"You call yourself a genius? At best....you are just a pathetic fool"
The man in Azure robes uttered to me as he put his sword back to its sheathe, deeming me as someone unworthy.
I was hurt at his words.....but, what can I say? He was stating the truth. There is no way I can beat a monster like that.
——————
"I am not asking this question because I do not know what happened, what I am asking is the full details of the story"
I added to my words while Rast was picking the lock on the chains bounded to me by using a playing card.
Rast is one of my formidable subordinates, although he isn't as strong as Hedin who is basically my right hand man, he is quite a competent person. His specialty lies in pickpocketing and lockpicking, I also picked up some neat tricks in lockpicking from him but I can never be better than he is.
"....."
Hearing my question, Hedin and Kel made an eye contact to each other and as if they were guilty about something, they both avoid looking at me and just bit their lower lip. Eventually though, Rast spilled the beans because of the gaze that I was giving him.
"When the news arrived that Levin was going to be admitted to the Academy and you were locked up in Prison for assaulting a noble and was even declared as Unchosen, some people in our gang started to leave upon hearing that they will not have a leader anymore. It goes the same to the Butchers....so Hedin here, thought that a new person should lead our gang because you should already be dead and so he stepped up. But Kel over here was against that, he had faith that you will live so the two of them fought each other...."
While picking the lock on my restraints, Rast casually narrated the entire story about the fall of the Veno Gang. My group. He said that a faction between two of my formidable subordinates was formed and they fought each other which led to the two of them getting an injury, and while they were recovering from their injuries....a man suddenly waltzed into the turf and destroyed everyone.
He was Jeferson, the Blessed guy.
He said that everything happened so fast that they did not have enough time to process the nightmare that was unfolding before them.
"Suddenly, like serpents. Some kind of ropes started to wrap around us and constricted all of us like a Boa! Before we could even process what was going on, we were all knocked unconscious and here we are. We have been in this place for almost 3 months now."
Listening to Rast's story about how they ended up in this place, I recalled Clifford's description of Jeferson and also the clash—I cannot really call it a clash because it was one sided—that we had and hypothesized Jeferson's blessing.
He was blessed by the God of Winds. That God of Winds also has other authority, Since the wind symbolizes freedom, then it might be something related to freedom.
He can freely control flexible things, I mean that much is obvious just from what he has been doing with ropes and whip but it could also be something else since he was fighting against us, unchosen people. Meaning, he was not going all out against us. So for now, I decided that his ability might be freely control objects like Telekinesis.
After a while of deep hypothesizing about Jeferson's Blessed ability, I snapped back to reality and looked at my subordinates who are just looking at me and was waiting for me to finish what I was doing.
That's that, they might have also been waiting for me to tell them about what happened to me after the Ceremony or how I ended up in prison like them. I could tell from their faces.
"Yeah, so basically after serving my sentence, I immediately headed back to the hideout and found that the place was entirely abandoned..."
I looked up to see each of their faces as the three of them looked away to never meet my gaze, they must have been so guilty.
"I thought I was abandoned, I thought you left the gang and I just shrugged it off. That's how life in the slums work, but then I met this kid named Clifford....he said that the group was attacked and you were kidnapped, you all save him and help him escape. Then that is when he planned to save you. He scouted the area around and then yeah, he met me back in the base just this morning, he told me everything and we planned to break you out"
I talked way too much about everything that even I felt kinda bored narrating it. After doing so though, I looked up to see the reactions of my subordinates only for me to see them with a frown on their faces.
I tilted my head in confusion, wondering what made them react that way and was about to ask them that but before I could open my mouth, Rast opened his first.
"Boss....who is Clifford?"
Listening to that, chills ran down my spine as I recalled my exchange with the boy named Clifford.
'Oh, I'll be damned'
I swallowed the chilling sensation creeping up to me and tried to open my mouth to ask them what they meant by those words despite me already piecing it all up but before I could do so, they snorted.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Boss, you should have seen your face. You looked like you've seen a ghost"
"We are messing with you boss, of course we know who Clifford is, it sure is good to know that he is doing well"
"Yeah, he was such a crybaby when we locked him up in a box to hide him with the books. Good to know that he was doing well"
The three of them laughed in unison as they mocked me for falling into their prank, I even showed a reaction that was so not me. It was embarassing.
Since I am free from my chains now with the help of Rast's lockpicking ability, I stretched my muscles and started cracking my knuckles.
"Oh yeah? It really is funny, huh"
I let out a hollow laugh as my subordinates slowly turned to look at me and hollowed out their laughter as well.
—————
"Anyways, playing cards must be enough to lockpick anything, so I am wondering why you are not breaking yourself out...."
I uttered towards Rast while I was analyzing the lock of the prison cell, I tinkered with it a little and it turns out it was a special kind of lock.
"...Turns out it is an Enchanted Seal, huh?"
I added upon seeing the complex patterns of the cell lock. Enchanted Seals are some kind of lock that are used to imprison Blessed individuals, for every Enchanted Seal, there is only one key made for that Seal specifically so only that key could open it. Meaning, we are pretty much fucked because no matter how much it is lockpicked, it will never open unless it is the key made for itself.
Who's the fucking psycho who made this kind of lock? Why of course, it is the owner of Jinx, this continent's largest prison ever. I heard his blessing was related to Goddess of Judgment.
"Yeah, At first I tried to just let them capture me because I thought the prison would just be a piece of cake with all the weak locks, but who could have known that they are going to use an expensive item just to lock up a bunch of rugrats"
Rast—who had a swollen face after I beat him up for pulling that prank on me—chuckled as he went back to playing cards with the other two, who were also beaten up by me.
Well, that pretty much confirmed my suspicion about these guys being backed by a powerful person.
[ Enchanted Seals ] are a powerful kinds of lock that only aristocrats are allowed to possess. Getting one would cost someone an entire fortune that no one in the slums could even fathom.
Sighing in defeat upon realizing that there is no hope of me to escape this place, I just joined my subordinates and played cards with them.
What I am worried about though is that I might be killed tomorrow because if what I assumed was right, the hooded guy who paid Jeferson yesterday according to Clifford, that guy might be the mutt's lackey who paid Jeferson in advance for my death or worse....torture me. But not like I can do anything against it. It is hopeless now.
CLANG—!
While I was having those thoughts, the four of us then heard a metal clanging voice by the cell doors. When me and my subordinates turned our head to look over there, we saw a kid coming out from a gutter and was carrying some sort of a....key?
"Boss! I came here to save you!"
The kid was Clifford. Apparently, he crawled out from a pool of shit to sneak in and if my assumptions are right, the key that he was carrying was the key for this [ Enchanted Seal ].
Hah, hopeless? They wish. I don't plan on dying here.