I wasn't paying enough attention to my surroundings while running around. One of the thugs threw a wooden plank in my direction and I bonked into it with full force. I was stunned just long enough to not be able to react in time to the biggest mountain of muscle of the group swinging his weapon directly at my head like a baseball bat.
Fortunately, I managed to narrowly avoid the club by tripping over my own paws. Or feets. Unfortunately, the big dude was just about to fall right on my head.
I rolled away from the mountain falling on me, but it was right into another one of those thug's swings. It was directly aimed at my head. I was still on my back and couldn't avoid it even if I tried.
And now, you would think it would be the perfect moment to show you a sudden and barely explained power up, like a new tail or a super shield or something. You know, like anime, with super cool music that hits really hard and that you don't understand anything because it's in japanese, but it sounds cool !
And with that new power, I could kick the butt of the bad guys ! Enough to stop the robbery entirely on my own ! I would also get praised and spoiled by the locals and gain an insane gift !
And after that I would continue my journey towards my goal ! With a new side quest of understanding that power up, or even not at all because it's unnatural and it will balance the rest of the story!
None of that dream. Get reality checked.
An unknown amount of time later, I wake up in a cage, in the middle of a lot of bags and other crates, with a muzzle so tightly shut around my jaws that I can barely breathe. And with a headache that would make me bang my head against the bars of the cage I'm in, if I could even move property. I'm still stiff from after the fight, and I also seem to suffer from mild mana abuse.
On top of that, they binded my front paws together with a new collar, who himself is chained to the cage itself. I at least kept the mana stone collar/bracelet that I already had, I guess…
A sudden movement of the cage and my whole surrounding informs me that I am trapped into a carriage of some sort. Not that I can do anything about it, I literally cannot move anything but my tail. I'm also not able to gather mana properly because of the side effect of mana abuse I suffered earlier. Yesterday ? I don't know when it was, but last time.
Yeah, for those that don't know it, your body cannot handle much more mana than what you have internally. Even if my collar/bracelet made of mana stones boost my mana pool by a lot, it's still not exactly my mana. My body still needs to process it so that I can use it properly.
Which means that I am way more susceptible than others to mana abuse. Usually it only happens when you drink 2 or 3 mana recovering potions in a row while still continuously casting spells, but for me, because the mana bracelet accounts for more than half of my mana pool, it's whenever I end up using almost all my mana. And if you never experienced mana abuse before: Just breathing is like you ran a marathon and your blood becomes as thick as syrup. And trying to cast a spell is like you're suddenly trying to sprint for a dozen more meters.
I found ways to alleviate a bit of the physical downside of mana abuse, but I still cannot do anything about the difficulty of casting a spell. In fact, I even make it worse. What I do is enter a sort of semi-meditative state and forcefully cycle my mana to recharge myself. It's great to evacuate the unprocessed mana particles that entered my body while my mana core was tired and not processing correctly, but that also means that I strictly cannot cast any spells.
Anyway, now that I'm wildly awake and fully aware of my environment, I can test my restraints for a bit. Yep, it's all metallic binding that I cannot do anything about. Great. I guess I just have to wait and not die of boredom-... AÏÏE ! That hurt you bastard ! Can't you avoid potholes the size of an ocean ?!
What was I saying again ? Ah yes. I just have to wait and not die because of all the shocks I'll receive from those idiots that don't know how to drive.
An unknown amount of time later (and wayyy~ too many bumps to count them all), they finally stop the carriage. And one of them opens the door to put another package inside. His colleague has a magic wand with a blue-yellow gem on it and yells at me to shut up if I don't want to get zapped. I yapp at his face (or make a noise close to that, but with the muzzle it's hard), and it visibly upsets him that I don't respect his authority. So he charges a lightning spell with the staff and uses it like a stun baton to zap me with it.
Fun fact: I'm immune to lightning attacks. I don't know why, but since I became a fox, I can literally control any and all electricity that touches me, and either use it as if it was mine or dispel it. I sadly cannot absorb it to regenerate my mana, but I guess that's already strong enough… Even dedicated single-attribute "colored" mages cannot do that, even at the highest level. Absorb it, I mean. Controlling it is common for those coloured magicians.
I twitch my body as if I was electrocuted, and the butthole that zapped me retreats outside when he feels satisfied. I still hear him getting scolded for a reason that I can only assume is "Damaging the goods" or something, as I cannot understand what they say, but outside of that he got nothing.
Another unknown amount of time and 12 more visits of that butthole (he zapped me "only" once more) later, we finally stopped at what seems to be a warehouse. They open the door and 3 dudes begin to unload the carriage. I am treated like any other crates in the carriage, with the same "delicacy", and my cage finishes on its side in between 2 other crates. At least I'm at the edge so I have a bit of light coming my way…
Scratch that. They start piling other crates and I end up in the dark. Did I ever tell you that I'm afraid of the dark ? I start whining and trying to yapp as loudly as I can through the muzzle to attract their attention, and after what feels like hours but surely was only 10 minutes or so, I hear one of the removal men telling something to the other.
And not too long after that I hear them moving crates and boxes out of the way to get to me, all the while one of the men scolds the 2 buttholes that drove me here, saying stuff I do not fully understand. Just as a reminder, the cage I'm in is fully open, and none of them are blind, so I have no idea why they didn't realize before I was a living breathing beast.
After moving my cage (well, I guess it's "my" cage for now…) out of the pile of stuff, the exact same guy that set the cage in the pile transported me to another room. This one is full of beasts, from cats, dogs and other pets to a FREAKING LIVING AND GROWLING TIGER VISIBLY VERY UPSET ! What the f*ck did I get myself into…
WHY THE F*CK DO YOU PLACE MY CAGE RIGHT NEXT TO THAT ANGRY TIGER ?! DO YOU WANT ME TO F*CKING DIE OR SOMETHING ?! I try to yelp as much as I can, but he doesn't seem to care at all and just locks the door behind him as he gets out.
*those damn humans…*
…
That wasn't my thought if you were wondering. That was the tiger talking. Or more precisely growling and me understanding it. I'm so stunned to understand what he says that I just look at him like he's an alien.
*What are you looking at, new fox ? You loud too.*
- [muffled japping from my part because of the muzzle] *WHAT ?!*
I then use a random spell to remove the muzzle to breathe better, and because I just realized how painful it is to try to open my jaws fully with this piece of leather keeping it shut.
*How the heck can I understand you ?*
I will be honest, I don't know if what I said was this clear, but that's what I was trying to say. No, I don't speak any beast languages. As far as I know they don't exist. But there's some universal beast ways of communicating that I picked up. For example, to ask a question you tilt your head and either look back and forth at the subject of your interrogation and the person you wanna interrogate, or you just stare at them if it's about what they said.
[ Nd-Writer: I will share some tips about ways to communicate with beasts all through this book instead of dedicating a whole chapter to it. Mostly because it's very hard to extract and interpret those informations from my fox companion. ]
*No, I can't talk. I can read minds. I'm a mind tiger if you didn't know. Also you think an awful lot.*
Bloody hell… Mind tigers are known for their insane illusion, and are treated as level 5 threats. For information, the biggest threat level I ever had to face was an injured level 3 chimera, and I was with both my parents for that. Now I understand more about why their illusions are considered deadly… I also thought again about the fight, and now I realize that I won't be able to see my parents until I run away from wherever I am.
*You have a weird train of thought right now. It's as if you are a human.*
*What ?! Can you read memories too ?*
*No. Now it's my turn. Can you use your magic to either free me or get to the keys ?*
*They left the keys inside ? I guess I could try, but… Are they stupid or something ? Who would keep the keys in reach of any random spell from all of the surely magical beasts imprisoned here ? Even my parents didn't do that.*
*No, I've only news them with the keys when they open my cages to feed me. So can you do it ? Also, were you a pet or something before being locked here ?*
(I hesitate before answering) *Yes. One of the 2 humans I was with was a mage and it helped me awaken my wind magic.*
*Good for you. I was-... Someone's coming. Now shut up and get ready to snatch the key from them. And clear those thoughts of yours so you can focus.*
*I, I… I'll try*
We both hear the door being unlocked. The guard visibly doesn't want to be here, smelling how much he sweat. He's also looking around as if he was in a jungle and a predator like a tiger was about to jump on him and eat him. Oh…
After looking around 3 times, while still staying with the door half open and just his head sticking inside the room, he finally enters and the first thing he does is looking at the tiger's cage. That's my cue for starting to mess with him as I start to bark at him, with no magic.
He jumped so high, you should have seen his face ! But the keys are still firmly in his hand, so that's a failure… He then runs for the door at full speed, but someone else is behind the door and they bump into each other. Or to be exact, he bounces into the wall of muscle that is now blocking the door.
- kek t'essaye d'faire ? Ces [bêtes] sont toutes enfermées dans leurs [cages] et leur [magie] est [scellée].
From the words I recognize, it's French. How the heck did I manage to land here ?! I can't speak French ! Now, I'll admit, I did have some mandatory classes in foreign languages, and I picked French because I've heard it was somewhat easy… But I wasn't good AT ALL in French.
The only words I recognized in this sentence were "cages", "bêtes" (beast), "magie" (magic), and "scellée" (sealed). I know "sealed" because the French are good at dispelling and sealing magic, and that was one of the courses I took at some point.
[Nd-Writer: I'll put in understandable languages the words he understands, for your sake ]
The fact that I understood those words didn't help me at all in understanding the sentence, though.
What is sealed ? The cages ? The magic ? What magic ? My magic sure isn't sealed, or if it is it doesn't affect me nor the mind tiger.
*they just said that our magic is supposed to be sealed, don't worry about that. Now, snatch the key and open the door.*
*You understand French ?*
*And you don't. Now take the key while they are talking*
The mountain of muscle forcefully takes the key out of the other's hand while he's still on the ground and opens a door that I didn't realize was there. I smell food, or something similar coming from behind that door. And after a while he comes back with a big bag of dry cat food and a number of dog bowls. One of them is bigger than the others, so I guess it's for the mind tiger next to me.
Once the bowls are full (or at least have something in them), he gives it through the bars of the cages of each animal. Including mine and the tiger's. And I don't try at all to disturb him, because after all that moving I'm hungry as all hell. I never tried cat food, but I guess it can't be the worst…