acidically. "Bys is known as the Free City of Slaves. And that’s because slaves make up almost three quarter of its entire population. Hrn, that’s almost a million slaves in a single city."

I frowned. That’s a lot of slaves. More than the biggest Confederate State in America in the 1800’s!

Shang was clearly going somewhere with this, and Rin happily picked up from where he left off.

"Nn, that’s right. A lot of slaves in one city. More than enough to overwhelm their masters. But they don’t. And that’s because they’ve given up!"

The Cat Beastkin nodded her head sagely, as if she just imparted some sort of great wisdom upon me. But I already knew that. That made sense, and anyone who heard those statistics would intuitively already come to the same conclusion. The slaves have given up.

Did they mean to stage some sort of coup? A rebellion? A slave revolt? But how were they going to even do that?

They weren’t finished. Shang picked up on my doubts, so he quickly spoke to explain himself.

"I’m not saying we have some grand plan to destroy all of Bys, Young Melas. We’re saying that we will not give up on trying to escape. That’s all. If all the slaves in Bys never give up on escaping, the city would never have survived this long. But their wills were broken, and the city persists. So they will never gain their freedom. But for us, with any opportunity we get, we’ll take it. We will never give up trying to get back our freedom."

"And we will escape," Rin helpfully interjected, "I’m sure of it."

I was in complete disbelief. How? They were just… hoping? This made no sense. But I realized that they were the same as me. I had no plan to escape. But I wanted to get away from all this. And I wanted to make these slavers pay.

But it was not good enough to just hope. So I met their gaze, and challenged them.

"And how exactly will you do that? Say you get a chance to escape. What will you do?"

Rin and Shang exchanged a look. They both paused, and then they laughed; not just them, every Beastkin in the room started laughing and giggling to themselves as if I made some kind of joke. Then Shang turned back to me, and grinned.

"We fight, of course. We fight the guards. We fight the red haired man. Then, we escape."

I hesitated. That was something I could get behind, but once again, I asked myself the same question: how?

"And how will you guys do that? I’ve seen the red haired guard— Marcus— fight, and he’s strong. He’s fast, and he’s good with a sword. He also has a gun that shoots explosives that could instantly kill any of you here. How are you going to beat that, even if you somehow managed to break each other out?"

Shang looked at me, and then he shrugged.

"He’s a Human, is he not? Humans are… fragile. They rely too much on their tools to fight. Unless they’re a Saint, if you take away their weapons, they only have their hands and feet."

Shang then lifted one of his fingers, and pointed a sharp nail— not sharp enough to be like a claw, but definitely sharp enough to draw blood if he stabbed someone with it— at the thing on his mouth; it was a muzzle.

"Meanwhile, other species’ like Elves are naturally more agile; Orcs stronger and larger; and us Beastkin have our own weapons that you could never remove from us— unless of course you get up close and personal. And I assure you, that would almost always end with one of us dying."

Rin was nodding her head, and smiling. Everyone in the room was grinning and smiling. I looked around, and noticed something about the Beastkin for the first time: other than being a bit starved, they looked… untouched.

Unlike the slaves outside who were regularly beaten for misbehaving, it seemed that these Beastkin were usually left alone. Despite being locked up in cages, and despite all Dog Beastkin having a muzzle ; despite all Cat Beastkin having manacles that covered their hands entirely; and despite the two Rabbit Beastkin having chains reinforced by mana crystals around their legs; they were all being avoided.

I realized the slavers were wary of them. But I remembered seeing them fight. The guards were all Humans, and yet they moved faster than anyone in my world could. If Humans here were already that strong, then how about these Beastkin? I looked around, and met every eye in the room.

I always wanted to escape, but I had no plan; I always thought to wait until the chance showed itself for me. But that was not good enough. No one was going to save us, except ourselves.

"So, what’s the plan?" I turned to face Rin, and our eyes locked. "You said you will escape. Do you have