After the healing process was complete, I moved my leg gingerly and felt like it was all healed up. I did it with purpose, and again, there was no pain. With newfound confidence, I stood up tall and surveyed the area. The trembling figure of a man was still cowering in fear in the same spot, doing his best to remain unnoticed.

  However, his attempts to remain ignored or forgotten were in vain as my eyes locked onto him, and he pleaded, “Please don’t kill me. I am just a scholar. Please don’t kill me.”

  The man had tears streaming down his cheeks, and honestly, he didn’t look all that injured. I walked over to him and demanded, “You’re a scholar? What is your name?”

  “My… my name,” the man stuttered. “My name is Saresh, my lord.”

  Despite his charming words and gestures, I could sense his unease. It was apparent that he was trying to win me over, but it was unlikely that he believed I was a lord. My armor was a mishmash of pieces, and I looked like I had taken a severe beating before being thrown into this hole. Now I was even worse. At best, I was a poorly funded soldier from my outfit, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility that he was desperate to save his own life.

  “Saresh,” I uttered, tasting the name, “you said you are a scholar, but you look like a soldier and are traveling with a group of them.”

  He started stuttering again as he realized the implications of what I was saying. “Ye-yes, s-sir. I-I am one as well. The Union had recruited every man in our village with...” He paused and looked as sincere as he could, resuming, “with or without our choice. I was a scholar. I had no interest in being a soldier. However, as our entire village was being uprooted, the village elders agreed, and I had to come with the others.”

  There was so much to his story that didn’t make sense, but since I wasn’t part of this world, I needed context to see what he was getting at.

  “Okay. Okay.” I raised my hand and covered my face with it while trying to figure out how to obtain the information I needed. “I don’t know where to start, so why don’t you tell me a little about yourself and what you are doing here?”

  He looked taken aback that I wanted to hear anything from him, but I sat down and paid attention. At the very least, I would learn more about how the Union worked.

  “My grandfather was a merchant and a scholar in The Old City,” he began, still trembling. “He had made some good investments, and when the rebellion started, we were hunted because of that. He fled with our whole family, hoping to keep us safe. It worked, and we were safe for a time.”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m lost already. Why would someone hunt you down just because you were good at investing? And what rebellion are you talking about?” I asked, confused.

  “Maybe you Loyalists call it something different, but it all started when the King died and the regions couldn’t unite,” he explained, then paused, looking at me as if he’d said something wrong. “I mean, I can understand why they wouldn’t want to unite.” I gave him a blank look, still confused, but he seemed relieved for some reason. “Getting back to my grandfather. When the rebellion broke out, others who had made the same investments as he started dying, along with their next of kin. We, and a few others, fled the city with whatever we could carry. We made it to the furthest border of the mountain and settled in a village. When the war with the Middle Kingdom broke out, we were too insignificant to be bothered with at that time.”

  More interested in his family's actual story, I tried to learn more about it. “But why would they kill people just for investing? Were you financing something evil?”

  “Never. My grandfather took great pride in our city and used his capital toward its betterment. They killed him so they wouldn’t have to repay the investment. It’s not a common practice. After all, who would ever want to give you money if they heard about that?”

  It seemed both shocking and unexpected to me. I recalled a tale of an ancient banking family that extended loans to nations at steep interest rates. In a grim turn of events, one of these nations orchestrated the assassination of the very family that had provided them with financial support.

  Today, such an outcome would be far less likely. There would inevitably be beneficiaries tied to the loan, even if only the government stood to gain. Then again, the government could always confiscate whatever it wanted, so there would be no real need to kill anyone.

  “So you went to some town and your family became the local scholars and merchants?”

  “Not at all. Our modest funds were only enough to afford the basics in a town on the fringe of the city's influence. It did not need scholars or merchants, so we did what everyone else did, and farmed.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “But you claimed to be a scholar.”

  Saresh stuttered once again. “Y-yes, sir. Very few people in our village are literate. Unlike them, I was taught by my family to read and speak various languages, as well as to perform proper mathematics. The military didn’t care much for the math but valued my linguistic skills. Because of this, they assigned me to the regulars instead of the conscripted.”

  "Do you know Goblin?" I asked.

  "Ahh, so you do know where you are," Saresh replied, shifting in pain. "I figured you might, given your ring."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  He was staring at my left hand, which bore a single ring with a violet gem, a piece I had received during the challenge with the Giant Spider. Bass had told me about the ring’s connection to the city after revealing that they lived in a section of the Labyrinth city. The fact that Saresh had identified it so quickly meant that the Union either knew about it before attacking the Dwarves or had figured it out after capturing them. I leaned toward the latter, considering it would have been obvious once they got deeper into the settlement.

  I needed to know more. "How did you find out?"

  He glanced between my ring and my face three times before responding, clearly weighing his options. I could almost see the calculations running through his mind. Lie, tell the truth, or stay silent? In the end, fear won out. After all, he had just witnessed me slowly killing someone.

  "After we attacked the settlement, we realized it was a Labyrinth city as soon as we passed the entry area. The man you just killed led the interrogation of some Dwarves to find out more." He paused to swallow nervously. "I was there because I spoke Dwarvish, but I didn’t participate." He hesitated, waiting to see if I would lash out, but when I didn’t, he continued. "After getting the information they needed, they killed the Dwarves they had interrogated."

  Confused by the waste, I asked, "Why kill someone who complied?"

  Saresh looked more puzzled by my question than fearful. "Torture is a dangerous gamble. Pushing people too far can cause them to acquire dangerous Abilities. Most won’t even consider torture because it can backfire. But if you do, you have to act quickly and always kill those you interrogate afterward."

  I hadn’t connected my conversation about the taboo nature of Abilities with the practice of killing the tortured. It wasn’t a direct correlation, but it was close. People didn’t talk about Abilities because they often revealed things about a person’s past. This was similar, but much darker.

  "What did you learn?"

  “That the Dwarves held only part of the city while the Goblins controlled the majority, and that they had been searching for that ring for some time. I didn’t think they were lying when they said they hadn’t found it, but I guess I was wrong. They even showed us the tunnels where they had been searching. However, that could have been a trick to coax more of our soldiers down there to die,” Saresh finished.

  This was good news. The Union didn’t think the ring was in play. There was no way they could have known I had it, since I obtained it after the Dwarves were captured. But if they suspected the Dwarves were hiding it, they might move up their timeline. With the ring missing, it was more likely they’d focus on securing the city before searching for it.

  It was useful information, but I still couldn't trust Saresh. "You never answered my question. Do you know Goblin?"

  He looked fearful once again, realizing he hadn’t actually answered me before. "Yes, I know Goblin, but I don’t think it will help."

  “Why is that?”

  “Firstly, I can’t move.” He then clarified, “Well, I can move, but it will hurt a lot. Secondly, Goblins will kill us on sight.”

  Although he claimed to be badly hurt, I could tell that his injuries were relatively minor. Compared to the injuries I had sustained since arriving in this world, his wounds were nothing more than scratches. However, I knew that I would heal rapidly, and I could ignore the pain. I guessed he had to deal with the reality that the more he moved, the worse the injuries would get.

  I reached into my pouch, and the man recoiled in fear. He probably thought I was going to grab my bow again, but instead, I pulled out a precious healing potion. It was the last one I had, and I knew how rare they were to come by in this world. In games, potions could be found almost anywhere. You would find them stuffed up the butthole of every dead rat, in the remains of a skeleton, inside a barrel, after smashing a crate, or even from cutting the grass. But in reality, they were a rare and valuable commodity. People would use them before they were killed, so no one was likely to find them as loot.

  Additionally, the middle of the woods wasn’t the best place to buy items. In fact, I had a big problem with that. I had gold but nowhere to spend it. It was a stupid issue to have.

  “I have a healing potion,” I said.

  “Only one?” He asked with a sad face.

  “Yep. This one is for you if I can trust you,” I replied.

  He looked skeptical, as if he were trying to work it out. He knew I had fallen down the hole before and was injured as well. He also knew I was standing here in perfect shape. Falling would most definitely hurt someone or kill them. Then, as two and two were put together, he said, “Ahh. Yes, you are a Grey Elf. I have never seen any type of Elf, but you must be a Grey Elf. I thought you all died, but you must have escaped the continent.”

  I had been curious about them for some time, but all anyone seemed to know was that they were unskilled baby murderers. Wanting to learn more, I pressed, “Do you know what happened to them?”

  “As far as I’ve learned, they had some insane leader who started killing their own young. This led the other Elven races to gather armies and wipe them all out. But that never made sense to me. Why would you commit genocide against a whole race to save their young?”

  That didn’t make much sense to me either. Maybe that was just the pretext, and they wiped them out because they saw them as savages. It was a familiar story in my own world. One group disapproved of another’s barbaric practices and decided they didn’t deserve to live.

  Either way, it seemed Saresh had some knowledge I needed, and it was clear he had scholarly training. Since he was useful, I just needed to understand his character. “How can I be sure I can trust you?”

  “I swear to you on the graves of my parents that I mean you no harm. I swear to you on the lives of my sisters that if you help me, I will help you get back to the surface,” Saresh declared.

  While that was a mighty vow, it was wholly limited in scope. Rabbit joined in. “You know you don’t have to make him promise the world to you. That hasn’t exactly worked out well so far.”

  Rabbit was referring to the Dwya. They had pledged a loyalty I hadn’t exactly asked for. All I really wanted was for them to promise what this man was offering me now. I suppose if they had made the same commitment, I would have overthought it too, thinking it was too narrow. The issue with my agreement with the Dwya was that they saw me as a long-term ally. This meant I was expected to either help them or make occasional appearances. That might be reasonable for allies, but I was just one person with other responsibilities. I didn’t want to be permanently tied to them.

  After a moment's thought, I said, “Deal, but you have to teach me anything I need to know.”

  “Okay,” Saresh agreed, partly relieved but still skeptical.

  I handed him the potion and added, “I wouldn’t drink it all if you can avoid it. I don’t have any more.”

  Saresh drank half of the potion, while I walked around the cave, gathering up all the fallen daggers. They had to be worth something, and they weren’t precisely heavy, so I guessed they would pay more per pound than a sword, but I had no clue. We would see. I really wished my analysis had told me more.