As Adrian moved forward while dragging Evangeline by her hand, her feet came to a sudden pause, causing him to stop in his tracks as well.

They were near one of the strange cylindrical factories. Stacks of massive stone bricks were neatly arranged around them.

Adrian glanced at Evangeline, trying to figure out why she had suddenly paused. He had initially thought that she had stopped because she was trying to act rebellious, but when he looked at her, the young girl’s gaze was fixed in a certain direction. There was a clear frown on her face.

Adrian followed her line of sight, trying to see what she was looking at, and his gaze fell on a commotion happening only a few meters away from them.

A middle-aged man wearing a high-collar coat—seemingly a cheap knock-off of the typical aristocratic attire—was holding a young boy by his hair with one hand. In his other hand, the man held a small metal rod that was glowing fiery orange at its free end.

It was as though the metal rod’s end had been heated in a furnace.

A few steps away, a young man who bore a striking resemblance to the boy was struggling and shouting at the middle-aged man.

What was notable was that both the young man and the young boy had two furry cat-like ears above their heads. They weren’t humans; they were beastmen. More specifically, they were catmen. And both of them had iron cuffs around their arms and legs, as well as metal collars around their necks, were clear proof of their identity as slaves.

Adrian focused his senses on them, trying to listen to what they were saying.

The young man screamed at the middle-aged man.

"Human! Leave my brother alone! I will accept the punishment in his stead! So please..."

Hearing the young man’s cry, the middle-aged man brought the heated tip of the metal rod closer to the young boy’s face, causing the boy’s struggle to intensify.

The middle-aged man looked at the young boy’s fruitless struggle to free himself from the man’s grip, then turned to the young man.

"Your uncivilized behavior is the cause of your suffering. Neither of you can pay me back for the loss I suffered because of this brat. The least I can do is correct your behavior and prevent such a thing from happening in the future."

The young man struggled intensely, as if trying to run towards the man and save his younger brother from the man’s cruelty. But no matter what he did, his feet didn’t move a single step. The more the young man struggled, the more intensely his cuffs and collar glowed.

Looking at those glowing cuffs, Adrian came to a realisation.

’Those are probably magitools with some sort of mind-related spell that prevents the bearer from acting on aggression towards a particular individual.’

That was probably why the young man was unable to move his feet, even though nothing was really binding them. That cuff probably only prevented him from attacking that man; otherwise, slaves would be useless as fighters if they couldn’t show aggression towards anyone.

The young man screamed once again.

"Have a heart, human! There is no need to punish him so severely! Would you punish your own son the same way if he made the same mistake?"

The middle-aged man’s expression twisted, and a blaze of fury ignited in his eyes as he tightened his grip on the young boy’s hair and brought the heated end of the metal rod even closer. It was now only a few inches away from the boy’s face.

"You maggots are still delusional. The two of you are not people; you are both tools that I own and use. Tools have no will of their own. How dare the likes of you compare yourselves to my son!"

The young boy closed his eyes in terror, and tears began streaming down his face. The young man shouted in panic.

"N-no!! Don’t—!"

"Silence!"

That single command from the middle-aged man silenced both the young man’s shout and the young boy’s cry.

Just then, Adrian was suddenly distracted as Evangeline began struggling to free her hand from his grip.

"Adi, let go! That boy is in danger; we have to help!"

Adrian frowned.

’Does this girl have some sort of hero complex?’

Or was it that he was acting too insensitively? He didn’t know. So, after a short pause, he asked.

"Why do we have to help them?"

Evangeline frowned as her eyes widened. It was as if she couldn’t believe what he had just said.

"Adi, you... Do you need a reason to help them?"

Adrian’s reply was instant.

"Of course I do. Why would I do something for no reason?"

If the situation were different, he might have helped them in order to calm this girl down. But the problem was that those catmen were slaves, and that man was most likely their owner.

In this world, slaves were not treated as people and were legally recognised as property. Unless those slaves harmed them in any way, their interference would be considered robbery.

Adrian was well aware of how those catmen had become slaves.

This world—Regnum Aetern—had only a single massive continent that was divided into multiple nations. The Valcarion Empire occupied the entire north-west as well as most of the north-east of the continent. The south-west was occupied by the Arkenvale Alliance, which consisted of all non-human races like elves, dwarves, beastmen, and others.

The leftover part of the north-east, as well as half of the south-east, was Caelwyn Kingdom’s territory. This was the only sovereign human nation that hadn’t been conquered by the empire, not yet at least. And the other half of the south-west was part of a theocratic nation called The Holy Theocracy of Valtoria.

And the vast, empty land in the central region of this continent, surrounded by all these nations, was a wild area not ruled by any entity, home to beasts, and inhabited by humanoid monsters like vampires, demons, and other creatures, was called The Feralscar Domain.

Adrian had a lot to say about the strangeness of this whole map, but that was not important right now.

The empire shared borders with both the alliance and the kingdom and was at war with both of them simultaneously. It was a war that had continued for hundreds of years and showed no sign of ending anytime soon.

During the war, soldiers or citizens living near the borders were often captured by the empire as war prisoners and made slaves to be sold.

These catmen were most likely in a similar situation.

So even if Adrian confronted the middle-aged man, he wouldn’t be able to do anything since the man was not doing anything ’wrong’ according to the logic of this world.

’I can’t interfere on moral grounds either. Even though it looks this way, humans are not necessarily evil; they are just the advantaged ones. The humans captured by the alliance or the kingdom were probably treated the same way.’

Adrian glanced at Evangeline. She was still struggling to free her arm from his grip. The look she was giving him almost seemed hostile.

"Adi, I told you to let go! You- I didn’t expect this from you. I never thought you would be this... this..."

’It doesn’t look like I would be able to convince her reasonably.’

She seemed to have gotten too emotional to listen to reason.

Adrian glanced around.

People were slowly gathering around due to the commotion, and some of them had noticed Evangeline struggling. Some of them seemed to have also noticed that Adrian and Evangeline weren’t part of the slum.

Adrian sharpened his focus.

’We need to get out of here before she draws even more attention to us.’

It didn’t seem like he had any other choice but to drag her away.

But as Adrian tried pulling Evangeline’s hand, he was unable to pull her at all. The strength she was exerting to keep herself in her current position was almost as great as Adrian’s own strength.

He was briefly surprised by how such a young girl’s body had so much strength, but soon remembered that one’s physical strength increased as one climbed to higher Phases. And as someone who had reached the Second Phase just like him, her physical strength would obviously be comparable to his.

"No!" she spoke through gritted teeth. "I won’t listen to you!"

He was unable to drag her away by force either. Left with no option, Adrian decided to do the only thing he could think of.

He... let go of her hand and turned away.

"If you want to help them, go ahead. I will be going back to the mansion."

With that, he began calmly walking away without looking back.

This was the only way Adrian could think of. With this sudden turn of events, Evangeline will most likely panic since he doubted that she had been in such a similar situation. This was the only way to calm her down.

But as he was walking calmly, he heard her shout at him from behind.

"Adi, how can you be this heartless?! You... you... You’re evil!!"

Adrian’s steps came to a sudden pause.

Her accusing shout echoed in his mind like the ringing of a bell. All his previous thoughts disappeared, and a sudden, uncontrollable irritation surged from within him.

’How dare she... a child like her has the gall to call me evil?!’

He didn’t know why her words had triggered him; he had no idea why he was feeling such uncontrollable irritation. It was as though it was being injected into his mind artificially.

But more than anything, he wanted to make that girl take back her words.

And with that impulsive desire, Adrian turned around.

But he froze as soon as he did. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

’...What?’

The surrounding scenery had changed, and he was suddenly somewhere else.