3 Slaves

Just has Luke was being further dragged into the state of perpetual thought he was in while in the dark void, a voice suddenly cracked open his bubble.

"Hey Lucas! Move you're a*s or you won't get any food for the day!" yelled a hoarse voice.

Turning around, Luke saw a Burly man in light linen clothes and a straw hat, meant for clothing in extremely hot temperatures. Clearly, today was one such heated afternoon.

Suddenly, a torrent of information came rushing into Luke's mind, attempting to take over his thoughts. However, Luke's will had grown incredibly strong while he was within the void, and was easily able to counter such a weak mental attack.

He then began to remember things about the original owner of this body, Lucas Ferland. He was a child at the age of 17, much younger, and clearly more fit than Luke, who was almost 40 years of age.

Lucas was initially part of a normal farmer's family a few villages south the where he was currently, the capital of the Leon Kingdom, Sozra. However, a monster wave caused everyone in his family to die, leaving only him while he was at the tender age of 12.

Therefore, he was sold as a slave and bought by a tobacco farmer situated about 1 km from Sozra, the capital of the Leon Kingdom.

This information did not flood his brain in the form of memories, rather it formed lines of text, which prevented Luke from feeling too many strong emotions towards those who he had lost, and his hard life.

"Yes, yes!" Luke replied instinctively as his body began moving.

Currently, his job was to carry the wood from within the forest where they had been cut into pieces, and take it to Jacob's residence.

Jacob was the tobacco farmer who had bought him for a hefty price of 100 silver. And as a matter of fact, he had treated Lucas rather kindly. He only gave threats like "Move faster or else you won't get any lunch," or "If you don't finish your work, I won't let you sleep." However he never acted on those promises, and only worked Lucas, and the other two slaves, Harlem and Gard, about 10 hours a day. The rest of the time was helping with maters of the house, and free time.

This would be said to be luxurious among slaves. Most slaves had an average lifespan of around 4 years due to over-working, malnutrition and diseases causes from poor maintenance. However, Lucas, Harlem and Gard were incredibly fit. In fact, they were even more fit than Jacob's sons.

In the Jacob household, every was treated equally when it came to food and sleep. In fact, All the slaves ate together with Jacob and his family of 3, once the slaves had finished cooking for everyone that is.

It was almost as if Jacob treated them as family after work hours. The original Lucas had found it quite awkward at first, since his owner during the day would transform into a father-like figure during the night.

However, he had already gotten used to it after 5 years, and was rather thankful that he was bought by Jacob, and not someone else.

Quickly moving his feet, Luke brought the wood to the residence, and rushed back out the door, following the path memorised by the former Lucas. Luke knew one thing, he was not Lucas. He needed some time to rest and think about what had just happened.

…

After almost 30 minutes, Luke finally made it to the place where all the wood was kept. Rather sizable chunks of wood had been piled up, forming a mountain with the height of about 10 feet, almost double of Lucas' original height.

Seeing this, Luke decided to take a short brake. Quickly finding a stone and wiping away the moss growing on it before taking a seat. He took out his bamboo canteen from around his neck and began taking small sips from it.

Jacob had allowed them to take brakes every trip for wood for a period of abut 5 minutes.

Using this time, Luke opened his status once again to go through his current predicament. It was then that he saw a statement in the status.

[Beta testing begins in 92 days, 02 hours, 02 minutes, 51 seconds]

Beta testing? Was this a new game? No, the Leon Kingdom wouldn't be in any other game, since 'Ultimatum' had already spent an incredible amount of money copyrighting and trademarking everything within the game, to prevent copies from being produced. This was also one of the reasons for its incredible success.

But then, did this mean that they were re-launching, or coming up with a part 2 to the game? Again, that would be highly unlikely… Unless!

Luke was suddenly alarmed as he quickly put away his canteen and rushed to the mountain of wood, picked up around 6 pieces and stuffed them into the wooden basket behind his back.

With this, he rushed back along the way he remembered, trying to find someone. And someone he found.

It was Harlem. She was currently making her way to the mountain of wood slowly. Hearing footsteps in front of her, she raised her head, only to see Lucas rushing towards her.

Without thinking much of it, she yelled so that her voice could reach Lucas.

"Hey Lucas! Why are you in such a rush? What happened?"

"Ah! Harlem! I need to know something. What year is it today?"

"Huh?" Harlem was confused. Why was Lucas suddenly wanting to know the year?

'Did he come up with a new joke? Fine then, I'll play along.' She thought to herself before replying.

"1203 according to the Leon calendar."

'Leon calendar?' Luke was slightly confused before coming to a realization. The years, months, and days all started when the different nations were first established. Leon was established rather late compared to the other two large nations in the Gamin continent.

Even them, it should be only around 20 to 30 years difference. As far as Luke could remember, the United Gamin Calendar was formed in the year 1301, after the Leon kingdom was destroyed, and the Roland Theocracy and the Holy Kingdom of Islesat, formed an alliance called the United Gamin Alliance to wage war against the other continents.

This meant one thing, which could explain all of Luke���s doubts, he had gone back in time. To the time before the game was released to the public, since the arrival of the players meant the initiation of the nearly 100 year war that started in 1205.

But this made something else confusing. The open beta was going to open in 3 months' time, which left nearly 1 and a half years before the war would begin. However, the actual time between the open beta and the release of Version 1 of 'Ultimatum' was only 3 days!

This could only be explained with the fact that in-game time would change when there were no players, to speed up time progression between version updates to give players new main-storyline quests.

Suddenly, Harlem's voice awoken Luke from further delving into a state of constant pondering.

"Why do you ask?"

"Ah! No- nothing. Nevermind. Anyways, where is Gard?" Luke skillfully changed the topic once more.

"Hmm, he should have been ahead of me and behind you. Didn't you meet him before coming to me?"

"Huh?" Luke was shocked for a moment as he desperately tried to recall whether he missed Gard and ran passed him in his hurry to find someone.

However, he could recall anything, and he suddenly felt an ominous premonition.

"No. I did not see him."

Hearing this, Harlem's eyes widened in shock and disbelief. Before she could say anything, Luke continued.

"Go back to Si Jacob and inform him of this matter. Tell him that I'm going in search of Gard. Tell Sir Jacob to bring along the hound dogs. Gard might be in danger."

Luke had made full use of his memories, and remembered that Jacob had used his hound dogs to search and hunt-down a runaway slave a few years ago. Since Luke was sure that is Gard intended on running away he would be aware of the hound dogs and would have taken the necessary precautions, he wasn't afraid to foil Gard's plan.

In fact, he was more certain that Gard did not intend on running away in the first place, since he hadn't informed Lucas, his best friend for 5 years, nor Harlem, the woman who he intended to marry officially once Jacob released both of them. Naturally, that was just a dream, since no one in their right mind would release slaves. If they could no longer support a slave, or no longer needed one, they would sell the slave for a hefty amount of 80 silver for a half-used slave.

Therefore, Luke was more inclined to the idea of Gard being in some sort of danger, and needed help immediately.

With this in mind, he had formulated the most efficient way of searching for Gard.

Nodding silently, Harlem expressed her agreement before turning around and rushing back to the Jacob residence.

Seeing this, Luke could not help but lament in his mind and he too turned around to search for Gard's tracks.

'Sigh… young love.'