July 21, 2020

  The humans down in the crater panic and yell at everyone else to move out the way. Screams fill the area and mass footsteps are heard as everyone and their mama’s are hauling ass. The stone wagon makes its way across the cliff’s slope and is now riding towards the center of the factory site. Waldo begins to divert some of the force and slow down the speed of the wagon. He suddenly turns it around 180 degrees and the wagon stops before moments before hitting someone. Waldo lets go of the handles and steps forward. He glances back and sees Mara using her technique to catch up with him. The humans there have such confused expressions, wondering why a random stone wagon with gold came riding down the cliff with such irregular movement patterns. They look up and see a small girl also floating in the air, slowing coming down next to the wagon. Suddenly, when the girl lands, a figure suddenly appears next to her. The presence and pressure of the figure is overwhelming to most of the humans present. It’s enough to make them shudder and fall to their knees.

  (They must be able to see me, or at the very least sense me. Either that’s how strong my cursed energy has become, or they’re already under the influence of something. It doesn’t seem like there are any sorcerers here either. No humans with notable cursed energy levels.)

  Waldo begins to exert more cursed energy outwards. Soon, all of the humans there are able to see him completely. They completely crumble at the sight of him and back away. Some of them are even wondering why this little gif is with this monster and how she can still be standing so calmly.

  “It’s a monster! A cursed spirit!”

  “Girl! You have to get away from him!”

  Mara just sighs, somewhat expecting these types of reactions. She steps forward and speaks loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “Don’t worry, everyone! We’re not here to hurt you! He’s not going to hurt you, I promise!”

  “You think you can just say you promise with that walking behemoth behind you? How do we know he won’t just eat us while our backs are turned?”

  Waldo begins to get irritated at the comments of these humans. However, he tries to keep himself composed for the sake of Mara’s plan. Mara thinks of ways to deescalate the situation.

  “We just want to trade. We have a lot of gold here.”

  An elderly man steps up and speaks to Mara.

  “Trade? We ain’t got anythin to trade with! Can’t you see us? We have nothin inside of this hell hole!”

  The rest of the human workers shout along with the elderly man. Mara starts to feel a bit pressured by all of this. She’s not used to dealing with such large groups of people like this. Waldo senses this and decides to step up for her. He walks up the elderly man and everyone gets quiet.

  “And do tell… why is it that you all have nothing?”

  The elderly man looks up at Waldo with the most fear in his eyes he has ever had. When he looks at Waldo’s glowing blue eye, it’s like he’s staring pure carnage in the face. One wrong move and everyone here could die. The elderly man thinks about his next words very carefully. He decides to just spill the truth.

  “That’s the thing… we don’t actually know. Just a while ago, a lot of us were here in this place and our bodies were forced to mine for the gold here. We wouldn’t even question it. All of our valuables were also taken when we arrived here.”

  Waldo and Mara listen carefully to the words of this elderly man. Waldo initially thinks that there is a human with great power here, but there’s no significant cursed energy presences near by. They could be suppressing it, but that’s highly unlikely. Could this be the work of some kind of cursed technique? It would have to deal with mass manipulation. Meanwhile, Mara doesn’t think as much about this as Waldo. She’s more so thinking about helping all of the humans here. Being forced to work endlessly for gold that they won’t even be able to use. It’s horrible. No one should have to do such a thing. Mara looks up at Waldo and taps his arm. Waldo looks down and sees Mara’s pleading expression. He can instantly tell that she wants to help these poor humans. Well, it must have to do with her plan. Waldo decided to trust Mara with dealing with humans. So, what else can he do?

  “Fine… have it your way, Mara.”

  Mara’s expression lightens up and she nods her head. She looks back at the humans and tells them.

  “What if we helped you all? That way, you won’t have to be forced to work as gold slaves again!”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “What? Girl, are you saying that you can really free us?”

  “Don’t worry! We’re both strong. We can help you guys without a problem.”

  The humans look between Waldo and Mara as if they don’t really believe her. What can a small girl do? They sure don’t trust that cursed spirit behind her either. But, it’s better to just trust them. This could be their only chance to be set free. The elderly man at the front hesitates, but reluctantly sighs.

  “Very well. If you say that you can help us, then we’ll cooperate with you.”

  .

  .

  “No, no, that just won’t do! Why did they suddenly stop excavating all of the previous gold? It has to be because of outsiders! Argh, do I have to do everything myself?! I’ll just take command of everything, and force everyone to kill the outsiders! No one will get in the way of my precious, shiny gold!”

  Meanwhile, Mara and the other humans at the factory site begin to discuss plans together. Waldo simply listens to their words without interfering or giving any opinions. He’s only doing this because Mara knows how to converse with humans better than he can. He only really knows how to kill and eat humans. He sees them as nothing more than mere pathetic animals. They don’t need his opinion on the plans. Suddenly, as Mara and the other humans continue to discuss their plans, the humans become pale and stop moving. Mara stops talking as she sees this and raises an eyebrow.

  “Is something wrong? Did you want to give other ideas?”

  Waldo glances back and checks the humans. Their eyes are different, and they definitely didn’t feel like this before. Something is off, and that’s not surprising at all. Humans are fishy creatures that always have something going around. The cursed energy levels of the human workers suddenly spike up to the level of a Grade 2 sorcerer each. Mara jumps in slight fright at the sudden surge in power. She looks around and sees that she and Waldo are surrounded by a lot of human workers. There are at least 100 of them here. No, there’s definitely more than 150. While Mara tried to think of a way out of this, Waldo sighs and shakes his head.

  “Encasing us with puppets of this level? They must think we are a couple of rookies. How disappointing. However, it seems I was right that they are under the influence of a cursed technique.”

  “You’re saying that a sorcerer is really controlling all of them?”

  “That’s most likely the case. That’s the only plausible scenario I think imagine for this situation. I assume that you will be fine in handling some of them?”

  “Yes! I should be just fine!”

  “Great, now let’s get to the skull bashing.”

  The human workers begin to charge towards Waldo and Mara. They’re acting just a little more than the stereotypical zombie from those horror films. As Waldo is about to fire a shockwave from his hands, Mara quickly looks at him and tells him something.

  “If it’s not too much trouble, could you leave them alive? It’s not their fault that they’re attacking us like this. They could still be useful to you once we free them from their control.”

  Waldo’s expression twists in a ‘you have a point’ type of way. He cancels the shockwave that is charging in his hand and instead gets his fists ready.

  “I’ll leave them just barely alive. Is that sufficient enough for you?”

  “Um… I guess?”

  “Oh well, I wasn’t asking for your opinion anyway.”

  Waldo dodges the grab of one of the human workers as he finishes talking with Mara. He grabs the face of that human worker and slams them into the ground. The power behind the slam is enough to knock them unconscious. He proceeds to disappear from his spot, disorienting several human workers, and knock them all out with a little force as he can. If Waldo were to exert all of his power in his attacks, these humans would certainly not have survived. He turns around and sees Mara fighting off several human workers as well. Because of the training she has taken with Waldo, she completely outmatches the physical capabilities of a Grade 2 sorcerer. She has practiced heavily on the amount of cursed energy she can use to reinforce her physical powers. It’s no exaggeration to say that her physical capabilities at their peak might be inching towards the Semi Grade 1 level.

  Waldo watches as Mara dodges and weaves through the feeble attempts of the human workers. She easily makes counterattacks and knocks them out. Waldo watches with approval and gets back to dealing with his group of humans. He runs through the crowd, knocking them out like dominoes as he goes. The human workers don’t even have the chance to land a hit before they fall to the ground. Waldo sighs and looks back at the line of fallen humans. He finds a mine cart right next to him and sits down, now watching Mara fight. There are only 33 humans left that Mara has to fight. She should be able to handle that many with her current capabilities. Sure enough, the more that Waldo watches, the more that Mara gets used to the power of the other humans. They throw their attacks left and right and try to back her into a corner, but Mara is able to easily defend herself and use her technique to her advantage. Before long, the rest of the human workers fall to the ground. Mara takes a moment to catch her breath and put her hands on her knees. Waldo walks over to her.

  “A job well done. You handled yourself rather well. You’ve come a long way.”

  Mara looks up at Waldo and smiles, giving him a thumbs up. Once Mara has regained her stamina, the two of them look at one of the warehouses. They can feel it: the source of this entire mess. Whatever, or whoever, is controlling the workers is in there. Waldo and Mara walk over to the warehouse and enter. The inside is just as expected of a warehouse. There are several crates of gold and other ores organized by the walls. Waldo goes over to some of the crates and knocks them over. There’s a trapdoor under the crates that leads to a lower level of the factory site. Waldo grabs the edge of the trapdoor and rips it off the floor. Mara moves out of the way as to not get caught with any wood splinters. She gets closer and looks down the hole. Waldo stands up and crosses his arms.

  “It seems that we have found the mole.”