Chapter 87

This carriage is basically going at walking speed; to walk from here to the palace would take about five to six minutes.

If I don't remove their handcuffs and only remove their collars, I could rescue four of them, but that would cut it very close, and I don't want that.

So it's between two or three. I hustle towards the biggest fellow in here, which will probably attract the most attention.

I tell him to show his collar and start breaking it down.

While waiting, I look over the other four fellows in here. The first one is a man of average build, sitting quietly awaiting my assistance. Next to him is a woman with a not very impressive muscle-to-fat ratio. Though it's not like there is much fat on her to compare with, she's average slum dweller material. Next to her is another slum dweller, he's equally as unimpressive, and the fourth and final is a man with a muscular body, sitting impatiently in his seat, probably the one who shouted like an idiot.

The two scrawny ones will be left behind, of course; they're too out of shape to do any distracting. The fourth fellow is definitely being released, and I'm stuck on the first one. Should I waste time on him or not?

Fine, whatever, he'll be released. The more people distracting, the higher my survival chance.

So over the next four minutes or so, I free the three men.

The two leftover have to go so they don't alert the guards.

I tell the big one to quietly dispose of the woman, and I leave myself with the man. I want to test out the digging circle's viability as a weapon. It took one second of me subconsciously closing my hand for it to create two nice cuts, so I want to see how good it will be if I use it for longer than a second.

While the big minion is doing his thing, I put my right hand over the slum dweller's mouth and put my left on his forehead.

In the first second, the man is confused, which is natural. On the second, he feels the pain and starts to struggle. On the fifth second, he starts to let up with the struggling, and on the seventh, he finally stops.

Removing my hand, I see a nice spherical hole going through his forehead, through the skull, and into his brain, the circle probably having plenty of trouble with the skull, judging by his mushed brain having a lot of nail-sized chunks of bone embedded in it.

Hmm… It's pretty mediocre as a weapon. A knife would have done the job much faster and more efficiently. It's probably better to use it on the throat instead; there's less bone.

Alright, now it's time to escape. I tell the two big ones to go down first so they attract the most attention. I go down third, and the average Joe over there goes down last.

Their glares tell me that they don't like being ordered around by someone as curently skinny as me, but this is basically the last time I will ever see them ever again, so I don't realy care about their impressions of me.

The biggest one goes down first. The gap between the carriage and the road is barely enough for him to fit in, so he is forced to lay extremely flat on the ground.

Then follows the impatient one as planned, and then I go after.

At the point when I lay down, I hear people shout. I don't hear what, though; the underside of a moving carriage is very loud.

Though as the carriage moves forward, a smidge faster thanks to the loss of mass, I get to my feet and see the current situation.

The big fella lies dead or dying with a stab wound a few feet away from the carriage, and I see the impatient one running ahead, a soldier on horseback chasing him. Civilians surround the carriage, probably the most interesting thing the middle class has seen all year. And most importantly, another guard on horseback, likely staying back from chasing the impatient one just in case there were any other escapees.

I should have probably gone fourth, should have made the average Joe deal with this guy first, wilst I run away. Whatever. My best shot now is to run into the civilian crowd and then go from there.

The guard notices me and starts riding towards me. Judging by his pace, I probably won't be able to make it to the crowd before he gets me.

I decide to use the carriage, which is now going at speed-walking pace instead of just walking pace, as a buffer, running from its back to its front.