Chapter 2: The taste of freedom
Night time. Ferris began acting after sunset and her masters return down the hill.
Her masters said that she still has her value. With this, she does not think it is possible for her to confront them and plead to quit her job as a miner.
In the first place, the area around the mine is surrounded by high fencing. The miner would lock the gate to exit the fence after work is done for the day.
This is clearly a measure to prevent Ferris from escaping. In other words, Ferris has to move discretely to escape from this place.
Her luggage consists of her straw mattress and half eaten bread. The bread is something that she left over from dinner.
She does not know when is the next time she is able to eat as she might not even be able to get her hands on food. Also, she has to find a place to sleep after to get out of the mine. Hence, Ferris thinks that she has to take all these precautions.
Although she said she is ready, she does not have much luggage to begin with.
After learning to her surrounding carefully to make sure there is no one around her, she stealthy climb out of the mine.
With a stealthy and light footstep, she heads towards the fencing.
There are bard wires on the top of the fencing so it will be painful trying to climb over.
Ferris also tried open the gate but it does not budge at all.
She also has no clue how to even picklock the gate.
Since there is no choice, Ferris started digging the ground under the fence.
The strength she gained from digging the mine daily is not only for show. She successfully dug a hole big enough for a small girl like her and managed to pa.s.s through the fence by crawling underneath.
Ferris ran.
It will be frightening if she is caught by her master so she wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. She ran like her life depends on it.
[Hya!?]
She felt an impact hitting her from her front and leaked out a groan.
Ferris thought she was attacked by someone but there is no one in her surroundings.
She attempted to run again but the front of her body got hit by an impact again.
It seems, there is an invisible wall in front of her.
This is a magic formation made to prevent slave from escaping but Ferris did not have this knowledge. She only knows that this invisible wall in front of her is blocking her from escaping.
[Ei–!]
Ferris. .h.i.t the invisible wall with her fist.
Then, the area that was. .h.i.t shone brightly for a moment and started crumbling down into pieces.
[What happened…?]
Ferris tilted her head and started running again.
Yes, she did not notice it.
This is an extremely strong magic formation that no powerful magician could even break it, but Ferris managed to destroy it with just her fist.
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The sun rose three time and also fall three times but Ferris continued walking on.
She avoided the main route and only travel while hiding along the border of the forest. She does not know when she will be caught and so she was scared the whole time. She slept hidden on top of the trees or cave at night.
The finished eating the bread she chews bit by bit and now resorted to eating the leaves on the ground to satisfy her hunger. Although her body is stronger during the time she work in the mine, she is still approaching her limits soon.
Ferris finally see a proper city but feel dizzy and fell forward when she relieves her tension.
Ferris pa.s.sed toward the gate while wobbling left and right and step onto the main street.
The guard look at Ferris with eyes full of suspicion but did not bother trying to stop her.
[Uwaa… human, a lot…]
Ferris look all around her surrounding with curiosity while walking on the stone pavement.
She has never seen so many big buildings.
She has never seen so many people walking about.
The smell of iron, the smell of sweets, the smell of spiciness, the smell of freshness, the smell of sharpness and the smell of foul odour. All these smell mixed together to stimulate Ferris sense of smell.
There are various food items on the street of the city. All the food look so delicious as it looks clean and free from contamination by the dust of the magic stone.
Human, from a small child, to young lady, old man and baby, there are human of all age and size.
Ferris only works in the dirty mine and never seen any of these so her mind is overloaded from all the new information.
Ferris felt dizzy and approaches a stall that that lines up in front of a building.
Then, an obaa-san that is standing in front of her stall frowned. (T.L Obaa-san = aunty)
[What, this is brat. Do not get close! Shoo! Shoo!]
[S, sorry!]
Ferris hurriedly move away from that stall.
Her heart is beating so fast. It has been a long time since she get so close to someone and been a long time since she was scolded.
She knew that she did something bad. However, she did not know what she is supposed to do so her mind is in a mess.
When Ferris got chased away by the obaa-san, other adults in the area also speaks in a loud voice.
[What a dirty brat. There are so many of them, I wonder what their parents are doing]
[That"s right. Recently, there are more of such dirty brat walking around so I do not feel safe doing business here]
A dirty brat.
They are obviously referring to Ferris.
Ferris looks into the well and saw her own reflection.
Messy hair.
Dark and dirty face.
Her skin is full of disgusting dirt.
[This… are all these dirt…?]
Don’t understand.
Always, always, never bath.
For Ferris, this has always been the case.
At that moment, a cool refreshing smell floats over.
[Nice smell…]
Ferris got absorbed into the smell and started looking for the origin of the smell.
Then, she saw a girl slightly older than her walking on the street.
Pure white dress.
Snow-like skin.
Glossy blonde hair.
Clear blue eyes.
It is so beautiful that she seems to be from another world.
And then, she looks into the well to see her own reflection.
… Gross.
Compared to the beautiful being that she saw, she realized how disgusting she looked.
And then, Ferris stood there thinking. She could not helped feeling ashamed for being alive.
She knew. How dirty she was.
It does not matter if she is not self-conscious, but she felt shame once she knew it.
Ferris understood the reason why she was looked down by the pa.s.s-by and tried to shrunk her body.
I could not stay here any longer, and ran into a small alley
T.L. This chapter is so long so I have to break it into two parts. Part two will be up tomorrow.