It’s been a year since the rebellion and the battle with the Kodoku cannibals. While the rebel Champion is still out there somewhere, the rest of the traitors have been killed or captured. These despicable people are now down in the palace’s prison for punishment.
The prison is a cold and miserable place only meant for the worst of human criminals and is separated into two sections. The first is a place where the crimes are irredeemable, but their humanity is not questioned. Simple murderers, crime lords, traitors, and the like are kept here to await execution. Sometimes, when necessary, they will have to be tortured for information by the Pain Master, but they are generally spared the worst.
The second part of the prison is enchanted, so it doesn’t let any sound escape it. This is the place where the worst of the worst are kept to await a fate far worse than death. It is a place ruled by the Pain Master, a place where the question of the prisoner’s humanity needs to be answered. Unfortunately, this place always has at least one man in it. This is a place where slavers, and far worse criminals wait for their punishment.
However, it is not impossible to be let free from the Pain Master’s horrible domain. In fact, one Oathbound was once condemned to his halls. It is extremely rare, but those who show genuine remorse and promise to dedicate their life to redemption are always given the chance, even if the only chance they are given is to find their way to a comparatively clean and simple death.
It is here that Jordan finds himself waiting for the Pain Master to finish playing his ‘music’, as he tends to call it. The Pain Master is an eccentric and powerful man, equal in strength to an Oathbound. While he is sworn to the Emperor in the same way an Oathbound is, he is not part of nor worthy to be the Oathbound Knights, for he is a devil wearing human skin, much like his victims.
In the Emperor’s own words, “Only a devil can sink themselves to the same low of other devils and give rightful punishment, and it is only a devil who can see a spark of humanity in someone even if it’s tainted in sin”. It is not the Emperor that will deem the condemned worthy of a second chance, but the Pain Master.
It doesn’t take long for the Empire’s personal devil to finish his work and reveal himself, opening the soundproof door for him to enter.
“Ah! Oathbound Jordan!” The Pain Master kneels in an exaggerated and dramatic manner, “Oh, how kind of you to come I rarely ever get visitors. Have you come to listen to my songs? So few people are cultured enough to find joy in my performances."
The Pain Master, who answers to no other name, has black eyes which match his mid-length messy hair that frames his blood-splattered face. His face is full of metal piercings that are enchanted to heighten his sensation of pain. He wears what first appears to be a black leather jacket, but a closer inspection reveals sharp blades inside it. Every movement cuts the man, yet no wounds are visible, old or new, as his regeneration is high enough that his own personal torture device is no threat to him.
Despite all his efforts to feel pain, his resistance is so high that all his efforts are in vain. He even managed to enhance his [Pain Tolerance] skill, and his own personal experience in every possible manner of pain imaginable has led him to enhancing his own tortuous skills to inflict nightmarish suffering upon his victims.
During the times wherein he had nothing to do, he often immolates himself for days at a time or some other horrific form of self-harm.
“Your ‘songs’ are unpleasant, Pain Master; I am just here to check up on the traitors.” Jordan says.
“Ah! You break my heart, Jordan! I thought you had finally learned to appreciate the truth of this cruel world!” The Pain Master gesticulates with yet more exaggerated movements. “But you’ll be pleased to know that they are progressing well, if slow; those things are always so hard to make.”
The traitors are the ones that fed human remains to the population to create the cannibals are condemned here to a fate worse than death. They are to be turned into cursed beings themselves. Not cannibals, who are much harder to tame but Pained Ones, which can easily be pacified until they are needed. In addition to being a fitting fate to these traitors, these ‘Pained Ones’ are needed as a final test for new Oathbound trainees, but they take years to make.
“I’d rather they resist it more, personally speaking; they need to suffer for their crimes against humanity.” Jordan says without a shred of pity.
“So there is hope for you yet!” The Pain Master stands up and tries to embrace Jordan, but he puts out a hand to block him.
The Pain master huffs, looking genuinely saddened. “One day, you’ll come to the truth. Anyway, the fools keep muttering how they should no longer feel pain with how high their [Pain Tolerance] Level is. Their hope being slowly snuffed out is always the most crushing pain one can suffer!” The Pain Master laughs.
Resistance piercing skills are common enough knowledge, but few can comprehend that some are so powerful that it doesn’t matter how high their resistance is. With an enhanced [Pain Infliction] skill, the Pain Master can make even the most resilient person suffer.
“And how are their minds doing? Not broken, I hope; they need to be sane to be punished properly,” Jordan says. He walks through the door the Pain Master had opened for him, and his ears are instantly assaulted by a cacophony of cries and wails from the pain master’s most recent subjects.
“Of course, Oathbound! It is essential in their transformation.”
Jordan never learned how the Pained Ones are made, just that it requires a lot of torture, and he doesn’t want to know. Regardless, he walks up to the gore-covered torture table, where a man is strapped down with no evidence of his recent ordeal.
The man rambles incomprehensibly, not even aware of, or at least not reacting to, Jordan’s presence.
“I thought you said he was sane?” Jordan frowns, looking back to the Pain Master.
“But he is, Oathbound! He is just trying to understand the truth; he’ll recover soon enough” The Pain Master walks over and caresses the cheek of the man, who flinches.
Perhaps insanity is sanity to another insane person.
Jordan shakes his head as the Pain Master frees the man and leads him back to his cell. It’s not his place to interfere in the torturer’s work as long as he produces results.
Looking around, he sees the other traitors huddled in the corner of their cells, a blanket covering them, so they don’t have to see the gruesome acts.
“Al’iiight, my little song birds~” The pain master says in a creepily sweet voice. “Who wants to sing next?”
“I’ll be going then,” Jordan announces.
“Won’t you at least stay for one song, Oathbound?” The Pain Master says, leading a resigned man to the table.
“I have many other things to do, and we’re very short-staffed as of late.”
Jordan closes the door behind him, so he doesn’t have to hear the screams and makes his way back out of the prison. He never liked the screams of pain, not even from a child skidding his knee on the ground, but these traitors deserve every last second of it.
In their attempt to assassinate the Emperor, they condemned thousands to death or worse, and for that, they’ll spend the remaining moments of their lives in pain and suffering until their souls are torn apart.
Their plan was to first weaken the Oathbound knights by making a Kodoku Cannibal. These stronger cannibals are made by a special ritual where at least one hundred cannibals are made and eat each other until only one remains, which will become vastly stronger than a normal cannibal that by themselves isn’t much of a threat to an Oathbound.
To make things worse, the Elves and Dwarves are taking advantage of the Oathbound’s weakened state. The elves are sending raiding parties to attack border villages, requiring two full Oathbound to defend all while the Dwarves are coming out of their mountains with their soul-fueled machines and are attacking with entire armies of steel.
The Emperor and a few other Oathbound are having to beat back the Dwarves every few months. Fortunately, the situation with the Elves is at a stalemate since the Human cousin race, the Erudites, are pressuring the Elves with a clear message. If they attack the Empire with their full force, their own kingdoms will be razed to the ground.
Regardless, the Oathbound are stretched too thin, and while they are filling their ranks with Oathbound Squires, they aren’t full Oathbound Knights.
The only good that came out of the cannibal incidents is that the support for the rebels vanished; meanwhile, the rebellion’s ‘champion’ vanished as well, without any trace as to where he might be. Jordan is sure that he’ll reappear to cause more trouble, but unfortunately, they can’t afford to look for him.
Jordan checks up on the rest of the palace’s faculties, from the servant’s quarters to the Faerin garden, before arriving at the Emperor’s office for a scheduled meeting.
“You’re early,” The Emperor says, looking up from a draft of a new law before sliding it over to him. “What do you think?”
Jordan sits on a chair across from the Emperor and reads the draft. It’s a new law for food safety and details how every pot must be enchanted to detect the presence of any race registered in the Empire.
It was precisely this oversight that allowed for the cannibal massacres to occur, an oversight that honestly should have never happened since it’s so easy to feed people their own kin without anyone noticing.
“There are no issues that stand out to me,” Jordan replies after skimming the draft. “I’ll have to take a closer look when I have time. However, many will complain that enchanting all their cookware will be too expensive.”
“We’ll subsidize them.” The Emperor says before standing up, “But enough of that, we can iron out the details later. I have something I want to show you, and considering your interest in the lesser races; you’ll find it interesting.”
The Emperor leads him out of the room and through the courtyard, where some Fylox and human servants tend to the large mana tree. It is an exalted tier tree that has liquid mana for sap and solid mana wood, one of the only sources of these types of mana without a gifted mana manipulator.
“I’m glad you found them,” The Emperor nods toward the Fylox “But it is sad to see they became tribal savages worshiping barbaric gods.”
“You knew of them before?” Jordan asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Not the Fylox exactly, but their parent race, much like how the Erudites branched off from us. This was way back when Humanity was ruled by its own barbaric kings, back when they enslaved all other races. They were known as the Forrlon, which was partially an insult as it related them to the Forron. It basically equated them to dumb animals.”
“But Forrons are rather clever beasts.” Jordan replies.
“That was not the belief at the time. All humans believed animals to be stupid and that lesser races weren’t much better. Regardless, the Forrlon, at least one group would take on a new name, but I’ll get to that later.” The Emperor falls silent for several moments.
This was during the time of the Barbarian Kings, a shameful history of humanity, but since it’s ten thousand years ago, not much is known.
“I was born to a wealthy family and had a Forrlon slave. She was just a simple house slave, but she craved freedom. She was fortunate that her position made her almost invisible, as most barely paid attention to house slaves, and she took advantage of that. She trained her Bond and practiced spells, a crime punishable by death. I saw the folly of my fellow man, and when I discovered her sneaking out during the night at the age of seven, I helped her.”
The Emperor leads Jordan down a flight of stairs that lead to the Palace’s treasury.
“I helped her train, get a good Class, and an item to falsify her information, which would have landed me in a lot of trouble if we were caught. There were several close calls; however, we managed to escape detection for many years. She was very gifted, Jordan, her ability to sense mana was second to none even at her young age, and she used that to realize her gift to manipulate mana.”
“Many can get those skills,” Jordan says. “What made her so talented?”
“She just had a natural understanding of the workings of mana. Where some took decades to study and learn how mana worked, she required only years, and she had no one to teach her. Not even books from the library, as slaves were forbidden to read. This is why we can’t be like the barbarians we once were. There are talented individuals in all races, and it is foolish to suppress that talent; we need to nurture the lesser races and help them grow.”
Humans have [Mana Sight] as a racial ability; this, unfortunately, locks them out of getting it as a general or Class skill. This makes them able to study mana without gaining a skill, but it’s harder to improve a racial skill. It is possible for a specialist to improve their sight to [Mana Sense] but gaining breakthroughs can only happen once every racial evolution and with far more effort than for a normal skill.
Since general and Class skills can gain breakthroughs and levels relatively easily, it makes it easier to improve. However, if the Emperor is calling her talented, then she must have shown quick improvement even when taking that into account.
“We left on the day she turned fifteen,” The Emperor says. “It was my birthday gift for her. It was impossible for us to get stronger anyway. Without detection, that is. We traveled far and wide, conquered many Dungeons, and lived as free as we could. Well, she did anyway. She loved discovering new things and studying them, especially if they were related to mana in some way. We traversed impossibly high mountains, slayed a few cursed beings, traveled magic zones, and, with the help of the Cosmic Dragon, traveled to other realms.”
“Cosmic Dragon?” Jordan asked.
The Emperor nods. “There are things far beyond our Imagination, Jordan. Beings that can obliterate this entire world with a mere thought, and the Cosmic Dragon is one of them. We are very fortunate that it had no desire to.” There is a hint of fear in his voice.
The most powerful Human in the world, a man who has fought off a dragon before, being afraid? No, it’s almost as if he felt completely helpless.
“Anyway. We met allies and other traveling companions, an Elf, the progenitor of the three-eyed Elves, and a Dwarf, the first Dwarven Soul Mage. Together, we rose to the ranks of Legendary beings and surpassed level one thousand, and we gathered many allies to help overthrow the Barbarian Kings. We knew we were ready to go back, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She was afraid and wanted to continue traveling, meeting new peoples, and traveling more realms. We grew stronger and stronger, soon even surpassing Storm Rocs, and we even slew a wind Elemental with the help of a powerful void drake.”
The Emperor opens the vault door, and they enter the treasury where mountains of gold and treasure lay. It’s not that the Emperor is greedy or is hoarding all this treasure. Rather, he is keeping it out of the economy to keep it stable. It also has the benefit of being an emergency fund.
They walk to the back, where several paintings hang on the wall. The paintings mostly show the same four people. The Emperor, a three-eyed Elf, an armored dwarf with a staff made of ectoplasm, and a Fylox with royal blue hair.
The three-eyed Elf had three emeralds where its eyes are, the signature of a high-born Elf; or maybe it’s high-born because of him? He has vines instead of hair and long leaves where Human ears would be. His skin is a verdant green, and he has soft green bark on his hands and forearms. He stands a hand taller than the Emperor and wears stylish brigandine.
The Dwarf has long curled horns with four arms. Two of those arms are longer, more robust, and have long and sharp digging claws capable of slicing through bedrock with ease. His other two arms are shorter and more human-like, capable of dexterous movements and fine control. His eyes are yellow, and he lacks any hair. He is the shortest at two heads shorter than the Emperor, and wears thick steel plate armor.
Finally is the Fylox, or Forrlon as they were called. She has long royal blue hair and eyes. Her ears and tail are similar to those of a Forron, just like the current Fylox. She has a voluptuous body and stands a little shorter than the Emperor. She wears a more simple outfit fit for traveling, but in one of the more formal paintings, she wears elegant mana silk dresses. Mana silk is known for its lustrous color, and some mana weavers can even make iridescent mana silk.
“Kayafe” the Emperor says, looking at her portrait. He sounded sad, almost pained. “That is her name. She was like a sister to me. We eventually went back, slew the Barbarian Kings, and I united the Humans under one banner. We freed the slaves and let them go; many didn’t want to stay and left to make a new start. I wanted them to grow with us, but I had enough trouble with unruly people who hated how I upturned their lives. Many resisted me, wanting to go back to how it was. They wanted to keep slavery, and I, unfortunately, had to kill many of them during their rebellions.”
The Emperor sighs heavily.
“Kayafe gathered many of her people, as many that would trust and follow her, and left into the Leviathan Sea. I begged her to stay, but she could not. Her people had been suffering all this time, and just because there was a change in leadership, it doesn’t change the hearts and minds of those who had suffered. It was for the best that our people parted ways, to forget what was done so we could start over. To say that they hated Humans was an understatement; they changed their name and even built their own language just so they didn’t have to speak ours. They called themselves Runalymo, the ones that followed Kayafe, anyway.”
“She was legendary, did she…” Jordan trails off.
“No, I never saw a world notification that she died. She is still out there, somewhere. Perhaps keeping watch over her people. I hope she is keeping them civil and peaceful.” The emperor falls silent for several minutes before speaking again.
“Do you now understand why those rebellions are such a threat?” he asks.
Jordan nods. “We aren’t perfect; we can become just as savage as any race, which is why we need to remain vigilant and keep our people honest and civil.”
“Yes, that is why, should I ever die, you, the Oathbound, must keep Humanity in check. We must not perpetuate slavery, war, and hatred.”
“Yes, your majesty!” Jordan salutes. The Emperor is the oldest and most powerful man in the world; he finds it hard to imagine anything being able to kill him. “I have one question: Why in only the last two thousand years, did you only start trying to bring civilization to the lesser races.”
“I wanted time, time for everyone to forget Humanity’s crimes, but it was more than that. I needed to forge a culture ready to accept other races and tear down the old culture and traditions. After that, I did try, over and over again. I’ve failed many times. I’d bring in other races openly, expecting them to adopt our better culture, but they didn’t. They perpetuated hate, made criminal gangs, and more. To make things worse, I was not yet strong enough to keep all of humanity in check. I needed powerful warriors and made the Immortal Legion, my first attempt at making the Oathbound.”
The Emperor sighs at that and continues. “They became corrupt, and I knew I needed a stronger bond to keep my strongest warriors honorable. Every few centuries, Humanity would rebel, tired of being made equal, in law, to lesser races. Every time the Empire would nearly be destroyed as I didn’t keep as close a watch on the governors as I needed to. They cast horrible rituals and made cursed beings to try and slay me, resulting in the deaths of far too many people. I couldn’t do everything alone; I needed an oath to bind my warriors so they’d never fall to corruption again.”
“So you made the Oathbound.” Jordan says.
“Yes, and I am proud that none of you had broken your oath, even during the worst times this empire had been in. For the first time, we have resisted our savage nature, and now we can move forward. There will undoubtedly be times when our vigilance will be tested, like it just has, but I know I can count on my Oathbound” The Emperor places a hand on Jordan’s shoulder. “You fought bravely and even slayed some of those cursed beings; I am proud of you. I know that together, we can complete our mission.”
Jordan feels his chest swell with pride. For the first time, they beat back their savage nature and took the first steps to making their purpose a reality; there was no greater honor or glory Jordan could have accomplished.
"You have my undying loyalty!" Jordan takes a knee.
"Rise, Oathbound Commander, Jordan. We have much work to do."
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Kinda curious about the emperor's reaction to the notification about Aly freeing Kafaye
Appreciate the re-write. Start it closer to a character we know? I spent 1/3 the chapter simply skimming and not caring. Appreciate the update, just felt disconnected for a bit too long.
You need to reread side story 1 then
@Skia Thanks for recommending me to reread the first SS. I also took a peek at the previous chapter, now I recall the plot a bit better.
Well Alex, part of the issue might be that you think of them as lesser... In power sure but if you're including their culture and everything about them in it, that may be why they never really took it well...
I get that lesser probably refers to the literal system tier in comparison to their own but when you're talking about making other peoples "more civilized" that's pretty not great...
Well, from his perspective he's not really wrong?
He despises slavery, war, poverty, oppression etc. In his eyes, all beings should be equal. From what I can gather the problem was less the other races and more the fact that the humans felt themselves to be naturally superior and marginalized those who should have been equal to them by law leading to criminalization and several human rebellions. We also know that the most recent rebellion that spawned the Cannibals took place because the Rebel Champion preached that Humanity is superior and should enslave all the other races.
@Salted_Fysh I'm not going to disagree when it comes to his own perspective because I think you're probably correct, but him trying to integrate other people into humanity by forcing Human culture upon them is the problem and probably what makes it not work or at least a contributing factor. Basically he's a colonizer with good intentions.
@Mugsy And we all Know What the Road To Hell is Paved With
@TheGlitch A whole lot of bodies, in this case.