REBORN AS A HIGH ELF SLAVE

Stable hands rushed over to them as the group dismounted the horse, taking the reins with bowed heads. The elves, Verra, Elsa, and the others who'd accompanied them, gathered close to Eon; their expressions were alert but composed. Alaric stretched after getting off his horse, rolling his shoulders, then turned to his butler, an older man in a well-tailored suit.

The old man asked Alaric with a worried tone, "Welcome home, my lord. Umm, is the news I heard from Captain Valen true, my lord? Was lord Darius really killed by those mercenaries!”

Alaric brushed him off, “I will tell you about those things some other time, Edmund.”

“Okay, my lord. Shall I prepare rooms for your guests then?"

Alaric waved a hand dismissively. "Handle Eon's requests as best you can. Whatever he needs, see to it." His tone was casual, almost bored, as if this were routine. He glanced at Eon briefly, no hint of rebellion in his eyes. "I'm heading to my chambers to freshen up. The road was long." With that, he strode off toward the main doors, his soldiers trailing behind, chatting about baths and ale as they walked towards where their supposed soldier quarters are.

The butler blinked, surprise flickering across his face, but he recovered quickly. "Of course, my lord." Turning to Eon, he inclined his head. "Sir? How may I assist?"

Eon swallowed, his voice steady despite the knot in his stomach. "The basement. Take us there now." He kept it simple, no explanations; the less said, the better.

The butler nodded without question, leading them through a side entrance. The interior halls were grand; polished marble floors echoed under their footsteps, tapestries depicting heroic battles lining the walls, many glowing stones catching the light from high windows, illuminating their way forward. Servants scurried out of the way, seeing the house butler coming, casting curious glances at the elves but saying nothing. Verra walked beside Eon; she was still silent, but he caught her eyeing the opulence with a mix of disdain and wariness. Elves like her had suffered under human nobility before, so he was extra careful not to let any fight break out between her and any humans from here. This is not their territory, so they shouldn’t stand out much unless necessary.

They descended a spiral staircase into the cooler depths, where the air grew musty as they got down, laced with the faint metallic tang of chains. Eon's pulse quickened again, smelling the familiar scent of metal once again. His senses told him that the chained elves were down here, victims of this entire human kingdom’s cruelty. 

He could see the basement door looming ahead; it was heavy and iron-bound. The butler unlocked it with a key from his belt, stepping aside.

"After you, sir."

The heavy iron door groaned as Eon shoved it fully open; the sound echoed down the dimly lit corridor like a warning. Flickering torchlight from wall sconces cast long, jagged shadows across the stone floor, revealing rows of cells that stretched into the darkness. 

The air down here was thick, carrying the unmistakable stench of mold, unwashed bodies, rusting iron, and something fouler that had soaked into walls over decades.

The butler, Edmund, paused just inside the threshold. He cleared his throat; the sound of it was unnaturally loud in the silence.

“Sir… before you proceed, there is something you should know.” His voice was low, almost whispering, but edged with caution. “The cells nearer the entrance hold the common elves. They are… manageable. But the deepest cell, at the very end of this passage….” 

He gestured toward the far cell where the torchlight barely reached. “Uhh, how should I say! There is a dark elf. A female at that. She was captured during the last Purge of the Blackwood seventeen winters ago. She is not like the others. She is dangerous. Extremely so. Even chained and weakened, she has killed three guards who got too close over the years. The family keeps her alive only because… well, certain parties still believe she might be useful for… assassination business.”

Eon’s expression did not change. He simply stared at the butler for a long moment, letting the silence stretch until the older man shifted uncomfortably.

“I heard you,” He said quietly. His mood worsened hearing that these noble bastards only keep people alive who are useful to them. “Now step aside.”

Edmund hesitated only a heartbeat of moment before bowing and moving to the wall. Eon walked forward without another glance at him.

He passed the first few cells. Most were empty now, their bars rusted but still intact. A few held shapes, hunched, silent figures that barely stirred at the sound of boots on stone. Then he reached the main holding area: a larger barred chamber, more like a communal cage than individual cells. Iron bars thick as a man’s wrist formed the front wall; the rest was carved directly from the bedrock.

Eon stopped.

Inside, perhaps a dozen elves huddled together on filthy straw that had long since rotted into black sludge. The floor was uneven flagstone, slick with damp and worse. Chains rattled softly as one or two heads lifted at his approach, but their movement was sluggish, as though even curiosity had been beaten out of them.

Seeing their condition hit Eon like a physical blow in his heart.

Skin stretched tight over sharp bones; once maybe luminous complexions were now sallow and mottled with grime and old sores. Their beautiful elven hair that should have shimmered like spun moonlight hung in filthy, matted ropes crawling with lice. Many were missing teeth; others bore the crooked, poorly healed marks of broken noses and shattered cheekbones. Their ears, once proud and pointed, were now notched and scarred, some deliberately mutilated, the tips cropped like livestock. Clothing, if it could be called that, consisted of rags stiff with dried blood, pus, and excrement. Several of them lacked proper garments entirely, forced to wrap themselves in scraps of moldy burlap or nothing at all.

The smell was unbearable up close: urine, festering wounds, the sour reek of long-unwashed bodies, and underneath it all the faint copper tang of old blood. A wooden bucket in one corner overflowed; flies droned lazily above it. In the far corner, a young elf girl, no more than the equivalent of a human teenager, curled into a ball, shivering despite the clammy warmth. Her ribs stood out like ladder rungs beneath skin that looked paper-thin.

Eon’s hands clenched at his sides until his knuckles bleached white.

Something hot and violent uncoiled in his chest; it was a familiar rage. He almost forgot this fury that had once driven a dying warehouse worker in Seoul to charge three thugs in a rain-soaked alley. Only this time it was much worse. This had become too personal to him. It enraged him to see these poor souls suffer like insects. 

These were not strangers. These were his people now, his responsibility, reduced to this fate by the same human greed and cruelty, which he once again swore to himself to dismantle.

He turned slowly toward Edmund.

The butler had remained several paces back, face pale, eyes fixed on the floor as though hoping to disappear into it.

“Clothes,” Eon said. The word came out flat.

Edmund blinked, not hearing what he said. “S-sir?”

“Clean clothes. Enough for every elf in this room. Tunics, trousers, undergarments, cloaks, whatever you have that is decent and warm. Bring them now.”

Edmund opened his mouth at first to say something, but closed it seeing Eon’s eyes. Then nodded jerkily.

“And baths,” Eon continued, voice dropping lower than before. “Hot water. Soap. Towels. Buckets, brushes, everything needed to wash away years of filth. Prepare the bathing chamber on the ground floor. Send servants to heat the water immediately. They will be carried up if they cannot walk. No one touches them without permission. Do you understand?”

The butler swallowed audibly. “Y-yes, sir. At once.”

Elsa and Verra were silent all this time. They were just staring at the elves inside the cell.

Eon took one step closer. Torchlight caught the red glow in his eyes, turning them almost luminous. The air around him seemed to thicken, charged with something unseen but palpable, mana coiling like a serpent ready to strike anyone who opposes him at this moment.

“If even one of them is mistreated while being moved,” he said softly, yet it vibrated around the room. “If a single hair on their heads is harmed, … I will hold you personally responsible for that. And Edmund?”

The butler froze as he looked up at Eon's eyes, which were gazing at him now.

“I do not give second chances.”

For the first time, Edmund truly looked at Eon, not as his lord Alaric’s guest, but as something else entirely. Something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The rage in those eyes was not bluffing. It promised that if he delayed even a single second longer, the thing wearing Eon’s face would reach out and simply erase him from existence.

Edmund spun on his heel without another word. His polished shoes slapped against the stone in frantic rhythm as he half-ran, half-stumbled back toward the spiral staircase. The sound of his retreat echoed long after he disappeared; panicked footsteps of a man could be heard, who had just realized the monster he served might no longer be the one wearing the Denares crest.

Eon exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing the fury down to a low simmer. He turned back to the cell.

One of the older elves, an elderly female with silver streaks in her filthy hair, had managed to rise to her knees. She stared at him through the bars; her eyes were wide with something between terror and fragility.

Eon knelt so their gazes were level.

“I am here to take you out of this place,” he said softly. “You will be cleaned, fed, clothed, and healed. And no one will chain you again. Not while I breathe.”

Her cracked lips parted, but no sound emerged at first. Then, in a voice like dry leaves, she whispered:

“…Who… are you?”

Eon’s mouth curved, just a fraction, not quite a smile.

“Someone who was once caged too.”

He rose, with the heavy key ring the butler had left on a nearby hook, unlocked the largest iron lock of the cell doors.

The door swung open.

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