The slaves continued to work. Now they worked nonstop. After the werewolf attack, the hunters had forced them to work even harder. Henryk was sweating like an animal. He had never worked so hard in his life.
Felicia was working a few steps away from him. She struck the mana crystal quickly, nimbly, but there was something distant in her eyes. She hadn't said a word since yesterday's attack. Of course, she hadn't said much until now, but when Someryn fooled around while working, she always called him "Idiot" or insulted him.
Henryk glanced at her surreptitiously, not knowing why. Felicia seemed to notice.
"I saw how you looked at him," the young man said quietly, striking the mana crystal with his pickaxe so the hunters wouldn't accuse him of not working. "That werewolf... Was he someone you knew?"
Felicia, like the young man, continued to pound the mana crystal with her pickaxe. The sound of all the slaves' tools continued to echo through the hall, until finally, Felicia's blows faded. She lowered her hood, her bald head peeking out from beneath it, the tips of her cat ears quivering.
"I didn't know him personally," she replied, her voice hard as rock. Henryk raised his eyebrows in dismay. He hadn't expected the woman to answer. "But I knew his scent. He was from my country. From the southern forests of Amaranth."
"Hmm... If I remember correctly, Someryn mentioned it earlier. Amaranth is the land of the Demi-humans, right?" Henryk remarked, recalling the man's earlier words.
The woman nodded.
"Yes. Just as your noisy friend said. Amaranth was once my home," she said with a sad smile, while collecting mana crystals from the ground and packing them into her backpack. "Everyone who lives there has a distinctive smell."
"What smell?" Henryk asked with interest.
"The smell of hope." She replied, her sad smile vanishing, replaced by a grim expression.
"What does hope smell like?" Henryk continued the conversation regardless, even though he suspected where Felicia was heading.
"In Amaranth, unlike Tharomund, we don't have silly squabbles over resources, there's no greed... Beast-people like that poor Werewolf, along with the Elves and us Demi-humans, live in harmony..."
"Ugh, bullshit," Henryk grunted incoherently.
"What?" Felicia asked, who hadn't quite heard what Zielczyk had said.
"It's nothing. Continue," he instructed the woman.
"Okay. Anyway, we smell distinctively like each other because when a child turns three, they're marked. Look." With that, the cat revealed a bit of cleavage in her dirty clothes, and Henryk saw what looked like a turtle shell tattoo.
"What does this symbol mean?" the young man asked the woman.
"A symbol of our country's faith. Because we believe in Lord Sylvester, peace reigns in our land."
"If things are so great in Amaranth, why are you and the other Demi-humans here?"
At these words, Felicia froze. Her hands, which held the pickaxe, began to tremble. Henry noticed this, but said nothing, waiting for Felicia to respond.
"Some of our kinsmen leave Amaranth, wanting to accomplish great and selfish deeds. They acquire passage to other kingdoms and become adventurers, run merchant companies, or simply become servants of some nobleman."
"I understand..." Pondering Felicia's words, Henryk remembered a certain blue-haired elf who served Count Korin. He wondered if this elf was one of the cases Felicia had mentioned, or if she was just one of Jarrett Korin's many slaves whom he had simply trained. Just thinking about Korin again confused Henryk. "What about you?"
"Hmm?" The cat tilted her head slightly to the side, a questioning expression on her face.
"Why are you here in this land and not in Amaranth?" Henryk asked, curious.
After a moment of silence, Felicia became lost in thought, wondering what to answer. The seemingly simple question posed a slight problem. After more than two minutes, she finally answered.
"When I was a small child, my parents, I, and other Demi-humans came to Tharomund to seek powerful and wealthy allies among our kin. Amaranth wanted to join the Vulkarion empire because they were supposed to start a fifth war with Tharomund. Ultimately, however, the war did not break out, but when I, like others, wanted to return home, we were captured and imprisoned in cages because we had no Safe Conduct to protect us from it."
After hearing this story, Henryk sighed in resignation. He felt sorry for Felicia, of course, but now his thoughts were occupied by another element of her story.
[How the hell could her parents just take a small child with them, so she could seek allies in a war against this country.] The young man thought, unable to imagine any parent being so irresponsible. [Parents who abandon their children, giving them to other relatives, are better.]
"Hey Felicia, why didn't your parents just get a safe-conduct? Is it that hard to get one?"
"No. Getting a safe-conduct isn't a problem."
"So why didn't your parents get one?"
"My father thought it was cowardly to give in to people like that."
[Jesus, is her father stupid?! He wanted to join a war against the people of this country and he didn't even prepare properly! He expects honor in war. Because of his foolish pride, his daughter lost her childhood and, in fact, her entire life!"
"What did your parents actually do, Felicia?" Henryk continued, his tone gentle, not letting the woman know what he thought of her father.
"Mom was a housewife and sewed clothes, and dad fished."
"..." Henryk didn't say anything at first. He was too shocked. "He was a fisherman?" He finally whispered, to which Felicia nodded.
*Slap!*
Felicia looked at Henryk in surprise, who suddenly slapped his forehead. [The guy was a fisherman... And he wanted to go to a damn war?! I could understand if they were forced to conscript, but this...]
"Jesus Christ," Henryk rubbed his temples irritably, as if he had a headache. "This has got to be some kind of bad joke!"
For him, like for a lot of other people, something like war. It was completely pointless. After all, how stupid do you have to be to willingly get into such a mess? The young man couldn't imagine what Felicia's father was thinking and why her mother had simply agreed to it.
Considering that Felicia was the only Demi-human cat in the slave transport that had brought her to this mana nest, one could conclude that her parents were most likely dead and would most likely never know what these "Parents of the Century" had in mind to endanger and destroy their own daughter's life.
"On another note," Felicia suddenly spoke up, drawing Henryk out of his reverie. "Since I've told you about myself, maybe you could tell me a little about yourself now. Maybe we should start with your name?"
"Oh right. Forgive me" Henryk laughed. "He's making you talk about your life when I haven't even told you my name." I'm Henryk..."
"Just remember, only I can call you Hen." Suddenly, Someryn interrupted the conversation. "Besides, I already told you his name, Miss Felicia. Sigh... You know what, Hen, the moment I turn around, you're already talking to someone else. Isn't my friendship enough for you?"
At these words, Henryk and Felicia rolled their eyes, but soon they started laughing quietly along with Someryn.
"Alright, enough of this stupid laughter," Kael called to them, glaring at them. "Pack your bags. We're leaving."
[[Reference Art for Felicia in comment]]