Chapter 7 - Inability of using own's name

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He soon reached closer to the ground until his soul descended with an accelerated speed until he reached an island and entered the child's body lying on the ground, not sure if he was dead or alive.

When he reached the child's body and entered inside of him a string of memories rushed in his head almost making him feel that his head was exploding. In the beginning, he was pained by the large amounts of memories, but it was nothing compared to his entire life's memories.

'What is this!? All these memories are unnecessary, but I feel something is missing inside of my head. I can't do something important. When searching in this boy memories I found that my name or even the words from my world are not available.  To hell with this HADES, you sent me on the wrong place, damned scheming god.'

'Sigh, how do I say my name? What's with this world language? I can only speak with what this child's knowledge can give me using his memories of certain words, but my name. WHY CAN'T I SPELL MY NAME!? DAMNIT!'

'Breath slowly Vlad, you have to be rational and not rush this. This is a new beginning, all the stress in the first life, your enemies, your subjects, and your responsibilities are all gone. You should relax, and restart a new and better life without being subjected to false beliefs.'

Vlad's face was planted to the ground, seeming to murmur something on the ground, saying some weird sounds. However this got unnoticed in the face of this entire heavy atmosphere that rushed the entire place, the screams of children, women, and pirates created a great veil from Vlad to try to figure out what happened with his language.

Not even knowing what happened, he decided to lay down for some time to figure out the next set of actions. However, while doing so, he also started to listen around himself.

At first, he couldn't understand a single thing the people were yelling and screaming. But as the string of memories started to settle down. The yells and screams of the ones around him finally started to make sense.

Vlad was shocked at first when he heard

"Kill what you can and plunder everything on site."

The first thing on his mind was. 'Where have I just dropped, Hades you really didn't mess my destination on purpose? Do you really want me to join you back and can't say?'

'Also, what was this Remembering thing all about.'

Indeed he was sent straight in a hell of innocent people dying over the crazy moods of drunkard pirates and criminals.

For Vlad, the luck he had to be sent knocked out cold by one of the pirates was like fate smiling at him for once, but at the same time cursing him. Any mistake he would make now would doom him, cutting his life chance in a flicker.

Therefore his option, for now, was to lay low and let all the children and adults scream. At the same time, he was gritting his teeth to pass those agonizing screams by his ears like the wind. Sighing inside his mind, he could only pray for those little kids dying over nothing to have a better life next time.

While lying down and breathing as slowly as he could, with the purpose of seeming dead, he started to look over the new memories he found in his mind. About the place, he was already in, about the identity of this poor child, and the island itself.

[Vlad's POV]

'Yet another madmen, for sure if I rise up they would kill me on sight like those poor kids getting butchered for no reason. To think that such barbaric people would exist in a new world,  even in my world, we would not target the simple people.

So this what happened with this boy. He jumped in the frail and got squashed. How can you be this stupid or rather courageous? Little Zagreus, your fate wasn't kind to you, like neither mines were to me. However, don't worry I swear to kill all those damned pirates once I get back on those small feet.'

'It seems that those men yelling like retards and screaming from the top of their lungs are really pirates. Quite interesting, they even have this concept here. Well probably is a universal thing as Hades explained.'

'Looking at this boy's memories he seems to have a sad one for just a little kid, he was abandoned by his parents from young, his first memories even got to form while he was in this strange place. What was it called again, orphanage?

A place where young children are collected to be raised, similar to the church back home. But he was treated somehow questionable. But I don't know the situation inside so I will not judge. Maybe the boy even suffered from a disease.'

'Memories, after other memories but is manageable. Some little kids he got attached to, and some are about the neighboring places on the island. Others are about an old lady who's probably around 60 that took care of them."

'Sigh his body is so skinny, yet those barbarians dropped so low as to raid this place.  To hell with those bunch of barbarians that even slay unarmed children and women.  First, let me think of a way to get out of this situation alive.'

'What possibilities do I have? I can for example play death and hope for the pirates to not check me again, and in doing so I can slowly walk to this village and get some help.

No, this plan has flaws, the question I have to ask is. If those barbarians actually search again on those dropped kids for what close and coins they have and find me actually breathing, it would spell doom for me, right?'

'Yet if they ask for slaves, and they don't start killing indiscriminately, this is my best choice to safety while doing those annoying mathematic calculus the old farts from Adrianoples taught me. This choice is safer when I hear how crazy these guys are. Compared to lying low, faking my death, if those guys actually ask for people as slaves I should go along, is better than courting death.'

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[General POV]

The pirates killed everything that even dared to oppose them. The militia of the island didn't even have a chance of solving this situation.

They simply ran wild, like wolves into a herd of sheep, not afraid of any consequences. This madness kept for a while until an old lady finally showed up. The fear on her face was literally written on full display. She gathered her courage and said.

"Enough, stop this pointless killing!"

The pirates slowly seemed to regain their clarity, slowing their mad rush for treasures. A man that didn't seem to do much, who had scars over his chest, looked at the old lady with curiosity.

From the looks of it, he was the leader of the pirate group since every pirate started to look at him. Most likely for the next orders.

'Ohh, this is the voice of the headmistress? I hope you're not dead if I come back for a visit, I still have to find more about little Zagreus real origins, and at least do something for him as a gift for giving me his body.' thought out Vlad when hearing the voice of the headmistress.

The lady yet again decided to go with the plan she prepared while hiding from the pirates.

"This place doesn't have anything to offer you guys, it has only little kids. Just take the kids that are still left and do whatever you damn wish with them.

Sell them as slaves or take their organs for sale, for all I care, just leave the rest alone. In this way, you can get some money to satisfy your need for gold. Just spare the rest of the villagers while taking those kids."

The pirate captain whistled for a bit and replied. "So you're saying that this island is so poor that you're even going to drop so low to give out the children and sell them for who knows what the fate has in her hands for them?"

"That's right, just spare the rest of the people from the village." replied the old lady with fear on her face but trying to stand her ground.

'Damn, Ali Kushchu you crazy fucker, to think that your calculus would come in handy with the probability of me getting killed here. I would kiss your bald head you madman if I could go back in time to see that annoying mutt and your turban.'

"Interesting proposal. In this pirate life of mine, I did spend some time dealing with human trafficking, and for sure I know that it pays well, but the question is, how many kids do you still have here, not counting the ones dead?"

"There are still around 20 to 30 hiding here." responded the old lady while her legs were shaking from fear.

While thinking for a bit, the pirate captain nodded his head and finally said to the rest of the pirates that stopped around him.

"Did you hear that guys, we got kids instead of money, so make sure that you find every single little shit out here! Did I make myself understood? Also, check the ones on the ground, there's for sure some that could possibly play dead until we get out to escape from us."

'So I was damn right that they would bust me if I was lying down like a rat.'

The pirate continued saying almost targetting the people who faked death.

"Hmph, is not like I have never seen this play in my entire career as a pirate. If you find any kid acting dead, break some bones into them and leave them to starve for some days while on the sea."

"Yes sir." affirmed the rest while rushing in searching the hiding kids and the dropped kids.

Meanwhile, for Vlad this could be called a curse or a blessing in disguise, he was still thanking his calculus teacher Ali Kushchu for his crazy way of calculating. The curse was that he probably would be a slave, for how long no one knows.

This was nothing for Vlad, him having tasted all shorts of metal tortures and imprisonment. In comparison, the blessing for him was that he could get out of this situation alive with not having to endure any additional pain from the hunger he felt.

'Good these pirates did not turn so crazy as to search every single being on this island for a drop of gold. The most important thing for me is to keep my little heart still beating, from all the tortures I passed from, slavery is the last thing I'm concerned about.'

As he was thinking about the situation at hand, the bunch of pirates slowly started to come out while holding crying and sobbing kids. He also quickly woke up from the ground to the sneers of the pirate captain, who saw Vlad rising from the ground.

He looked over and found a place the little kids were gathered and simply walked over there while having a cold face. Compared to the kids collected in a spot, he was clean except for his face with some bruises and dirt on it.

The pirates didn't even take note of the strange kid. They simply went to look for the rest of the kids hiding around the building and having some of the pirates look over their sheep so as not to lose any of them.

After some time spent in the building, a group of sobbing kids started to form around Vlad. While making him sad over the crying kids, he simply couldn't do anything for them. Vlad was gritting his teeth while not being noticed by the pirates. He utterly felt powerless at that moment and remembered the face of the pirate captain in order to avenge little Zagreus.

The captain finally ended all this farce and said, "It seems that you did well you guys, time to get our asses out of here before the marines start to notice us. Take all the kids to the ship, don't forget any of them, they are a source of money for you to spend after."

The pirates just complied with the order of their boss.

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The kids got gathered inside the ship. To be exact, they were just like sheep in a hangar. Seeming to calm down a little, they looked with pure fear whenever a pirate was going in the room to bring them food.

Yet for Vlad, the fact that the pirates even bothered to give them food said a lot. Going straight for the food, he didn't care about any appearances filling up his skinny little frame. When done, he was even taking looks over the others, noticing them only after he was done with eating. They only began to eat.

Sometimes he even thought of stealing their food but gave up that idea for being too inhuman to the little kids if he did so.

The journey on the sea was boring while only staying inside the ship. Therefore Vlad thought of asking a pirate if he could go outside and take a breath of air.

Surprisingly the pirate accepted, saying that he was on his own. If he dropped on the sea, he would just die being killed by some sea monsters.

Taking to heart what the pirate said about the sea monster, he walked on the shipboard and looked fascinated by the crystal clear sea. The sea surrounded him. All that he could with his small eyes were only a body of water. Impossible to estimate in size.