In a daze, Liens returned to the white space.
Although the fact that his Life was in someone else's hands made him a bit frustrated, he quickly adjusted.
It wasn't that his disposition was particularly resilient; he simply understood a reality.
That was, even without that contract, given his current situation, it would be a trivial matter for Barton and the others to take his Life.
The contract merely added a hard-to-remove knife to his already heavy shackles.
Understanding this, fear and unease were once again pushed back into the depths of his heart, and composure and calmness once again became the new representatives of his rationality.
Next, Liens went to test the other constraints of the "contract" and found that after signing the contract, it was very difficult for him to harm Barton.
As long as he had the thought of attacking Barton and made the corresponding attacking movements, he would be punished.
That punishment was an intense stinging pain, as if countless steel needles were inserted into his brain; simple pain could no longer describe that suffering.
He only knew that after enduring that pain once, he was completely exhausted, feeling as if his body had triggered some self-protection mechanism.
However, he did not die directly from it.
Perhaps he needed to break the contract or trigger other conditions to be executed, but he did not find out what those other conditions were.
And this punishment was only triggered when attacking Barton; attacking Barton's subordinates did not trigger the "contract"'s punishment mechanism.
He speculated that either Barton was the object of the contract he signed, or that it required certain conditions to be within the contract's protection range.
Liens guessed it was bloodline.
The reason for this guess was that he later learned about the Glenbagen Family and the Training Camp by subtly extracting information from Barton and his subordinates.
The Glenbagen Family was a great noble family in the Inner City; he didn't manage to find out how great, but Barton was a noble bloodline belonging to this family.
As for the Training Camp, he only knew the term from Barton, but nothing else.
However, he speculated that these Slaves were probably being sent to the Training Camp.
And from the name "Training Camp," they should receive some kind of training there, or become human targets for training.
He hoped it was the former, because the former at least seemed to have a higher survival rate than the latter.
...
Time does not stop flowing, but journeys always have an end.
The carriages, which had been rushing all the way, finally reached their destination, and Liens and the other Slaves were roughly pulled off the carriages.
Liens looked around and saw that where they disembarked was a very open flat ground, very large, like a square.
Beyond the square were densely packed buildings, like walls made of huge stones, casting enormous shadows in the moonlight.
He guessed they had been transported outside the city, because there was no such large square in the Outer City, and he wasn't sure if the Inner City had one.
Liens didn't know much about the area outside the city, as he had never left the city himself.
He only knew that there were many "demonic beasts" outside the city, and he heard that people outside the city had to fight "demonic beasts" frequently to survive.
Liens didn't know if this situation was true, but in the more than a year he struggled in the Outer City after leaving the orphanage, he often saw Adventurers walking on the streets with the corpses or body parts of "demonic beasts."
And more than two months ago, Liens, feeling that he could hardly survive in the city, thought about leaving the city to find new opportunities.
But when he was about to step out of the city gate, he saw several burly men forcibly dragging away a vagrant who had just left the city.
During the process, the city gate guards completely ignored it.
The city's laws clearly stipulated that "no one can be forcibly taken as a Slave," but the guards completely disregarded the incident happening right before their eyes.
Did the city's laws "lose effect" after leaving the city?
Liens didn't know.
But he knew he absolutely could not leave the city, otherwise he would very likely become an item in the Slave Exchange.
At that time, even if he starved to death in the Outer City, he didn't want to become a Slave, so he gave up on leaving the city, continued to struggle for survival in the Outer City, and eventually became a vagrant.
Getting off-topic.
The ones who pulled Liens and the others off the carriage were a group of men carrying longswords.
Like the "soldiers" who were sitting in front of the carriage before, they wore unified uniforms, were strong and healthy, and in the moonlight, Liens could see the bulging muscle lines on their arms not covered by clothing.
And they seemed to possess strict discipline.
After releasing all the Slaves, they naturally surrounded them to prevent any Slave from making unwise escape attempts.
Then they stood quietly in place, seemingly waiting for the next command.
Liens's gaze constantly swept over the surrounding environment and those 'soldiers,' and the other Slaves did almost the same.
After all, upon arriving in a new environment, everyone unconsciously observes their surroundings to determine if there are any dangers.
This also caused the surroundings to be like a frozen animation; everyone was silent, only the chirping of insects providing background music.
"Tap, tap, tap…"
In this extreme silence, a very sudden sound of footsteps rang out, approaching from a distance.
Liens and the others turned their gazes and saw a tall figure slowly approaching.
Soon, he stood in front of everyone.
His attire was very similar to the "soldiers" around him, but it was clearly a higher-grade uniform.
Moreover, after he arrived, although the "soldiers" were already silent, their gaze remained fixed on him.
From these two points, it was highly likely that this person was the superior of these "soldiers."
"It's getting late, I'll briefly explain the situation to you."
The simple opening remarks made everyone focus their attention on him and begin to pay close attention to his next words.
"You don't need to know my name; from now on, you should all address me as Instructor."
"And this is the Training Camp built by the Glenbagen Family; I will train you here to become soldiers qualified to serve the family."
"You will undergo the most rigorous and brutal training here; fight with all your might, and I hope I can still see you at graduation."
"Alright, that's all."
"Take them to wash up, then arrange them into dorms, and give them something to eat; training starts tomorrow."
"Oh, right, unlock their shackles and restraints; if anyone tries to escape, kill them directly."
The Instructor calmly gave instructions to the "soldiers" and then left the square.
After the Instructor left, the "soldiers" unlocked the shackles on Liens and the others, then took them to wash up and change into simple coarse linen clothes.
Of course, even these clothes were much better than the rags they were wearing.
At least they provided complete coverage and some insulation.
Afterward, they were arranged into adjacent dormitories.
The dorm was not large, with only one large bed inside; the bed was very wide, as if multiple beds had been joined together to save space, forming a large bed that could accommodate many people.
Judging by the number of neatly arranged sheets and pillows on the bed, this should have been a ten-person dorm.
Subsequently, the "soldiers" brought food: some bread, a bowl of meat soup (though not much, it surprisingly had chunks of meat), and some water.
Discarding his past Life's experiences, in his memory, "he" rarely ate meat; most of the time, being able to drink a mouthful of meat soup was already a very memorable thing for "him."
From what he understood, even ordinary families in the Outer City didn't often have meat to eat.
From this perspective, at least in terms of food, this place was much better than the Slave Exchange.
He just didn't know what price they would have to pay for this food.
From the Instructor's words, it was not difficult to see that the so-called "training" was probably very brutal, and deaths should be a very normal occurrence.
Liens had secretly observed that most of the Slaves brought here were much stronger than ordinary Slaves; those as thin as him were very few.
Looking at it this way, that "training" was very likely extreme physical training, and he was genuinely worried about whether his body could endure the "training."
With a slight unease about the future, Liens quickly finished the food in front of him.