Maxwell always believed in immediate action. When he knew something was wrong he never wasted any time to start working on it and that was why he was so successful in Zephyr. That’s why it was unsurprising that the smiling beggar now had 10 mana bolts flying towards him.

  When Maxwell tried the skill before he was surprised to see that the skill had no cooldown whatsoever. You were only limited by how much mana you could control and how much mana you had. They were not that strong but Maxwell guessed that they would probably equal an arrow shot by a mundane bow.

  In slow motion, Maxwell could see the beggar's eyes widen for a split second and he was consumed by a small explosion of dust.

  Mana Bolt leveled up

  These notifications were doing things quite anticlimatic Maxwell felt. Right about now, Bob came to his senses as he looked at Maxwell in shock. Not every day your best friend turned into a cold-blooded killer.

  As the dust dispersed they could see the beggar's silhouette still standing and soon they heard his gruff voice too.

  “Not very happy to see me eh?”Beggar asked, he sounded amused by the whole thing.

  “You won’t stop us!” Bob screamed and he dashed towards the man. It was a stupid thing to do but one should understand that Bob was a scared kid. He quickly reached the man and swung his metal pipe.

  Unfortunately, it was still too slow for the beggar. He grabbed Bob’s hand and pulled him towards himself. He tripped him up with his leg and Bob fell down miserably.

  “Well, you might want to listen to people before jumping them kids.” He said as he threw Bob back to Maxwell’s side by pushing him with his leg. He was clearly trained in martial arts.

  “I wanna get out of this shitty dynasty as much as you but I won't let my only chance be muddled by two ignorant kids,” he said and took a deep breath.

  Maxwell noted that his attacks did actually take out something from the man to block as he looked a bit winded.

  Beggar pointed at the ventilator shaft. “You did a good job with that but you don’t know jack shit about the security measures. Follow me.” He said and started walking towards the place where Maxwell climbed before. His speaking is different now. Was he posing as a cleaner or something? Maxwell thought to himself. He was quite used to having spies in his organizations in his previous life but he never thought that they would meet a friendly one here.

  He used observation on the man.

  ??? - Lvl ??

  Such a useful pile of information. Maxwell thought.

  “Kid, don’t use observation on higher-level enemies if you don’t want it noticed.” The man said and pulled on the grate. It came off quite easily. Now Maxwell actually could see that the man was not really that old. His dirtiness and fake voice just made him look older. He also had a certain grace about how he moved. The man fluidly climbed to the grate like he was taking a walk.

  “Thanks for the advice, I guess,” Maxwell said and paused to catch the grate man threw on him. He placed the grate on the ground and ”Who are you?”. He asked.

  “You can call me Gendor for now. You kids are lucky that you haven’t tried to leave the slave area. Initiation fucked up the camera’s badly so they can’t really put many eyes everywhere anymore. Come on.” He said as he gestured for them to come up.

  Bob seemed very confused by this whole spectacle which haven’t taken more than 30 seconds. He gathered bearings and got up.

  “So you won’t stop us?” He asked looking at Gendor hopefully.

  “Did I give your friend a concussion?” Beggar asked turning to Maxwell.

  “No, he’s not very bright in general.”

  “Hey!” Bob shouted and hit Maxwell on the shoulder before jumping up to the shaft.

  Why the fuck it was me who was doing this job in the first place? Maxwell pondered as he watched Bob jump to the shaft which was 5 meters up

  He climbed up dejectedly and pulled himself up to the grate. It was not as dark as you would expect inside. Red neon lines were extending along the corners inside. Probably for the cleaners, Maxwell thought. He waited patiently for the man to do something. Considering the man’s words there was probably a security measure they didn’t know.

  Gendor casually caught Bob who was going ahead and looked at Maxwell approvingly before tapping a spot on the wall. With a small whirring red lights along the corners were turned off.

  “While it’s true that they don’t have children trying to run away most of the time, they still have rats and other pests around to make them install security measures. Believe me, you wouldn’t want them in a ventilator unit.” Man said and Maxwell noted that he used “they” instead of “we”.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Red lights are the security measures?” Bob asked.

  “Yeah, quite ingenious isn’t it? I guess they wouldn’t hurt you beyond making you need a new skin but it would certainly alert the enforcers.” The man said if he was a tourist commenting about a landmark.

  They followed the shaft for a bit and a couple minutes later Maxwell could see that they were out of the “Slave Zone” as Gendor called it.

  Rooms started to have a more tidy appearance and he could see more people just minding their own business moving around the place. He even saw a place resembling a bazaar but they seemed to be packaging up for the docking. It was weird to see so many people living a relatively normal life after the abandoned state of the Slave Zone.

  “I see you are surprised. Were you born in the slave zone? It's normal for you to be ignorant if that’s the case.” Gendor commented.

  “What’s the mission of this ship anyways?” Maxwell asked. Seeing all the different rooms made him quite curious.

  “You see Radam commissioned a city in this lovely planet we have below years ago, using a universal messager. He was told that the city would be ready in 35 years. It was a planet on a backwater sector and it took time to do any meaningful building.“ He went suddenly silent as he felt an enforcer below. They waited a couple of minutes for the guy to leave.

  “Where was I? Oh, I remember. So, Radam being as arrogant as he was wanted to enjoy his city in his good years and as you can imagine 35 years for construction was very overdue. That's why he decided to start the space travel before he is sure that the city was constructed. That’s why this shithole is so poorly governed. Everyone who is worth anything is in cryosleep waiting to wake up in the new city to take positions.” Gendor explained. He seemed eager to talk normally after his time as the “Cleaner”.

  “Why bring slave kids?” Maxwell asked.

  “I assume you mean yourself? It’s more of a resource problem. This ship didn’t have any outposts to stop so they needed to do some good old “resource management”. That meant they would have a hellhole for the orphanage but it was an orphanage only for the propaganda. In reality, what they were doing was just saving some children to gain some money on the planet by selling them. This planet has a barbaric population as you might guess from that fact.” Gendor said licking his lips.

  Maxwell would want to say he was surprised but he couldn’t really be, as he knew that in high-level politics people usually fell down to levels similar to this in a relatively short time. He felt anger inside but he was used to dealing with things like this with ultimate response in Zephyr. Now he didn’t have that power yet.

  He felt sympathy for Bob though. He seemed awfully silent and his clenched fists were trembling. It was probably a bad feeling to know that you were just a resource for someone higher on the chain.

  As they were talking, the scenery once again started to change. Now below, they can see the maintenance and manufacturing rooms. They were probably close to the drop pods.

  This whole thing was going suspiciously smooth but Gendor was probably shadowing them from the start. Maxwell felt a bit frustrated about the whole deal. All his life he was used to figuring things out and winning over adversity but this was not really his area of expertise.

  He could handle this ship’s management just fine. Planning an escape plan without knowing anything? Maxwell used to pay other people for those things.

  “We are here.” The man said.

  Maxwell looked down. The place was relatively deserted but there were still a couple of enforcers around. He stopped himself from using observation remembering Gendor’s warning. He didn’t know about Gendor’s level but it was pretty likely that he would be similar to the enforcers on the level. He was sure that the man would be stronger than them though. You couldn’t beat someone trained by hitting a little harder.

  “What do we do now?” Bob asked fidgeting. He was hungry for action as he never was a person suited for sneaking. He needs to hit things to curb his fear I guess. Maxwell thought.

  Things were a lot different compared to the world before initiation though. He was not sure how much he could damage the enforcers with his attacks. Before the initiation, everyone could each other with relative ease.

  “There are three of them near the shuttle 23. If we could get rid of them quickly enough I could override the shuttle for us to leave. It would be more straightforward if I was alone but you kids will have to try your chances if you want freedom.”

  “How strong will our attacks be compared to their defenses?” Maxwell asked. He wanted to know at least how weak he was right now.

  “With the attack you sent me before you might be able to injure one greatly if you surprise them. Don’t forget that they could kill you with a flick though.” The man provided helpfully.

  Maxwell sighed and summoned his status.

  Name: Maxwell Aurelius

  Age: 15(54)

  Class: Mage

  Level: 2

  Nobility:None

  Traits: Etherium soul, Merchant of Yliaster

  Stats:

  Strength:7

  Agility:10

  Dexterity: 11

  Vitality:9

  Soul:21

  HP:90

  MP:285

  Class Skills:

  Mana Manipulation(8), Soul sense(4), Magic Theory(1), Mana Bolt(2), Telepathy(2)

  General Skills:

  Blunt Trauma Resistance(1), Gaslighting(2), Observation(4), Athletics(1)

  Apart from the observation that he used on everything since getting it, his status was pretty much the same. Maxwell had been in this world for around 14 hours now but it felt like it’s been a lot lot longer.

  “How do we do this then? Can you take anyone out quickly?” he asked.

  “I can take on the 2 on the left but you guys will need to distract the one on the right at least for a couple of seconds.” the fake cleaner responded.

  “Bob you are level 3, right? Do you have any useful skills?” he asked Bob.

  “All my skills are useful. You can throw your balls after I attack.” Bob boasted as the kid he was. Maxwell could see that the boy was very nervous though.

  “What a plan indeed. But it’s not like you guys have many capabilities to choose from, maybe it’s better to keep it simple.” Gendor commented.

  “Fine, might as well do it now then. I’m tired of this world already” Maxwell grumbled. His remark was not noticed by anyone as extraordinary as it was.

  “When I reach one, we jump,” Gendor said. And counted from three with his hand. His hands were steady as if he had done this hundreds of times.

  When he reached one, they jumped down.