“Come get your breakfast, girls.” The guard called out to us as she banged on the door.

In the slot at the foot of the door, a tray of food was pushed into the room, along with two cups of water.

The food actually looked quite delicious, and my stomach rumbled at the sight. But I had no time to be worrying about satisfying my hunger.

“Help me, Miss Guard. Please, I don’t want to die…” I cried out in my most pitiable tone. My practise was worth it, no one could resist this voice. I even got a new skill for my acting, [Charm].

After a moment, the guard asked, “What’s wrong?”

Success! Now to get her in to open that bloody door…

“I don’t want to die…Please…I can’t talk, she said she would kill me..” I sobbed.

“The elf said that? Is she there?” I could hear some suspicion in the guard’s tone, but it couldn’t be helped.

“N-no…”

The outside was silent for a moment.I heard her whisper a couple words. ‘Detect life’? Was it a spell?

The steel door to the cell opened, the bright light washing over my body. I squinted my eyes, unused to the brightness. It was only the second day I entered, but my eyes had already adjusted to the dark.

A slightly chubby, middle-aged woman entered the room, her face grim. She wore black leather armour with some sort of red emblem on the chest. A sword and dagger hung at her waist.

I couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated as I swallowed nervously. This person did not look like someone I wanted to mess with.

The guard blocked the door with her body, her eyes roving over the room. Eventually, her eyes fell on me, curled in the corner. “Where is the elf girl now?”

I felt a pull on my body, compelling me to tell her. It only took moments for the compulsion to become too painful to resist, and I found my mouth moving almost without my consent.

“She disappeared. I don’t know exactly,” I finally said.

It was the truth, she had vanished with the help of the bracelet and I technically didn’t know where she was. It seemed I could somewhat bypass the perk like Elaina said as long as my words were vague.

“I’m going to die…I don’t want to die yet but…S-she said that if I told anyone, she would kill me!” I added, before sobbing into my arms. Crying always made it more effective. Fake tears streamed down my face, although the guard could probably only barely see them with my head covered in my arms.

Still, the sound of crying was enough to convince her. Fortunately, it wasn’t that hard to force myself to cry realistically as I had been practising for the past two days.

My words must have shocked her a little, as she stood in the doorway stunned.

“She really escaped? That’s impossible… but she didn’t show up when I used a detect life spell.” She strode to the centre of the room with her hand on her sword, searching for someone.

“This cell could easily hold anyone under S-Rank and she was a mere E-Rank. And besides, even if she got out of the cell, it would be impossible for her to leave unnoticed. So how could she escape…” she muttered, still unconvinced.

But Elaina had really vanished. And so the only conclusion the guard could come to was that she really escaped.

It seemed she finally started to believe me. I heard her loud footsteps as she made her way over to me, but I did not look up as I did not want to reveal anything from my expression.

Finally, the door was no longer blocked. Now I only had to distract her for a little longer so Elaina could leave.

I increased the intensity of my crying, pushing my acting to the limit. The memories of the horrid things that happened in the past two weeks helped. My face became stained in tears as I tried to make myself look as scared and innocent as possible.

Suddenly, the guard placed her hand on my shoulder as she knelt beside me. “Don’t worry, little girl. I’m here so she can’t kill you.”

With the time that she had spent making her way over here, Elaina probably had already slipped through the door. Now, I just had to make her leave and get help so I myself could escape.

“I’ll go get help to find the girl. But right now I need you to tell me exactly how the girl escaped.”

Dammit!

I had known she would ask this question. We had hoped that the guard wouldn’t phrase it like an order though, but alas. Sometimes you ended up with the short end of the stick.

I felt the force compelling me to act, but I refused to talk. Maybe if I held out long enough, I would fall unconscious. But would she leave me in the cell alone if I did?

I had no choice but to carry on. My head began to hurt yet I continued to resist the order. Pain many times worse than anything I felt as a slave shook my body and my fake tears turned real. Was this how our plan failed? From some stupid perk I was forced to pick up?

No matter what, I would never go back to that hell. It couldn’t end here.

I bit down on my hand, stopping my mouth from inadvertently speaking. I must have bit a little too hard as the taste of blood flooded my mouth. My body was shivering uncontrollably.

Just as I felt I could no longer hold on, I felt something warm splash my left cheek.

Surprised, I looked up, although I almost wished I hadn’t. It was a sight that I probably wouldn’t forget for a long time.

The guard was staring at me, her eyes wide open in shock as an expression of horror covered her face. Looking down a little, I found out what had splashed my face.

Someone had cleaved open the front of her neck, a large red gash spreading almost from ear to ear. Blood spurted out from the slit onto the floor, and I almost vomited at the sight.

“Ughh…” the guard tried to cry out as she put one hand over the slash, but all that came out was a moan.

But the woman quickly recovered. The guard swung her arm behind her, searching for her opponent. Despite getting her neck cut open, she still had the strength to fight. However, her fist found nothing but air.

With one hand on her hand, her other went to the hilt of her sword.

Feeling the intimating aura of the woman as she prepared to fight, my body unconsciously tried to back away. Unfortunately, I was already curled in the corner.

Suddenly, a flash of light enveloped the room and my vision was lost.

I was blinded.

In my panic, I huddled myself against the corner, no longer able to see.

Everything around me felt disoriented. What was happening? I thought I heard someone scream. Or was it more of a shriek? There was a loud thud as someone hit the ground.

And then everything was silent, except for the sound of my panicked breathing. And someone else’s heavy breathing. Was it the guard?

Why had the fight ended so quickly? Was Elaina dead?

Suddenly, a hand patted my head and I flinched in surprise.

“Are you okay, Kitty?” I recognized the voice.

I looked up but found I was still somewhat blinded, my vision blurry and disoriented. Even if my vision had returned though, there would be nothing to see though.

“Elaina…” I wanted to ask what happened but all I could do was whisper her name. The constant torment from my [Obedient] perk had left, but I still felt a throbbing in my head, both from the lingering pain of the perk and the sudden flash of light.

“Everything’s fine now, but I need you to get it back together. I want to get out of here as soon as possible.” A soft feeling brushed my cheek as she wiped away the blood with a blanket.

Her voice was reassuring, both comfortable and persuasive. Despite the horrifying experience that just happened , her words were still able to bring me back to my senses. I no longer felt scared.

As my vision returned, I found myself looking at the floor. The body of the female guard laid there unmoving in a puddle of her blood, a dagger buried into her left eye. It was a horrifying sight.

Elaina took off the bracelet, reappearing in the room, as she went to inspect the body.

“Why did you kill her?” The question finally came from my throat.

Elaina glanced up at me, as she knelt beside the corpse. “The guard had to die. Even if she had not ordered you to tell her how I escaped, I would still have killed her. Had she lived, she would have reported my escape the moment she left,’ she said as she pulled the knife out.

“B-but that’s not what you told me…You lied?” I felt hurt. Despite only knowing her for two days, I still thought we had a bond between us.

“I know. I’m sorry but I didn’t want you to accidentally reveal anything to her before I struck.” She went down to grab the body, before she added, “I also didn’t want you to feel responsible for killing someone.”

She dragged the body over to the side, before stripping the guard of her items. Her short sword, another dagger, a key hanging around her neck, and two vials filled with pink liquid attached to her belt were all taken from the corpse. There was also a purple stone exactly the same as the one Elaina had, except smaller in her pocket.

“This stone…well we can figure it out later. Now is not the time,: Elaina said as she slipped the gem into her pocket.

Next she picked up the two vials, one in each hand. “These must be healing potions. I don’t know what else they could be.”

“Here, you take these.” She passed me one of the vials and the clean dagger over. After, she handed me the invisibility bracelet as well. “As long as you keep the bracelet, you should be able to escape even if I get caught. That guard couldn’t detect me at all when I stripped her of her dagger and slit her throat, despite her being at least B-rank.”

“How did you kill her anyway?” I was a little curious. That woman was a much higher rank than Elaina after all.

“It was actually easier than you would think. When she tried to strike me after I cut her throat open, I used my light magic to blind her. While I’m not capable of any spells, I can still create light. And since my [Light Magic] is now level 6, that was enough for me to blind her momentarily before I stabbed her eye out,” Elaina said as walked to the door and grabbed the food, before she dumped it all down the toilet. “She didn’t live after that.”

“You make it sound so easy. What if you had failed?”

“Well, it wasn’t that hard to kill her. If I didn’t succeed, I would have been hurt badly or even killed…and you as well might have been harmed if I failed. So I didn’t hesitate to kill her. Also, I suspect the guard didn’t have much combat experience either or she would have been quicker to react.”

She attached the sword to her belt that she now wore around her waist instead of her thigh. “We better get going before someone realizes this woman is missing. Hopefully, they don’t bother to check our cell, at least for a little while.”

Fine. I was willing to leave this topic until after we escaped.

I didn’t have any pockets so I could only keep the dagger in one hand and the potion in the other as I slipped on the bracelet. It was a little tight for my wrist. It was probably created for elves who had skinnier arms.

Once I had it on though, nothing happened. I could still see my body like before.

Elaina on the other hand did not seem to know where I was. “Come grab my hand so I know where you are. I’ll lead the way while you follow behind.” She struck out her hand and I went to grab it.

As we left the room and locked the door behind us, I couldn’t help but let out a small smile. For the first time since I became a slave, I finally believed that I might actually escape. The taste of freedom, it was close.

 

At least, those were my thoughts then.

Now, I’m thinking the past me was quite naive. I really shouldn’t have spoken so soon back then.

It had been less than an hour since we left the cell.

The two of us are surrounded by prison guards. Not just normal guards, by the way. These guards were very strong. Also very angry guards. A few of them even looked like they are debating whether it is worth it too kill us.

Maybe we should have thought this through a little more…