The Quarry

Early on the next day, Sturm arrived at the quarry. His roommates still avoided him, but instead of looking at him with pity, it was jealousy instead. Thanks to his new status as the merchant's apprentice and Edgar now being responsible for him, he did not need to be chained anymore.

In case of any problems, the merchant would have to pay for the transgression. Usually, this would not be the case, but Edgar wanted to show some trust towards Sturm and included the increased freedom in the contract.

Mastil saw the child approach and just pointed towards a tent inside the quarry. The Overseer explicitly told them to ensure the slaves would work properly and not cause any unnecessary problems. If Sturm were an adult slave capable of working hard, the Overseer would have punished them considerably.

On top of that, the child had been punished already and was clearly fearing him. That was enough for him as the one Sturm annoyed was Smiling Diego, not him. Sturm breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the guard's indifferent attitude and bowed towards him.

<<You are still on my list.>> Sturm did not forget.

Following the directions given to him, Sturm soon arrived at the tent and hesitated for a moment.

"Enter."

Inside the tent was just a single table with a middle-aged man sitting on a chair behind it. He had a tattoo of a scorpion on his face. The scorpion's stinger coiled around an eye patch around his left eye.

"You are… Sturm, right?" The man struggled to use a name instead of numbers. "The Overseer told me about your situation. If you think you will have to work less than anyone else, forget it. Remember that you have to fill up three extra carts. Work hard, and you will not get punished. Be lazy, and you will get whipped, regardless of your backer, understood?"

"Sir, yes, Sir."

"Dismissed, Raton will show you the way."

Even though Sturm had tried his best to be polite, he did not see any change in how the tattooed man looked at him. His eyes were full of disdain like it was an insult just being in the same room as a dirty slave.

A fully cloaked person suddenly appeared behind Sturm and dragged him out of the tent. The moment Sturm was pulled outside, he moved around him and started pushing him instead. There was no chance to resist at all, like a train was pushing him instead of a human. This was one of the ways they showed slaves their clear difference in strength, so they would not even think about causing trouble.

Sturm was struggling so much on his feet that he was not able to take in his surroundings. Suddenly Raton stopped and gave him one final push, causing the child to finally crash into a wooden pillar. Sturm's lip opened up and started bleeding.

<<Show me the way my ass. You make me bleed? I will make you die of blood loss.>>

While furious inside, Sturm did not show any of that to the outside. He had just felt how strong the slavers were and as Edgar had said, antagonizing them meant death. The moment he got up and turned around, Raton was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a tired-looking slave was looking at him with pity.

He gave him two buckets and quickly explained to him what he had to do. Sturm had to carry away the debris to a designated location approximately 1500 meters away, drop it into a cart, and repeat it with the next load. Every three hours, slaves got ten minutes of rest, and at another time, depending on their group, there were fifteen minutes to eat. Should anyone rest or just even stop for a moment outside of that time, they would get whipped.

No friendly advice, no comforting words. Just a simple explanation, and the slave took up his pickaxe and went back to his own work. There was already a lot of debris around him, so Sturm started picking it up and filling both buckets.

The moment he wanted to lift them up, he felt how weak his body was. This wouldn't have been a challenge at all to his real body, but this malnourished physique of an eight-year-old was basically on the point of collapse. If he had not been able to rest and eat some stambread, he would be done for.

<<This will kill me. There is no way this body can keep this up for a whole day. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.>>

Memories of the whip filled Sturm's mind, and he could not help but shiver. Yesterday he thought everything was going to be alright, but he had vastly underestimated the quarry. There was no way around this, and he started carrying the buckets—step by step.

Today is one thing, but what will I do when the muscle ache kicks in tomorrow?

Sturm started to rack his brain while his feet followed a steady rhythm. After a few hundred meters, his arms were already burning, and there was still no solution in sight. He knew the only thing he could do was just to endure for now. Every second seemed an hour, every step a marathon. Not even his most demanding training sessions could compare to this agony.

Two hours later, with his hands full of blisters, he physically could not take it anymore, and the buckets started slipping out of his sweaty hands. There was nothing he wanted more than to drop the heavy buckets and wipe the sweat off his hands before readjusting his grips. It would just be a second. There was no way the slavers would punish him for that, right?

<<Ok. No one is looking. I will just readjust the grip and…>>

*CRACK*

Sturm jumped and almost dropped the buckets. A few small pebbles were on the verge of falling on the ground, but he managed to stabilize his balance and avoid it. With a shocked expression, Sturm turned around.

A slave driver was mercilessly whipping a slave who slipped and dropped a stone. A single stone. Before he could pick it up, he had already been whipped; blood dripping down his back.

"Don't you know we are behind on schedule? Do you think you can just rest? Because of lazy pigs like you, we are in this situation. You will work twice as fast to make up for the lost time, or else you will meet our friend Despair, the friendly neighborhood whip."

The slave immediately understood what that meant. With an ashen face, he picked the stone up and almost started running, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Sturm could not believe how close he was to fucking up.

"The fuck you staring at? Want to get whipped, too? Start working!"

Seeing the boy staying still and looking at him, the slaver stretched the whip between his hands and started walking towards him. Sturm thought he was tired and would collapse soon, but suddenly he felt energy filling up his body.

He turned around and carried the buckets filled with debris faster than on his first trip when he had still been full of energy. The slaver clicked his tongue and turned around, disappointed. Without that annoying command from the Overseer, he would have shown that slave what it meant to stay still in front of him.

<<Ok, that was damn close. Lesson learned.>>

Even though Sturm knew he could not adjust his grip on the way, he suddenly had another idea. Weight lifters used chalk powder to avoid the weights slipping out of their hands. Using the moment when he emptied the buckets, Sturm squatted down to grab a handful of sand and rubbed it into his palms.

He would repeat this every time he would fill or empty the wooden buckets. It did not prevent the feeling of his arms being ripped off, but at least he would avoid any accidents caused by sweaty palms.

<<One more round. Come on, body, hold up!>>

The sound of teeth grinding on each other could be heard with every step Sturm took. By now, the only thing that was holding him up was pure willpower. Even if his hands and feet were full of blisters, he did not even think about stopping.

<<This is easy. I can go on forever, no problem. Hahaha.>>

*Gong*

The loud sound of someone hitting a gong spread throughout the quarry. Instantly all slaves stopped what they were doing and dropped to the ground, lying down. Sturm looked around, confused. Was this a rebellion? Would all of them get whipped now?

<<Fuck don't drag me into this!>>

A slave next to Sturm saw him still standing with the buckets in his hands.

"This is our break. You can rest for ten minutes, after that it is three hours of work again. Use it now, or you will regret it."

<<So that's what it was.>>

Relieved, Sturm put the buckets down and dropped to the ground. In complete contrast to how he was boasting to himself just a minute earlier, he laid down with heavy breathes. Sturm closed his eyes for a moment and tried to rest as much as possible.

<<Finally… now I can rest a little bit. I wonder if…>>

*Gong*

<<What the?>>

The moment Sturm opened his eyes, all the other slaves were on their feet already. He quickly got up and went back to work as well. The ten minutes of rest did not make him feel refreshed at all, and there were still twelve more hours he had to work.

Putting one foot in front of another and concentrating on not loosening his grip, Sturm entered a trance. The first time he had ever managed to empty his mind was when he used to jump rope for hours and hours. Only later, during the practice for his first chapter, did he manage to achieve it at will. The only way to keep going was this empty state of mind since the body could take much more than most would expect. Pain was a biological sign to warn an individual of a damaging situation. It did not mean the body could not take it anymore.

It was slowly getting darker, and that was when Sturm finally left his trance. His whole body was dirty, and the few lumps of clothing he had were sticking to his body due to the sweat.

<<All those hours spent on meditation for my first chapter have not been wasted. Modern fighters really should not look down on it.>>

The pain started kicking in again, but he was too tired to care about it. Finally, the gong sounded for one last time, signaling the end of the day. Sturm put the bucket back to where the other slave had taken him and limped back to his tent. When he passed the gate, he felt lucky he didn't get chains put on him like the other slaves.

It almost resembled a zombie apocalypse: thousands of slaves limping out of the quarry with their arms hanging down their sides and chains dragging through the sand.

<<Wait. Wasn't there a time my group was supposed to eat?>>

While in his absent state of mind, Sturm had actually missed the time food was given out to the slave group he was in, but at least he finished filling up the three extra carts he was supposed to. Luckily Edgar had given him stambread; otherwise, he would have gone without any food for the whole day.

His stomach was rumbling, and he knew he had to eat, but he could only think about resting. The moment Sturm stepped into his tent, he went straight towards the stambread he had hidden in a hole under his "bed" and devoured it.

With the most unmotivated groan, he started doing exercises and stretches meant for muscle recovery, for he had to do everything he could to prepare for the next day.

<<One last stretch, and I will be done for tod…>>

*thump*

*ZzzzZZzZzZz*

Sturm fell and was already snoring before he even hit the ground.