Awoken

[Mind Mastery Lv.2]

Mental Capacity 50.0%

MENTALITY 3.0

'What the hell...?'

Before Walter even had the chance to contemplate what was happening, he seemed to capture a distant sound moving closer toward him as some muffled noises got clearer in his ears.

"...So what do we do with this?" As his brain started to process the noise, Walter could feel his sense of hearing came back as an awkward sounding voice landed on his ears.

'Foreign language? No... I understand it??'

"Just watch out for any hidden weapons and tie him up with the rest! It's not bad collecting some more money while we wait for the operation to finish." A heavy voice replied.

"No but, what if he's some kind of nobility?" The first voice sounded cautious as he spoke.

"Did you see what he's wearing, it's worse than what farmers wear! My guess is he's another runaway slaves, there's a lot of that recently..." The second voice continued, "Anyway, the captain said even some minor nobles are involved in this one, there's practically no risk to this operation even if we don't do anything."

It's kind of a weird sensation to understand words that you're hearing for the first time. Walter had studied numerous major languages in his life and can speak fluently for half of them, yet he was quite sure that the words he was currently hearing and understood completely was not familiar to him.

'This is crazy...' As his brain had yet to fully coordinate with his senses, his mind was currently all over the place trying to make sense of the situation.

"The captain told us to get rid of any unaccounted variable during the mission..." The awkward voice seemed to emphasize the order he heard with his wavering voice.

"Haa?" The man's face crumpled as if he just heard something unpleasant.

"Dio, oh Dio..." He lowered his voice and slowly walked toward the first voice that questioned him, Dio's body stiffened when he saw this.

"The captain also said that I'm in charge of our side of the operation, or are you gonna ignore my order just to kill a half-dead man...?" The man slurred his words at the end as he continued.

"...Try not to be MY unaccounted variable, okay?" He whispered beside Dio's ear.

"...Yes lieutenant..." The man named Dio stood rooted to the ground while watching the lieutenant walk away.

As the sound of the lieutenant's footsteps grew fainter, Walter heard Dio muttering a sound under his breath saying, "Like YOU have any respect for the captain...".

Walter still couldn't coordinate his senses very well and therefore only focused on hearing the voices around him.

'Nobility and slavery... What the hell is going on!' Just as he was about to further assess the situation, Walter felt his consciousness fleeting by the moment.

'Damn... I sure hope this isn't a dream, otherwise it'd mean I'm still alive in that hell hole.'

***

"...Ey... Kay?"

"Hn?"

"Hey, are you okay?" A voice softer than whisper sounded by Walter's ear prompting him awake.

When he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was a ground made of dirt lying at the side of his face. Unlike the previous time, he could feel all his senses and motoric system working properly.

The second thing he discovered was that both his wrists were tied up together at the front, and so were his ankles. He was lying sideways on the dirt.

Walter was still assessing his surrounding when he dragged his body to turn towards the concerned voice.

"Oh thank the saints! I saw you laying there unmoving so i thought they're throwing in a dead person here to frighten us..."

When Walter finally found the source of the voice, what he saw was the face of a naive looking young man in his twenties with tied up long brown hair.

"..."

He then tried to look around, spread inside the wooden cage he was in were a number of despaired looking faces, both men and women, which amount to around a dozen or so people, all tied up and kneeling on the ground.

'Hostages?'

The voices Walter heard previously didn't sound like they were specifically collecting people to sell, especially when one of the guys were trying to get him killed. Which led him to believe that except for him, all the people here were gathered and kept alive for a specific purpose.

Despite his mind being all over the place, it had become a habit for Walter to focus on every details of any interactions between people, it was not in his nature to not be in control of a situation.

Even back when he was all chained up, the reactions and expressions of the people around him were all things he can control with his actions to a certain extent, and were all within the scope of his expectation.

'First is information...' He turned his head back towards the naive young man who was worried for him.

"What's happening?" He asked in the most general way possible, all the while thinking how surreal it is to be speaking a language you just heard for the first time.

"It's the Freedom Troupe! They're kidnapping people from Rosen City, it seems like the rumours are true..." The young man showed a preplexed emotion as he recalled the moment he was caught.

'Hm...'

Walter pulled his body up from a sprawled up position and into a kneeling one, reaching the eye height of the young man. He then put up just the slightest of smile and continue the conversation with him.

"Thanks for worrying about me just now, ah... What do I call you again?"

Seeing the man in front of him seemed like a well-meaning guy, the nervousness of the young man loosened up a bit and replied him in a polite manner.

"My name's Krelian, I'm an employee and son of Ristoria's branch manager. Ah, Rosen branch of course."

"Ristoria, I see." Walter gave a slight nod.

"Are you familiar with our stores?"

'Of course not. I don't even know where the hell I am.' Replied Walter in his mind, "Well, I've heard about it at least, as you can probably guess, I'm not from around here."

"I thought so, if you're from close to the capital, you should've at least seen us around." Krelian replied, still keeping his polite manner.

Walter smiled wryly before continuing, "I'm sorry, the conversation seems to have veered off. So Krelian, you were saying something about rumours?"

"Well, apparently there was a rumour just a while back that a group of revolutionists were conspiring against the capital, I figure since Rosen City is one of the closest city to it..."

"That these were part of the plan?" Walter interrupted.

"Yeah exactly. I remember they call themselves 'The Uncrowned' or something... But still, to think that the Freedom Troupe are part of them..."

'So these guys are the Freedom Troupe, bandits huh? And wow, The Uncrowned... I guess criminal-minded people are the most poetic after all, can they even call themselves that with a straight face? Anyway...'

"Do you know where we are currently?"

"We're about two days south from Rosen City, which is quite weird since the capital is to the east..." The young man had a contemplating look plastered on his face.

"Nothing is for certain at this point..." Walter replied in a really low volume before turning his head down and going silent. Of course he wouldn't take people's speculation at face value, for all he knew, there might not be any conspiracies and the so-called Freedom Troupe were just really daring to attack a big city.

'Now, what do I do?' He began to lay down his cards and weigh his options.

Truth be told, everything that had happened so far were already far beyond what his mind could process. One moment he resolutely gave up his life and prepared for death, while on the next he was in a foreign place even speaking foreign language and getting captured by bandits.

Although his adaptability to situations beyond his means could be said to be outstanding from his years of experience, the only reason he could act with a cool-head and gather informations as usual was not because he already accepted everything and move on, but because Walter felt that if he kept pondering on what happened his brain might short-circuit itself.

So instead, currently, Walter was shutting off everything that he couldn't process and turned away from reality, only focusing on the situation in front of him.

After all, based on what he gathered, his situation didn't give him any leeway to slowly take in the event that happened after his supposed death. And although he had come to terms with his execution and accepted his death before, literally everything has changed.

In this particular environment, he couldn't, in good conscience, accept his death again without fully knowing what had happened to him.

Walter inhaled a mouthful of breath and slowly breathed out, 'Okay, forget all that, focus! First, these people...'

'Based on the conversations before i fell unconscious, these guys are probably not the main active team in whatever they have planned since the leader's not around. And any teams which kept their distance from the operation are most likely...' Walter's eyes flashed at this juncture.

'The safety measures!' A smile appeared on his facade.

'The thing is that since they decided not to kill me, whatever might happen next, I probably won't die anytime soon... Should I just bide my time here with them?'

As Walter closed his eyes to concentrate, the stream of information flashed through his mind again, clearer than ever before.

[Mind Mastery Lv.2]

Mental Capacity 49.9%

MENTALITY 3.0

'This again?? ...And it fell by a tenth of a percentage point, wait, don't tell me it's...'

"GYAAAHH!!!"

Just as Walter was about to deduce more of the weird phenomenon, a scream was heard from the far end of the wooden cage.

"We keep you alive as a failsafe, but we really only need some of you, and we only need you 'alive'... Get it?"

The voice of a person previously referred to as the lieutenant resounded from outside the cage. Inside was a middle-aged man with an arm stretched outside of it and a foot heavily pressing above the broken arm.

"Cause the next time you spit on me, I will break every limb on your body before chopping it off!" The lieutenant lifted his foot before kicking the broken arm away, letting it flail about while it's still stretched out from inside the cage.

The middle-aged hostage already had bubbles coming out of his mouth with his eyes carrying hints of despair.

Witnessing the scene in front of him, Walter's eyes grew colder as he made up his mind.

'Guess that's that, I can't gamble my life on them not wanting to kill me before, the decision was arbitrary at best. Even these hostages have more value than me at this moment.'

His decision was firmed, 'I need to get out!'.

Right after, he fell back into silence with his eyes closed and his right middle finger tapping at his other hand as both hands still tied at the back. Walter does this as a habit whenever he's concentrating.

Moments passed. As the irregular rhythm of the tapping became more consistent, his breathing also became more relaxed until he finally opened his eyes.

What he needed at the moment was a chance, Walter knew the card he possessed and how to play it.

'Well guys, be careful, keeping me alive might be the last thing you'll regret!'

[Mental Capacity 49.3%]