Last Scion Of The Sun

Tickets for freedom

As Lance introduced himself, Sol looked at him dumbfoundedly. While both Fred and Alfred looked at him with eyes full of admiration.
Fred and Alfred were aware of the house of the 'Steelheart'. Thus, upon mentioning the house of 'Steelheart' both of them stood straight and bowed their heads, to show respect towards the member of the 'Steelheart'.
"Psss... Dude what are you doing?"
Alfred turned his head towards Sol and whispered.
In the empire of the Surya, commoners were obligated to show respect towards the nobility by bowing their head.
But Sol who lived the most part of his life in slum was unaware about the etiquettes of the empire.
"What are you guys doing? Didn't you nearly get into a fight a moment ago?"
Sol puzzlingly questioned Alfred.
"You don't have to do that, you know? We are all in the same boat at the present condition. And our status matters no longer."
Lance interrupted.
Listening to Lance, Fred and Alfred rose their heads up.
Every people who were well mannered and were rich, Sol considered them special. It didn't matter to Sol, if that person was a merchant or a noble.
During his several trips in the nearby town, he had encountered countless rich peoples. But none of them were of the noble lineage, thus nobody in the town bowed their head upon their arrival.
The present scenario was the same for Sol. When Lance mentioned him as a member of the house of Steelheart, he naturally assumed him as one of the rich heirs, just like the ones he encountered at the town.
Just when Alfred was about to scold Sol, a cacophony of defeaning bells resonated from outside the tent.
Startled by the cacophonous sound of the bells, they stepped outside the tent.
Just like them, a lot of people stepped outside of their respective tents as well, after listening to the cacophonous sound of the bells.
The source of the cacophonous sounds of the bells was from the tall bell tower at the middle of the slave encampment.
After the sounds of the bell stopped, groups of armoured guards made their way towards the tent while making an announcement.
"Gather at the bell tower. Everybody gather at the bell tower before the commander finishes counting. Those who fail to reach there by the time commander finishes his count, shall be punished."
Some of them furrowed their eyebrows while listening to the announcement, while some of them bewilderingly looked at each other.
Nobody had faint idea about upto where the commander was going to count. It could have been upto 10 or it could have been upto 100 or even worst it could have been upto only 3.
Sol wasn't slight concerned about numbers, rather he was more concerned about getting to the bell tower as fast as possible. As soon as the guards mentioned about the counts of the commander, he understood the hidden meaning behind it.
And the hidden meaning was to get there as fast as they can.
Thus Sol quickly stormed towards the bell tower without wasting any time. Seeing him run, all three of them followed him as well.
Upon seeing the four of them run, everybody around them copied them and started to run as well.
At the bell tower Commander Gilbert was standing straight while resting his arms on the hilt of his long sword.
"Hoh! So he's the one who gets here first"
Gilbert smirked and exclaimed in amusement.
Sol who was heavily gasping his breath due to the intense running was the first one to arrive at the scene. Followed by him was Lance and number 1. Although Fred and Alfred did follow him right after he started to run, they were nowhere to be seen.
Finally after 30 people, Fred and Alfred showed up and reached the stage. Their condition was extremely fragile and terrible. As soon as they reached the bell tower, they collapsed on the ground.
As indirectly announced by the guards, those who arrived later than 50 peoples were separated from the first 50 people.
There were both rewards for the person who arrived first and punishment for the person who arrived last.
After the arrival of the last person, commander Gilbert tucked his stomach and announced in a loud voice;
"From tomorrow onwards you'll have to earn your living. By that I mean, you have to fulfill your quota in order to fill your stomach. Rations will be provided according to the amount of magic stone you'll collect."
"And I'm sure that not many of you here are knowledgeable about magic stones. Magic stones are the catalyst used in magical artifacts. That's all you need to know about magic stones."
After a long elaboration about their work and about magic stones, he abruptly stopped.
As if he didn't want them to learn more about magic stones, he deliberately mentioned only a single thing about the magic stone and concluded the announcement.
After that a guard with a sly face took over the stage. He was holding some kind of scroll in his hands.
Everybody looked at him with a questioning look. They were all anticipating some kind of announcement from him.
"Silence! As you've heard from commander Gilbert, you'll have to earn your living from tomorrow onwards."
"He may have lightly announced it, so that you folks are not taking it seriously. But let me warn you, your conditions will be worst than the ones you've encountered on your way here, if you slack even a bit."
While exuding a murderous aura, he warned everybody present there.
After his announcement everybody started to panic.
"Number 17, number 25 and number 1, step forward"
He continued.
Sol bewilderingly looked at Lance as the guard called his an Lance's number. Lance returned back the gaze at him as well.
While they were looking at each other, number 1 made his way towards the stage. Seeing him, they quickly followed him and walked towards the stage.
As they stood straight infront of everyone, the announcer began to announce;
"This three people were the first to arrive here after the announcement and thus they shall be rewarded for following the order."
The announcer then scribbled their numbers on the scroll, he was carrying. And as the announcer finished scribbling their numbers on the scroll, few guards made their way towards the stage while carrying some boxes.
"For number 1, who arrived third you shall be rewarded with 1000 tickets which you can exchange for food, clothes, alcohols, equipments or artifacts which will help you to perform your task more efficiently."
"As you're a new batch of slave, not many of you would be familiar with this tickets. This tickets here can provide you with every luxury you could ever wish inside the camp. Collect a million of it and you can even have your freedom."
The announcers announcement shocked everyone present there at the moment.
After entering the camp, their hopes of freedom died as soon as they were captured. But to hear that they could gain back their freedom, they couldn't contain their greed for the tickets as they looked at number 1 with their greedy eyes.
"Number 25 shall get his number reduced from number 25 to number 10."
"Don't underestimate your numbers, the lower your number the lower your quota and the little you have to work. Your number also grant you the priority over the rations distributed and also grants you the priority over the use the facilities provided by the camp"
Among those large number of people, it was a great boon to be granted the privilege to have priority over the rations and facilities.
"Also you shall be granted 10 thousand tickets. Spend it wisely."
The people standing beneath looked at Lance with the eyes of vulture.
Announcer sensing the vulture eyes of the people beneath made another announcement.
"You can also use the feature of inventory embedded in your clothe to store your tickets. Your clothes in itself is a magical artifact of the low tier. The inventory is an artificial subspace which can be accessed by only the owner of the inventory."
"You can access the inventory just by calling it"
Hearing that everybody started to shout inventory.
And just as they yelled inventory, a dark space rift appeared infront of their eyes. Most of them were startled by the appearance of the inventory.
Nobody could believe their eyes as they witnessed the sight of the inventory. The surreal moment was too hard for them accept.
"Try placing your arm inside the inventory."
The announcer exclaimed.
Most of them hesitated to do so. They were afraid of the unknown inventory which they had witnessed for the first time in their lives.
Still some of them out of sheer curiosity placed their hands inside the inventory. Their hands got effortlessly sucked inside the inventory. They could feel an empty space inside the inventory.
Lance and Sol too out of curiosity placed their hands inside the inventory.
As they placed their hands inside the inventory, their eyes opened wide in shock.