XXV

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XXV_I_Slaves_and_Humans

It was the tenth time they were helping the king. Suakasai, Molto, Lagno, their freed prisoners, and a hundred of Kink Elias's troops now surrounded a piece of low land and a structure from the hills. Apparently, it was another ex-politician who had 'confiscated' that land.

"Men who strive to attain things they aren't morally entitled to by the means of power . . ." said the king. "When the day comes that they've run out of power and both force and righteousness is against them, they expect the opponent to succumb to their will anyway; only because they used to be powerful, for power, however now gone, has already consumed them and they think everything they want they deserve in all circumstances. People who live by such sorry logic of power are truly pathetic; even if it is the power of democracy." He sighed and, after a moment of silence, continued. "Once we get there, you may kill anyone who resists. They probably will. He has gone made. It is natural for a man who used to live like a king and now has suddenly lost so much, to refuse to accept defeat. But we will see for how long the men under his command will keep on obeying him. Well . . . maybe the world will look much better with a mountain of dead idiots. Now advance."

They descended the hillside. As always, it did not take long. As always, Lagno only killed in self-defence.

"Lagno," said Molto as they were finished with the battle, "It's sexist how useless you are."

"Why? Because I don't mindlessly take human lives? No soul is entitled to take an innocent life, Molto, not even God. Life cannot be compensated for."

"I agree," said Suakasai. "The gift of conscious existence cannot be compensated for. But sometimes people deserve it. And sometimes it's for the greater good."

"All humans have done things that are terrible enough to make them worthy of death. It's all about Justice and fairness, am I correct? Then wouldn't punishing no one be better than punishing everyone? As for greater good, I'd rather not get involved at all unless I have to. I like to remain as innocent as I can."

"I despise innocence," said Molto. "Ambitions would be all but unachievable if men were to follow absolute morality."

"Well . . ." Suakasai shrugged, "Everyone is forced to violate goodness once in a while."

"I respect you Suakasai. I respect you too, Molto; though I fear that in your case you don't even need the excuse of greater good. You can kill without a thought. But I don't think you're so bad. You've had a hard time in your life. Your mother never loved you, for one thing. I know that deep down within you there is a good man that you are constantly repressing."

"Have I ever told you . . ." Sais Molto, "People who condescend to me sound like forsaken children pleading for love."

Lagno did not respond to him; not because she had found his comment unworthy of a response, but because she had caught glimpse of Willia's crotch soked with blood. She approached her and said "Come on, I'll help you. I'll take care of it."

"What?" Willia was puzzled. "Take care of what?"

"It's . . . you . . . you're menstruating."

"Oh . . . Yes, it seems it is happening."

"Wait, you actually hadn't noticed it?"

"This one stopped noticing it after the fourth time it happened since the initiation of her training by His Majesty."

". . . Are you sure you don't need help?"

"Affirmative."

Now as Willia looked back at those days, she would feel nothing but satisfaction. Like the joy of a painful work having paid off.

The first time she was forced to train during period, as it had become too much for her to tolerate, she suddenly told the king "Sir, I'm . . . I'm a girl. I can't train now . . . please . . . I will make up for it once it's over-"

"I don't give a fuck that you're a girl! Do you think your enemies will wait for you to stop bleeding? And do you think this will be the only cause of your bleeding?"

Yes. Nothing but feeling of satisfaction.

The first time she had to do five hundred push-ups with embers beneath her, as she was about to lose all sense in muscles and fall on the burning coal, she screamed with despair "Father! I can't . . . I'm about to fall . . . Please . . ."

The king did nothing. She fell on the embers and screeched heartrendingly.

"What are you doing, Willia?" said the king. "If you stay like that you will die."

Willia, still screeching, put all her life into her arms and slowly pulled herself up and throw herself to the side and over the horizontal poles confining her from four sides.

Satisfaction.

Since her trainings came to an end, the king had treated her with nothing but kindness; so now she knew that it had all been for her own sake. Now she knew that the king had not been hard on her out of spite. It had been simply what would take her to become a strong woman. Now she was a strong woman. Now she was the king's personal guard.

Suakasai, ignorant of Willia's situation, entered a daydreaming of comparing his own morality to King Elias. In the first battle that Suakasai had helped him win, Lagno had diplomatically convinced the ex-lord to give up for the sake of his children. In the second battle, the King, with a sneer, mentioned that 'this one has not children'. Had he been happy to have an excuse to kill?

Suakasai's attention was then caught by the King's adoptive legacy. In reflection of the archetypical slave who was ideally dragged to liberation by the unjustified condition of being incapable of living without orders, Willia Orlosthra somehow did not even seem to be in an especial condition; as though she had lost even that most remote fraction of her humanity that would otherwise have occasionally surfaced to remind her of her innate freedom. She fared as a perfect machine.

"This heroine has no journey," Suakasai told her, "You will never be free."

"Thatis correct," answered Willia with an utterly emotionless face and then lookedaway.

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