No matter what label was used to make people work like slaves, in this day and age, chains weren’t effective but contracts were. Ethan had taken a good look at one, and of course Marcus and Karisa saw slavery, but he saw something more.
Because he too had been like them. He too had signed such contracts and accepted them, having no roots, no family to rely on.
Even to find admission fees for the military schools, he’d had to sign dubious ones. But no contract is made one hundred percent slavery. There were always flaws.
"Life insurance article, 463. The same insurance the Empire compiles for the lower class." Ethan muttered, walking to the corner of the giant gate.
"Huh, what about it?" Marcus asked.
"If a worker loses their life or is pushed to the edge of it, terminally ill workers can utilize an Accelerated Death Benefit rider to access up to fifty to ninety percent of their life insurance payout before death."
"Wait, you mean..."
"Hahahaha..." Karisa laughed. The one who always stayed stoic finally let out a rare laugh. "So you are ready to injure them to give them their freedom."
Ethan nodded, looking at them, lost in the darkness. He knew for sure they would all rather be injured and return to their families than work here for life and become nothing.
Common sense denies them their choice. Then I will make it for them.
With that he concentrated his lightning. In the darkness, sparks of light flickered in brief flashes. The guards nearby saw it too.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" They shouted, rallying their numbers toward Ethan.
Ethan needed precision here. He couldn’t flail lightning around like before, because what he was about to do could cause deaths with a single inch of error.
He concentrated, hard, forcing the yelling and panic away, and slowly but surely, all he could hear was his own heartbeat.
Right at the corner, only at the corner. The engine that pulls the gate is an old design, run on diesel, and that... will be my key.
All he had to do was aim true. Instead of spewing lightning outward as he had been doing when his targets were far away, he directed the current into his own hand, his own palm. He felt the burn, yes.
But he could handle that much and more.
"Ethan, they’re coming." Marcus said, stepping in front of him. Karisa stayed at his side, the darkness still covering her crimson hair.
"Is he okay? He’s not listening." Karisa asked.
"He does that from time to time, but I think we’ll need to handle thi—"
Doom!
A spark of blinding light flashed from behind, illuminating the entire labor section as everyone watched in awe and surprise.
Marcus and Karisa looked back, and they saw it, saw him, holding that blinding light. Holding a lightning bolt.
"You’re... you’re holding it?" Karisa asked, confused, as was everyone watching. Even the guards paused, because what stood before them was no ordinary soldier. It was a demigod.
"It seems so..." he said with a smile, as he finally swung his hand, hurling the concentrated bolt straight at his target. Like a shooting star, it blazed its way to the top edge of the gate and burned through the steel and enchantments alike, finding its mark in the liquid inside, and then.
BOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!
What makes men yield? What makes them succumb to the misfortune the world creates? Is it naivety, weakness, a lack of ambition? Yes, yes, and yes. Of course it is. It always has been, and always will be. Waiting for someone to save them at all times.
Ethan was young, but he knew that much. How helpless humans truly are. He watched them, some injured, some screaming in pain. His heart raced seeing them all, but he didn’t look away, didn’t avoid them. He gazed at them all.
Be free.
[Mission Complete]
And his system confirmed it. After this, what he had planned would begin to take shape.
[Processing reward]
[Calculating people freed: 164... 367... 457]
[Number accumulated: 457]
[Experience point conversion: 457 EXP points]
[100x REWARD CONVERSION]
[457 x 100 = 45,700 EXP points]
[Level up]
[Level up]
[Level up]
.
.
.
━━━━━━━━━━━
STATUS
━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Ethan
Title(s):
Betrayed Soldier
Son of Zeus
Heir of Olympus
Bearer of the 100x Reward System
Race: Demi-God
Bloodline: Divine Blood of Zeus (Awakened)
Rank: Iron Rank I
Level: 11 > 16
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ATTRIBUTES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 34
Agility: 11
Vitality: 60
Endurance: 43
Intelligence: 29
Wisdom: 10
Perception: 11
Willpower: %^&%
Free Stat Points: 487 > 560
━━━━━━━━━━━
RESOURCES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Health (HP): 130/130
Ether (MP): 150/150
Stamina: 120/120
Divine Energy: 1/100
━━━━━━━━━━━
BLOODLINE
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Blood of Zeus - Rank SSS]
Effects:
+1000% Lightning Affinity and Instinct
+10% Physical Growth
Increased Resistance to Fear
Divine Aura (Locked)
Next Evolution:
[Blood of Zeus - Rank 2]
Requirement: Divine Energy
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Basic Swordsmanship] Lv. 1
[Military Combat] Lv. 1
[Roman Survival Training] Lv. 1
[Lightning Bolt] Lv. 10
Locked Skills:
[Thunder God’s Authority]
[King of Olympus]
[Divine Judgment]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
His status looked more appealing than ever, with the enormous number of stat points before him. He felt like it was time to use them, but not now. Their first rebellious mission was complete.
Now it was time to retreat, mostly for Captain Karisa’s sake. From what he understood, she had been working under the Empire purely for the convenience it offered. After all, it’s easier to collapse a building by destroying it from within.
"Come on, time to play hide and seek." Marcus called from somewhere amid the dust and debris.
Ethan looked for Karisa, who was already gone before anyone could even spot her. He smiled, pulled on his military mask, and ran through the alarms and smoke.
"Go on ahead. We need to split for now and spread out. I’ll meet you when I meet you." He replied, and maybe Marcus nodded, or said something else. The only things he heard were fading footsteps, and then a heavier set coming toward him.
The guards.
He needed to find a way out. But something suddenly felt wrong. His heartbeat raced, his blood urging him to act, and he gave in to that urge and stepped back. In that very instant, an electrified sword swung an inch from his face.
"I see you..."
A woman’s voice echoed from behind the blade.
"And I can smell you too. I smell a wild beast."
From the debris, she emerged, crimson hair flaring toward him. Familiar hair. So familiar that he saw Captain Karisa for a split second, but no. There was no bloodlust in the captain, yet there was plenty of boiling, rageful hunger in the woman before him.
Who is she?
He thought, dodging another swing, barely, as it grazed past his neck. She was quick, very quick, forcing Ethan to move on pure instinct alone. Even he didn’t know how he was dodging those swings.
But he knew one thing. He needed to dump stats, maybe more than half of them, into agility for now.
[Agility: 11 > 111 (+100)]
He started to see it, the near-impossible arc of her sword.
Up... left... left... right... oh hell, middle.
The sword pierced through the air, coming straight for his chest. He could see it clearly, knowing it was undodgeable. So instead of attempting the impossible, he used the wrist device on his left wrist and let the sword drive straight through it and into his palm.
The moment the pain registered, he yanked his pierced hand back. He felt it then, a slight hesitation from the sword bearer. That was it. That was all he needed.
[Strength: 34 > 134 (+100)]
Now!
With everything he had, he squeezed his right fist and, using his new agility and strength together, drove a punch at the woman going for his throat.
Bang!
It connected, and she was sent flying back into the dust and smoke. He didn’t wait to see where she landed. He bolted, his feet moving faster than usual. One second he was there, the next he was gone.
He ran, burst through a door, but couldn’t stop in time, colliding with someone inside. Both of them tumbled to the ground, and he found himself looking at the same crimson hair.
Ethan raised his fist, then stopped just short of her nose.
"Captain..." he said.
"Ethan... you survived?"
"Oh... you already knew." Ethan scoffed, trying to stand, but Karisa pulled him back down.
"Wha—"
A wave of guards ran past the room. He understood immediately why she had pulled him down. But the breathing, her breathing was so clear up close, her crimson eyes looking straight at him.
"How did you survive?" she asked.
"Luck. Who is she, really? She looked just li—"
"She’s my older sister. The current heir of our house, and the one we need to kill to start this rebellion."