30 Hard to breathe
The traders once again were visibly less tense as they finally put both pairs of shackles on Ashur.
Ashur noted that these shackles were much heavier than police handcuffs and the chain linking them is not even enough for someone to walk, as it was only three links in the chain, not counting the half links that were attached to the cuffs.
This can tell how much those slave traders were cautious around Ashur, as a regular slave would get a pretty lengthy chain to at least walk around and not be carried.
After the traders finished getting the shackles on Ashur, they suddenly let him go, causing Ashur to start falling to the ground, before he faceplanted, and causing him to eat a face full of dirt.
"My God, what a monster," commented one of them as he looked at Ashur on the ground.
"Yeah, but he's not so great now!" said another with a twisted smile as he walked over to Ashur.
Looking down on him, the slave trader smiled at him, before suddenly kicking him in the face.
Blood spurted out of Ashur's mouth from the kick as he was tossed a few meters from the sheer force of the kick. Rolling a little bit as he landed on the ground, before quickly stopping as he crashed into the base of a tree.
"Now look at the little badass now!" another one chimed in, as he watched Ashur on the ground in pain.
Walking up to Ashur, a smile spread on the slave trader's face as he also gave Ashur a fierce kick, but this time, in the stomach.
Ashur felt that even one of his ribs broke from that kick and could only cry out in pain.
The other slave traders, seeing how this little demon was now docile as a puppy while in the shackles, rejoiced and decided to also join in on the fun.
One of them walked over to Ashur to kick him also, but when his foot connected with Ashur's stomach, he suddenly let out a scream.
"AAAHH" he screamed as he held his leg in pain.
"What's wrong?" asked one of the slave traders.
The trader that kicked Ashur waited for the pain to slowly go away before replying "I suddenly got shocked when I kicked him!"
"Shocked? Is it magic?" asked one of them.
"No dimwit, we got magic shackles on him, there is no way he could cast magic!" another one said.
"Then why did I get shocked!"
"How would I know!"
"Hey guys, do you suddenly feel that it's hard to breathe?" suddenly, another one asked.
He was the one that held a sword to the neck of the elven child and was still doing so.
"Hey, I feel it too!" another said as he held his neck.
"I also feel it!" said another. He was the one that kicked Ashur in the face.
Soon, all of them said that it was hard to breathe, but one of them noticed something strange.
"Hey! Where did all the sound go?" he asked.
The others soon noticed that it was dead quiet around them.
This was very strange, as ever since they entered Alf's Royal Forrest, all they could hear was the sound of wildlife.
It was eerily quiet around them. As if some kind of creature had scared all the life away from here.
As they looked around to see what had caused this, they also soon noticed that it was getting increasingly harder to breathe for all of them.
They were starting to get a bit creeped out, and we're starting to get panicked as they were feeling that it was progressively starting to get harder to breathe.
Suddenly, one of them noticed that he was getting stared at. It was unlike any gaze he had felt before. It was like he was getting stared at by a predator.
Thinking that it was a monster, the slave trader quickly looked around to find the source of the stare and tracked it to the ground right next to him. Looking over, the slave trader noticed that the gaze was coming from beaten Ashur on the ground.
Ashur's eyes were full of pure rage as he stared back at the trader.
The trader that noticed this, was a little shocked by Ashur's intense gaze of rage and hatred. But the slave trader's face turned fierce as he suddenly pulled out his sword, before walking towards Ashur.
"Hey Frank, What are you doing?!" one of them asked as they noticed him walking towards Ashur with a sword.
"I don't like the way he is looking at me, I'm going to end him here," he said.
"Hey! Wait a moment! He could be even more valuable than the girl! He is clearly trained from a very young age, he could be a genius that the High Elf's were raising or the son of someone important!" he said while trying to stop his friend.
"He could also be sold at a very high price to be some gladiator or some noble woman's plaything!" he continued.
Finally, the slave trader called Frank was convinced by him and decided not to kill him.
"Fine! But let me knock him out at least!" said Frank as he slowly walked over to Ashur, intending to knock him out.
But as Frank approached, he slowly felt it was harder to breathe each step he got closer to him.
Pushing through, Frank slowly, but steadily walked over to Ashur before finally he was standing right next to Ashur.
But now he made it over to where Ashur was, but his neck was so tight, he felt that he might suffocate any second from the lack of oxygen, but he pushed through and knocked Ashur unconscious.
After he finished knocking Ashur unconscious, he suddenly felt that it was not so hard to breathe anymore.
'Was it this kid?' he thought as he looked at the kid on the ground in front of him.
'Let's just quickly get out of here before the other High Elf's know we're here,' thought Frank as he picked Ashur up, and brought him over to the cage, and threw him in before they grabbed the other elven child and did the same before he shut the door and locking it.
Soon after, the slave traders gathered their things and headed towards the outskirts of the forest, intending to exit the forest.
----------
About half a day after they left, a few armored figures discovered upon the scene of the fight.
"Sir, it appears to the scene of a fight," said one of them, he had brown eyes with long light green hair that was tied into a ponytail, while his body was clad in a metal suit of armor.
The person that he talked to, was a young man who had short blond hair and blue eyes and also wore a similar set of armor to the knight from before. But what if people look at him, they couldn't help but notice a striking pair of long pointy ears.
He currently had a fierce expression on his face as he looked at a dead body on the ground.
"Humans" spouted the figure as he gritted his teeth.
Looking around, he spotted many signs of a clash around the area. with stirred up dirt, and many footprints of the ground, bloodstains, and even a body on the ground.
These were clear signs of a battle.
After the young man looked around a bit, the young man studied the area before saying "A group of at least six or seven, possibly all humans, they are bit experienced, but they were suddenly caught off guard, the enemy faced was one enemy, he killed one of them with a surprise attack."
The young man then walked over to the place Ashur and the slave trader's clashed and looked around.
"The enemy they faced is quite skilled but not strong, and judging by his footprints he is actually quite small," the young man said, before he continued, "After a brief clash, they suddenly all stopped."
The young man looked at the scene strangely, why would the enemy just stop and suddenly give up?
The young man looked around to see any traces that could solve this question and looked over by the carriage tracks, and suddenly stopped.
He noticed by the carriage, there were two sets of footprints, one of which were the ones they were currently tracking.
'Princess?' the young man thought as he looked at the pair of footprints.
Looking at the scene again, it finally clicked why the enemy suddenly stopped and gave up.
He then went over to inspect where the enemy they faced ended up, looking at the trail on the ground where he rolled, he suddenly noticed something strange where he stopped at. The grass was singed a bit.
'Very low-level electricity magic?' the young man thought.
It was weird, normally, electricity magic would be fired and the caster would not attack the ground as it's common sense but as he looked at the ground, it seemed that the caster did just that.
Suddenly, one of his subordinates brought over something to him "Sir Castien, we found this."
Castien laid his eyes on what his subordinate brought over and was shocked to the core.
What his subordinate brought over, was a metal rod, but what shocked him was the material it was made out of.
'Adamantite?' he thought as he looked at the rod with shock.
He could tell this rod was made out of pure adamantite or at least a very high purity and enough of it to make a thick rod out of it.
The price of such a thing could make anyone go broke just by thinking about it, and he estimated that this rod is at least 80 million to a 100 million valis!
He wondered what kind of crazy person would leave such an expensive thing on the ground, and as he thought about it, he figured it probably belonged to the person the group faced, and they owned this before he was captured. But as the group not knowing its value, just left it there.
After Castien finished looking around, one of his men approached him.
"Sir, we have the perimeter of the forest mostly surrounded and we will soon have it fully surrounded, we will soon find the princess, don't worry."
Castien looked at the knight that approached him and replied "It seems like I can't help but worry," he said before he suddenly raised his voice before he shouted, "I believe the princess has been taken captive, we will follow these carriage tracks and find her!"
"What! The Princess has been captured!?" the knights were shocked.
"Let's not waste time here and follow them!" shouted Castien as he got up on his horse before following the carriage tracks.
Leading his men to follow him.
