Chapter 223: Favor
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Han Jin’s eyes fell on the mount of dir. The one who had thrown the rock was a muscular, brutish looking man who looked as big as Moxinke, but with a meaner expression. The muscle on his face looked vicious, his brow was thick but short, his nose and mouth were wide, while his lips looked thick. Though that type of lips made him look like a simple-minded hooligan, that impression quickly disappeared when one looked into his eyes which were as sharp as daggers.
The bat fell onto the ground, returned to human form, and moaned in pain. Hogan raised his staff, and four pillars of ice rose from the ground, promptly freezing the limbs of the middle-aged man.
“Good, I said to run over to curry favor” Hogan cursed.
“You, come here.” Han Jin pointed at the muscular brute.
The brute hesitated, then slowly walked off the dirt mount. The surrounding slaves immediately gathered and followed the brutish man from a dozen meters away.
“What are you people doing?!” Hogan was enraged and hurriedly stood in front of Han Jin. “Go back, all of you! Do you want to die?!”
“What’s your name?” Han Jin lightly pushed Hogan aside. He could see that the muscular man was quite influential among the slaves.
The muscular man stayed silent and only stared at Han Jin.
“Alexandre, you better behave yourself! Master is asking you a question!!” Hogan shouted, then smiled flatteringly at Han Jin. “His name is Alexandre. Quite a difficult bastard. If I didn’t need him to command those slaves, I would have…”
“You know him? Who was he before becoming a slave?” Han Jin interrupted Hogan.
“He was a general from Koman City.” Hogan knew that this slave had drawn Han Jin’s attention and immediately started explaining before he was ordered to, “He is… quite capable, truth be told. Gave us quite a headache when he led their army. If not for the fact that Lord Sama of Koman City feared he could threaten his position and internally withheld reinforcement, we never would have been able to surround and defeat his army.”
Just then, a sharp scream came from outside, “No…”
A dozen girls were carrying barrels of water onto the construction site. When they realized something was happening and the girl leading them saw Han Jin standing there, they threw their barrels and charged toward them. One of them desperately grabbed Alexandre’s shoulder. “Are you mad! He’s the one who saved our lives! He was the one!”
Alexandre’s expression immediately turned. After carefully eyeing over Han Jin, he kneeled on one knee. The rest of the slaves behind him had no idea what had just happened, but they followed suit.
Hogan sighed in relief, then felt strange for doing so. After all, Han Jin’s kindness to these slaves was founded on his humiliation.
“Stand up.” Han Jin paused. “Hogan, do you have a way to take off his Ring of Restraint?”
“I… could.” Hogan hesitated. “But Master, he’s going to die!”
“Die?”
“The wound in the back of their head is going to rot. Master, I told you this story before! Some have tried to free slaves in the past, but if you take off their ring, they have even less time to live. Only a few slaves have ever survived the process.”
“That’s not something you need to worry about. I have my ways,” Han Jin said. He then pointed to Alexandre and a few others. “You, you, you, and you. Follow me.”
The slaves that were chosen walked out one by one and stood behind Alexandre.
“Hogan, what are you doing here?” Sunier asked.
“Ma’am, were you not aware?” Hogan immediately put on a flattering smile. “We are building a house for the master!”
Sunier looked at Han Jin, who was equally curious. “Why wasn’t I told? Who ordered you to?”
“Master Guevara told us to.”
Han Jin looked around and saw that the construction site covered a sizable area. Additionally, this was the city center; every inch of land here was worth its weight in gold. Where did Guevara become so rich?
Hogan knew what Han Jin was thinking and hurriedly explained, “The Chamber of Commerce bought this land and gifted it to Master Guevara, but… Master Guevara showed me the deed before, and it has your name on it.”
“Those bastards sure are generous…” Saxon enviously sighed.
“Nevermind, we can talk about this later.” Han Jin turned his eyes toward the mercenaries from the association who were standing in the distance. “I will leave these two to you. You can handle it, right?”
“Of course, My Lord. You have no need to worry.” The mercenary in the lead smiled flatteringly and waved his hand. The mercenaries behind him immediately pushed aside the slaves and surrounded the female magician. They appeared to be especially rough, since many of their companions were killed during the chase. As long as they didn’t kill them, no one was there to stop them from mistreating captives anyway.
“Hogan, follow me as well.” Han Jin said, “Saxon, please watch over this place for a while.”
“Sure,” Saxon said with a smile.
Strictly speaking, Han Jin had no authority to order Saxon around, as Saxon reported to Winston. However, since everyone had lived under the same roof for so long, the boundary between the groups had also started becoming chaotic. When Gibran or Winston needed help, they often skipped over Han Jin and directly asked Moxinke. It was a simple matter of convenience, not that they were intentionally trying to undermine Han Jin’s authority. Likewise, Han Jin often did the same. Fortunately, none of the three were scheming individuals, or conflicts would have erupted long ago.
As a matter of fact, both Gibran and Winston could easily expand their team into a proper corp; they just chose not to. There were way too many unpredictabilities, and the chance of taking in a bad apple increased drastically if they started to expand in size. It would be disastrous if some rowdy individual joined and tried to undermine their friendship. They were quite happy right now, working with friends and having no need to be on constant alert. Especially Winston seemed to be particularly enjoying life these days.
Sunier’s plan to go shopping ended in failure, as Han Jin brought the slaves back to their base. In the living room, Moxinke, Reg, Winston, and a few others were chatting idly. As Han Jin walked in, Moxinke and everyone else’s attention were immediately drawn to the hulky Alexandre. Reg smiled, “Moxinke, you see him? That man looked way stronger than you!”
Moxinke gave Alexandre a glance and casually said, “But I’m more handsome!”
“More Handsome? Please…” Reg said seriously, “Can you not profane a word like that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Moxinke gave a sideways glance at Reg as if they were about to start fighting on the spot.
“Nothing.” Sensing the threat, Reg switched to a more reasonable tone, “But as far as I know, ‘handsome’ is only used to describe humans, right?”
Moxinke’s eyes widened in rage and tried to grab Reg. But Reg was well prepared and immediately flipped behind his chair.
“Stop fooling around, you two,” Han Jin flatly said.
Moxinke and Reg looked at each other and both sat down. They were intentionally acting childish. In Moxinke’s words, the atmosphere became too heavy when Han Jin was in a bad mood, so they should ‘lighten the mood’ and make Han Jin smile like he used to. But, they had failed again.
“Hogan, you may begin,” Han Jin said as he sat in an empty chair.
Hogan walked behind Alexandre, stood there, and started his incantation. Soon, two crystal nails protruded out of Alexandre’s head, and… snap! The ring fell to the ground and made a metallic ‘clang’. .
Han Jin waved his hand a few times in the air and made a throwing motion. A half visible charm turned into a ray of white light and flew into Alexandre.
Alexandre’s body slightly shook. He then moved his neck and his shoulders to savor the sweet taste of his returning power.
“Don’t release any strength of fighting in the next few days. That won’t help your wound.” Han Jin slowly said, “Are you a knight or a swordsman?”
“I am a tenth-grade templar, My Lord,” Alexandre said in a low pitched voice, “I… could you grant me one favor?”
“Yes.” Han Jin agreed without even asking what Alexandre wanted.
Alexandre looked toward Hogan. “My Lord, could you tell that man to stand still?”
“Hogan!” Han Jin ordered casually.
“Uh…” Hogan appeared flustered. He clearly had a bad feeling about what was about to follow. However, Han Jin had already spoken, and he didn’t dare disobey.
Alexandre walked in front of Hogan and coldly stared at him. After a moment, he slowly raised his hand and heavily slapped Hogan across the face. Hogan could surrender in exchange for Han Jin’s mercy, but Alexandre would never let go of his hatred. From Cold Shadow City to Isolated Cliff City, Hogan had treated the slaves like insects, slaughtering countless warriors and raping countless woman. He had to do something for the innocents who fell.
Hogan’s whole body flew up and fell to the ground face first. His cheek swelled extremely high, and blood leaked out of his mouth.
“Thank you, My Lord.” Alexandre fell on one knee. “Please accept my unwavering loyalty. Before death claims my life, I, Alexandre, will forever be your most loyal warrior!”
“You may stand.” Han Jin smiled. “Hogan, the next one.” He appreciated Alexandre’s self control. Had he tried to kill Hogan, Han Jin would have definitely stopped him. Be it now or in the future, Hogan still has an invaluable purpose. Yalina’s research on Cold Shadow City’s alchemy techniques had reached a critical stage, and they would have to rely on Hogan to understand their enemy in their fight against Cold Shadow City in the future.
“Master, please…” Hogan climbed up and started crying in pain. If he had to suffer a slap for every Ring of Restraint he took off, he might as well give up now! There were thousands of slaves still outside; he would eventually get slapped to death!
“Don’t be scared, no one else will hurt you.” Alexandre coldly said, “You are the Lord’s slave; it is my responsibility to keep you safe as well.”
Hogan spat out a blood and stared daggers at Alexandre. He did not take kindly to Alexandre’s offer at all. In fact, he would turn him into an ice statue if given the chance, and then knock him into pieces. He was still a Grand Snow Mage, and it was extremely humiliating to be slapped in front of so many people. Unfortunately for him, he had only now realized that slaves too, had honor.
“Hogan, did you not hear me?” Han Jin said.
“Yes, Master…” Hogan’s face fell. He inched toward the next slave in an extremely hesitant manner, but in the end, couldn’t disobey Han Jin’s order.