Day after day, using Sphere Vision, I gathered intelligence for the escape.
The local guards, mostly either beanpoles or tubs of lard, were nothing but an armed mob, not any kind of trained fighting force. Their discipline was shaky at best, held together by nothing but fear of their superiors. What I could actually work with were the dead zones between guard rotations: five to ten minutes of nothing, every four hours.
The hounds were a problem, sure. But the timing could be worked out. Match the shift change with feeding time, since animals tend to get drowsy and slow for about half an hour after eating.
The only fast ship on the island, unlike the two heavy cargo vessels, wasn't heavily guarded. If we rushed it as a group, we could break through.
Putting together that group was something I approached with the same care as the rest of the plan. Erza, being the kind of kid who threw herself into things wholeheartedly, had actually made a lot of friends here. My own tendency to keep my distance in certain situations, along with jokes that only someone as well-read as Erza would even catch, didn't exactly help me win a popularity contest. But it didn't stop me from learning a lot about the people around me.
Before long, twenty people were gathered in one corner of the main cell block with the promise that they were about to hear something that mattered. Most of them were determined, not too broken down yet. A couple were fishermen who knew their way around a ship, a few were tradesmen with strong hands, and Rob was with us too. Among the younger ones, besides me obviously, were Erza and, essentially, her whole friend group, who'd gotten in on sheer social credit. That included Jellal; Sho, the blond kid who got personally offended every time someone called him "little"; Simon; Millianna, the girl who purred and meowed when she talked, which was exactly as strange as it sounds; and Wally, just a guy who really loved potatoes.
Needless to say, I hadn't let any snitches or informants anywhere near this.
I squared my shoulders and started in a low, steady voice. "Every single one of us has lost something: a home, a family, our freedom. I didn't bring you here to wallow in it. I brought you here because we have a chance to get out, and right now I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it..."
Surprise moved across the faces around me, even a flicker of doubt. But with every word, as I laid out what I'd learned, I could feel the skepticism shifting. It turned into something like respect, even awe, when they grasped just how much information I'd managed to pull together, knowing full well what it had cost in time and preparation. And the way I held myself made sure that feeling didn't fade.
People were already plenty stirred up by the time I was ready to assign roles. Actually, they were a little too stirred up.
"So you built an escape plan?!" Sho, completely overflowing with excitement and adrenaline, shouted it across the entire barracks at the top of his lungs. "No way! I didn't like you at first, Elian, but now we all know you're the real deal!"
My face went stone cold as my brain scrambled for a last-ditch way out. There wasn't one.
"Who the hell is yelling over there?!" A guard's voice cut through from outside, followed by approaching footsteps. "An escape plan?! Which one of you thinks they're brave enough for that?!"
Sho, realizing what he'd done, slapped both hands over his mouth. His eyes went wide and filled with guilt, and when they met mine he flinched and started shaking.
Inside my head, a skyscraper's worth of profanity was under construction, and the only thing stopping me from sharing exactly what I thought about this kid, this tower, and this life in general was the future embarrassment of Erza hearing it. Hundreds of hours. Thousands, maybe. All that prep work, completely torched because I'd skipped one simple precaution: duct-taping everyone's mouth shut before they'd heard a single word. If Lady Luck actually exists, she is an absolute bitch.
"That was me," two voices said at exactly the same moment, snapping me out of my head.
Jellal and Erza stared at each other in surprise, clearly just as caught off guard by the coincidence as anyone.
A long, heavy sigh left me.
Jellal... The kid had a strong enough sense of justice and social responsibility that it was no surprise he'd just tried to sacrifice himself like that, to keep me, the one who'd done all the work, out of punishment. As for Erza, she'd picked up this habit from the romance novels, and then doubled down on it thanks to this guy and Rob. Given everything that connected us, and given her particular brand of decisive stubbornness, her reaction was even more predictable.
Not giving the guard a chance to say another word, I stepped forward and put myself between the two of them.
"Not a chance. It was me."
The plan was blown. But there was no way in hell I was letting Erza take the fall for it. As for the blue-haired one, well. He could consider it his lucky day and leave it at that.
"...Look at this, a whole competition for who's got the biggest pair," the guard said, looking us over with a smirk. "Hey, partner! Get over here! We've got a hero on our hands! Let's show these soft little slaves what happens when you go against the cult!"
Two guards marched me through the cave corridors. We reached a large stone chamber, where I was handed off to two others while the first pair headed back to their post. They strung me up by the wrists with rope from a wooden frame, something like an oversized pull-up bar.
I had a few abilities that could've gotten me out of the rope. Just the rope, though, and actually escaping would've created too much risk for me and, more likely, for the kids. So I held off.
That said, it didn't mean the situation was a complete loss. Because these particular geniuses were dealing with me.
Less than five minutes later, the torturer walked in. He was a scrawny man with greasy hair, a deeply unsettling little goatee hanging below his chin, and a face that looked like it belonged to a rat.
And this individual, performing for an audience of nobody, began circling me. He clicked his tongue in this slow, insufferable way that made his ridiculous little beard twitch with every click. Then he picked up a knife from the nearby table and dragged his finger along the blade with exaggerated theatrics.
"Well, well, well. Look at our brave little boy," he drawled, then started picking at his nails with the knife. "Planning an escape, were we? How adorable. You know what happens to people who plan escapes?"
I stared at him like he'd just tried to explain gravity to me.
Alright, let's see who blinks first.
"Are you seriously asking me that? You're the torturer here, which one of us should know the answer?" I said, flat contempt in my voice. "Are you aware that when a torturer walks into the room, the prisoner is supposed to at least feel something? Because with that ridiculous little beard, and frankly that whole face, the only place you'd fit in is a freak show."
The man twitched. A deep, wounded look settled over him as he started going red.
"What did you just say?!"
"I said you're an embarrassment to your profession." My gaze dropped to his fidgeting hands. "Can you even butcher a chicken properly with those? Why are you shaking? Are you scared of the guy you're supposed to be torturing?"
He grabbed the knife tighter and stepped closer.
"I'll show you what I can do with these hands!"
"Is that right?" I held his gaze. "I can see straight through people like you. A weak little thing, ground down since childhood, who learned to hurt only the ones who were already broken." His expression shifted, and in the back of my mind I felt a dark surge of satisfaction. Found it. "Instead of ever becoming something, you chose to feel big by standing over people who couldn't fight back. But here's the truth: the only ones beneath you are the dead. Zeros. Nothing. The moment anyone pushes back even a little, people like you spin right around and go home crying to mommy."
"Shut up!!!" he shrieked, but froze in place when I let the Bloodlust surface. Layered over his senses, it hit him several times harder than it otherwise would have.
"Or what? You'll hit me? Go ahead. Try it."
Silence stretched between us. The "torturer" started trembling, and the knife slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. His mouth opened and closed.
"You... You..."
"And now you can't even talk. God, you're pathetic. Go on, run along and cry to your boss."
"I... I... Go to hell!!!" Tears burst from the man's eyes and he spun around, bolting from the room.
The guards at the entrance exchanged a look of mute disbelief and stared at me.
A slow grin spread across my face.
"What are you looking at? You thought torture only hurts one person?"
Neither of them dared to answer. Just to be safe.
A few minutes passed. Then heavy, deliberate footsteps sounded in the corridor. A broad-shouldered man in his forties walked in, weathered face, calloused hands, the kind of build that came from years of actual hard work.
He scanned the room, walked over to the table, picked the knife up off the floor, and set it down with a quiet, satisfied sound.
"Well then," he said, turning to me with what looked like genuine curiosity. "They told me we had a tough one. It's been a while. Pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise," I said. "At least someone came in with a spine."
Torturer Number Two gave a short, amused sound at that, then started rolling up his sleeves. But he paused, studying my body more carefully.
"Wait... Where are the marks?"
"What marks?"
"From the work. My subordinate, did he not even..."
"Nope," I said, and somehow it came out almost sympathetic. "Never even started. Walked in, showed off his little knife, made some threats. But the moment I said one thing to him, he bolted like a whipped dog. Didn't lay a finger on him, and he still ran."
The senior torturer's face went completely still.
"He just... showed off and made threats with words..."
"Yep, you got it. Passed the whole job up to management. Oh, and he left the knife on the floor for you to pick up. Not exactly a sign of deep respect for the boss, is it?"
This one was different, clearly more experienced, clearly the one in charge. So I went straight for what he'd spent years building: his authority. And it landed.
My words hit him like a punch. He looked me over again carefully, searching for a single new mark on my skin. There wasn't one. His face cycled through red, then white, then red again.
"RAT!!!" The senior torturer's roar bounced off every wall in the cave. "GET IN HERE! NOW!!!"
Within a minute, the first torturer, bone-white and shaking, was dragged in by the scruff of his neck and strung up on a second frame right next to mine.
"W-wait, sir, if I could just explain—"
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!!"
The senior torturer grabbed the knife off the table and got to work disciplining his subordinate with considerable enthusiasm, laying into the man's back in long, deliberate strokes. The subordinate responded by screaming at an impressive volume.
About ten minutes later, the senior torturer stepped back, winded, mopping sweat from his face.
"Well? What do you think?" he asked me, turning his subordinate around so I could see, his face practically glowing with professional pride.
I responded with a long, slow yawn.
"Eh. The screaming sounds like a bad butcher failing to kill a pig. Not exactly restful." I yawned again and nodded toward my limp neighbor. "And honestly, the cuts are pretty sloppy. Who works like that? Your marks are your signature. Nobody's going to take you seriously with craftsmanship like that."
"Hey! I put real effort into that! That came from the heart!" He sounded genuinely hurt.
"And it still came out mediocre. How's the edge on that blade, by the way?"
The senior torturer automatically ran his thumb along the blade, and his expression collapsed.
"Damn it! Already dull!" He hurled the bloody knife into the pile of tools on the table in disgust. Several pieces clattered to the floor; others got smeared with blood in the process.
"That was a mistake," I said, in the tone of a patient mentor. "Now you'll have to clean all of it. You don't actually want me getting a blood infection, do you?"
"Kid!!! Have you completely lost your mind?!" The senior torturer spun around, sputtering. "Keep this up and I'll just slit your throat right here, you little bastard!"
"Really? Have you thought about what happens to you when your superiors find out you killed a slave for no reason? They wanted to make an example of me, didn't they? Leave me on display so the others would see, get scared, and fall in line. That was the whole point."
"And who's going to tell them?!"
I turned my gaze, quietly, toward the two guards at the entrance. They'd been barely suppressing grins a moment ago. Now their faces went blank as stone.
The senior torturer looked at them. Then back at me. Then at them again. Then he started swearing under his breath. He knew exactly what those idiots were incapable of: keeping their mouths shut. Which meant, reluctantly, he actually had to follow proper procedure.
"GET ME WARM WATER!" he roared. "AND ALCOHOL FOR DISINFECTION! NOW!!!"
The water and alcohol took a full ten minutes to arrive, which pushed the senior torturer into a fresh bout of fury. Then, under his continuous shouting, the three of them spent another five minutes scrubbing down the instruments.
Finally, a genuine, anticipatory smile spread across the senior torturer's face.
"At last! Now, you spoiled little brat, you're going to find out what real pain feels like! Look at these!" He dragged the table over proudly, instruments gleaming.
Then his smile froze when I let out a dismissive snort.
"What is this old junk? You actually torture people with this?"
"Hey! I worked for the royal court of the Kingdom of Caelum! Ten years ago this was the most advanced set available!"
"Pfft. Hardware older than I am." My voice dripped contempt. "What, one kit per sector, and this is actually yours? Figures, the way you're defending it. How are you even the head torturer here? This is equipment you'd hand to a first-year apprentice."
That did it. You could practically see the capillaries in his eyes burst, that's how much it got to him. Behind his back, the guards started laughing.
That was the last straw.
"YOU WORTHLESS PIECES OF—!!!" He swept the instruments off the table with a roar, sending the whole thing crashing to the floor. "I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!!!"
The senior torturer, any last shred of dignity gone, launched himself at the guards. They weren't pushovers either and started fighting back.
The room exploded: punches, shouting, crashing metal, somebody's head connecting hard with the wall.
I hung there and watched it like I had a front-row seat at the circus.
This went on for about two minutes before a one-eyed dark mage in a black robe came flying into the cave. Central casting couldn't have done better.
A whip of darkness cracked from his hand and started tearing through the pile of bodies with relentless efficiency. Before long everyone was on the ground separately, one man's arm bent at an angle arms don't normally bend.
"What is going on in here?" he asked, his voice cold. Nobody in the pile was capable of answering in anything but groans.
"Your people are just incompetent," I offered helpfully.
The mage surveyed the room: overturned table, scattered tools, the first torturer still strung up on his frame, the heap of bodies on the floor. Then he looked back at me, still hanging there, completely unscathed.
"Why are you in one piece?"
"It's a long story. Any chance I can get a competent torturer sent in? My time is valuable."
The mage swept his gaze around the room with the bearing of someone who'd just walked into a pigsty and was deeply put out by it. Then something seemed to occur to him and he let out a tired sigh.
"Lord Mamon has left the island, so I'm in charge of this sector. Wait, slave. Once this mess is cleaned up, we'll get started."
"Finally," I said.
Honestly, I just wanted to get through whatever they had planned and get back to the cell, as far away from these brilliant minds as possible. What if stupidity was contagious?
Third person. Somewhere else, a little earlier.
The slaves sat in bleak silence.
Those who had watched one of their own get dragged away had retreated into quiet grief. Some had simply gone back to staring at the wall, unable to look at anyone. Sho sat hugging his knees, unable to lift his eyes. Millianna was crying softly while Wally tried awkwardly to comfort her. Simon sat nearby, grim and unspeaking.
Erza stood staring at the gap where they had taken her brother. Her fists were clenched, nails pressing into her palms, as something slow and fierce began to kindle in her desperate eyes.
Jellal was dark too, sitting with his back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. Conflicting feelings tore at him. Part of him, the part that lived for justice, screamed at him to go after Elian right now. But another part, the part that thought in terms of strategy and consequence, kept repeating that it couldn't be done.
He got to his feet. Every eye in the room turned to him.
"We need to start the uprising. We leave now."
Silence. Then, almost immediately, hushed voices broke out all at once.
"Leave now?! What about Elian?!"
"We can't just abandon him!"
"Leave for where?! They'll catch us!"
Erza stood frozen like she'd been hit with something.
Jellal couldn't hold it together for long.
"You think this is easy for me to say?!" His voice broke and echoed off the stone. He caught himself, looked around, and dropped to a fierce whisper. "Leaving someone behind... life is brutal, we all know that. But this is our chance! Maybe the only one we'll ever get! Do you want to die here?! Does this have to go on forever?!"
Tears were forming in Jellal's eyes.
"No! This is pointless! Our parents didn't protect us with their lives so we could stay slaves forever! And he, Elian is suffering for us right now, not so we'd be next in line for the torture room!"
He looked around at all of them.
"So grit your teeth. And let's go."
Silence again. Then slowly, desperate but resolute nods began to appear.
Jellal smiled at that. A smile that cost him.
His chest was splitting at the thought of leaving his friend behind. But Elian, for all his strangeness, for all the ways he stayed on his own frequency and kept people at arm's length, there was something in the cold precision of how he operated that told Jellal: if anyone could be left behind with confidence that he'd get out on his own, it was Elian. He was honestly the one person Jellal was most wary of, and even now, given the already decent relationship between them, that wariness was entirely meant as a compliment.
But before anyone could even get to their feet, a voice rang out.
"Well, look what we've got here, a real up-and-coming dark mage!" A guard's voice carried from some distance away. He'd clearly been listening, and two more appeared behind him. "A born leader! Stirring up the flock to abandon one of their own and run! But... we need you right where you are, children!"
They opened the cell and grabbed Jellal. He fought back, drove his head into one guard's chin, but the second caught him from behind with a blow to the back of the skull, and they dragged him off in the same direction they'd taken Elian.
For Erza, this was the breaking point. Time seemed to slow to a stop, even as everything around her was moving faster than she could process.
First her brother. Now Jellal, who had just suggested leaving the most important person in her world behind, and had done it out of genuine care for everyone else. And once again she hadn't been able to do a single thing.
Erza sank to her knees. Tears came flooding. Her mind went sharp and silent all at once, and something in her chest had begun to build.
The slaves fell quiet again, as if hope had just died in front of them.
Into that silence came the unhurried sound of footsteps. One old man, with remarkable eyebrows. He walked over to Erza and lowered himself down beside her.
"Tears," Rob said quietly, "don't help much. But they matter. They clear the heart so it can make a decision. Have you made yours, Erza?"
She lifted her wet eyes to his.
"I want to... save my brother. And Jellal. And everyone. But I... I can't..."
"Can't?" Rob tilted his head. "Or don't know how?"
"What's the difference?!"
"An enormous one," the old man answered, gently but without any give in it. "Your brother believed you'd all get out of here. He still believes it, I'm certain of that. The question is: do you?"
Erza said nothing. But somewhere in her eyes, the ember burned a little brighter.
Rob stood and turned to face the dozens of slaves around him.
"THEY ARE TAKING OUR CHILDREN!!!" His voice cracked like a thunderclap and the stones of the chamber seemed to shudder. "THOSE DARK MAGIC BASTARDS ARE DRAGGING THEM INTO TORTURE ROOMS WHILE WE SIT HERE!!! But look around. Their strongest have left the island! What's left are the weak ones! This is our only chance!"
He raised his hand. Warm, living flame bloomed in his palm.
"TO FREEDOM!!!"
The fire surged toward the cell hinges. Metal glowed red and burst apart. The gate collapsed.
And in that moment, something changed inside every person watching. Broken a minute ago, they began to rise. Caught up in the spirit of a Fairy Tail mage, they stepped out beyond the bars.
Rob moved toward the next cells. His flame was small, he was old and worn to the bone, but it was enough.
Before long, drawn by the noise, guards came running. They started toward the old man, but the slaves saw it coming and grabbed whatever was within reach: rocks, broken bars, bricks, buckets. Then they threw themselves at their captors and overwhelmed them through sheer numbers.
Simon, solid enough to back it up, grabbed a pipe off the floor, knocked one guard flat, turned on a second, and went after him with everything he had.
Erza, something in her finally off the leash, seized a spear from a downed guard and drove herself at the next one, ramming the blade home without hesitation.
But when the first wave of guards had been dealt with, more arrived from every direction: several squads at once, and with them the hounds, and a mage.
"Simon!!!" Erza screamed in terror as she watched her friend grappling with a guard when fire coiled around both of them at once, burning.
"That's what you get!!!" the mage shouted, hurling fire with brutal force. "And where the hell is the one with the sleep spell?! Why do I have to do everything myself?!"
He was still shouting when he spotted the red-haired girl standing frozen.
"What are you staring at?!" He raised his hand and sent a killing fireball straight at her.
Erza didn't even have time to move before something came from behind her and a wall of flame burst up in front of her, catching the fireball inside it, spinning it into a geyser that turned and drove straight back at the mage.
"AAHH!!!" He barely had time to scream before his own fire, amplified and returned, hit him dead-on. The explosion threw his body into the wall, where it dropped and went still.
Erza stood staring, dazed, when she heard something fall beside her. She looked down, and her eyes went wide.
The old man had collapsed to the floor.
"Grandpa Rob!!!" Erza dropped to her knees and lifted his head.
Tears ran freely down her face. Rob raised his hand with tremendous effort and brushed them away.
"My body has reached its limit... I'm glad... I could protect you, Erza." His voice was barely a breath. "Remember... Magic isn't only power. It's feeling. You carry real magic inside yourself."
Rob's magic had been the force sustaining him, the thing keeping life in his aging body all this time. Now there was nothing left of it.
His hand fell. His eyes closed. Only a smile remained on his face.
Erza went completely still.
Around her, chaos: shouts, clashing metal, drifting smoke. The hounds tearing toward the slaves, the guards pressing their counterattack.
Something inside her cracked. And then it gave way entirely, like a dam breaking all at once.
She felt everything around her.
"Aaaahhh!!!" the girl screamed.
And dozens of swords, spears, knives, and shards of metal lifted into the air as though caught in an invisible storm, then spinning, came crashing down on the guards. Enemies dropped where they stood.
The slaves watching didn't understand what had just happened. But they understood what to do. Roaring, snatching up the fallen weapons, they surged forward.
The crowd, carried by that wave, drove toward the harbor, breaking through patrols and scattering the remaining guards. Some fell, others carried the wounded, but nothing stopped them.
When they reached the ship, Erza, still in that extraordinary razor-edge state, turned back to face the crowd. Weapons drifted in the air around her, the same ones she had used to cut down dozens of guards along the way.
"Wait here. I'll come back with Elian and Jellal."