Chapter 277: Teresa (44K)

"Hang him up!"

"Yes, that disobedient one—hang him up for me! Whip him hard!"

A cold, vicious voice echoed through the dim space, followed by the sound of something tearing through the air.

Crack!

"Ahhhh!"

In a cage thick with the stench of rot, Teresa was woken by the piercing wails and slowly opened her eyes.

"Where… is this?"

The already petite girl looked even frailer from long-term hunger, her body so thin it seemed a gust of wind could knock her down; beneath her tattered hemp clothes, her small belly had already shriveled inward.

She tilted her head slightly in a daze, her rare dark-green, shoulder-length hair swaying gently.

Her bangs shifted, revealing a pale face hidden beneath the tangled strands.

To be fair, though there was some dirt on her face, on closer look the girl's features were not unpleasant—still youthful, but with rather delicate features.

If she could eat her fill and a few years passed, she would naturally grow into a radiant, beautiful woman.

However, she would probably never get the chance to become what she dreamed of.

Over Teresa's right eye, she wore an eye patch made of torn cloth.

Yet the bloodstained patch covering her right eye and the massive scar running down the side of her face beneath it marred Teresa's looks, lending her a somewhat savage air.

Teresa painfully turned her head, fixing her single dark-green eye on the direction the sound had come from.

Outside the cage, the horror continued.

What met her eyes was a shocking scene beyond the cage.

A tall, burly, bare-chested man was swinging a leather whip, lashing it at a heavyset, bearded fellow who had been strung up.

The whip cut through the air with a sharp whistle, and every time it fell, it struck the suspended man's body with precision, instantly splitting open bloody welts.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

"Ah! Ah! Ah…"

The man's obese frame trembled violently from the agony, yet bound by heavy shackles he could not dodge at all, and could only let out desperate, anguished howls.

Moreover, as time went on, his screams grew weaker and weaker, enduring the lashes with no strength left.

"…"

Teresa stared blankly at the scene, her mind as though struck by some blunt instrument, her thoughts grinding as slowly as rusted gears.

Gradually, fragmented, chaotic memories came flooding back like a tide, and she slowly recalled where this place was and how she had ended up here.

This was a secret base belonging to slave traders, used to temporarily hold slaves they had bought, to be transferred to the clients' location once enough had been gathered.

And she, naturally, had been sold here as a slave.

To be precise, Teresa had not willingly been sold into slavery, nor had her family profited from it.

She had been kidnapped.

Teresa's lot in life was absolutely not a good one—she bore a rather heavy curse.

From early childhood, the girl had suffered a great upheaval in her life; her mother had left her forever while she was still too young to understand.

Disappeared? Died?

She couldn't remember.

Teresa only knew that after her "mother" left, she saw her "father" for the first time.

From then on, she had always lived with her father… no, she had been fostered out in a village.

According to the villagers, her father was a wanderer of uncertain whereabouts, like an untamed wind.

He loved drifting across this vast continent, never staying in one place for long, passing through one unfamiliar town and stretch of wilderness after another.

But whether it was a month or half a year, her father would always return to that village to reunite with Teresa.

He would bring things that didn't exist in that unchanging village—jewelry, books, stories…

Teresa had thought everything would go on like this, unchanging, and that she would spend her whole life as a village girl, waiting in the village for her own end.

However, one day a few months earlier, when Teresa saw her father again, she learned a piece of news from his lips—he was actually a noble.

Her own father was actually the legendary noble lord!

Furthermore, her father was a noble, but she was not.

According to her father, although she was of noble blood, the family had been in decline for generations, and apart from some spare money and useless pride, was no different from ordinary commoners.

And to change that state of affairs, her father had decided to do something big.

If he succeeded, he would make a name for himself and completely rewrite the family's fate, bringing the fallen house back to prosperity!

And if he failed, he might die quietly, burying the family's former glory for good.

That meeting was, in fact, her father coming to say goodbye to her.

And faced with her father's solemn farewell, Teresa didn't know how to respond.

Their relationship wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good either.

They were already seldom together, and every meeting was just dropping off gifts before hurrying away again.

In more than ten years, the father and daughter had exchanged no more than a hundred sentences; rather than father and daughter, the two of them were more like familiar strangers.

And though her father was resigned to his daughter's silence, he had long expected it.

In the end, as though he had made some decision, he left Teresa a letter and hurried off—just as he did every time he left.

The only difference was his instruction that Teresa open the letter three months after his departure, if he had not returned.

Three months later, her father had not returned, and Teresa obediently opened the letter he had left.

In that letter, her father said he had most likely met with disaster, and told her not to be sad.

Although he was dead, Teresa still had other kin in the world.

He specially arranged for her to join a caravan, paid the fee, and had her return to her family to search for other relatives.

At first, when reading the letter's contents, Teresa resisted.

As a village girl who had spent her entire life in the village, she did not wish to leave because of her father's arrangements.

She had grown accustomed to life here.

But after another half month, she wavered.

In that remote village filled only with the elderly, Teresa's life was unchanging, and entertainment was extremely limited.

Besides playing with her pet animals, her greatest pleasure was rereading the books her father sent her.

She had read the fairy tale *The Knight and the Village Girl* hundreds, even thousands of times; every word was etched into her mind.

No matter how many times she read it, the knight meant for her never came—and this was, in fact, normal.

After all, even the most destitute knight was still a noble lord, and would not wander aimlessly to such a remote hamlet near the wilderness.

In the end, after much hesitation, the girl, clutching a sliver of hope for the future, took her favorite book and the money her father had left, and set off with the caravan.

Even if she never met a knight, she could still begin a new life.

And tragically, fate once again bared its fangs at her.

Teresa successfully met the caravan as her father's letter instructed and boarded their cart without issue.

But this was merely the beginning of her destruction.

On the way, the caravan was ambushed by another group—slavers, utterly ruthless and cruel!

With the help of a traitor inside, the caravan's guards offered no resistance and were instantly thrown into chaos.

The girl watched helplessly as her companions were brutally subdued, and she herself was seized without mercy, becoming a slave alongside the others.

Yet heaven never leaves a path closed.

Just as Teresa thought all was lost, the slave caravan was attacked by another group.

But those who came to rescue them were no heroes.

They were another band of slavers.

Black eats black.

Slavers obtained their merchandise either through monetary transactions, by capturing people themselves, or… by stealing them from fellow slavers.

Clearly, the latter was faster and cheaper.

Everyone loved it.

The first group of slavers who captured them were slaughtered in a flurry of blades; Teresa and the others were captured once again.

The second group of slavers marched them onward, but their journey was far from smooth.

Everyone loved black eats black.

Everyone.

In less than another half month, the slavers were ambushed multiple times by others.

Each battle brought screams and blood.

And these slaves, like goods, died or were wounded; the lucky survivors were passed between slavers several times amid their conflicts.

Finally, after being passed on for the fifth or sixth time, Teresa and the others encountered a particularly powerful slave caravan—and no one else attacked them again.

The caravan's master remained hidden inside a luxurious carriage, and even when he appeared, he concealed his entire body beneath a wide black robe.

The only thing known was that my lord was a powerful mage.

After countless fearful days and nights, the slaves were finally brought to this place.

Looking at the fat man outside the cage, who suffered the same fate as her companions, the girl felt a complex emotion.

There was empathetic fear, but mostly satisfaction.

For this man was no ordinary slave—he was the third group of slavers who had captured them, later reduced to slavery by the fourth group.

And the burly man who whipped the merchant was also a peculiar fellow, with a peculiar taste.

He enjoyed conquering his own kind, especially these pampered types.

In the week since arriving here, he had already whipped and taken away three fat men under various pretexts.

Each time one was taken, the slaves soon heard distant, piercing screams.

Teresa was merely a village girl, but she knew basic knowledge.

Some small animals also enjoyed this kind of transgressive intimacy… it was normal.

Moreover, this burly overseer, aside from this one habit, inflicted no other torment upon them.

He casually tossed them food each day to keep them from starving, and the rest was simply choosing a lucky one to properly "whip"…

As Teresa recalled, the whipping had just reached its end.

Crack!

After the final lash, the fat man slumped without a single groan, his head hanging limp.

"Heh, looks like you finally understand."

Seeing the fat man had no strength left to resist, the burly man grinned, lifted him off the rack with one hand, and slung him over his shoulder.

Then he scanned the silent slaves watching him, grinned proudly, and bared his yellowed teeth.

His gaze swept over trembling fat men, making the former slave masters clench their hooks; he chuckled twice, thoroughly satisfied with the feeling.

"Ha! All of you watch closely—this is the fate of defying me!"

"Whoever tries to escape again—ha! —he'll be your example!"

After threatening them all, the burly man adjusted his stance and eagerly carried his prize into his wooden hut.

Thud!

"…cough, cough."

A weak coughing sound rang out from behind, drawing Theresa's gaze to the only other slave companion in the cage.

She was a woman who had once been tall, but now looked thin and sickly.

There were no obvious external wounds on the woman's body, but her vitality was extremely faint, even weaker than Theresa's.

She had been cursed by someone... just like Theresa.

What Theresa's blindfold covered was not a scar, but a cursed eye.

The two of them were both identified as tainted by curses, so they were separated from the others and locked up together.

By rights, goods like them would have been disposed of by the slave merchants to reduce the risk of accidents.

But the owner of this caravan seemed to have long been prepared to sell them, and had deliberately kept them behind.

The other slaves feared the woman and were unwilling to come into contact with her, but Theresa, who likewise bore a curse, did not care about that.

Theresa came to the weakened woman's side, helped her sit up, and brought the food she had hidden earlier to her lips.

"Cough, cough... no need, little sister, you eat it yourself."

The woman shook her head with difficulty, rejecting the young girl's kind offer; she did not accept the hard black bread, but only drank a few mouthfuls of murky water mixed with mud and sand.

"Gulp... ha!"

Those few mouthfuls of dirty water seemed to give the woman quite a bit of energy, noticeably improving her spirits.

She looked around, taking in the surrounding scene, slowly nodded, and finally looked at the young girl and asked: "Little sister, you, um... what's your name?"

Theresa hesitated for a moment, looked at the woman's somewhat sharp eyes, tilted her head, and said softly: "... Theresa."

The woman blinked and said in surprise: "Theresa? That's a good name. Your parents must love you very much."

The young girl tilted her head in confusion, somewhat puzzled.

"Why?"

The woman laughed, with great difficulty raised her hand, placed it on the young girl's head, and said with a soft laugh: "Because, hehe, my younger sister is also called Theresa."

Theresa blinked, wanting to press for more, but the woman indeed changed the subject and whispered: "Oh right, Theresa, do you know where they plan to send us?"

The young girl pressed her lips together, hesitated for a while before bringing her mouth close to the woman's ear, and said uncertainly: "They seemed to have mentioned before that they were sending us to a place called... the Shadow Lands?"

What puzzled Theresa somewhat was that the woman's eyes clearly lit up upon hearing this name.

It was as if... she seemed to be looking forward to being sold there.

"Hehe, it's nothing, you don't need to mind."

The woman saw the young girl's confusion, shook her head without explaining, and began to introduce herself.

"Oh right, my name is Quinna."

She blinked and said with a smile: "Also, if you want, you can call me Big Sister too."

The Lava Hell.

"... Hm?"

Flora slowly opened her eyes and dazedly sat up from the floor of the bronze fortress.

"Why am I here? I remember... I should have sealed myself away?"

"Yo! You're awake?"

Beside the bewildered demon, a devil with a glowing face laughed wickedly, gloating.

"Herbert said he doesn't want you anymore!"

Kreti cackled wickedly, mocking Flora with full malice, and whispered eerily: "He doesn't want you anymore! Doesn't want you anymore! Doesn't want you anymore!"

"Haha, let me... ah!!?"

Unfortunately, her arrogance did not last long; she was soon hung upside down by the Young Lady demon.

Kreti was not pleased.

Her expression lost control, and she hurriedly shouted: "Hey! Wait! This is a misunderstanding! I was just joking! Listen to my explanation—"

But Flora paid no heed to her struggling and shouting, and conjured a long lava whip in her hand.

"Damned demon! You ****!"

The demon said nothing, only lashed the whip relentlessly.

Whoosh—

Crack!

"Ah—"

(End of this chapter)