1 Chapter One
My eyes snapped open and my body shot up.
The surroundings were unfamiliar and a brief feeling of panic washed over me before it was gone just as suddenly as it came.
The first thing I noticed after the obvious was that my depth perception was skewed. I couldn't see out of one of my eyes. Blinking a few times, I reached for my left eye, feeling the scar, that felt like a burn scar that ran across my face, almost reaching my right one as well.
I could feel some letters and a realization dawned on me. Was I branded? A wave of indignation and anger was suppressed a second after it appeared and my mind was clear again.
That was weird, I wasn't the calmest person around, but by no means was I going to explode at the slightest provocation, yet this situation required my anger, and I didn't feel it, no, I couldn't feel it.
I closed the damaged eye and used my right one to look around the room. I wasn't alone, there were people sleeping on the cold, hard floor. The room was barren, not even a spot of light and around twenty people, children that couldn't be older than twelve were lying on the floor, sleeping, cuddling to share their body heat.
This time, my anger was palpable, whoever was responsible for this was keeping kids in what was equal to jail. Unlike before, it took a few seconds for me to calm down but my righteous anger soon reared its head again, this time because I was even denied my anger by an unknown force.
[Strong negative feelings were suppressed by Gamers Mind.]
My eye widened in surprise at the blue screen that appeared in front of me. Was this what I was thinking it was? If so, I was so done with believing in the afterlife.
"...Status."
I whispered under my breath, making sure not to wake up any of the kids that were sleeping around me.
[Name: Adam Taurus
Race: Bull Faunus (50% Purity.)
Level: 1
HP: 100
AP: 100 (Locked)
Semblance: Moonslice (Locked)
STR: 10
END: 10
INT: 10
AGI: 10
Free Points: 0.]
I blinked my one good eye and let out a sigh, First of all, what the hell was a Faunus? Second of all what kind of name is "Taurus" and last of all, why did my name magically change?
Letting out a sigh of exasperation I looked around again and noticed the weird thing about all of the kids. They had animal appendages. Dog ears, long, furry tails, Bunny ears.
Realization dawned on me and I reached for my ears, only to find them normal length, then I went for my back, absently noting that my hand was smaller than it used to be and felt for a tail...
No tail.
The last part I reached for was my head and instead of ears, I felt two slightly long hard objects attached to my skull.
I had horns... Huh, neat.
letting down my hands, I looked at my body as a whole... Everything was smaller. Letting out a sigh of disappointment, I turned back to the blue screen in front of me. Narrowing my eye, I whispered out my second command.
"Shop."
Nothing.
"Skills."
[Passive skills:
Gamers Mind.
Gamers Body.
You currently have no active skills.]
Huh, nice to know.
"Inventory."
The screen changed, revealing a dozen black boxes surrounded by a blue background. Nothing in the inventory, looks like the one who sent me here didn't think to include the items that would help me escape this place.
This either meant that they didn't know where I would end up, or it was intentional.
[Your INT has increased by 1.]
Heh, bastard.
Rolling my eye, I leaned back down and lay there for a moment, thinking about my predicament...
I was fucked.
"Get up, animals! Time to get to work!"
I heard a gruff yet muffled voice, and I sent a glance toward it, and a door came into my restricted field of view.
The kids around me stirred, some even jumped up into sitting positions as soon as the voice started talking, some looked terrified and the older ones looked resigned.
... Racism and enslavement.
Now that I could see the kids, I saw a brand on some of their faces.
One child that didn't look older than Eight had a burn of "SDC" on his cheek. They were treating kids like they were property.
As the kids started standing up and lining up against the door I followed suit, standing at the end of the line.
The door opened and The kids started walking out, followed by me at their back. As soon as I walked out, I squinted my eye at the sudden light that attacked my only functioning vision organ.
Outside? I looked back at the building we just came out of, and my irritation rose. a simple, metal box... We were kept in a metal box.
"Move kid! Step in line!"
A baton hit the back of my head and pain flared from the point of impact until that too, was gone a second later.
Who the fuck just hit me?
I sent a glance behind me, narrowing my eye at the older man with slicked-back hair and a bushy beard. He was wearing a white uniform with an insignia of a snowflake on his heart.
"Get going!"
Another hit and I fell in line again. Child abuse, Fan-Fucking-Tastic.
I watched from the back of the line as the kids went to pick up a pickaxe from a stand containing the exact amount as the kids and I were in line.
Heavy monitoring.
Picking up one myself, I looked it over, seemed like a normal pickaxe. Now I wasn't an expert in the mining tools but I was sure it was not cleaned in a while...
"Get to work, kid!"
I was shoved from the side, pushed towards the other children that were going to what seemed like a mine...
My slave theory was proven right.
[Your INT has increased by 1.]
I felt insulted, but I disregarded that. Walking toward the entrance of the Mine, I surveyed my surroundings with one eye, I could see at least 5 guards but I was sure that there were more on my other side, but I couldn't see them, they were in my blind spot.
Entering the mine, looked around to notice the other kids going towards the walls that had holes in them, seemingly mined previously.
I waited for the others to take their positions until I went towards the one that was free.
Was I really going to just go along with all of this?
I swung, once, twice, thrice.
[Your STR has increased by one.]
Yes... for now.
I would get as strong as possible here, as long as I didn't wake up only to find out that this was some freak dream.
I kept swinging, and periodically the blue screen would inform me that my Strength stat was increasing. It took longer and longer each time. I didn't get hungry, I didn't get thirsty, I just kept swinging, the feeling of exhaustion slowly creeping upon my body.
I didn't have a watch and the System didn't have any time indicator either, so I just resulted to counting my swings. After 89 swings, I saw something that was unusual. I had no idea what I was mining for, but I saw a red, glass-like rock.
Narrowing my eyes, I stopped for a moment, exhaustion catching up. My breathing was heavy and I allowed myself to relax my muscles for a moment.
[Your END has increased by 3.]
I blinked. Unlike strength, which increased by one each time, it looked like my endurance increase was equivalent to how hard I worked, how exhausted I was, and how long I held out.
[Your INT has increased by 1.]
... Fuck you.
I looked over to the others, most of them were kept mining, however, the younger ones were struggling. I saw the same crystals, varying in color, and they were careful with mining around those.
Why? Were they dangerous or expensive?
The exhaustion was gone, it has been for a little while now, I turned back to where I was mining and resumed, careful not to hit the red stone.
As I kept mining, more and more of the crystal was shown before the thing fell down to the ground. the mining stopped and I sent a glance towards the others. They were all looking at me with panic in their eyes but calmed down when nothing happened.
Bending down, I picked the crystal up and placed it in the box that was next to the hole.
Without another word, I continue mining.
Time passed like flowing water, immeasurable because one didn't know when the flow started or when it was going to end.
My strength increased, along with my endurance, each time I stopped to pick up another crystal. The weird thing was, that I had no idea what these things were.
If I could open my status without saying the word...
'Status.'
The blue screen opened and I felt the urge to groan.
[Name: Adam Taurus
Race: Bull Faunus (50% Purity.)
Level: 1
HP: 170
AP: 130 (Locked)
Semblance: Moonslice (Locked)
STR: 19
END: 17
INT: 13
AGI: 10
Free Points: 0.]
So every stat point in endurance and intelligence will increase my health and whatever AP was by 10. If I had any luck, every level up would either increase my stats by one while giving me points to spend or it would increase my health and AP by a certain degree.
[Your INT has increased by 1.]
Oh, fuck off.
"Alright animals! You know the drill, drink water and you work for one more hour for each bottle you drink, don't take the water and you work for an hour less!"
A man, wearing the same white uniform that was present with the other guards came into the cave. Holding a bag that he dropped to the ground. It was less of a bag and more of a dirty cloth that was used to hold items.
As the bag impacted the ground, it unraveled, revealing bottles of water... It wasn't clean either, with brown liquid swirling in the bottle.
Were they serious?
The other kids walked toward the bottles, each picking one and drinking it greedily. They didn't get any food today in the morning, so they must have been hungry.
I ignored the man and resumed my mining, the container being slowly filled with every cristal I found, my stats increasing with less frequency than before.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the "Inspect" skill that was so popular in fanfictions, so I still didn't know if I could use these crystals to escape, on the off chance that these crystals were dangerous. They were sharp, but that was about all I knew.
As I mined another crystal, I picked it up and carefully placed it in the slowly filling box. Instead of just adding it to the pile it disappeared with just a mental command, appearing in my inventory.
I looked at the words below the icon of a blue rectangle, narrowing my eye at it.
The "Ice Dust Crystal" was written there, with no explanation whatsoever.
Sighing, I was about to return to mining when I heard a rather irritating voice behind me.
"I'm surprised you haven't dropped yet. Return the Pickaxe and carry the dust crystals outside, make sure not to damage any of them, getting new labor will be annoying."
I looked back at the older man and stared at him for a second. So, my reward for not drinking water was more work. Great.
"Get going, brat!"
I turned towards the box for a minute, remembering that the box had a layer of clothing on it and the tips of the cloth were peeking out of the box itself.
grabbing the four ends, I took out the cloth, heavy with all of the "Dust Crystals" that were inside and I picked up the pickaxe again to carry out the bag.
Later in the day, when the other kids finished, they made me carry out the other bags as well, as a reward.
Left me with no food either while they gave the others some gray mush that I honestly didn't want to get anywhere close to my mouth.
Laying back down on the cold, steel floor, I closed my eyes. There was nothing I could do in an enclosed space, and the guards would hear me if I started training right now.
[Starting Tutorial. Transporting Player.]
What?
