In a small village, you can hear the cries of several children, along with adults helping the children to escape.
"Capture the children and women, kill the rest!" said a man with a burn scar on his face. The man himself was holding a woman by her hair.
There were few guards in that village, and most of them had never faced an invasion or danger of this magnitude. Everyone, regardless of age, was killed by the invaders.
While all the people were being kidnapped or killed, some children and a few adults fled to a river behind the village, which divided a road and was a place frequented by the villagers.
A few meters after crossing the river, several arrows fell on them, killing or leaving any inhabitant dying with the aim of leaving no one alive.
Among this group of escapees was a boy named Conan, barely 4 years old. This boy was an orphan, cared for by the village and its inhabitants. The little boy had been hit by an arrow that pierced the bone of his skull, gouging out his right eye.
The wound caused the boy to scream in pain, clutching the place where his eye had been. Now, a few inches from his body
"Conan... Run... Run away from here..." He heard a boy, with tears in his eyes and spitting blood
He was only a few years older than Conan. The two had been friends and used to play together, but now he lay on the ground, an arrow piercing his lung and taking his life
"Well, well... One is still alive," said a man in shining armor, staring at Conan before walking toward him.
"N-no... Please, let me go!" Conan begged, clutching his face, blood dripping from it
The man in shining armor couldn't help but let out a dry laugh when he saw the boy's figure. This was the one who had shot the arrow at Conan and his friend.
Without any remorse, he kicked Conan's head, pushing him a few feet and knocking him unconscious instantly. Just as the man pulled out his knife, determined to kill the boy, someone else stopped him.
"There's no need to kill him. Handcuff him and take him with the rest, Simon," said a woman, grabbing his shoulder and stopping the man in armor.
Simon had no choice but to stop what he was doing and put away his knife.
"Yes, my lady," he said in a respectful tone, contrary to the way he had addressed the boy. As requested, he handcuffed the child and took him away, holding him by his clothes.
Simon walked, carrying Conan, who was unconscious and still bleeding, by his clothes. Like a bag of trash, he threw him into a cage where there were other people from the village.
"Everything is ready, there are no survivors," another man with a burned face informed him.
"Good work," he congratulated him, patting him on the shoulder. "All this could have been avoided if that arrogant son of a bitch had given in," he said, looking at a cross where an entire family lay nailed to it, dead, including the town mayor and his family.
"Of course, he decided to ignore our warnings, and this was his punishment. What could a poor village do with a mine as important as the one they had?" said the woman, standing next to the man with the burned face.
They watched the scene before setting fire to the crosses with a small fire spell. Both watched the scene for a few minutes before turning around and leading the other captors away from the village.
<<<<>>>>
Several minutes away from the village, the man with the burned face sat down next to the woman who had lit the fire on the stakes.
"Now we just have to return to the capital and report to the king on the mission," said the man with the burned face, looking at the woman. "Tell me, what will you do with the reward, Aura?" he asked with a smile.
"That's none of your concern. Right now, we should focus on what to do with them. Their crying is annoying me!" said Aura, turning away before hitting one of the cages with children inside.
This blow further alarmed the children, who looked fearfully at the people around them. They all sought comfort in each other, hugging one another.
"We'll leave them at a market. There's one of the largest slave markets near here," said the man, looking ahead and ignoring his companion's complaints.
"Even so, I'm thinking of taking some of the women with me," thought the man, watching the women crying and holding the infants in a protective embrace.
That man already had ideas about what to do with the women he had captured.
They had been traveling for several days, and the caged people and children were now weak, both physically and mentally. In the early days, some remained hopeful, making noise whenever they passed near a village, but they all stopped when they were beaten and, in extreme cases, killed in front of the others.
Conan, who had recently awakened, held his right eye, which had been blinded. Like everyone else in the cages, he had given up, resting his head on the shoulder of a woman who was also hugging her own daughter.
Little by little, they entered a cave and saw the man with the burned face, whom they discovered was named Dante, looking at a wall of rocks before saying,
"Open up, we have new merchandise," said Dante, looking at the wall.
"Is he crazy...?" whispered Conan, who couldn't help but wonder aloud.
Unexpectedly, the entire rock wall disappeared as if it were an illusion, replaced by a large door covered in blue formations and circles. It disappeared, letting them pass.
The senses of those captured were overwhelmed by smells, loud sounds, and bright lights. For inside lay a small underground city, one of the main locations of the black market in the entire world.
"Take them to the stalls and get rid of them," ordered a man under Dante's command.
As ordered, groups were assigned, and each took the cages where the villagers were sold.
"Mom, help!" the girl screamed as she was torn from her mother's arms.
"No, let her go!" Her mother ran with the same bad luck, as she was sold to a group of people.
All the villagers were separated from their friends or their few living relatives and sold at auctions, brothels, or slave farms. Conan ended up in the latter, which was the worst of the three places for a child, as slave farms were known for physically and mentally breaking every slave who was taken there.