I was completely out of it by the time I felt a faint tap on my shoulder. Upon waking, I'm met with the emerald eyes of General Regina.

 

“You were sleeping like a baby,” she says with a chuckle, “I almost didn't want to wake you up.”

 

I glare at her and sigh, “Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have…”

 

“Fear not, you will have plenty of time to rest later. There is important business to attend to first, however.”

 

“Yeah? What kind of business?”

 

“Well, we've just arrived at base my dear Steven. As I’ve said earlier, I’ll be personally giving you the grand tour. I’m sure it will be enough to impress you.” 

 

“Impress me? Fuck off. Nothing about you, your raiders, or this base will ever impress me.” 

 

“But you haven’t even seen it yet,” Regina laughs.

 

“I don’t care. As if I’d be impressed by anything related to scum like you.” 

 

Regina snaps her fingers and the doors to the carriage opened by two raiders.

 

“Come now, Steven. Just follow me and observe. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.” 

 

When we exited the carriage, I noticed that night had fallen already. Exactly how long did it take to get here? More than that, where were we? 

 

Another thing that I thought was peculiar was the time of day that the raiders attacked Corrina Village. I remember Catherine mentioning to be that they preferred to attack at night, hence their name, but for some reason, they attacked in the afternoon. It was strange, but maybe I shouldn’t worry about that too much…

 

I looked around my current surroundings. Up ahead was an extremely large building. It was multiple stories tall, at least seven or eight from what I could see. There were multiple windows on the building as well. I could only imagine how many different rooms there were.

 

The material the building was made out of was entirely of brick. Makes sense.

 

Regina started walking toward the entrance of the building while I followed closely behind her. 

 

I looked behind me, and I noticed that there was a large wall that surrounded the perimeter of the base itself. It was a sturdy stone wall, as well. It wasn’t like those wooden gates back at Corrina Village. I could tell that these raiders took their defenses extremely seriously. 

 

I noticed that there were a lot of weapons situated on all sides of the wall. Cannons to be more specific. I guess that those would come in handy if anyone ever decided to try infiltrating this place. I know I said that nothing about this place would ever impress me, but goddamnit, why is it doing so already? 

 

 I mean, look at this place. It’s got excellent defenses, a ridiculous number of cannons, and not to mention, there were guards that stood watch outside the entrance of the base. 

 

In addition to that, there were also four watchtowers that were set up on each side of the base as well. I hate to say it, but that was incredibly smart. They were able to watch for potential danger coming from each direction that way. 

 

These scumbags were a lot more put together than I thought. The fact that they’re able to have a set up this good is just– honestly, it’s scary. To think that there’s three more bases that are probably just like this or even more advanced– I don’t want to think about that at all.

 

“I see that you’re looking over the place,” Regina smiles, “What do you think?”  

 

I glare at her. Unfortunately, I was impressed, but I didn’t want to give her the self-satisfaction. 

 

“It’s not the greatest base that I’ve seen…” I say.

 

“We’ll see.” she replies smugly. 

 

Damn you. 

 

Surely the inside of this place can’t be as impressive as what’s on the outside. And what I said is true; this is not the greatest base I’ve ever seen. The base that I built on one of my old video games back in my old life was far greater than this. Even though it was just pixels…

 

“Let me show you the stables first.” Regina says as she turns to me. 

 

Regina leads the carriage that we were into another large building. It obviously wasn’t as large as the base itself, but it was definitely larger than your average house. No, much larger. Once the doors to the stables were open, I saw before me horses upon horses. I couldn’t even count how many there were.

 

“How do you have enough space for all of these horses? This is–” 

 

“We have our ways, Steven.” 

 

Regina calls for a raider to take the horses that were pulling the carriage and put them back in one of the many stables. 

 

“Because we have many horses, they all need to be groomed, fed, and kept healthy regularly. It takes a lot of work to take care of them all, but we get the job done. These horses are all built for war if you haven’t already noticed.” 

 

 After we left the stables, Regina finally led me to the front entrance of the base, where two large raiders were guarding the front. 

 

“My lady, you have returned!” says one of them.

 

“I pray that you have come back with great news, General!” says the other.

 

“Oh, we have, trust me.” 

 

“Really? How many women have you gotten this time? Shall we help you with taking them to the dungeon?” 

 

The dungeon?

 

Regina shakes her head. “No, we have no women this time. Instead, I bring to us this man.” 

 

Regina was showing me off, and the two guards simply stared at me. 

 

“But my lady, how will this man be made a slave? Forgive me, but he is much too ugly! No one would want to purchase him!”

 

Hey, I’m right here, you know!

 

“You misunderstand, he is not a prisoner, nor will he be made into a slave,” Regina says, “He is our newest recruit.” 

 

“Recruit? That is preposterous!” one of them yells.

 

“I agree! With all due respect, General, but this man, no, this– outsider is not even from our tribe! How can we trust him? How do we know he will not betray us?!” 

 

Hold on a second. Tribe? I looked closely at the two raiders. They had the same tanned skin along with the same emerald eyes as Regina. They wore hoods, but I imagine that their hair was also silver.  It made perfect sense that they were some kind of tribe. It’s no wonder that they all look identical to each other. 

 

“Calm down. He may not be from our tribe, but he has already signed a contract. He will be of great use to us, I assure you.”

 

“How will we know that he won’t break the contract though, my lady?”

 

“I have already discussed what will happen if he breaks the contract personally. There is no need to worry about that. Leave those matters to me and me alone.”  

 

The two guards sigh and nod their heads in respect to their general, and then they focus their cold gazes onto me.  I could tell by their looks that they clearly didn’t trust me. That’s fine. I don’t trust them either.

 

“Please open the doors, gentlemen. I must now show our newest recruit around the place.”

 

“Yes, very well–” one of the guards says as the doors to the base are finally opened. 

 

The inside of the base looked like a fucking palace. It was as if this building belonged to some rich king or nobleman and then these bastards came and stole it from them. Honestly, that sounded like something that they’d do, because what the hell? 

 

Everything looked so fancy. I didn’t expect anything like this, to be honest. I thought that the Midnight Raiders were all just primitive beasts, and don’t get me wrong, they still are, but to have such distinguished furnishing inside of their base– ridiculous. 

 

I mean, look at this shit… Chandeliers… a giant spiral staircase… beautiful paintings mounted on the walls and not to mentioned leather chairs that looked so soft. What the fuck?! 

 

My jaw dropped to be honest. My mouth was wide open. 

 

“I knew you were going to be impressed.” Regina smiles.

 

I ignore her words. 

 

“But this isn’t even all of it, Mr. Bale. This is only one of the floors of our glorious base. I like to call this floor in particular the common area, or the lounge, I suppose. This is where we take the time to unwind after an extremely long night.” 

 

“Yeah, yeah, can you just hurry up and show me the rest of this place already?” I mutter impatiently. 

 

“What’s the rush? We have all night, Steven. I’d like for you to enjoy your time here, so please absorb in everything that you see.”

 

“I know. Okay, you know what? I admit it, this place looks great, but I’d like to see what else you got in here now. For example, do you got a floor beneath this one?” 

 

Regina grins at me. “Oh, yes, we do, but I don’t know if you’d want to go there right now. The ground floor is our dungeon. It’s where we keep all of the women and other prisoners that we take.” 

 

“Yeah, I’d rather you not show me that place at all, actually.” I say with disgust in my voice. 

 

“Very well, Steven. Shall we head to the next floor?” 

 

I don’t say a word as she starts to walk up the spiral staircase that led to the next floor. 

 

“I have a question for you, Mr. Bale,” Regina states as she turns her head to me.

 

“Depending on your question, I may or may not have an answer.” I reply, choosing not to make eye contact.

 

“Don’t worry, it’s a rather simple question. Do you enjoy reading books?” 

 

“Wait, what kind of question is that? What are you trying to get at here?” 

 

“It’s just a simple question, and I’m looking for a simple answer. Yes or No. Do you enjoy reading books?” 

 

“Well, yes,” I say. “Actually, I had a book that I was studying when I still had my things, but… it’s gone now.” 

 

“No need to worry about that, because we’re heading up to the library right now. We have plenty of books that you are free to read at your leisure.” 

 

“A library, huh? How many books are you talking about?” 

 

“You’ll see. You may not expect it, but we actually love to spend our time reading and learning new things. I hope that by the end of the tour you will see us in a brand-new light.” 

“That will never happen. Don’t think that I’ll ever forgive you for all of the shit that you and your people have done. You can’t just say that to me while you have innocent people locked away in your dungeon or whatever the fuck it is!”

 

“Shall I show you around the library now?” Regina says as she stands at the top of the stairs.

 

She did this all the time. She always ignores my words and goes about things as if it never happened. What a psychopathic bitch. All the more reason to kill her. I just need to get my chance, and once I do, I can find a way out of here. But for now, I’ll play along. 

 

“Okay, fine…” 

 

On the next floor, there were more leather chairs as well as tables. There was no one else in the library right now, but there was more than enough space for many people to read. It was honestly incredible.

 

Seeing the library in this base brought me back old memories from Harlan Village. I remember going to that library and picking up that history book for the very first time, and I remember how at peace I felt while studying there. 

 

This was a completely different feeling, though. Somehow, I was even more mesmerized by this library than the other. It had many more bookcases than the library in Harlan Village. How in the hell were these people able to get their hands on this many books and texts? 

 

The bookcases reached up very high, and there were even ladders you could climb in order to reach to the highest of shelves. It was as if I were in some kind of trance upon seeing all of these books. 

 

“You look excited, Steven. Please feel free to take a look around if you wish.” Regina says pleasantly. 

 

“Really?” 

 

“Of course. This is your new home, Steven. You are free to do as you wish. Take as much time as you need to to get used to this place. I’ll wait until you’re finished.” 

 

I raise my eyebrow. I wasn’t buying it. There’s no way that she’s this nice. I feel like I’m just getting special treatment for some reason. She was definitely up to something. 

 

“Okay, if that’s the case, then I think I will take a look around. Do you have any history books?”

 

Regina chuckles. “Of course we do! What kind of history are you looking to read about? We’ve also got books about magic as well if you’re interested in that.” 

 

I feel my excitement reach a high point once she mentions magic. For all of the time that I’ve been in this world so far, I’ve never gotten the chance to actually learn about how it works. Only bits and pieces of information that I've heard others mention.

 

“I think I’d like to take a look at a magic book, actually…” I say. 

 

“Of course, right this way. What, are you looking to perfect some of your spells or something?” 

 

“No. I’m actually unable to use magic. I have no mana in my body.” 

 

“Oh, so you’re in the ten percent then, hm? Still, I think it’s great that you’d like to take the time to learn about magic despite not being able to use it.” 

 

“I don’t need anything super advanced by the way. Just get me a book where I can simply learn the basics, if that’s okay. I’m pretty unknowledgeable in magic, so it’s better I start off small.” 

 

“Completely understandable, Mr. Bale. I think I have just the book that you’re looking for.” 

 

After passing by various bookcases, she finally stumbles upon the one she was looking for. Regina reaches for one of the shelves and grabs a small book with a light blue cover.

 

“Here you are. I think this book in particular will be of great interest to you.” 

 

I take the small book from Regina and look at the title. 

 

“A Beginner Mage’s Handbook to Magic and Spellcasting,” I whisper aloud. 

 

“Yes, this book is one of the best for those who wish to become mages, although it’s a good book for anyone who wants to learn the basics of magic in general. This is why I picked this one out for you in particular.” 

 

“Uh… thanks…” I say awkwardly. 

 

“No problem. Feel free to take a look around. There may be more books that will catch your eye.” 

 

“Okay, sure. Also, I know that you’re giving me a tour and all that, but is it okay if I start reading this book right now?” 

 

“Ah yes, of course. Take as much time as you need to. Like I said earlier, we have all night.” 

 

I nod and head to a table to sit down. I honestly couldn’t wait to see what I was going to be learning about. 

 

I take a deep breath before slowly turning to the first page.