Stigma Effect

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The one who is at the lowest will rise to the highest.

Baraha lay on the dirty floor, staring at the writing on the wall. It was the writing he had written on the wall while losing his mind for a moment. Perhaps because he didn’t have a suitable writing instrument, Baraha, who had lost his mind, bit his finger and wrote everything on the wall.

The finger he bit was throbbing. If the wound was not treated promptly, it might become infected and require amputation of the finger.

He knows what he had written was a prophecy, but it was all useless anyway. The prophecy did not help Baraha.

He was always alone and suffered.

Baraha put the swear words he heard every day into his mouth.

“Shit, f*** you. What bullshit….”

Baraha’s place was a prison where they stayed for a while before being sold into slavery. It was a small room where even a small child could barely stretch out and lie down.

When he woke up, he could hear the cries of the children through the thin wall. Rumbling chains, screams, begging for release.

That, it was no use. This was a slave shop run by people worse than monsters. It would be better to pray for life in front of a monster.

There was no way these people would let them go just because they cried and begged.

“Oh, you who keep doing that bullshit. When are you going to give up?”

A man passing by Baraha’s place stopped when he heard his voice.

“If you’re sold, keep quiet. Why do you escape every time? Huh? I sent you to a good place.”

Baraha, who saw the man stop, raised his throbbing body to cover the words he had written.

The man said in a tone full of annoyance wasn’t interested in whether Baraha raised his body or not.

“Don’t escape this time. If you want to escape, don’t get caught again. If you wander around in the Imperial Capital, everything will come into our ears, you idiot.”

The man, who Baraha can only remember the face of,muttered, but he couldn’t hear it properly. When Baraha was unable to answer, the man clicked his tongue and withdrew.

The place where they decided to sell Baraha this time was the Temple and the Alchemy Tower. It was a place where no children ever have survived, so even if Baraha wanted to, it would be impossible to escape.

The man believed that his choice would be right this time.

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The gang of slave traders were continuing their bets over Baraha’s escape. The man kept betting that Baraha couldn’t escape.

He lost money several times.

The man was hoping that Baraha would please die in the Temple this time.

After the man disappeared, Baraha rubbed the wall with the hem of his worn-out clothes. As he rubbed it until his arms were scratched, the words Baraha had written were smeared.

No one would care about the blood stains on the dirty walls.

He spit out swear words and fell to the floor again.

“Damn it, if they f***ed me, there’s no point.”

A harsh tone that was not suitable for a child continued.

It was Baraha’s lifelong wish.

＊＊＊

Children over ten were seated close to each other in a narrow carriage. The children sitting in the small carriage shuddered at the smell of each other’s bodies and the sensation of their skin sticky with sweat and dirt.

Baraha, who had gone through the same situation several times and had become numb, was drooping on the wall of the carriage.

In order to save even the slightest amount of power, useless emotional consumption and movement had to be restrained.

Baraha barely drank water when he was loaded onto the carriage. This was done because they knew Baraha would try to escape if he had the strength.

Baraha, who was leaning against the carriage with a small breath, listened to the voices of the men outside.

“… Go, Temple… .”

“Going to Albraka….”

Temple?

Baraha gave strength to his sagging body.

“I’m going to the Temple… ?”

Did they just say it was the Temple?

“Temple?”

“Is this carriage going to the Temple?”

“Shut up your mouth. They can’t hear you.”

The other children, who were weeping, whimpered and asked when they had heard his murmurs, looked at Balaha. Baraha narrowed his brow angrily and ordered the children to keep their mouths shut.

The children quietly shut their mouths at the harsh tone.

“The number that the priests said they needed…..”

“We’ll pick a few from there, and the rest of the children will go to the Alchemy Tower….”

As he put his ear close to the wall of the carriage and focused his attention, he could hear them more clearly.

Baraha felt hope for the first time and his eyes lit up.

Children who are needed by the Temple would be selected, and the children who were not selected were sent to the Alchemy Tower.

The Temple and the Albraka Knights order. Baraha had also heard a lot about that righteous group.

A place built to worship god and protect people.

The carriage was going to such a place. He didn’t know why they were buying children from slave traders, but there was no way they were going to do dirty work in the Temple.

The Temple that Baraha knew was such a place.

It was a place to gather those who were in low places. If sold to the Temple, there would be no more whipping, insults, and stepping on.

“They said they want about ten people in the temple….”

“Then we’re sending the rest to the Alchemy Tower, right?”

Baraha listened to their words and counted the number of children in the carriage. Sixteen. There were ten children wanted in the temple, so six would be sent to the Alchemy Tower.

Do they need an attendant to serve the priests? If so, he should look clean even a little bit, so that he would catch their eye.

Baraha pulled on his loose collar and tried to cover his unsightly body. There were many wounds in the exposed places, so he was more shabby than the other children.

As he looked at himself, another swear word came out through his teeth.

“Th, this, are, are we really, go, going to the Temple?”

One of the children on the other side asked in a terrified tone. The eyes of the child who fumbled and asked questions were filled with hope. He was a much neater kid than Baraha.

It appears that he was brought here shortly after being captured by a slave trader.

Unlike Baraha, the child, who had not yet become filthy, had a dull expression on his face. Baraha felt a sense of displeasure that the first place that child headed to was the Temple.

He knows it was not the child’s fault, but everything looks unpleasant once rolled in mud. While Baraha was too busy taking care of himself, he had no reason to answer the question of the child he had never seen before.

He had never had anyone help him, so he took it for granted.

He stretched out his feet instead of responding to the boy who had been staring at the hem of his clothes, which was cleaner than Baraha. Dirt on his shoes soiled the boy’s pants.

The boy cried and rubbed his pants. The place where the shoes, which had been covered with all sorts of dirt, passed, did not become clean. The more the child rubbed, the more the dirt spread like multiplying.

Eventually, one side of the child’s pants was all dirty. The child, who raised his head to protest, looked at Baraha’s sullen eyes and stopped.

There was a chilling spirit in Baraha’s eyes that flashed from the dark carriage. He looked more terrifying than those who had captured him.

When the child, who did not dare to fight back, curled up, the children who were close to Baraha moved aside to avoid him upon seeing Baraha’s annoyance from the side.

Baraha sat comfortably in the wide seat and organized his clothes.

The carriage began to move slowly. As the carriage moved, the children crouched down with a small scream.

“All down, all!”

“Won’t you get down quickly?”

The slave traders’ base was amongst the buildings on the street where the Temple was located. The base was not far from the Temple as the slave traders were located in the basement of a shop that was built between other shops.

They were able to get off the carriage not long after they got into it.

Thanks to this, he was able to avoid seeing children with motion sickness spitting vomit on the carriage today.

Baraha was the first to get out.

Baraha came out of the carriage and let out a small sigh. It was truly a temple. A white stone floor and a clean building caught his eye.

He looked around and saw a priest with almost white hair. White and black clothes. Those in white were slender, and those in black were stout.

Baraha watched them intently through his long, drooping hair. It was clear that those in black were knights of Albraka, and those in white were priests.

They were talking to the slave traders.

“You just have to choose whichever you want. You said ten this time?”

“That’s right.”

“You wanted them to be healthy, so I picked the most active ones.”

“He doesn’t look too good. Is he healthy?”

“Oh, that guy? He’ll be the healthiest guy. Even if it’s like that, he’s energetic….”

“Enough, send him to the Alchemy Tower.”

“What? really healthy… .”

Baraha felt the hope was extinguished.

When the front-most priest pointed to Baraha, the gang pushed him back into the carriage.

After the priests had chosen ten, the remaining children climbed back into the carriage. The space became more relaxed than at the beginning, but the cries became louder.

The road to the Alchemy Tower was long. A sour smell wafted from the carriage of crying children.

Baraha stretched his body in despair.

Children who were not chosen by the priests descended at the Alchemy Tower. Dark-faced alchemists dragged them into the Alchemy Tower.

It was a place full of strange equipment.