The silver-haired woman stopped right in front of him.
She leaned in way too close, tilting her head as her cold eyes scanned his face. Her hands reached out and ran her fingers slowly through his messy red hair, pulling him forward so her warm breath was right across his face.
"Babe, you seem different today," she whispered.
"Valerius. The ones who rule the entire human kingdom. It is really too bad your family preferred your twelve older siblings before you. You could have had it all."
Zephyr didn't even blink.
His old street instincts kicked in before he could stop himself.
He reached up and grabbed her wrist tightly, didn't twist it or try to break it, but he held it firmly so she couldn't pull his hair anymore.
Instead of getting mad, the woman looked totally shocked for a split second.
And then, that creepy smile of hers grew even wider.
"Oh? Are you turned on by me?" she asked, her voice dropping lower.
"I can keep you for myself, you know. I can take you out of this dirty cave and give you a really good life. That is, if you are willing to act like a good little dog for me. You are very beautiful, and those blue eyes are completely mesmerising."
She leaned in even closer, practically pressing against his chest.
Zephyr's mind raced.
He knew he was incredibly weak right now, and the system said he was only a level two who had zero mana.
He had no idea how the magic or rules of this world actually worked yet.
Starting a full-blown fight with the boss of a slave mine right this second was just a quick way to die again.
So, he had to play the game for a minute.
His blue eyes didn't leave hers, and he kept his voice completely flat.
"I will think about it."
The woman's eyes lit up with amusement.
"Oh? You are actually considering my request. How great of you. You should thank the gods for your pretty face, little prince, or I would have definitely devoured it by now just like the others."
She finally pulled her wrist out of his grip, turned her back on him, and walked over to the young blonde kid digging in the dirt next to them.
"And how is my son doing?" she asked in a sickeningly sweet voice.
The ten-year-old kid dropped his shovel and stood up perfectly straight, acting like a soldier reporting to a military general.
"Good, madam," Zeno responded quickly and loudly.
"You are my best slave, Zeno," she said. She reached out and pinched his dirty cheek hard enough to leave a red mark.
"I am really going to enjoy you when you grow up."
Zeno swallowed hard.
He forced a totally fake smile onto his face, even though his eyes looked completely terrified.
"Thank you, madam."
She giggled to herself and finally started walking off again, her boots clicking loudly down the tunnel as she went to look for someone else to bother.
The second she turned the corner and was out of sight, Zeno let out a massive, shaky sigh.
His shoulders dropped, and he looked over at Zephyr with total awe on his dirty face.
"You are very lucky," the kid whispered, picking up his shovel again.
"Maybe it was just because it is your first day here, but do not expect that same treatment from her again. She usually kills people who talk back."
Zephyr leaned on his heavy shovel and wiped sweat off his forehead.
"Who the hell was she?"
"Don't you know her?" Zeno asked, looking really confused.
"She is Aurelia, who was in charge of this entire camp. They use this place for slaves who don't have any homes, and for exiled nobles like you who get thrown away by their families."
Zephyr frowned and looked at the skinny kid.
"If it's so bad here, why are you still around? Just move and go live somewhere else. You're small, you could probably sneak out when the guards aren't looking."
Zeno clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"You cannot escape if your own family sold you to the camp. It doesn't work like that. My dad died a few years ago, and my mother remarried a guy who hated me, so they sold me off to get rid of me. And you were sold here too, but you already know all about your own story, I think."
Zephyr paused.
"You know me?" he asked.
He was genuinely surprised that a random ten-year-old kid in a slave cave knew exactly who he was.
"Know you?" Zeno laughed a little bit, shaking his head.
"Everyone on the whole human continent knows you. You are a prince. Well, a supposed prince, but basically the most worthless member of the royal family since you have twelve amazing siblings who outshine you in every single way."
Zephyr's brain totally stopped working for a second.
'Twelve?' he thought.
'A human continent? Twelve perfect siblings?'
He reached out and grabbed Zeno's shoulder.
"Wait, what is this place called?"
"They call it the forest camps-"
"No, not the camp," Zephyr interrupted, feeling a headache coming on.
"This continent. What is it called?"
Zeno looked at him like he was stupid.
"Mephilia?"
Mephilia.
Zephyr's entire world started spinning.
He let go of the kid's shoulder and took a step back as the pieces finally clicked together in his head.
Mephilia.
Twelve perfect royal siblings.
A trash prince exiled to a slave camp near the dead beast forest.
The Valerius family.
It was a web novel.
He used to read it on his phone years ago when he was just a teenager, skipping classes.
He loved the story because the main characters were so psychotic, but he never actually got to finish reading it.
The author died in real life before writing the ending and now, he was somehow standing inside a fictional world, stuck in the body of the absolute biggest loser in the entire story.
If he remembered right, Zephyr Valerius was just a tragic backstory character who was supposed to die in the slave camps during the very first few chapters.
'What the actual fuck?' Zephyr thought, staring blankly at the gray rocks in front of him.
'I died in an alley just to become a throwaway character?'
"Hey, you idiots aren't working." a voice yelled out.
Zephyr snapped out of his thoughts just in time to see the old, one-eyed guard marching over to them.
The old man looked pissed off, and he raised his heavy wooden staff and swung it right at Zeno.
The thick wood hit the kid hard in the ribs.
"Ahh!" Zeno cried out and fell to the ground, dropping his shovel with a clatter.
"You little shit," the old man sneered, standing over the kid.
"Getting special treatment from Aurelia feels pretty nice, doesn't it? Makes you think you don't have to break rocks like the rest of the trash in here."
The old man raised the staff and brought it down again, hitting Zeno squarely in the back.
The kid scraped against the rough ground, crying out as the loose rocks bruised his skinny arms and legs.
"Then you fucking-" The old man raised the staff for a third hit, swinging it with everything he had aimed right at the kid's head.
But the staff never hit him.
Zephyr stepped forward and caught the wood in mid-air.
His grip was like a vice, stopping the swing in the moment.
The old man gasped, and everyone mining in that section of the cave suddenly stopped digging and looked over at them.
"Wha-?" the old man stumbled.
"How fucking dare-"
Zephyr didn't say a single word.
He just twisted his hands and completely crushed the thick wooden stick into two broken pieces.
Before the old man could even react to his weapon breaking, Zephyr shoved the heavy iron shovel straight into the guy's face.
The iron connected with a crunch in his mouth. The old man flew backwards and hit the ground hard, his head bleeding all over the stones.
He groaned, holding his broken nose, and slowly looked up.
Zephyr was standing tall over him.
The torchlight caught his messy red hair, making him look absolutely menacing. His blue eyes were completely dead and cold, just like they used to be when he fought in the back alleys of his old city.
"You..." the old man stammered, spitting out a broken tooth.
"You can't..."
"I'm still a noble, you fucker," Zephyr said.
He lifted the shovel and brought the flat side of the iron head down hard on the old man's skull, repeatedly hitting the guy in the head, over and over again.
The old man's body twitched and jerked with every single hit, blood pooling in the dirt until his head literally went from a circle to a square.
He was dead.
Zephyr finally stopped and dropped the bloody shovel onto the ground.
He breathed heavily, shaking out his bruised hands.
'This shitty body.'
Zeno was sitting on the ground, completely dumbfounded.
His eyes were wide with total horror and shock at the brutal scene.
"Why did you do that?" Zeno whispered, his voice trembling badly.
"They are going to kill us now."
Zephyr didn't even look at the kid.
He was entirely focused on the blue glowing screen that had just popped up directly in front of his face.
[Sin authority first phase unlocked.]
[Wrath.]
Zephyr wiped a drop of blood off his cheek, looked at the screen, and just smiled.