Dead for centuries, yet fanatical followers were still trying to resurrect him. Shane couldn't help but marvel at this Dark Wizard's charisma.
"I guess this is what they mean by 'even villains have their own saviors,' huh?"
As he was thinking this, a sharp whistle cut through the air. The next instant, a whip lashed heavily across his back.
"You damn lazybones! Who gave you permission to stand there daydreaming?!" A tall, obese overseer roared, his leather whip stained with dark grime.
Shane stumbled to the ground from the force of the blow. The stinging pain instantly snapped him back to reality. He realized just how conspicuous it was to stand still amidst a crowd of busy slaves.
He glanced up quickly at the man, then immediately lowered his gaze. Without a word, he stood up and staggered toward a pile of rocks nearby.
"Cheap trash. Won't move unless you beat him!"
Seeing no reaction, the fat overseer spat on the ground and turned away with a look of disgust, waddling off.
Shane struggled to lift a rock and tossed it into a cart. He silently watched the arrogant back of the overseer, his face completely devoid of expression.
That lash had been merciless, but Shane hadn't made a sound from start to finish. He knew that people like this usually had sadistic tendencies.
Whether it was gritting your teeth in anger or crying in weakness, any emotional reaction was like bleeding in front of a hungry wolf—it would only invite crueler treatment.
Therefore, displaying just the right amount of numbness to make yourself boring was the logical response.
Shane took a quiet breath and reflected inwardly: Old habits die hard. Whenever I run into something interesting, I get distracted.
"Yeah, ultimately, it's my fault," Shane nodded to himself, as if the whip strike meant nothing. "I didn't follow the rules. How can I get distracted while working?"
He turned to Jellal and Sho, who were looking at him with concern, and gave them a look that said, "I'm fine." Then he bent down and threw himself into moving bricks as if to make up for his mistake.
These stone blocks were cut massive and rough-edged. Each one required every ounce of his strength to lift. When the heavy block crashed into the cart, the shockwave sent a jolt of pain through the wound on his back. It wasn't easy.
Shane felt the blood and grime congealing with his prisoner garb. Every movement tore at the wound.
For someone with a bit of mysophobia, the sticky sensation was unbearable. He silently swore that once he escaped, he would soak in a hot spring until he was scrubbed clean.
By the time the sun was high overhead, Shane had finally cleared the pile of rocks in front of him.
I have to say, E-Rank physical stats really are pathetically weak.
He took a breather, watching helplessly as Jellal and Sho pushed fully loaded carts past him with ease.
It wasn't just them. Most of the slaves displayed stamina that didn't match their status. Even the youngest, Millianna, was moving rocks with absurd efficiency.
If Sho and Jellal hadn't been "conveniently" taking the bigger rocks, and if the card in his mind hadn't been constantly supplying him with warmth and energy, Shane felt there was no way he could have completed such heavy labor while injured.
He didn't even want to think about what happened to those who couldn't finish their quota in this stone tower.
"Looks like a world with Magic really is special. Even ordinary people without Magic have physiques far superior to my previous life." Having learned his lesson, Shane kept his hands moving even while pondering.
Suddenly, a commotion broke out on the slope ahead, catching Shane's attention.
A cart filled with rubble used for filling cracks had tipped over. Stones clattered down the slope.
A panicked slave stumbled and fell, clearly having lost his grip on the cart by accident.
Unluckily, several overseers were standing at the bottom of the slope chatting. Though the rolling stones weren't large, a few hit the fat overseer who had whipped Shane earlier. It didn't cause real damage, but the dust and debris covered him, making him look ridiculous.
The scene went dead silent.
The fat on the overseer's face twitched violently. He didn't even brush off the dust. His beady eyes locked onto the slave, who was now limp on the ground, face drained of color.
"You mongrel... you're asking for death!"
The whip lashed out like a venomous snake, the sound of it cutting the air much sharper than when it had hit Shane.
The slave was terrified out of his wits but didn't dare dodge. He endured the agonizing pain, crawling on the ground and kowtowing repeatedly. "Lord, spare... spare my life! I didn't mean to..."
"Didn't mean to?" The fat overseer's eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed the slave by the hair. "Are you saying I deserved to get hit?!"
"No, no..." The slave's face twisted in pain, his speech incoherent. "I'm stupid... I'm clumsy..."
"Now you know to beg?" The overseer grinned savagely, whipping the man across the face. "What were you thinking when you humiliated me just now?!"
The sound of the whip hitting flesh was dull and terrifying. Every strike tore skin and flesh.
The surrounding slaves were pale as ghosts. A heavy sense of doom hung in the air, suffocating everyone.
"He's dead meat..."
Shane lowered his eyelids, expressionless. Just as he expected, any reaction from a slave only added fuel to the fire.
No one would help. This man was going to be beaten to death. But in this situation, who dared to invite trouble?
"Luckily, I've always been bold," Shane whispered to himself. He scanned the area. Everyone's attention was drawn to the beating; no one was watching him.
He quietly backed to the very rear of the crowd. A dark golden light flashed in his hand, and a card appeared.
Shane wasn't a vengeful person. He considered the fat overseer's earlier whip strike "reasonable." So, what he was about to do wasn't for revenge.
His main goal was to test his ability, save a life, and gather some intel. If the "aftershock" just happened to hit a certain bystander, well, that had nothing to do with revenge.
Yup, that's right. Completely reasonable.
Shane nodded in affirmation. The card flowed and transformed in his palm, materializing into a large bow, red as blood.
"It really is red!" Shane's expression didn't change, but a thrill of excitement rose in his heart at solving the puzzle.
His guess about the Heroic Spirit's identity became even more certain.
Time was tight. Shane didn't waste a second. He gripped the longbow.
An indescribable sense of compatibility flowed from his palm. It felt as if he had used this bow for decades. It was an extension of his arm. A confidence surged within him—the kind that allowed legendary archers to hit impossible targets.
This weapon comes with archery experience?
Shane's eyes widened. Brute-forcing decades of training into an instant... "Fantasy Armaments" really were unreasonable.
"But since it's my cheat, that's a different story. The more unreasonable, the better!" After his initial shock, a smile appeared on Shane's face. Otherwise, with his few experiences at an archery range, he really wouldn't have been confident in hitting the target.
"In that case... let's try a safer trajectory." Shane raised the longbow, aiming high into the sky.
In the next moment, he mimed the action of nocking an arrow on an empty string. As the bow was drawn full like a full moon, an arrow condensed from pure Magic Power appeared out of thin air.
[Arrow Construction]
Twang. Shane added a sound effect in his mind as he released the string.
A nearly imperceptible red streak cut through the sky and vanished into the clouds.
The fat overseer was still grinning, his whip raised high. The slave beneath him was already on the verge of death.
Suddenly, a sharp whistling sound erupted.
A stream of light plunged vertically from the heavens. It pierced precisely through his thick neck, its momentum undiminished as it tore through his chest cavity, burst out of his abdomen, and buried itself into the ground with a resonant zing, leaving only a smooth, round hole.
The fat overseer froze. The whip slipped from his hand. The triumphant expression congealed on his face, shifting into incredulous confusion. He tried to look down, but only saw hot blood gushing from his throat.
His heavy body crashed to the ground, kicking up dust.
Time seemed to stand still.
All the slaves and the other overseers froze, their eyes glued to the corpse that was still twitching slightly.
At the back of the crowd, Shane calmly lowered his hand.
The crimson longbow dissolved into particles of light, as if it had never existed.