Chapter 96 What Defines Me

Time was of the essence, so Aion hurried to the warehouse, he unlocked the entrance door by using earth magic on the locked gates, and then he lit the interior with fire magic. Much to Aion's surprise, he only found some big bags filled with grains… Still, no one would need weapons to check a warehouse like that. Even more so when guards were patrolling around.

After looking around for a while, Aion found a hidden entrance behind some large bags of grains. It was locked as well, but Aion unlocked it with ease. After going down some stairs, Aion began to feel a powerful smell of piss and shit. Everything was quite dark below, but eventually, Aion saw the light of a torch illuminating the basement of the warehouse, and as expected, he found some cages there as well.

"What a depressing place…" Aion thought. "With this smell and darkness, the mind of anyone would erode after a while… the people here sure know how to mentally torment their prisoners."

Aion saw some shadows in the corner of the cages, and it looked like they were sleeping while sitting in the corner. Some of them seemed humanoid, and others not so much. There were monsters there as well, the creatures were from the same species, and they looked like tigers, but their fur was orange with red stripes. They had green eyes, but they looked pretty vicious, even though the monsters had been weakened.

"I guess they are rare magic beasts…" Aion thought. "They might be useful, but can I even tame them here?"

He probably could, but Aion would have to take the other prisoners first. Along the way, Aion thought of what he should do regarding how the slaves should escape. Just opening the bars of the cells won't do… they will have to cross dozens of kilometers while being pursued. They didn't know what to do or where to go as well… If they heard about Aion's territory, they might head there, but it won't be easy… things will be even more complicated for the others further south.

"I guess I will really need the help of these guys…" Aion thought while looking at the red tigers. "Come to think of it. If the king hears about this incident, he will probably think that these guys are too incompetent to manage more land… not like I am planning to give up even if he gives the order to split the land."

Aion headed to where the prisoners were. At that point in time, most of them were awake, so using magic in front of them was too risky. Instead of that, they opened a hole big enough for them to leave by bending the metal bars. That much strength could easily kill a person, so they flinched.

"Go upstairs and take this," Aion said, trying to make his voice rougher and then passing a bag to the prisoner. "I will free the others and help you all escape. Not everyone in this kingdom is your enemy."

The prisoner hesitated, but then the thin man felt the smell of cooked meat and fruits in the bag. Something like that had never happened before and made their escape together, seemed like a random and weird way to torture them. Still, that guy hesitated… Aion didn't have all the time of the day, so he dropped the bag in front of him and then went to open the other cells.

When only the cells of the monsters were left, a few of the prisoners had left already, but some others were still hesitating. Still, they began leaving when they saw Aion opening the cell of a monster as well.

"I should have practiced my grave voice to look more convincing… let's see… WHERE IS SHE?!" Aion said, trying to mimic a dark armored vigilante. "Yep, it isn't pretty close to the real deal."

Even while weakened, the monster got up to attack Aion, but the creature stopped when he threw a huge chunk of meat to the creature. Even in that state, the monster grabbed the meat and began to bite it furiously. At the same time, Aion used his whip to tame the creature… Although he didn't cause much damage, the skill worked on the first try.

You have successfully tamed a Scarlet Tiger.

"Scarlet Tiger… is that truly their name?" Aion frowned. "Anyway, are they that dump to drop their guard while they are eating and let the skill work that well, or has this creature noticed that I am an ally?"

It was hard to say… Regardless, Aion had work to do, and he couldn't let the prisoners escape by themselves, so he hurried to free and tame the other monsters. After that, Aion used the necromancer class to summon the heavy fists death knight. Thanks to that, Aion realized that the tamed monsters didn't have the same restrictions as the undead ones… that was something he could wonder about later.

When Aion went upstairs, the prisoners were still waiting for a chance to leave. Aion had locked the entrance gate so that it couldn't have been helped…

"Follow this guy. He will lead you to somewhere safe," Aion said while pointing to the armored heavy fists. "He will protect you as well for a few days. Meanwhile, I will run in the opposite direction and lure the enemies to chase me. Use that chance to leave this territory."

"... Who are you?" One of the prisoners asked.

"...it's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me..." Aion said.

After that, Aion died of cringeness overload… as expected, mimicking the dark knight two times on the same night was too much even for him. In any case, the Scarlet tigers began to melt the entrance of the warehouse and then headed to the southern part alongside Aion to raise some havoc. Meanwhile, the prisoners and the death knight headed to the northern part of the town while using the darkness as cover…