Kata felt his entire body burn with pain and he was covered in blood, but no one seemed to bat an eye at the sight.
It was clear that for the Wena, this situation was far from abnormal.
Just the night before, Kata had killed his father and his mother’s husband, but she had yet to say a single word about the matter.
She did not show any kind of anger towards Kata, and the fact that she was carrying him on her back made the situation even more confusing.
Kata had killed the man after learning that he was abusive; he had been in the process of giving his wife, Kara, another beating when he was taken out.
The group marched in a perfectly neat line until they reached the stone quarry.
The journey took them about three hours from what Kata could tell, but none of the Wena seemed exhausted at all.
“No wonder they are said to be the perfect slaves,” he thought as his mother put him on the ground.
The wounds on his back had already closed and the only thing left was the pain that had reached deep into his bones.
The stone quarry was a vast thing, reaching far beyond what the eye could see.
There was a large pit at the center and there, Kata could see thousands of figures using pickaxes to mine the rocks while others worked to shape the stones into large blocks.
There was already a small mountain of stones neatly stacked in one part of the mine.
All the people working in the mine were Wena and all the people carrying the whips were humans.
This was not surprising at all.
What caught Kata’s attention was how his blood seemed to boil from the moment they reached this place.
He looked around to see that he was the only one having such a reaction.
“It is possible that they are all already used to this place and so they show no reaction, but this does not matter.
I must escape from this enslavement as soon as possible.
This is the only way I can begin to truly gain power,” he thought as he moved to enter the pit below.
The entrance was very treacherous and every now and then, a few Wena fell off the steep cliff, dying the moment they crashed into the hard rock beneath.
Their bodies were turned to meat paste and even their powerful healing abilities were not enough to save them from this.
“I will see you after the work,” Kara said.
Kata just nodded at this.
He was not happy with the fact that most Wena seemed to have already given up on their lives and become contented with being slaves.
“Pick your axe and begin cracking.
If I see you slacking off just because you received a few whips, I will truly beat you to death.
Make sure that you mine for two.
This is the only way you can make up for the fact that you killed your scum of a father, costing me so much labor.”
Kata just nodded at this, and for the fact that he did not bow and accept the orders with all due obedience, the slave master whipped him once more.
Kata staggered from the force and the pain.
The whip was not a normal one at all.
It had thin barbs at the ends, ensuring that with each strike, the whip rendered flesh helpless.
Kata grabbed a pickaxe and followed the group to start slaving away his life.
“For now, I must blend in as much as possible and learn everything I can about this new world.
As I am now, I do not even know what I am.
The Wena are a truly fascinating race with great potential and yet they failed to make anything of themselves, allowing the humans to dominate wholly.
From the little knowledge the original Kata had about this world, it is a vast place that makes Soul appear to be no more than a pebble.
There are nine continents with each continent being so vast that its people can go their entire lives without ever leaving or even thinking of leaving.
I am currently on Pride, one of the nine continents.
This is all I know about this place.
I do not even know the name of the area I currently slave in and even the ruler of these lands is a mystery.
Do these people have notions of democracy or do they fancy monarchies?
All these are questions I must find answers to, and the most important question is: how the humans managed to gain supremacy over these lands.
So far, all I have seen is that the Wena have incredible bodies with abilities such as superstrength, enhanced healing, and the ability to see in the dark.
With their vision, they can even see at least ten times further than the human eye can allow.”
As all these thoughts moved through his mind, Kata brought his pickaxe down against the white rock beneath his feet.
With his inhuman strength, the axe cut through the stone as though it was tofu.
Kata was impressed by this new strength.
Even though he still felt that it was a pity that he was not human, he was happy to have all this strength moving through his flesh.
So far, the only issue he had found with being a Wena was that they were a slave race that had been dominated by humans for thousands of years, if not longer.
Kata took ten more swings against the stone before he bent down and took a few pieces into his hands.
The stone was as smooth as can be.
Kata tried crushing it into dust.
With his new strength, he believed that he had the strength to crush most rocks to dust with ease.
The white stone in his hands did not show any signs of being crushed.
He increased his power and even after he used everything he had, there was no sign of the rock giving way.
Fortunately, there was an ordinary brown boulder just a few feet away.
Kata moved over and slapped the rock with all his strength.
The boulder was shattered on impact, sending pieces flying in all directions.
Some of the rock was even turned to dust.
“Just as I thought,” he thought as he looked at the white stone the Wena were tasked with mining.