The Freed Slaves Are Obsessed

A night steeped in darkness.

Elise soared through the night sky.

Her consciousness flickered for an instant, and before she realized it, she was at the crumbling cathedral in the abandoned village—a place she would visit when she needed a moment of rest.

She had been at the upper floors just moments ago. So why was she here?

The shackles on her soul had vanished. The blood pact was severed.

It had been less than a month since she had found a place to stay, yet she had already lost it.

Even the ring Karami had placed on her finger was gone, and with its absence, the hunger for blood surged within her.

"Sigh... This is turning out worse than expected."

There was nothing she could do in such a remote and isolated countryside. She had to go to Noctar and gather information.

That was where she truly belonged.

Elise flew a great distance and finally arrived at Noctar—only to find that she could not enter.

An invisible barrier barred her way.

"I can't get in."

This wasn’t a matter of whether she could break through or not.

It was as if this strange world had established an absolute truth: Elise could never set foot in Noctar.

Something, or someone, inside was preventing her from interfering.

With her vampire traits yet to awaken, Elise lacked the power to distort reality.

She couldn't go to Noctar.

Then... where was she supposed to go?

Having lost her path, Elise wandered aimlessly, unable to find a destination.

****

"Ugh!"

A short gasp escaped.

A searing pain, as if something was constricting her heart.

Arpia clutched her chest.

She forced her heavy eyelids open.

"Where... am I?"

What she saw were iron bars enclosing her from all sides. The space was so cramped that even holding herself upright was difficult.

Clatter.

The entire thing rattled like a cheap carriage. She was being tossed from side to side, as if she were a pebble tumbling down a cliff.

None of it mattered. Arpia was used to pain.

But this—this agonizing sensation of countless needles stabbing into her heart—was something she had never been able to get used to, not even after centuries.

Especially now, after having been freed from eternal suffering, the pain felt even crueler.

"Why...?"

She had clearly used the Book of Spirit Conquest to suppress the rampaging spirits. Yet now, her connection with them had been severed.

The brand Karami had etched on her back was gone.

This entire situation...

The mercenaries had infiltrated the Grand Forest, kidnapped Arpia, and handed her over to Loperman.

Karami had come to rescue her. Though she had lost consciousness and never witnessed it herself.

She didn’t know what was going on, but this time, she was determined to see it with her own eyes.

But there was no rescue. No intervention.

Instead, Arpia was dragged all the way to Noctar.

The Noctar she arrived at was not the one she and Narsha had cultivated.

It was dark. Filthy.

Vagrants lay sprawled across the streets.

Where the Reaper's Merchant Guild should have been, now stood the ruins of the Desert Rose Trading Company—the very organization Arpia had shattered.

The mercenaries led her into the building, where Loperman greeted her.

"Oh, ohh! This beauty! The energy of the forest! T-There’s no doubt about it. An elf! Finally, I own an elf!"

Loperman, a collector obsessed with rare acquisitions.

He had once been nothing more than a wealthy fool, ridiculed by the nobility.

But now, things would change.

With an elf in his possession, even high-ranking nobles wouldn’t be able to look down on him.

"B-But this elf... something seems off?"

Her pale complexion was sickly.

She couldn’t even stand properly.

"Maybe she caught a cold. She was like this when I first saw her. Capturing the elf and bringing her here was our only job. We've done our part—now hand over the payment."

"Hmm...."

Loperman was skeptical, but he didn’t think it was a major problem.

If she was sick, she could simply be treated.

An elf had more than enough value to be worth the trouble.

****

Loperman made Arpia his slave.

To ensure she didn’t act out, he sealed her powers and bound her to absolute obedience.

Yet, even after summoning doctors and priests, they couldn’t identify the source of her suffering.

One thing Loperman did learn about her—this elf was nothing like the ones he had heard about in rumors.

She couldn’t shoot a bow. She couldn’t command spirits.

All she had was her appearance.

And all she did was lie motionless, groaning in pain and begging for alcohol.

A failure.

Arpia hadn’t been captured by accident. She was a failure even among elves—an outcast. That was why the mercenaries had been able to take her.

A disgrace to her own kind, unable to perform even the basics of what an elf should.

How was he supposed to flaunt her before the nobility?

She wasn’t even fit to be displayed in his collection of luxurious treasures.

He had paid a fortune for nothing but trash.

Frustrated, Loperman lashed out in violence.

"Y-You damned elf! H-How dare you deceive me?! Why does a wretched creature like you even exist in this world? Why did it have to be you?!"

He grabbed Arpia’s hair and shook her violently, then threw her to the ground and kicked her mercilessly.

Her once flawless skin turned blue with bruises, and the sickening sound of breaking bones filled the air.

But her wounds healed almost instantly, thanks to her natural elven regeneration—something that only infuriated Loperman even more.

"Y-You stubborn bitch...! Not even a single groan? Fine. L-Let’s see how long you can last!"

Loperman brought out a concoction—a blend of mind-breaking drugs and deadly poisons, designed to liquefy a person’s sense of self.

He mixed them all together and poured them into Arpia without restraint.

It didn’t take long before her mind began to dissolve.

****

She had no idea how much time had passed.

Her sense of time had long since faded.

Her drug-soaked brain couldn’t even command her fingers to move. Thinking itself had ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) become impossible.

But then... a faint sentence surfaced in her mind.

"Miss Arpia, I will erase all the pain you have suffered."

Who... had said that?

She didn’t want to forget.

She couldn’t forget.

And yet, the memory refused to surface.

What it was.

No, there was no need to remember.

After all, the pain that had been with her for a lifetime could never truly disappear.

It was fine.

Pain was something she was used to.

Perhaps it was the effect of the drugs, but even her vision had begun to fail.

Through her half-closed eyes, she could barely make out a vague shape.

For some reason, just the sight of it filled her with irritation...

****

Crash!

Mirabel was thrown violently to the ground.

Her small body rolled across the cold, hard floor, powerless.

"You insolent brat. No food for you tomorrow either. Let’s see how long you can keep resisting."

Bang!

The iron door slammed shut.

As soon as the baron left, the other slaves cautiously approached Mirabel.

Her delicate frame was littered with bruises and scars from repeated abuse. The deep blue hair Karami had once admired was now tangled and unkempt.

"Are you okay?"

"Why do you keep resisting and bringing more punishment upon yourself? I get how you feel, but your stubbornness is only making things worse. If you're not careful, you’ll get yourself killed."

Mirabel had defied the baron with everything she had.

She refused to call him Master.

She struggled relentlessly to remove the shackle around her neck.

And that defiance had enraged the baron.

"Just play along. You're pretty—if you do that much, you might actually get treated well."

"I... only have one Master."

Even after all the torment she had endured, Mirabel’s resolve never wavered. She slowly pushed herself up and reached for the shackle again.

The thought of wearing something like this—something that didn’t belong to her Master—was unbearable.

But all it did was leave more wounds on her throat.

Her frail hands, weakened from malnutrition, had no chance of breaking the iron restraint.

"I don’t care if you starve, get beaten, or die, but at least stop making trouble for the rest of us. Because of you, the Master’s wrath is spilling over onto us too."

Mirabel, still tugging at the shackle with a vacant expression, slowly turned her gaze toward them.

"Do you... really call someone like that your Master?"

"Isn’t it obvious? He’s a noble, and we’re slaves. The one who gives us food is the one we have to obey—what choice do we have?"

Mirabel looked at them with quiet pity.

If they had met Karami, they wouldn’t be saying such things.

A woman, feeling insulted by Mirabel’s sympathetic gaze, scoffed.

"From the way you talk, you must’ve had a previous Master. But if you were so precious to them, why are you here like this?"

"......"

"You were abandoned by the Master you’re so desperate to find."

Mirabel froze.

That single sentence struck deep, piercing the very thoughts she had been trying to ignore.

Maybe... it was true.

She had defied his orders, rejected his commands, and even tried to stop him from leaving.

She had earned his hatred.

Perhaps, unable to sever the contract outright, he had given her this punishment instead.

Perhaps he had chosen to turn back time and not save her at all.

That thought took root in her mind.

What if everything that had happened—her past, her life with Karami—was just a delusion, born from the shock of losing her mother and being abandoned by her father?

She prayed, desperately, that it wasn’t.

****

There was no place in this world where a witch could live in peace.

Not in a nameless village.

Not in a baron’s mansion, where she had been sold as a slave.

The paladins, who had been tracking Mirabel’s whereabouts, finally reached the baron.

Sheltering a witch was a crime in itself.

And so, the baron cast her out—throwing her into the hands of the paladins like an exorcised demon.

The village square.

Mirabel was bound to a tree, surrounded by piles of straw.

A witch-hunt.

The same execution her mother had suffered.

This was the fate of an abandoned witch, one who had been denied salvation.

Whoosh.

The fire was lit.

The flames spread rapidly, engulfing Mirabel in their scorching embrace.

Any lingering hope that this was just a dream burned away in the heat.

Perhaps... this was the true "liberation" Karami had once spoken of.

Death.

Freedom from this hellish world.

"Please... in my next life, let me be born as my Master's slave."

Mirabel closed her eyes, resigned.

The sound of crackling flames.

The cheers of the crowd, celebrating the witch’s death.

And then—something else.

"Hey, kid. Hm, Mirabel, was it? I know this is just a simulation, but aren't you taking your own death a bit too calmly?"

A familiar voice.

Yet the tone didn't match her memories.

Mirabel opened her eyes.

Hovering in front of her was a gumiho, pink tails swaying in the firelight.