CHAPTER 19.

She nodded and he continued," Good. Now there is a small clearing about a kilometre or so in that direction." he said pointing away from the city," Let's have a short meal there."

He started walking and she quickly made to follow but he stopped abruptly, " Wait a second. Raphtalia I am sending you an invite to my party please accept it."

Raphtalia blinked in surprise but then her Status magic flared up.

Adrian Black has sent you a party invitation. Do you accept?

"Adrian?" she whispered, was that her master's name?

"Raphtalia?" he asked and she was startled out of her contemplation. She quickly accepted the invitation and then started to walk at his side, holding his hand after he offered it to her.

____________________________________,,,,,,

Adrian kept his Blindsight active and used his SP to boost the skill a little to ensure maximum range but there didn't seem to be any followers. It was a little odd how the skill had been glitching around a few locations but a quick check using his other perception skills and even a visit had revealed nothing.

Was it simple paranoia?

He tried to shrug it off but it stayed on his mind until he reached the small clearing he had first found using Blindsight. It had been a fairly short distance but Raphtalia was still a little tired out by the walk.

Good, that would be helpful for later.

"Raphtalia, please get yourself cleaned properly at the stream there," he said, pointing at the small stream about a hundred meters from the clearing, "after you're done then please dry yourself and wear this."

He gave her a small bundle of cloth consisting of a towel and a simple pair of clothing consisting of shorts and a shirt. It was actually made using his Tailoring skill after he had bought her, his appraisal skills and Blindsight had given him the dimensions needed.

Raphtalia nodded and then ran towards the stream, the undercurrent of fear in all her actions driving her forward. It pissed him off seeing just how badly any sign of disobedience had been beaten out of her.

Adrian sighed and shook off his emotions. Now was not the time.

Adrian quickly scanned the area, kept the Filolial eggs and the bottles of enchanted fluid down and then set up a few simple detection traps while keeping Raphtalia in his sight at all times.

The area around them didn't have many monsters. He killed and absorbed them easily enough, it was a bit of a surprise when Raphtalia levelled up twice due to them but it wasn't too odd. She had just been at level one after all.

When he returned to the site, Raphtalia was back and was standing around looking scared and worried in her new clothing. It was remarkable how a small wash, new clothing and a bit of healing could change a person.

The broken child from before looked very different but her ears and tail still felt very, very odd to him. Like she was wearing the best cosplay he had ever seen but his mind insisted that they were not real, despite the fact that Blindsight let him see that they were biological constructs.

"Let's have a meal shall we," he said, trying to stay positive and not think of all the children back in the city.

He led her to the center of the clearing and then pulled out a small set of chairs and a table that he had made using his Carpentry skill. And then served a simple meal which consisted of grilled meat and some herbs.

It was quite strange to think that he was basically eating magically prepared and stored food while sitting on magically made furniture...but this was his life now, no matter how absurd it felt.

Raphtalia was a little stunned at the sudden appearance of the food and the furnishings but a look from him had her seated at the table. He frowned slightly when he noted that she was actually having a little bit of trouble eating.

Then he realized that it was late at night, there were no light sources and Raphtalia didn't have his Nightvision skill. Adrian considered the problem for a second even as he picked up the bag with the eggs and the bottles and sat down before simply switching his Sword form to the candle sword.

Immediately the whole place was illuminated quite well. Raphtalia blinked repeatedly for a moment before staring at the oddly shaped sword in his hand.

"Continue eating and pay me no mind child," he said, feeling a little amused at her surprise.

She nodded vigorously and said "Yes!" Adrian chose to ignore how she was crying and wiping away her tears, trying to hide them from him. He didn't know why she was crying but asking her about it would just scare her.

Adrian kept the two Filolial eggs down on the floor in their incubators but pulled out the two bottles, careful to keep them out of Raphtalia's sight. He moved his sword down and swiftly absorbed them both.

Cursed Seal Sword Unlocked

Seal Removal Sword Unlocked

Slavers Sword Unlocked

Adrian frowned slightly as he opened up the swords and studied them. Half a minute later Adrian felt himself re-reading the words again.

Slavers Sword (Unmastered)(1/30) : Lv 1 1.00%

Energy Level 0/100

Rarity: Uncommon

Enchantments: None

Attack Rating : 1

Defence Rating:1

Speed Rating : 1

Stamina Rating : 1

Magic Rating : 1

Soul Rating : 1

Status Enchantments : None

Equip Boosts : None

Equip Skills: Slave Stat Growth(small) ; Slave Maturation Adjustment(small) ; Slave Skill Growth(small)

Special Ability: None

Cursed Seal Sword (Unmastered)(1/30) : Lv 1 1.00%

Energy Level 0/100

Rarity: Uncommon

Enchantments: None

Attack Rating : 1

Defence Rating:1

Speed Rating : 1

Stamina Rating : 1

Magic Rating : 1

Soul Rating : 1

Status Enchantments : None

Equip Boosts : None

Equip Skills: None

Special Ability: Cursed Seal Application

Seal Removal Sword (Unmastered)(1/30) : Lv 1 1.00%

Energy Level 0/100

Rarity: Uncommon

Enchantments: None

Attack Rating : 1

Defence Rating:1

Speed Rating : 1

Stamina Rating : 1

Magic Rating : 1

Soul Rating : 1

Status Enchantments : None

Equip Boosts : MP +2; SP +2

Equip Skills: Magic Critical Detection

Special Ability: Remove Seals;

He could enslave people and monsters and then boost their growth. Sure he could also free them but he could bind people to himself and then force them to serve him.

Adrian wanted to throw it away and never use the sword again but hadn't he just met a piece of scum who deserved to be enslaved and used in the same way he bought and sold people as a business.

But more than that was the temptation to use the Slaver series to boost Raphtalia's growth. The sword hadn't been upgraded at all but a small amount of energy and material sacrificed would have its' effects elevated and then he could ensure that she would have more power than normal. He could leave her be to her life later on with a lighter heart knowing that she would have the power to defend herself better.

All he had to do was curse the girl with a seal of obedience and ignore the fear in her eyes as he did so.

What a fucking joke. Free her and then turn around and enslave her not an hour later.

No. He wasn't going to do it, good intentions or not. Worst case scenario if he couldn't find another growth-boosting method he would take a little longer with her, level her up more than the level 30 or so he had planned, get her a class up and push her to level 60 or something and make sure to teach her magic. Better than enslaving her.

Still, he would upgrade that damned sword. It delivered a fate worse than death and that would be useful in this world.

Adrian took a moment to check on the sleeping girl and then started to move.

A moment and he had absorbed the table, chair and other materials. Another and he had the incubators in a small backpack tied securely to his person.

A flare of his Map, the skill he had obtained from his Cartographers sword and he oriented himself correctly and then picked up Raphtalia.

She was light, a result of both her own weight and his own slightly superhuman strength, so he effortlessly lifted her and held on tightly, bracing her neck carefully.

Raphtalia didn't stir. It wasn't because she was exhausted, though she was quite tired, it was because he had drugged the girl. Her second serving of food had consisted of meat, some herbs and a dose of sleeping potion. It was the safest way to move her and the only way to make sure she got some rest.

Then he triggered his Dash skill and started his journey to the wilds north of the capital.

The area he sought to go to was untouched by people and infested by monsters that most humans preferred not to deal with, not just because they were too powerful but because they bred like crazy. Their numbers multiplying in short order and rapidly taking over large regions for themselves. Adrian was heading towards Dragon Territory.

It was nearly a hundred kilometres just to get to the foot of the mountains where the territory started and he had no vehicle or beast of burden to carry him. But the simple reality was that he was superhuman.

Dash let him cover a distance of two kilometres, give or take a couple of hundred meters, every ten seconds. Friction, gravity, air resistance, drag force...none of these things mattered. He moved at a speed decided by his speed stat and nothing more. The only cost? 0.1% of his SP and a twenty-second cooldown if he used the power for the full ten seconds and a proportionally smaller cooldown if he used it for a lesser amount of time.

Adrian had equipped a sword with a speed and SP regen status boost so that meant that he covered nearly 2.3 kilometres and it cost him only 0.05% of his SP.

Thus Dash alone would let him travel his 100-kilometre distance in less than an hour. Adrian could also simply run. With his speed stat that was nearly 80 per cent of the Level 75 Werewolf slave that he had seen he could reach speeds of 30-40 meters per second if he was running at about 60% of his maximum. For short bursts, he could reach even greater speeds.

Sounds absurd right? How could a person run at speeds that even the greatest runners on Earth could not hope to match? The answer was simple and blatantly obvious. The speed stat.

According to Agatha's explanation, it enhanced all movement. The speed of a person, the rate of movement of a limb or the body as a whole, the speed at which attacks travelled or even the speed at which a person threw an object was subject to this stat. Physics? Biology? Fuck all that.

But this all came at an interesting cost. Adrian had enough of a perception stat that he could think at very high speeds, a processing speed needed to move so quickly in a safe manner. That meant that he could think back to what Blindsight had revealed to him, and all of the people in the city that he had chosen to ignore simply because it was inconvenient to do so.

Adrian was aware that it was not his fault, nor was it his responsibility. The poverty-stricken families, the street rats, the thousands of enslaved demihumans. All of these things were a result of complex, long-standing socio-political issues. He knew this. Earth despite its relative prosperity still struggled with income inequality, poverty and a host of other issues, he could hardly say that this world was unique in the suffering of their people. Hell for all he knew this world might have a better reason than most.

Still, he could not think of any reason that was justification enough to torture children and throw their corpses out like trash. Adrian wanted to go back and kill that fucker who had decided to throw the corpses of those abused children in a fucking pile at the back of his tent probably to be used as monster feed or something. But he couldn't. Not yet. Not until he was powerful enough to survive the aftermath. Not until he could help these people safely.

It had been the wise thing to do. The smart thing to do. Yet he felt wretched. Helping this girl whom he held in his arms right now was something but it was far from enough.

It was akin to emptying an ocean with a bloody teaspoon. A futile effort.

Adrian was glad that he had helped her. Even if his reasons were nothing more than self-satisfaction but he knew that it was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

He really hated this world.

Adrian tried to focus on his journey. He was doing something incredible, moving as fast as a car, it was just a pity that it took no real attention or effort from him.

Hell, it took putting in the same effort it took to jog, and barely disturbing the ground beneath his feet to move at 35 meters a second without the support of a skill.

It felt like he was being pushed; like each step was being artificially enhanced or like someone was redefining distance and time so that he covered larger distances with each step despite barely putting in the effort.