“But what should he do in the mountains, so far away?!”

Nikto shrugged his shoulders:

“I don’t know. An escaped slave or a criminal.” He sat down in a chair and put his hand on a special armrest. Marg began to mend the barely healed demonic beast eye on his hand.

But Lis couldn’t calm down, his gaze returned to the cage, and the guy, clinging to the bars, also looked at him.

“Nik… he is very young, he is a human.”

“Lis, the unclean have a lot of people as slaves, get used to it.”

“But he doesn't look like a criminal or a slave.”

“Fuck, talk to him yourself, if you're so interested!”

Lis went to the cage, squatted down:

“Who the hell are you?!”

“My name is Marcus.”

“And what were you doing so far in the mountains, Marcus?”

“I'm a traveler. I explore different places, in the North and in the South. I am a researcher.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about? Researcher?!”

“Yes! I am a scientist, I study the nature and features of our world! I discovered in the north such fat birds that cannot fly, but can live in the cold! These are rare unknown species of flora and fauna. And also plants and minerals, in this cave I discovered a unique colony of stone flowers… my notes, my notebooks with notes…” When he spoke it quickly, choking with words to be in time, his eyes lit up.

“Are you out of your mind? What flowers?!”

“Unique stone flowers that exist only in our world! They glow! Nowhere else are there such ones!”

“Have you been fucked by the unclean?” Lis asked.

And Marcus wilted, froze. Then he pulled back from the bars, head down.

“Do you understand WHAT they will do to you?”

“Help me!” Marcus looked at Lis again with eyes full of despair and hope.

“How can I help you?! I am also a slave, just like you!”

“You are a slave? But you don't look like a slave! Who are you? Warrior?”

“Yes. How did you guess?”

“It's easy to understand, your posture, such a face.”

“Yes, I am a military commander.”

“How did you get into slavery? How could they capture you?!”

Lis smiled sadly:

“I gave up myself.”

“What do you mean yourself?”

“I sold myself in exchange for power.”

Marcus stumbled back, leaning his head against the side wall of the cage.

“Clear. War, murder, any cost justifies victory. You won't help me.”

“I won't help you,” Lis stepped back from the cage, “no one will help you.”

When Lis came back to the master a few days later, he saw that Marcus was still there. He lay crumpled on the floor, and when he raised himself to the noise, Lis saw that on Marcus’ cheek from the ear to the corner of his mouth a dick was tattooed, as realistic as a real one, with an aroused head. And, apparently, the face of Lis at that moment, when he saw it, spoke for itself. Marcus cringed, crawling into the far corner, hiding his disfigured face. But Lis approached him.

“Marcus?”

He didn’t answer.

“Marcus?”

“You won't help me, no one will help me,” Marcus finally answered, “and now it's too late.”

“But what about your northern birds and stone flowers, which are not found anywhere else?”

“Nobody gives a shit,” Marcus said.

And Lis shook his head:

“I'll try to help you, maybe buy you back or exchange you, I don't know how yet.”

Lis told Nikto everything about Marcus.

“Marg says that his master prepares slaves, then resells them,” Nikto explained.

“Is it really possible to buy him? How much will he cost?”

“Do you want a young boy as your slave?”

“I don't want to fuck him! He is a scientist!”

“Who?”

“Do you need a scientist? An explorer of this world?”

“Ha-ha, no, of course!”

Nikto spoke to Marg again.

“You can't buy him. He is not for sale.”

“But why?!”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Am I to blame that he is already being customized? You see, the master tattoos him the way the customer wanted. He has already been purchased!”

“Do something! Buy him out! I was in your limit, I was not yet your slave, and you paired me with Aika, and my child is here.”

“I didn’t forcibly pair you with a slave, as you put it! You wanted it yourself! You fucked Aika of your own free will.”

Lis grabbed his head:

“Well, why cannot you agree!”

“Why should I fulfill your whims?”

“You gave Arel the best horse, but you can't give me an unfortunate boy?! I'll give three reds for him! What do they want? For breeding and selection?”

“Do you have them?”

“When we take the Fort, I will!”

“Well, then we'll talk.”

“By this time they will disfigure him so that it will be easier to just kill him! Ask for a loan! As a pledge, I don’t know how you make the deals here!”

“Lis, you know, fuck off! If we ransom every person, no money will be enough! There’s a plenty of people here, do I need to show you? Do you want to save everyone?”

“I am begging you! After all, my child is here.”

“Your child is here, and your children are also in a heap of places, in this and even the Upper world. From those peasants whom you raped, seizing their villages, from various whores and slaves! You shit on them, and it doesn't matter what they eat, drink or what they wear.”

Lis was silent, discouraged by this answer.

“I'll figure it out later,” he said finally, shaking his head as if to drive away the obsession.

“Well, of course!”

“Nik, help me buy Marcus out. I'm asking you!”

Nikto sighed:

“Well, why do I always allow you everything, Lis?”

“Will you agree?!”

“I'll try. But I don't promise you anything.”

Nikto returned Lis to Karina. He himself, along with decorated Arel, went below.

“What did Nikto make you do?” Karina asked, looking at his new tattoo on his chest.

“Nothing special. Everything as usual. He decorates Arel, in his opinion, deals with him all the time. Drags him down to his unclean friends. Shows them his slave. He drags Arel, not me.”

“Have you been there?”

“I was a little lower last time, a couple of tiers, no more. There is something like a throne room and many lounges. They all gather there.”

“Nikto has some kind of a palace here.”

“Yes. But I don't want to go down there anymore.”

“As well as me.”

“Let him drag Arel, he definitely dragged him across all the worlds. These are the prince's problems. Let them have fun as they want.”

“And how did he decorate him?”

“Shitty. I don't even want to talk about it.”

“But I will see it later.”

“Well, yes, I don't think he will fix it.”

“What?”

“Fuck, I don’t want to remember this.”

“Li-i-is, what did he do to the prince?”

“In general, nothing special, he put a chastity belt on him, so hard, of course, with a metal tube inside the dick, now Arel can cum or piss only when Nikto opens the tap. On the side where Arel had a brand on his cheek, he pulled out all of his side teeth below and above and cut a hole in his cheek.”

“What for?” Karina whispered, her eyes widened.

“Now he can shove his dick into Arel’s mouth through the hole in the cheek.”

“Oh Gods!” And Karina began to cry.

And Lis got angry:

“Why are you crying? Do you feel sorry for him? Do you still like him?! Did you like how he fucked you? Especially with Nikto, I guess? When they two fucked you, simultaneously in all holes. Did you like it, huh? Arel treated you badly, cut your hair off, and you whine over him!”

“I have no grudge against him, and the hair will grow back. It's just hair,” Karina tried to wipe away her tears. “He's like that because he saw only cruelty in his life. He was never treated well. Therefore, he didn’t learn to be good.”

“What are you saying? Why do you always remember only Arel? Always, when it comes to how someone was unjustly beaten and humiliated, everyone always remembers Prince Arel!”

Lis lit a cigarette, and his face turned angry:

“You remember how his father beat him in childhood, how he was bullied in prison, how unfairly he was treated. But if we compare all the facts, they mocked me no less, and I had to endure a lot of humiliations too! But for some reason it seems to everyone that everything is always in order with Lis! And only the handsome prince endured incredible suffering! Arel had a strict father who beat him and raised him. Well, I didn't have a father at all! And I was not a noble master, but an illegitimate half-breed, do you think I was not humiliated? Didn't they tease me? Didn’t they mock at my hair color, freckles? Arel knew from childhood that he was a prince, the chosen one. I also realized very early that I was worse than others, a waste. He was taught by the best masters of military affairs, I was simply taken into the army. And there the commanders were not ceremonious with me, as I was second class, I remained. Why is Arel justified by the fact that his father was too cruel to him and therefore nothing good came of Arel? Why did it come out of me then? Arel became a criminal, and I, the red-headed half-breed, became the commander. Why? Was it somehow easier for me? Was it?”

Karina was silent.

“Good. Then he was bullied in prison for a year, this, of course, is an unpleasant fact. But I also sat in the Reds' prison and they mocked me too, I was not raped, however, who needed me, I’m not so handsome. But they beat me, they kept me in a tight shackle as a very dangerous criminal, on bread and water. Then in a cramped cage. They cut off my finger! Does anyone ever remember this? Everyone remembers that, fuck it, they painted Arel’s face with gray paint and cut off his hair! Disgraced the noble gentleman! Fuck it!”

Lis extended his hand to Karina, which was missing a little finger:

“Do you see this?! Nobody ever remembers this! I couldn’t move in my shackles, immobilized in complete darkness, my vision didn’t fully recover after that, I began to see worse and can no longer shoot as aimed as before. Nobody gives a shit! Because Arel was raped, and he ate shit.”

“Lis, please don't…”

“Let's go further! What other humiliations I went through while I was wandering around restless, okay, let's skip it. I got to Arel, he reigned, and no one mocked him at that time. On the contrary, he mocked others as he wanted. He whipped them. Toby slit his mouth open. He also humiliated me, everyone knows that he put a strip of jester on me, although I was not guilty of anything, but Arel just wanted to. I still have a scar from it, all over my face! Nobody ever