[: Daniel POV :]
5 years had passed by in the blink of an eye but the first thing that I had learned was not words, not joy, not dreams or even love, it was pain.
Just purely pain and nothing else.
Five years had passed and every single day of them, I lived with chains on my wrist and the burning brand over my heart.
The Slave Crest never faded and it will never be.
It had become part of me and something that I can't erased.
It throbbed with pain if I hesitated.
It lit up with agony if I disobeyed.
And when I tried to run once, only once, it tightened like a red-hot fist crushing my chest until I passed out on the mud, convulsing, while the guards laughed.
But I didn't die and they wanted me alive.
To them, I was another tool in the pile.
Another product that might be worth something in ten years.
But I wasn't truly alone.
There was Lady Caelira an elf woman with hair like threads of moonlight and eyes that seemed too tired for someone so graceful.
She was the first face I saw every morning and the last hand to brush my hair before sleep.
It wasn't a lie to say that she had become my mother and she even declared to me, "If I had son, then I don't mind being you"
She once told me, in a whisper full of sorrow, that she once hold an important position back at her home.
People had once knelt before her, begged for blessings and even feared her power.
Now, she couldn't even cast a healing spell for a bruised child.
The slave seal on her wrist glowed whenever she tried.
The magic inside her would sputter and die before it ever reached her fingers.
"I'm sorry, my little star," she would whisper, holding me in her arms while wiping away blood from my lip or the dirt from my cheek.
"If I had even a spark of power left… I would burn this place to ash."
I believed her because the moment she declared those words, I could feel the kind of power that she has.
I know that I yet to have my powers, but my senses were telling me that she wasn't someone to mess with if she wasn't sealed with the slave wrist.
Even powerless, she never once let me feel unloved.
Then there was Rika.
A demi-human girl with golden cat-like eyes and soft ears that twitched when she was annoyed which was often.
She was 13 years older than me, fast and agile, with wild instincts and a sharp tongue that got her whipped more times than she could count.
She once clawed a guard across the face for kicking me too hard.
I remember how they beat her afterward. How they made the rest of us watch.
Even though she bled and screamed, she never cried.
When I crawled over to her later, crying quietly with a bit of stolen cloth and pressed it against her wounds, she just smirked.
"You're such a crybaby," she said through a split lip. "But... you're a good one."
She became my protector and my sister.
The others were different.
Manork, the one-eyed old demon with a shattered horn, barely spoke to anyone but me.
Grizzled, stiff, and smelling of smoke, he claimed he once led battalions in the Demon Continent's armies.
No one believed him.
But I did.
At night, when the guards were drunk or passed out, he'd crouch beside me with a broken stick and draw in the dirt.
"There are 7 continents in this world" he'd grumble.
"Each one a kingdom of its own. Human, Demon, Elf, Demi-Human, Dragon, Dwarf, and finally Spirit. Ruled by either an Emperor or Empress."
He'd jab the stick hard into the center of his crude map.
"We're in the Human Continent. The weakest of all yet also the most powerful and also the most arrogant, too."
I'd listen to every word like gospel.
He told me of cities made of floating stone. Kingdoms hidden beneath oceans. Entire forests ruled by dragons.
But he didn't just teach me geography.
He taught me how to survive.
How to look into a man's eyes and know if he'd kill you.
How to steal food without getting caught.
How to smile when it hurt.
"You'll need this, runt," he'd mutter, tapping his temple. "Because strength is only useful if you know when to use it."
He was like an uncle to me who didn't know how to show his love towards the ones that he likes.
Then there was Kiel.
He was mischief and warmth and someone who I could called my only friend.
Kiel was a demon boy about 12 years above my age, with smooth violet skin, short dark hair that always stuck up at the back, and tiny, curling horns that he was weirdly proud of.
"Tell me they don't look cooler than the old demon's cracked one," he'd grin, pointing at Manork's jagged horn while dodging a kick from the old man.
"C'mon, mine look symmetrical. Balance is power, right?"
I'd laugh. I always did.
Even when I was hurting.
Even when my chest burned with the slave crest and I couldn't breathe.
He was annoying sometimes and never stopped talking.
"Did you know the Demon Continent has floating cities? One's even shaped like a turtle! I wanna live in that one and eat roast meat all day,"
he'd say, mouth full of dried roots.
Or…
"When I get my powers back, I'm gonna fly with freedom and bet I can carry you too. You don't weigh anything anyway."
And my favorite was,
"Someday, you and me are gonna walk outta here. I'll punch the bastard with the whip, you'll kick the gate open, and we'll ride out on a stolen war-beast. No saddle."
He always made plans like that.
Like he knew believed I'd survive.
We shared everything.
Food scraps, warmth during winter nights, even punishment when I got caught stealing.
One time, I stole a half-loaf of bread from the storehouse.
Kiel hadn't even been with me.
But when the guards dragged me out, he stepped forward on his own.
"I did it," he said, eyes gleaming with that defiant smirk. "I was the one who asked him to."
They whipped us both that day. Hard.
And yet, when we were lying side-by-side on the cold floor afterward, our backs stinging and skin broken, he whispered,
"Worth it."
He grinned.
I cried.
He didn't.
Sometimes, I asked him why he stayed so close to me. Why he protected me. Why he always took the blame when I slipped up.
His answer was always the same.
"Because you're my friend," he said, without shame or hesitation.
"My idiot. My best friend. We suffer together. And someday… we'll burn it all down together."
He'd bump his fist against mine as his way of sealing a promise.
In those 5 years, I had grew, I had bled and I had screamed, but I never broke.
Even though I was whipped for spilling water. Starved for moving too slow. Made to clean blood-soaked floors with bare hands.
Even though the collar on my wrist hummed every time I got angry, threatening to lock me in stillness if I resisted too hard.
Even though Lady Caelira cried quietly some nights, hiding her face from me.
Even though Rika almost lost her eye for smuggling fruit to the children.
Even though Kiel never spoke but once curled up beside me, holding my hand when the pain wouldn't stop.
Even though Marnok whispered, "Endure it," every time I couldn't withstand the pain.
I knew that in this place, I had gained a family, something that I wouldn't trade for.
I also learned of the Gates the random portals across the world that birthed monsters.
Monsters unlike anything natural. Beasts of hunger, shadow, and chaos.
They weren't bound to any continent. No Emperor controlled them. No kingdom could predict their coming.
And they never opened here.
But even the guards feared them.
I'd heard them whisper about it after drinking:
"Another Gate appeared near Westmarch… wiped out an entire village before the protectors arrived."
"They say a Gate opened last month… nothing left but bones."
"The gods must be angry again."
Gods.
I learned about them too.
Some people were chosen—granted blessings that awakened power beyond what bloodlines or classes allowed.
But those blessings were rare.
Divine and unpredictable.
And only those deemed worthy received them.
I often wondered...
Would the gods think I was worthy?
I didn't know.
But I did know one thing.
Deep inside me, beneath the pain, beneath the silence…
I still had the system.
It never spoke and never moved.
But it pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat buried beneath stone.
I was five.
I had seven more years.
Seven more years to endure.
To learn.
To grow.
And when the time came…
This place would burn in hell.