Chapter 2082: Arrival of the Slaves

Thousands of people emerged from the array. A few hundreds were locals, while the rest were slaves. Althea furtively appeared from the side, amidst the group of slaves.

When the array lit up, she ran over and activated her stealth skills. The men and women’s states were haggard and bloodied, especially the fighters, and their eyes were filled with anxiety and despair.

Althea just had to time it well to appear in the crowd quite naturally. The fact that everyone was depressed and didn’t have the mind to check their surroundings made it easier for her.

A good portion of the slaves were women, while there were also many men, likely to be used for technical works like building things. Village humans really couldn’t compare to orcs and half-orcs, and there was no use in treating them as meat shields.

Orcs needed human intelligence and ingenuity first and foremost, so creating and building stuff had always been their greatest use here.

In a sense, the male slaves might have it better in orc territories than in other places.

As she walked along with them, she listened to their cries, gathering information along the way.

"Wuuuu...."

"We’re really slaves now..."

"So unlucky..."

"I’m so scared..."

"What are we going to do now?"

"We’re all going to die, aren’t we?"

These were just a few words floating around, causing the atmosphere to consistently fall. Most of the people couldn’t even speak, roughly handled by the orcs who could not hold their strengths. Even those who hid during the war and directly became slaves were injured in transport.

One of the new women was named Aisa, a level 13 villager. Her eyes met with her older brother, Aizen, who was now being dragged away to another direction.

He had been one of their main fighters, and he was even a level 15 elementalist—something incredibly rare in a village—but even he could not match with several orcs and half orcs.

Even if he just went against one orc of the same level, he might not win, let alone he had gone against a few.

This was just the difference between innate brute strength. Elementalists were very strong, yes, but what if they couldn’t control their elements fast enough or well enough to damage the orcs?

In contrast, orcs and half-orcs did not rely on mana and skills to cause serious damage. In the initial burst fight, the elementalist would have a fighting chance.

However, in a prolonged fight, if the elementalist’s foundation was not solid, then he could only be at the mercy of someone who was passively physically stronger.

Case in point, Aisa’s brother, Aaron, had initially done great against an orc. Using his self-taught wind skills like the Wind Blade, he did not hold back and sent a barrage of attacks. He had almost won.

Sadly, the orcs were incredibly sturdy. Once he failed to take down the orc while he still had mana, it was pretty much hopeless. Not to mention, there were other orcs leisurely watching at the side.

Now, he was dragged away, likely to turn into a punching bag for the orcs to train fighting against elementalists.

Slap!

"HURRY!" the orc yelled as he slapped Aaron, who could only fall down on his face.

Aisa’s eyes brimmed with tears, wanting to call ’brother’, but she was afraid of catching attention and turned to a hostage that’d tie her brother down.

In the end, she could only watch as he was dragged away, eyes brimming with tears.

Please be okay, brother, she prayed even when she knew it would not happen.

The slaves did not dare look at the large orcs and half orcs that surrounded them. They walked along in a daze and in fear. It felt like everything blurred after they received the notification that their village lost and that they had become slaves.

On the other hand, the images of the tragic war were still fresh in their minds. How easily these things killed or injured their fighters, they would never forget.

They even watched someone be pulled apart into two.

It would be a sight that would haunt them for years, assuming they lived that long.

Once taken by enemies so indisputably strong against them, hope was easily dashed.

Aisa was just thankful that her brother was spared, and the rest were just turned to slaves.

As for the Lord, they did not know what happened to him or if their home village was still standing at all. They didn’t have the mind to be poignant about it—they were too worried about their own lives.

Their group was ushered into the village, lacking any gentleness, regardless of gender.

This village had a lot of sheds even outside the territory. As they passed by, they saw the surrounding half-orcs and some orcs looked over, watching their line.

To the slaves, their stares were intimidating as if wild animals were staring at the prey they were about to tear apart. Althea, on the other hand, could see that this place was a real hodgepodge.

Some orcs were indeed looking hungrily at the women, but the half-orcs and most orcs were mostly looking on with curiosity, while others didn’t care at all.

This was a bit unexpected for Althea, and she realized that she had unconsciously formed a generalizing bias against this territory.

They soon passed the Level 3 Walls, entering the interiors. There were dense houses, but the roads were relatively wide. The ’people’ using it were also wide.

The atmosphere here was incredibly different from their own. It smelled a lot of little mottled fur and blood, filled with the scent associated with animals, though naturally milder.

They could see that there were more butcher shops here than she had ever seen; every block had one. It was likely because the orcs and half-orcs had large appetites, and their rates of killing beasts was also very, very high.

One had to remember that they were a village that experienced village-level monsters. They were unlikely to encounter even town-level monsters because the nearest Town—the farthest Town east—was far away.

These orcs could treat any monster that came in this direction as live stock they just had to slaughter.

The butchers generally placed their shops abutting the street. They would also cut slaughtered meat right along it.

Blood splattering on the people walking by was fairly common, and the blood marks left on the ground tended to dry and layer onto each other, creating a somewhat eerie pattern on the public road.

Splart!

Aisa flinched when blood sloshed to her side, spraying on her cheek. She wanted to cry, and she did, but she was a slave and was ordered to move, so she could only bite her lips while tears fell down her eyes.

The men and women were separated at some point, and further separated to different areas. For the women, most of them were carelessly thrown into a large tunnel that could comfortably hold a hundred or so people.

...except the number of people there were several times that.

The newcomers were greeted with a pungent smell associated with waste, dirt, and sweat. They were all women there, and some of them...could not even be considered living beings anymore.

Many of them were naked, covered only with flimsy cloth that had probably once been part of their old clothing.

The hundreds of newcomers shivered, thinking:

Was this their future?