Return of the Fallen Volume 2 Chapter 11
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Author: Blue_Rat
ch11
Nunully continued to heal the unconscious woman’s wound and noticed some blood on her shirt as well. Examining closer, she found a deep puncture a few inches above the woman’s right rib.
(How vicious can these men be to leave such a terrible wound.)
Nunully switched to this injury as it seemed more life-threatening at the moment, while the little girl watched on with worry. Eventually, Nunully stabilized her and the woman’s breathing went from short and shallow to a more natural calm.
*Phew*
Nunully wiped the sweat from her brow and heaved a sigh of relief. With a gentle smile, she said.
“Your mother should be fine now. Little one, can you tell me your name and what has happened? Why were those men trying to harm you and your mother?”
The little girl stared at Nunully suspiciously and remained silent.
Nunully was not offended by this as she figured the girl was both scared and weary. Placing a hand softly overtop the young child’s, Nunully calmly spoke.
“It’s OK, you can believe in big sis. My friends and I are all the good guys, you can trust us.”
Tears began to well up in the little girl’s eyes before she jumped into Nunullys chest and started to cry a river of tears. Nunully held the young girl and stroked her back in comfort.
Danny was looking around these men and searching their bodies. Every now and again a painful groan would ring out as he moved them around without care for their injuries. Digging about in their pockets, he found nothing noteworthy but as he flipped one of the men over, he noticed a small tattoo on the man’s wrist.
At first, he thought nothing of it but after checking another body, he noticed the exact same tattoo in the exact same place.
(This is…)
With his curiosity peaked he then proceeded to check the wrist of the other men and once more found the same tattoos.
“Ryuta, Asuna, there’s something I think you need to see.”
“Hmm, what is it?”
While Nunully was comforting the young girl, everyone else stood next to a squatting Danny and had a gander.
Danny pointed at the man’s wrist before also pointing out the matching tattoos on the other men as well. Even the old man who seemed to be in his sixties had that tattoo. The tattoos all looked similar to the inscription tattoos they had witnessed back in Treia but these had a few differences in them. Since both were written in the ancient language of magic though the differences could barely be pointed out.
Kazuki though scrunched his brows as soon as he saw them.
(Limiter inscriptions. Why do these people have Limiter inscriptions, could they be slaves but who would have slaves in the middle of nowhere?)
After Danny pointed the tattoos out, he gave a guess at what it could mean.
“If they all share this same matching symbol, it’s not far off to say they are part of the same organization. Maybe a bandit group or some type of syndicate going after defenseless women and children. They could be the ones responsible for all that damage back at the village as well. This is all just a guess of course.”
“Kimi, could you come over here for a bit.”
Nunully called Kimi over and asked her to sit with the young girl. She wanted to take a look as well but she couldn’t leave the child by herself or the kid would erupt in tears once more. Kimi came over and introduced herself.
“Hi, my name is Kimi, what’s yours?”
The girl said nothing but Kimi wasn’t discouraged. Kimi held her hand out so the girl could see it, at first the girl pulled back a bit but then Kimi chuckled lightly.
“Don’t worry, I won’t bite, I just want to show you a neat trick. Do you know anything about magic?”
The little girl, seeing that Kimi wasn’t trying to grab her but show her something instead, relaxed a bit and shook her head.
“Well do you want to see something amazing?”
The girl nodded slowly. Kimi smiled and gathered a small amount of power in her hand.
*Shine*
A small glowing orb materialized above Kimi’s hand and floated about. The small girl’s eyes shined in response and as though a moth to a flame she scooted over and tried to touch it. Her childish hand went completely through it as she tried to grab the light and hold it in her hand.
“Eeep!”
A surprised squeal escaped her lips as she quickly pulled her hand away. looking down at her hand she opened and closed it repeatedly before looking back at the small orb. This time she got up and sat on Kimi’s lap and placed both of her hands around the light. She felt a comforting sensation entering her hands and softly whispered.
“Warm.”
Nunully stood up and caressed the girl’s head.
“I’m going just over there for a moment, so be good and stay with big sis Kimi, alright?”
The young child was occupied with the dancing orb that Kimi began to throw from one hand to another and had not even heard a word of Nunully’s. Nunully didn’t mind though and knelt down next to Danny and examined the small tattoos. As soon as she saw them she recognized them.
“These are…”
Danny pointed at the wrist again.
“Huh, Nunully, you recognize this, what’s it from?”
“This is a Limiter inscription tattoo. It’s not from any certain location, rather anywhere that uses slaves have these. So besides Treia, these people could come from basically anywhere. Usually only the rich will get these Limiter tattoos for their slaves.”
Everyone looked a bit confused at her words so she quickly explained.
“These Limiter tattoos are used to limit and control an individual’s power or strength. The inscription tattoos that you all know of in Treia are Enhancing inscription tattoos which are used for the opposite. When a rich person buys a slave they wish to turn into a guard, they’ll spend thousands of gold Zeni to hire a master inscriptionist to place both an Enhancing inscription tattoo on a slave to increase their strength, followed by a Limiter tattoo to completely control their slave’s power. This way a slave can’t harm their master.”
Shin was slightly confused.
“Aren’t slaves outlawed in Treia, how do you know about this if there are no slaves in the entire kingdom?”
“When I was a child I was never allowed to leave my home due to my appearance and even as a young girl I had to stay in my room for days on end with my door locked and secured. Although I hated my mother for it then, now that I know she was doing it for my safety, my hate has weakened. That’s beside the point though. Being locked away, there was little to do, so my mother filled my room with books. I dove into all kinds of different subjects and learned many different things, a few of the subjects included slavery, inscription tattoos, master inscriptionist, and so on. Learning about the different regions you’d be surprised how many places have slaves. In some places, it’s not even about who owns slaves but rather who doesn’t, those people would be considered to be beyond poor and could slip into servitude themselves if not careful.”
Shin started to laugh.
“Hahaha, what kind of fucked-up logic do they have in Treia? It’s not OK to own slaves but it’s more than fine to kill someone like you who’s not fully human. The amount of hypocrisy that reeks from this place is causing my nose to bleed. I’m becoming increasingly glad we left Treia and can’t wait until we’ve left this shithole of a country behind indefinitely.”
Nunully couldn’t agree more. To be treated like garbage that’s to be disposed of on sight was truly humiliating and terrifying all at the same time. To think that your life could be ended so casually just because was a gut-wrenching feeling.
“There’s something odd here.”
Kazuki grabbed the unconscious man’s wrist and pointed at a certain spot on the inscription tattoo.
“You said that slaves would have both an Enhancing inscription tattoo as well as a Limiter tattoo but I only see this Limiter tattoo thingy. Isn’t it missing the other tattoo?”
Kazuki had pointed this out on purpose because he found it to be suspicious. If you had a Limiter tattoo then it was only natural for you to also have an Enhancing inscription tattoo. Otherwise, how can you be a bodyguard if your body isn’t enhanced and your strength is suppressed? To Kazuki, it made no logical sense.
Nunully looked closer at the Limiter tattoo and her expression turned into straight confusion.
“This…This doesn’t make any sense. Can…Can someone check the bodies for me.”
Shin was wondering why she didn’t just do it herself but thinking about it he soon figured it out. With a wide grin, he said.
“What’s wrong, why can’t you do it? Don’t tell me…Could it be…Have you never seen a man naked?”
Nunully’s face went red in a flash and she froze on the spot.
Seeing that he was dead on, Shin continued to press his teasing attack.
“Eh, could it be true but you worked in that sort of place for so long, surely you’ve seen at least one guy’s cobra.”
Shin placed his arm between his legs and waved it around like a snake. Nunully’s face turned an even darker shade of red before she hid behind her hands. Shin and Danny burst into laughter at this sight. Kazuki as well was on the verge of laughter. Hearing Shin’s words, caused Asuna to become pissed and she was about to say something when her eyes drifted over to Kazuki.
The two made eye contact with one another and a certain memory flashed in her mind. Her mind jumped back to when she had pounded on Kazuki’s door early in the morning only for him to open the door and she and Kimi, as well as a few other girls, were greeted by a dazed but fully nude Kazuki.
Shin’s word jumped into her mind and she couldn’t help but think about it over and over again.
(Cobra.)
Asuna’s face went bright red as well. Who knew if it was due to anger, embarrassment or both.
Kimi as well went red and was trying to keep the girl in her lap busy but the girl innocently looked up and asked.
“Big sis, what’s a guy’s cobra?”
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