Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) by V.A. Lewis (autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

much time passed. Whether I sat there and cried for an hour, a day, or a minute. But eventually, someone picked me up.

It was the same man from earlier. He helped carry me out of the wagon, and brought me outside. People filed out of the wagon after him, as someone barked out orders. I looked around and saw dozens of wagons just like ours, all stopped on a grassy field just off the side of the road.

People streamed out of the wagons. People just like us, chained and dressed in ragged clothing. A small group of slaves hurried about unloading the other wagons, but most of us were gathered in a circle, surrounded by slavers dressed in rough leather armor. Mercenaries? Or maybe just guards, as they carried some crude weapons on their sides; only a quarter of them even had guns, the rest carrying daggers or swords as if they were a ragtag group of bandits.

One slaver, however, stood out amongst the rest. He was dressed in a nice business-suit, completed with a top hat and a tail coat. He looked to be around his 60’s, with a gray beard and a cane to help with his slight hunch. The elderly man was talking to another, much younger, slaver.

This younger man looked to be half the old man’s age, and was dressed just like the other slavers in that he had some leather-looking armor. But unlike the others, his armor had some mana crystals engraved on it, giving him an extra protection they did not have. He was also armed with a scimitar sheathed on his left, and a flintlock pistol holstered on his right.

After a brief conversation, the two men broke off. The older man turned and walked to a fancy-looking tent being set up by some slaves, while the younger man turned to address us.

"First of all, I would like to extend my congratulations to all of you. It was a long and tough journey, but we have finally made it. And now, as of today, all of you here are officially products of the Mancis Company."

The man raised his hands to his side and waited. He innocently looked around at the quiet murmuring of voices, and shook his head. "Well? Come on now, where is the applause?"

This time, the man got a rise out of the crowd. A young man stepped out and shouted at the slaver. "I am a citizen of the Rem Republic! You guys— you can’t do this! This is against the law! Let us go!"

Several voices of agreements echoed throughout the shackled crowd. The slaver stared into the young man’s eyes and gasped. He hurriedly walked up to the man and spoke apologetically.

"My dear good Sir, I am so sorry about this. If I had known— look, I’ll uncuff you right now."

The slaver got right up to the young man and reached for his belt. Then with one fluid motion, he whipped out his pistol and smashed the butt of the gun across the man’s face. There was a shout as the pistol came into contact with the young man; it was followed by a soft thud as he collapsed on the ground, clasping his jaw and groaning in pain.

The slaver looked down on the collapsed man bleeding from his mouth and cowering at the slaver’s feet with disinterest at first. Then a savage grin spread across the slaver’s face after a moment. "I knew there was at least one idiot who would say that."

The slaver turned away from the cowering man, and gazed at the crowd of terrified faces.

"Listen up! I do not care where any of you are from, or how you got here. All you need to know is that you’re now in the territory of the Free Cities, and the merchandise of my boss. We’re no longer in Rem, or Ferum, or wherever we collected you from. You belong to us now, so if you try to escape we are legally allowed to kill you. The sooner you learn to accept your new life, the easier life is going to be for you from now."

The man paused for a second, letting his words sink in. And once he was sure everyone heard him, he spoke mockingly.

"Well, as easy as it can get for slaves."

With that, the man turned and walked away.

After the man left, slavers came up and approached the more physically fit slaves, separating them from their groups and sending them off on various tasks. I barely paid attention to any of this; my mind was still a haze that could only focus on one thing— my mom was dead.

"So that’s why we’ve been traveling non-stop for the past few days. If they got caught smuggling slaves in Rem where slavery is illegal, they’d have been executed on the spot. But now that we’re in the Free Lands, they can move freely."

The voice came from the man that was carrying me. I only registered what he said because of those words. Free Lands? Where have I…

And suddenly, I remembered. My mom told me about the Free Lands: it was the territory of the Free Cities, one of the major powers on this continent.

They were a collection of independent city states numbering in the tens of thousands found across a vast swath of land in the heart of the continent. None of the cities alone could stand up to any of the more powerful countries, but together, they could even rival the Holy Xan Empire— at least, while fighting a defensive battle in Vitae. The only reason why they were not a bigger power was because they were always caught up in their own petty squabbles against one other.

When my mom told me this, I remembered thinking that they were just like the Ancient Greeks back in my world. That was until she