Chương 56: Interrogation

His need to understand the situation quickly surpassed his worry about the danger of two humans who didn't know where or what he was. Blick climbed back down the rock pile and pointed himself in the direction of the hunters. Keeping low and moving slow to reduce his noise he crept up closer until he could hear the two arguing.

"We should just go back, it was probably some predator wanted the free food". He heard one say off to his left. And the one just to his right responded.

"But if we manage to bring it back the boss will definitely give us extra rations for taking out the threat. You saw how fast it dealt with Charles." Blick snuck off to the left and made his way slowly around to what he assumed was the man's back. On his hands and feet crawling through the grass he kept pace with the man for a while making sure he didn't look back often. When Blick was convinced this hunter was focused forward he jumped.

Not aiming to kill or really hurt the unknown man, Blick wrapped a hand around the man's throat from behind and grabbed his arm for leverage and control.

"What the!" The man shouted out before freezing in understanding. The other man spun around and raised his bow but couldn't get a clear shot as Blick was completely covered behind the larger man.

"I have questions, I won't hurt you if you answer them. Tell your friend to drop the bow."

"J-jack, lower the bow man." The hostage spoke with a slight tremble in his voice.

"Did that thing just speak? You see what I'm seeing Garret? That's not a person!" At that point the hostage looked down at the hand holding his wrist and saw the claws, grey fur, and 4 digits.

"W-w-what t-th-the fuck!" He nearly shouted before the clawed hand around his throat squeezed just enough to remind him of his situation.

"Correct, I am not a human. I am a Grok. I want to know why you all live the way you do. I have never seen a group of people so clearly hostile to their own village mates." Blick responded while adjusting his grip slightly to keep his hostage between him and the bow weilder.

"Again, tell your friend to lower the bow."

"Jack drop it man, please." The hostage begged. After just a second of thinking Jack did just that.

"Ok so what now. You want to know about the mine? The slaves? What is it?" The hostage prompted, clearly wanting to end his unfortunate situation as soon as possible.

"I have heard there was a mine that dried up long ago. I do not know this word you use. Slaves? What is that?" You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. The man named Jack answered this time.

"You don't know what slaves are? People who were captured and forced to work for the boss." Blick asked with some confusion, "Why do they agree? Why do they not leave or fight back?" Having no context for confinement outside of his short stay with the army a while back he struggled to understand. The hostage named Garret attempted to turn and look at his own captor before Blick twisted a bit on his hand signaling that was not aloud.

"They don't agree, they are taken from their homes, those who fight often are killed early and those who try to leave are whipped. Fear and pain keep them complaint." Jack seemed confused as to why this was even a question. But it was a harmless interrogation if this was all the creature asked.

"What is the goal? It takes a lot of work to keep that many people in confinement. Look at all the fencing and guards. How would that be worth the effort? Couldn't you just have people who work for you instead?" Blick was beginning to think these people were just stupid and didn't understand they could hire workers. Garret answered this time trying to keep his head straight.

"The mine was shut down, but not because it was empty, because some hot shot noble paid off enough people to forge the proof that it was empty. Hard to hoard the crystals for your family when they cost so much. If you're going to be operating an illegal mine basically stealing from the kingdom you can't just hire people. Whoever is in charge is too high up so they can keep the operation quiet. That group has some powerful cultivators working for them to keep any word of this from escaping the south.

Villages who don't comply get sacked and brought into the facility as slaves. The mine runs and the crystals get hauled off to the north in a caravan once a month. The slaves can't escape because the guards keep watch, the guards are slaves too but they have proven they won't try and escape. The only ones who aren't slaves at all to the system are the four cultivators inside the facility who monitor everything. They take shifts. And they take crystals for their efforts making them easily in the solid realm by now."

Blick had a hunch he needed confirmed.

"You're both slaves too then? Why wouldn't you flee?" Jack laughed before saying "Where to? We won't outrun a single solid layer cultivator. And the caravan that runs south is part of the scheme. Everyone who has attempted to alert the capital has ended up in the mine or dead."

"So you joined the system to make survival easier?" Blick nodded finally understanding. The system only held such power because people were willing to suppress others to make their own situation better.

"Yeah and what the fuck would you do?" Garret growled back at his captor. Blick let him go with a shove.

"Fight and die." He said before dropping low and creeping off in a random direction. He could hear Jack rush over to help his companion up and he could hear their whispers about what they should do now. Eventually they turned and ran some distance back down the trail they came. When he could no longer hear them he went to go check on his bird friend.