Chương 2: Invisible Chains

A terrible smell filled the boy's nostrils—the stink of rotten hay, waste, and bodies that were overdue for a bath. He held his breath without realizing it as the smell dug into his nose and threatened to make him sick.

"Ah...?" His head was hurting. He lay on the floor, clutched his head, and groaned. The floor against his back was cold and wet, and his entire body ached as if he'd just been beaten.

"Ugh...!" It took a long while before the headache subsided. He clamped his eyes shut and gasped for breath. Every breath he took brought more of the terrible smell into his lungs, but it wasn't as though he could live without air. When even the painful breathing had calmed down, he felt his senses slowly returning. He noticed youthful voices sobbing in the background. He opened his eyes with difficulty and looked around him. The first thing he saw was a set of rusty bars.

This was a prison of some kind, with no windows, and the only light came from the torches outside the door. Inside the prison crouched young boys wearing rags. Their scrawny bodies were trembling, and most of them had eyes filled with terror and despair. Some of these boys displayed no emotion at all, their eyes unfocused and staring off into space—at the ceiling or out through the bars. Where... am I? the boy wondered in a daze. He had no memories of before he had opened his eyes.

He didn't even know why he was here, in this cell. Why? The question floated in his mind. He clutched his head and tried to remember. As he fought to restore memories that refused to come back, he got a splitting headache again. At the same time, an emotion bubbled deep inside him. He had no idea why he was locked up in a cell like this, but he did recognize the emotion bubbling inside his chest—rage and hatred. He didn't know who these emotions were for.

What he knew for certain, though, was that these feelings were too big for him to handle. He got up with gritted teeth. He heard footsteps outside the door. The sobbing of the boys in the cell stopped at once, and they shook and cringed even more. Scared eyes glanced through the bars. Shadows cast by the torches fell over a figure that was swaggering down the stairs. It was a massive man, muscular with a thick beard. His nose was bright red and inflamed, and he was drinking from a bottle.

His eyes gleamed when he saw the boy who had just woken up.

"Wait, you're awake? I was wondering if you were dead. Looks like I won't have to dispose of your body then," he said. He smiled, exposing his yellow teeth. The boy stared in a daze, then spoke with dry lips.

"Where... am... I?" The voice was so cracked that he couldn't recognize it as his own. The man cackled at him.

"Where do you think you are, bastard? You have eyes. Look around. It's obviously a prison."

"Why... am I in prison?"

"Maybe you're not fully awake yet, or maybe something's wrong with your head," the man said, tilting his head. He pulled out a bundle of keys, opened the door, and came inside. The terrified boys quickly scooted back, their backs touching the walls. Only the one boy was looking up at the man. The man smiled again, flashing his discolored teeth.

"Looks like the new boy needs to be educated," he said. He then kicked the boy in the solar plexus, sending him flying. The boy coughed and threw up bile. The man stomped over and grabbed him by the hair.

"Now listen to me, brat. This is a prison, and every one of my prisoners is a slave. Now, you asked me why you are here. Well, we found you and put you here," he said. He gulped down alcohol from his bottle and burped.

"You should be grateful for it too. Your parents abandoned you like the others. You would have either frozen to death, naked in the forest, or been eaten alive by something or other if we hadn't come along. The rags on your back came from us." The man tapped the boy's cheek with his bottle.

"So be thankful, alright? Who taught you to stare at an adult like that? It's downright rude. Know your place. Learn to cringe like the other boys." The bottle struck the boy on the cheek, sending him reeling again. The man spat on the boy's back and glared at the other slaves.

"You f*ckers. What were you doing? You should have educated the new one as soon as he woke up. Do I have to teach you every little thing?"

"F-f-forgive us, sir!" The slaves touched their foreheads to the floor and stammered back at him. The man glared at them viciously. Then he spun away and walked out of the cell.

"If I come back next time and still find him glaring at me like that, I'm going to grab one of you and gouge out his eyes. You f*cking ingrates. Show some gratitude for the food and shelter I give you!" With that, he went back up the stairs. Only when his footsteps had vanished did the slaves look up again. A few of them quickly moved up to the new boy.

"Hey! Y-you heard him, right? Next time, when the prison guard comes around, you keep your eyes down. And don't say anything unless you're spoken to!"

"Ugh..." The boy managed to sit up, his hands on his abdomen where he had been kicked. His lips were dripping with blood now, and bile was in his mouth, tasting awful. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"A-a slave? I'm a slave?" he asked.

"Goddamn it, don't you get it? Yes, you're a slave. Do I need to tell you what a slave is?" one slave said.

"You should count yourself lucky. You don't look sick, considering that you've been brought here and you seem to have no problems eating... That's why you weren't beaten as hard," said another. The other slaves were bags of bones and covered with bruises, but this boy was mostly fine. That made him more valuable as a product.

"Anyway, if you want an extra piece of bread at mealtime, at the very least, you need to do as he says. A-all right?"

"What's your name, by the way?" My name. The boy clutched his belly and thought about the question.

"Yuto..." It was the only thing that came back to his empty mind. No other memories existed for him.

* In the three days that had passed since he had woken up in his cell, he had learned a few things. The only thing he could remember about himself was the name Yuto, and nothing else. He still had no idea why he was in this cell, what he had done, or where he had been before coming here. No amount of effort would help him remember. Maybe there really was something wrong with his head, as the guard had claimed. He had apparently been found in some random forest, completely naked.

"They say people tend to forget when they have an experience that's too traumatic," murmured a thin slave boy—Jackie.

"Maybe something like that happened to you. You said the only thing you remember is your name, right? Maybe being abandoned by your parents was so shocking that you decided not to remember." Jackie was the only person in this cell who had told Yuto his name. It wasn't because Jackie was particularly friendlier than the others, though. Jackie was the smallest and youngest of the slave boys imprisoned here.

If the guard came around next time and wasn't satisfied with the state of the new boy's "education," Jackie would be the one to lose his eyes.

"I've been here for a week now. The one that's been here the longest has been here for a month," Jackie whispered.

"They just keep us locked up here and don't force us to do anything else. He beats us when he's in a bad mood, but he won't hurt you as much if you keep your eyes on the floor. You know what I mean? No matter what you do, try not to stand out." The boys were fed twice a day with mold-smelling bread that was so hard it hurt their jaws to chew, and some kind of pale soup whose ingredients were impossible to guess. Fifteen boys lived in this prison cell, but there was only one spot used as a latrine.

There was no toilet at all, just a hole in the floor. When the guard brought a pail and a dirty rag once a day, the slaves used them to clean their bodies, then the latrine. The cleaning of the latrine fell to Yuto, the newest boy, of course. While it was true that one couldn't expect much from a slave prison, the conditions were horrible.

This is some kind of preparation. Even though all he remembered was his name, Yuto realized that this environment was meant to break the boys. If the boys were kept in here long enough, their minds would deteriorate to the point where the mere sound of the guards' feet would make them piss themselves.

The oldest slave here has been here for a month. They don't make any of the boys do anything. Just keep them locked up in here, wrecking their minds. That way, when they're finally told to do something, they will do it, no matter what it is. What exactly were they planning to have the boys do? But the slaves were ignorant, just like Yuto. And asking the guard wasn't an option.

"Get out here." On the third night, at the time of day when the slaves would typically have been given a meal, the guard opened the cell door. He wasn't drunk as he usually was, and wasn't carrying a bottle with him.

"Follow me. Do anything weird and you die." His face was more distorted with anger than when he was drunk, and his voice carried violence. He was even holding a sharp knife, as if to show that his threat wasn't an empty one. The slaves were fatigued, both in body and mind, from staying in the terrible cell. They didn't dare to disobey.

There were no shackles around their ankles or wrists, but the time they had endured in the cell, as well as the violence they had been subjected to, had become invisible chains over their minds. They trembled and followed the guard. Yuto walked with them as well. He glanced behind him and saw a stairway that led upward. He probably wouldn't be able to escape that way even if he ran at top speed. He didn't know what was at the top of the stairs, or even if they actually led outside.

I'll follow him for now.

It was too early to attempt to escape. The guard took them to a massive metal door, which he opened, revealing a wide clearing. The guard seemed to be breathing nervously. As he strode forward, the slaves followed, glancing around them. A colosseum...? The round space at the center was surrounded on all sides by high walls. Above the walls were seats meant for an audience, and a woman with golden hair, dressed in fancy clothes, was leaning against the railing.

"Fifteen boys total," the guard said cautiously, looking up at the woman.

"Is he the one you found naked in the forest?" the woman said. She pointed a ringed finger at Yuto and grinned.

"He's got a pretty good-looking face. Maybe some noblewoman abandoned him after having her fun."

"He doesn't seem to be right in the head. He doesn't know anything but his name."

"Oh? The past doesn't matter to a slave." The woman looked over the slaves and waved her hand.

"Hello everyone. You must be hungry," she said. The only food they ever got in the cell had been a single piece of bread and watery soup twice a day. Today they had eaten only once. Their stomachs were growling, but the slaves didn't dare to answer her and shook with fear.

"I'm sure you want a proper bath as well. Oof. I can smell you from here. You smell worse than a sewer." She cackled and clutched her nose.

"I'll bet you would rather sleep in a bed, not on the floor, with a pillow and blankets. Imagine it: filling your bellies, bathing, sleeping in your own bed. F*cking amazing, right?" The slaves slowly looked up at her, one by one. Even an idiot would recognize that the woman could give them what she had just said.

"One," she said. She lifted her index finger and shook it from side to side.

"Only one of you will receive those things, the last one standing," she said. The slaves' mouths opened in shock. Their heads were too hazy, and it stopped them from exercising creative thinking. The woman laughed loudly at the hesitating boys.

"Well? Didn't you hear what I said?"

"Aaaaaah!" First to understand her words and take action was the boy who had been kept in the cell the longest and was the most deprived as a result. His fist slammed into the jaw of another boy.

"Aaaah!"

"Augh!" And so it began. Fifteen boys went at each other for proper food, a chance to bathe, a real bed, and time in the sunlight.

"Yaaah!" Jackie was the same. His eyes glared as he swung his fist at Yuto, who was close by. He put all his strength behind the blow, but it hit nothing but air. He hadn't thought about how to follow up after the punch, and he lost his balance. He fell to the floor and hit his chin. It ached and brought tears to his eyes. He looked up at Yuto. Yuto had avoided the attack by simply angling his body slightly away. He was staring now into space, a puzzled look in his eyes. [Starter Quest.] [Escape from this place.] [Reward:???] A dark interface of some kind floated in front of him.