Book Three – Interlude – Part One – The Mafia’s Raison D’être

A Singi girl sat alone inside a stone cell with nothing but a bucket of her waste to keep her company. She didn’t know how long she had been confined to her prison.

“She’s never gonna forgive me…” whined the girl as her pink hair covered her dull blue eyes. They were like the sole color in a sea of lifeless gray, but it wouldn’t last. Even that was beginning to fade, losing their luster and brilliance.

Her hands gripped the rough, gritty ground, and the thought of slamming her head down occupied her mind more than once. The black bars that kept her locked in reminded her of the one girl she wanted to have to watch her back.

After hearing a bird chirp, the cat-girl looked up at a small hole in the ceiling. It was much too small for a child’s hand to pass through, let alone a bird, but it was her only link to the outside world. The fierce red glow of the setting sun gave her a sense of loss.

It’s the same color as her eyes… 

When she woke up, Momo's first thoughts were of the only girl she ever called her best friend.

After Momo, and Nimea by association, were knocked out and kidnapped, she woke up in a stone prison. She had no idea where she was at or how many hours had passed by. Was it still the same night? Momo didn't know. There were no injuries or scars on her body, something she was thankful for, but she believed thinking like that was useless.

Because of my fight with her, she hates me. She’s the only one who… Momo couldn’t finish that thought. With nothing else to do, she wrapped her arms around her legs and did her best to ignore the smell of her waste.  

Out of the four jail cells she saw through the bars, three were empty. The last belonged to Nimea. His pointy ears had been clipped off by the white coat-wearing Elf that came to deliver food after Nimea smashed the plate he was given.  

As further punishment, Nimea no longer had the right to a waste bucket, and he had to sleep with his own filth as a roommate. The sheer smell was repulsive, and Momo had yet to finish even a single bite of her food. Even if the scent wasn’t there, it wasn’t like she could eat the so-called ‘food’ in the first place because it was long strips of blackened meat alongside a disgusting transparent, flavorless gruel. It was a far cry from the delicious food Momo had at the restaurant she visited with her friends a few weeks before.  

Swallowing the urge to vomit, Momo’s tail wrapped around her waist the best it would. “Mr. Tail, you won’t betray me, will you? Grampy said we Singi are only born with the one tail we have... I’m sorry I can’t wash you… I want to, but I can’t…” 

A sniffle came from the cell in front of her. It was Nimea. The severed tips of his ears were cradled tightly in his hands and held close to his chest. The humiliation he suffered from being toyed around and having the proof of his race chopped off was too much for him to bear. Almost like a bear hibernating, his body and mind shut down. Since then, he only reacted to verbal commands given by the white coat-wearing Elf. 

“Who am I kidding… Servy didn’t betray me...I betrayed her. I…I shouldn’t be alive…” Momo looked around for what must’ve been the hundredth time in an attempt to find a sharp rock or some tool to which she could take her own life. 

“... I’m too weak to even do that. Even if I had the strength to commit suicide, I would’ve done it when I ran away from my village. Damn it, Momo, what was the point of all that training if you’re just going to throw it all way… Dineria, you’re probably upset with me… I never got stronger. I was foolish to think someone like me could grow strong… Servy… I wanna say sorry…I… I know you probably aren’t like the people who hurt grampy, but… But…now I’ll never know. I’m gonna die, aren’t I? Heck, a bad friend like me dying is good, isn’t it? Grampy, I even lost your sword and bag. You gave them to me after you were hurt, but I lost them because I'm a no-good-dirty-rotten-stupid-stupid-cat who lost them.” A small whimper escaped her throat, and salty tears fell down her face. It erased some of the dust and dirt that had accumulated and took refuge on her skin.  

The single wooden door to the hallway of cells exploded from a powerful kick. Shards of the door’s wood splintered forward, destroying nothing as they skidded across the rocky floor. Momo flinched, nearly knocking over her waste bucket.  

After retreating to the corner and making herself small and non-threatening, she waited for the Elf to make his rounds. She recognized his footsteps, but there was a second set of thicker, beefier steps reverberating through the cells.  When Momo peeked through her fingers, she saw a large Kobold leaned against the bars of an empty cell. The Elf in white stood next to him.   

“Singi. Tell me your name,” commanded the large Kobold. The number 0 had been scratched into his green facial scales, and a black suit snuggly hugged his giant, muscled body. He looked like a Kobold-sized emerald with a coat of black paint.  What little light in the room reflected off his well-maintained scales, which covered his exposed hands.

“…” Momo tried to hide behind her fingers but screamed out when the Kobold’s hands punched a hole in the stone wall next to her cell.  

“M-M-Momo...” she squeaked. Her tiny voice came out muffled, but it was good enough for her captor.  

“Momo? I see. Do you know how long you’ve been here? Do you know what day it is?” 

Pink strands of greasy hair flashed across her eyes as she shook her head.  

“It is Sunday, and night is nearly upon us. Do you know why you are here?” the Kobold growled. The Elf next to him stayed as quiet as a rock.  

Once again, Momo shook her head. 

“It is because I wished to play to a game.” 

“A game?” Momo wished to yell, but fear stole her body, and it came out as a quiet meow from a frightened kitten.  

“That’s right. Tell me, why do you think the Humans like to enslave us Demi-Humans? I do admit there are Human slaves, but they are disproportionate to Demi-Humans. Do you think the pathetic Humans are better than us?” he growled.  

“I don’t know…” 

“They say that slavery is a right from the church. They say the Gods Above encouraged the concept of slavery as it is applied to those who do not worship them. But alas, that is not why I am playing a game. The name of the girl you were traveling with. Tell me.” 

“Why?” Momo whimpered. 

The Kobold stood up and walked to Nimea’s cell. Using his impressive racial strength, he bent the steel bars like one would fold a piece of paper. After grabbing him by the hair, the Kobold dragged Nimea to Momo’s cell as he retrieved a small dagger from the Elf in white.  

“He isn’t part of the game. You are. Tell me the name of the girl you were with, or I will slit his throat and paint you with his blood.” 

“No!! It’s…” she didn’t want to betray Servi, but Momo didn’t want to be responsible for Nimea’s death.  

“You won’t be responsible for trading his life for hers. By the end of the week, on Saturday morning, you both will die. Whether or not I take his life early is no real concern. However, if you answer me now, I will spare his life until Saturday.” 

“Her name’s Servi…” 

I’m sorry… 

“Roger, open that cell,” ordered the Kobold. The Elf in white retrieved a set of keys from his pocket and slid open the black bars. Using his strength, the Kobold tossed Nimea against the wall. But even though all of that, he never once showed any kind of emotion. Momo didn’t think her fellow prisoner was dead because she saw his chest go up and down, but with all that had happened, it was like he had given up on everything. Even though he was a jackass, the Singi didn’t want him to die.

“Servi, eh? 

“Why did you kidnap me?” Momo asked. She used what little courage she had left.  

“I told you. It’s because of a game. This is how I want to play it. How much trust can there be between a Human and a Demi-Human? I believe that the bond between Demi-Humans and Humans is weak and fragile. Rest assured, it is her fault for being born Human. If she weren’t, then we wouldn’t be in this situation.” 

“You’re doing this because she’s Human? Why? Why do I have to suffer?!” Immediately after speaking that, Momo covered her mouth while tears streamed from her eyes. She couldn’t believe her own mouth had spewed such hatred.  

But was it far from the truth? 

“You have to suffer because I had to suffer. Shut up, and I’ll tell you a story. But first, allow me to tell you this. From now until Saturday, you will not be physically harmed. The food given to you will not be tampered with or poisoned in any way. Its taste won’t be to your liking, but you won’t starve. Your life is safe until then.” 

Momo didn’t quite understand, but she wasn’t in a position to do anything but listen. She had thought about fighting her way out, but Momo stopped that line of thinking almost immediately. She had no way to bypass through the bars, and her best offensive option was Magic Missile: a simple Rank 10 skill that wasn't upgraded. Even if she could get her hands on a sword, she knew she wasn’t in the right state of mind to use one. And that didn't account for the fact she was surrounded by enemies, all of which were far stronger than she was.

“Years ago, I had a wife and daughter. I lived with them in a little-known village that doesn’t exist anymore.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” Momo asked. Her hands no longer covered her eyes, but they were clutching the hard stone ground. The grittiness of it reminded her of the pretty rocks she would sometimes find around her grandpa’s house.  

“Because I want you to know what I went through. I was a small-time farmer. We didn’t have a lot of land, but we grew what we could and shared it with the rest of the village. You see, we grew corn, and it was a favorite amongst the children. They would say, ‘Mr. Sakdu, when is the harvest coming in?’ every single day when the farming season began.” 

Something horrible must've happened to him in the past. Momo looked at Roger and noticed he had a white handkerchief in his hands.  

“For ten years, me, my wife, and my daughter enjoyed a type of peace the Humans forgot about. While they were focused on expanding their lands and enslaving our kind, we Kobolds in the village were living out our lives in peace. Unlike most of my brethren, we hated war. No, the sounds of battle and the glories of victory and conquest did not tempt us. We went on knowing we wouldn’t die lost and forgotten in some battlefield for a commander who thought of us as a simple statistic.” 

Roger wiped his eyes with his cloth and walked out through the empty doorway, leaving a frightened Singi alone with a Kobold strong enough to rip her body in half.  

“Ignore him. He tears up when I tell this story. That’s why I don’t recite it often. But I’ll continue. For years, we lived a peaceful life. It wasn’t until I discovered a sleeping Human in the woods. His armor, bloodied and torn, proved to me he was a Kobold in Human’s clothing. At the time, I did not hate Humans. We had met a few who passed through our village, and we often bartered and traded. I did something stupid and escorted him to my house. I told my wife and daughter to nurse his wounds while I ran to the apothecary. He didn’t have the herbs to make the painkiller, so I ran out to get them.  

“First, I stopped by my house and told my wife I would be back. The Human moved and budged, but his consciousness was not back. I went into the woods and returned to the crimson hue of flame invading everything the village had worked for. The grain houses were engulfed in fire, the little barn where my daughter had kept her chickens illuminated the headless fowls. Someone had plucked their heads clean from their bodies. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do.” 

“That’s awful…” Momo hugged her knees and put a hand to her tail. She felt it twitch nervously, almost like it knew what soul-shattering revelation was coming.

“I ran to my house. Do you know what I saw on the dirt roads?” The Kobold looked at the ground as he formed a fist. Before Momo had a chance to answer, he roared and pulled an iron bar from a nearby cell. Like a stick, he used his overflowing rage to power his arms while he twisted the metal pole into a perfect circle.  

Momo quailed against the wall, and tears fell from her eyes.  

“The lifeless corpses of my friends. That’s what I saw. I saw them without their heads! Their stomachs, cut from neck to groin, flayed open like a fish and staring at me! Eyes and noses and tails and fingers and TOES AND TONGUES AND EARS AND TAILS WERE LAID BEFORE ME!!! A BLOODY FUCKING TRAIL LED ME TO MY HOUSE!!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I WAS FEELING?!?!!!” 

The Kobold’s anger, intense and fierce, was far too much for Momo to handle. He gripped the bent iron in his hands and attacked everything around him in a fit of rage. The stone walls exploded from each impact that had the force to shatter a wagon, the iron bars guarding the empty cells snapped from their concrete posts, and the entire building rumbled from his roar of anguish.  

“I OPENED THE DOOR, AND I SAW MY FAMILY. I saw them… I FUCKING SAW THEM. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING SAW?! HUH?! FUCKING ANSWER ME!!” 

“NO, I DON’T!!!” Momo cried. Snot fell, aided by gravity, down her stained armor while water leaked down to her arms hugging her knees. Her tail, motionless and stressed, sent shocks of pain as Momo used her other hand to keep it bent around her waist. It cried out for help, but its master would not listen to the signals it sent.  

“I saw the Human. He stood there. His blade, sheathed on his back, dripped with blood so crimson I can still see it when I close my eyes. His brown eyes and brown hair, with a mouth formed into the most sinister and sadistic smile, haunts me on every anniversary of that torturous day. In one hand, he held the head of my wife. In his other hand, his fingers gripped my daughter’s head by her beautiful red scales. That demon wore the skin of a Human... He killed my wife, Mafi, and my daughter, Fia. Do you know what he did next?” 

The Kobold took Momo’s whimpering and cries as a signal to continue.  

“He told me that they died because they were weak. He said they weren’t real Kobolds, and he regretted the effort he used to slaughter them because he wouldn’t get that strength back. He told me that my family and friends deserved to die, and my village deserved to be burnt because we didn’t offer any type of strength?! He took the LIVES OF EIGHTEEN FUCKING PEACE LOVING KOBOLDS FOR THAT?!?!?! AAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”