Chapter 2: Kidnapping and Escape [1]

It was a wooded area, so I followed the path for about an hour. Until I started to feel something was wrong, my hair stood on end before I felt a stinging on the right side of my neck, I heard a noise just before I fainted. 

"He's cute, what do we do with him?" asked one of the bandits that was tying me up.

"We'll sell him to the guild, I'm sure we'll get good money out of him. Let's leave for the crow's nest" said the leader of the bandit group.

*****

The Raven's Haven, a safe city to the north, bordered by the sea and clear of zombies and mutant beasts in the other directions. In this city live all races: humans, beastkin, angels, demons, among others. 

I live here with my 5 sisters, with me 6. We are not blood sisters, we come from an orphanage before the apocalypse. We were together 10 years ago when it happened, we were 8 year old girls who miraculously survived for 2 years before we came here. 

4 of us suffered an awakening, awakening are those humans who received their system and talent and changed their race.

For a time, we lived by stealing until at the age of 12, me, Lilith and my sister, Kira because of our talents entered the slave guild as secretaries. Seeing the opportunity to grow, we worked tirelessly to rise through the ranks of the guild branch. 4 years later I became supervisor and my sister Fiora became leader of the city branch of the guild.

Supervisor and leader are the two highest ranks of a guild branch, usually each having half the power of the branch, so between them, they watch out for cheating or embezzlement by the other. Naturally being sisters we didn't do that, we hired our other 4 sisters in different positions and completely controlled the Raven's Haven branch of the slave guild. 

During these two years in power, we have accumulated wealth, incredibly valuable items and above all slaves, all the most promising men that came into our hands, we hid them and kept them for when we fled the city.

"Lilith!!!" I heard one of my sisters shout my name.

It was Mara, one of my two sisters who did not change races. She possesses one of the best racial talents, Enhanced Learning, it allows her to learn anything much faster.

Racial talents are talents unique to each race, they are considered more capable as they are usually better suited to their user, but they are not better.

"S-s-s-someone amazing!!!" Mara said to me almost choking from running.

"Slow down, you'll choke," I said in an attempt to reassure her.

"A slave has appeared, with two factor 2 talents at once!!!" replied Mara with uncontrollable elation and excitement.

My eyes widened from the shock of the news, I stood in shock at the news for a few seconds before asking Mara.

"Does anyone else know?" 

"No, as soon as I saw him, I put a slave collar on him and locked him up and quickly alerted Elara and tasked her to keep an eye on him" she replied now with a little more air but the same nerves.

"Tell Luna, Elara and Iris, we will escape tonight, I'll tell Kira" I said before leaving to finish the preparations.

I quickly made my way to Kira's office, I knocked on the door before I saw her sitting at her desk, 1 fluffy tail fluttering showing she was less than level 10.

Kira is a beastkin of the snow vixen ethnicity, long whitish hair, an incredibly voluptuous body, among the 6 she has the best curves, but an extremely ugly and misshapen face capable of making anyone turn away. Naturally that's courtesy of one of my spells. 

As a demon of deception, temporarily deforming a face is a piece of cake, in fact, all 6 of us have deformed faces, so naturally we have stayed away to avoid suspicion. In a cruel and apocalyptic world, every precaution is too little. 

"Kira, Mara has found a boy with 2 factor 2 talents, I've told her to warn Luna, Elara and Iris to leave tonight," I saw her horrible face gasp in surprise before she pulled herself together.

"All right, but how are we going to get the other slaves? We haven't found a solution for that yet," Kira asked me.

"We'll leave them behind to serve as a distraction, why would we need a dozen slaves, if we have one that will allow us to level up faster. The only thing we lose is the diverse ability of talents they had, but they are insignificant against a factor 2" I replied as I watched her think about my words.

"All right, make sure the others are ready, I'll prepare the explosives and the carriage. When you have everything ready we'll leave" she said before we left the studio to finish the preparations for the escape.

Kira prepared the explosives that would serve as a distraction for the escape and the carriage.

I, Lilith, divided the tasks among the other 4 before going to guard the slave.

Mara, collected all the stored mana crystals and planned the route, as we had some resource points ready to escape.

While Elara and Luna left everything ready to release all the slaves, remember the route to the carriage and collect the scrolls, weapons, food, magic fruits... Everything needed in Elara's dimensional ring to flee.

However, a while later my secretary appeared, announcing that the leader of the city was in the guild, as supervisor, I quickly went to greet him as the face of the guild.

"My lady Ava, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" I asked cordially knowing that nothing must go wrong.

"I need another slave, I killed the one from last week, I wanted to know if by fucking him while giving him lots of mana crystals, he would be able to farm faster. The experiment failed and exploded." said Ava, the city leader without any sorrow on her face.

Ava, she was a rank 5 fighter, that is, between level 40 and 50, that was the average level among the city leaders who didn't touch the battlefront with zombies or beasts.

Compared to us, all level 1, there is a gulf in power. 

As a guild member, it is forbidden to level up. There are different reasons, the first one is to avoid rape or destruction of goods, i.e. slaves, this is done to avoid loss of value. 

The second reason is because of the vast resources available to the guild, from the central guild, there is a fear that if we gain power, the guilds in each city will become independent. 

This issue may seem stupid or a joke, especially if you consider that we live in an apocalyptic world, but for the guild it is very serious, every month, they send an executioner, if he discovers any level rise, blood will run in that guild.

"You're in luck, Ms. Ava, today an extremely good assignment came in. There's a boy with factor 1.5, the best that has appeared in these two years," I told her as we headed to the cages, although the plan was tonight, until they closed everything had to remain in order to avoid arousing suspicion.

"This one here, he's well trained, with a 1.5 factor and talent-" I said before Mistress Ava cut me off.

"What about this one here?" asked Ava referring to a beautiful boy with red hair and silver eyes.

"He's not for sale, he's not trained yet" I replied calmly, although inwardly I was panicking.

"I don't care, I want him" 

"Alright, tonight I'll bring him to your mansion personally" I said before adding, knowing I wanted him now "before is impossible, the guild enforces training standards even with the use of a slave collar" I replied watching his mouth close before speaking.

"Alright, I'll be waiting" replied Mistress Ava before leaving the guild.

'Bff, close call' I thought to myself before making a final check of everything knowing that the appointed time was approaching.