My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem

"Master, I've found and awoken the crew." Miki declared.

A few minutes later, the real crew appeared on the bridge. The captain was incredibly thankful, even shaking my hand. For the first time, the crew was less aloof. They took control of the bridge once again, but any sailor who tried to get an eyeful of one of the lionesses received a look that only made them quickly divert their eyes.

Before we left them to get us back on course without falling into the Abyss, I had the lioness's check the assassins we had managed to knock out.

"All dead." I sighed. "These guys are thorough."

"Master, they had nothing on them except these tokens." First handed me one of them.

I was curious about it, so I cautiously put a little bit of mana into it. Immediately, an image of myself appeared in my mind. It was a bit uncanny. I could not only see myself clearly but also knew little bits of information about myself. This was the magical equivalent of a wanted poster. If there had been any doubt before, there was none now that the assassin's guild was after me.

As I was leaving the deck, flipping the coin in my hand, I heard Shao's voice-over Slave Communication. "Master, I managed to catch one of them alive."

"Oh?" I quickly made my way to her location where there was an unconscious assassin.

The thing I immediately noticed was that he had a dagger in his heart. That was hardly what I called alive. Shao must have seen me eyeing his dead body, as she quickly spoke up.

"The soul-reaving dagger binds a soul to a body. It keeps him from escaping."

"Yeah, but…"

"It's one of my shadow abilities," Shao explained. "It's called Living Death. I'm keeping him in a state of suspended death. It's very destructive to the soul, so we don't have a long time. It was the only way I could be certain."

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"I see… then can you?" I asked awkwardly.

Sometimes, some of the things we did didn't feel like the things a good guy would do. Then again, these were assassins and they had already come after us twice. Shao nodded, and then a moment later the guy's eyes snapped open.

"Ahhh… Ahhhh! Glgllgllglll," As he woke up screaming, I took out some Waters of Life and poured it into his mouth, causing him to choke for a minute.

"Answer me, who hired you to kill me." I declared.

"E-even if I knew… I wouldn't tell you!" The assassin declared.

"You feel that pain right now? That's the feeling of your soul burning. If you don't tell me anything, then I will make that feeling last an eternity!" I declared threateningly.

As I spoke, I could feel Rea's eyes on me. She had been part of the assassins too. By all accounts, I could be torturing her this way. However, something deep down seemed to tell me that I shouldn't hurt her. With luck, she learned her lesson working with the assassin's guild. Rather than my threat having its intended effect though, the assassin turned his eyes to Rea, and then he gave a grim smile.

"Death comes for us all, and he will be the cause." The assassin's eyes rolled up in his head, and then he died.

Shao let out a gasp as she collapsed into my arms. "S-sorry I couldn't give more time."

"It's fine… If we want to learn more, we'll just have to wait for them to try again." My eyes flickered to Rea and then back.

There was a lot I still needed to know.