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

Chapter 19: Live

I held the keys in my hand, and smiled. The deed had been done, I had learned from my past mistakes. We were locked in a cold, dark room with only a single metal door and a small window, yet I somehow acquired what I needed.

It was not difficult when I could use magic to solve my problems; I was more cautious this time around, when it came to stealing the key with the levitation spell, which ended up eating an hour of my time. Furthermore, I was aided by the fact that the walls in the warehouse were incredibly thick, which let little noise escape from the room. I had the key ring now, and unless I decided to bang the metal keys against the bars of the cage, there was no way any guard could intercept me.

I slowly rose in my cage, and gently touched Shang on the shoulder. The Dog Beastkin blearily opened his eyes, blinking multiple times to wake himself up.

"Hrn, how’d it go?" Shang asked, voice still hoarse from sleep.

I showed him the keys and flashed a grin.

"It went great," I said, not bothering to hide my excitement.

Shang’s eyes widened upon seeing the keys, and his lips slowly curled into a smile; underneath his muzzle, the Dog Beastkin’s mouth widened, revealing dozens of sharp fangs and two dagger-like canines. "Good."

"Let’s get out of here." I began sorting through the keys, searching for what would provide our emancipation. "But first," I said, stopping what I was doing, and looked to the ground. "What do we do about her?"

We both turned to face Rin, the white furred catgirl, lying on the ground, snoring loudly with a snot bubble blowing out of her nose.

"Do we—"

"I’ll wake her up," Shang answered my question before I could even finish.

It took us a minute to rouse everyone from their slumber; Rin was, surprisingly enough, the easiest to wake up. After that was finished, I tried sorting through the half a dozen keys in the keyring to find one that would set us free. None of them worked on our manacles, but one key did unlock the cages, and that was good enough for me.

We gathered in the middle of the small room to plan our next course of action. I had to hobble over, supported by Shang since my ankle was not fully healed just yet. I could walk, and the pain felt from each step was small, but I did not want to reopen the wound by pushing myself too hard.

The metal door to our room was bolted from the outside, so no key I had on me could open it up.

"Nn, I could smash it open!" Rin helpfully suggested, but was quickly shot down by Shang.

"No," he said. "That would cause too much of a disturbance. We want to bring the guards here to unlock it from the outside, and silence him quickly. Hrn, we’ll have to cause a bit of commotion."

I nodded my head. "It’ll have to be a loud one, but not loud enough to attract all the guards in the warehouse to this room. Just the ones nearby."

"Well, that sounds easy enough." Rin grinned, and hefted her manacled hands. They were not ordinary handcuffs which was what most everyone else had— they were shackles that obscured her hands all the way down to her forearms. Some sort of iron bindings which covered her fingers in their entirety.

The Cat Beastkin raised her arms, and slammed it against the metallic bars of the cages. Then she took a step back, and we waited for the door to swing open. It took a moment before the muffled sounds of footsteps reached our door. I heard the sliding of metal, followed by the a clink as the bolt was lifted. A guard stepped into the room, frowning.

"What are you animals—"

Shang slammed his forehead into the guard. The man fell, and opened his mouth to scream, but a Rabbit Beastkin came down on him, smashing his foot on the man’s face. I grimaced as I watched the man’s skull cave in, but that silenced him quickly enough.

Rin swung the door open, and smiled. "That was easy enough."

"Hrn, indeed," Shang concurred, stepping up behind her. They were all still chained up with our special forms of shackles for each type of Beastkin, but that did not seem to deter them in the slightest. "It’s time for us to take our leave."

I followed slowly behind them, trying my best to keep my gaze away from the corpse at my feet. "Yes," I said, taking a deep breath. "It’s time for us to be free from these lands."

No one laughed at my joke!

Ok, sure, Rin did giggle a bit. And Shang did give me a polite smile. But the two of them did not count!

It wasn’t even a bad joke too! Sure, it was a pun— which was supposedly the lowest form of comedy back on Earth— but at least it was not some dumb inside joke nobody would get!

I sighed. At least I’m trying, right? I believed that when someone was stuck in a terrible situation, they should never lose their sense of humor; even if they sucked at making jokes.

Well, that was not to say I was bad at making jokes; my friends back on Earth always laughed when I told one! But we were like-minded! And we enjoyed teasing each other too! Kind of like how Rin and Shang interacted, but less… personal?

There was a line we never crossed when we teased each other; a line that didn’t exist for these two. Speaking of which...

The door swung open, as the guard walked in muttering to himself. "I swear I heard something—"

He was cut off by a pair of hands