A Man Liberated.

Too many things to process.

I grabbed my junk to calm and warm myself.

Celestial, Sister, Solar System and now Sagging Balls. What has my little, pathetic world expanding into?

"Ohhhh Kraily! Barlo! Where'd ya run off to leaving your hopeless champ behind?!"

Spoush! A good face slap was what I needed. I got to stress over this when I have the time. I can already feel myself stinking. I needed to take care of my current situation.

Upon further inspection, I realized that this was both a fountain and a tower about thirty stories high. Talk about weird architecture!

After making sure that there weren't any clues or clothes for me at the summit where I seemingly spawned, I began to descend the fouwer. Yes. That's what I'm gonna call it.

It had a stairway that wrapped around it's concrete, pole like structure similar to how a serpent would cuddle its prey. Or how a skilled woman's tongue would be around her favorite instrument.

As I descended the fouwer holding onto the cold iron railings, I got a good look at where I was at.

It was a huge city situated like a colosseum. From what I saw it had four levels with each being about 10 stories tall.

On the first sat mainly wooden cottages.

On the second there were stone houses of all different designs.

On the third were glass boxes stacked up on each other creating one-of-a-kind glass houses of different compound shapes. These houses where on the same level as the summit of the fouwer.

On the fourth and final level, I saw gigantic mansions and castles some of which rose far above the fouwer accompanying the clouds levitating on platforms of all different types of material.

The city looked colorful and breathtaking.

"Woah. This must be the social hierarchy."

Even though I was taken aback, I still tried to make sense of what I saw. There were no signs or writings from where I looked at the time to inform me of this gorgeous city's name.

*********************

It took me about 30 minutes to descend the fouwer. I'm glad I took those 30 minutes trying to figure out the size and shape of the city.

When I had reached a couple steps away from the foot of the fouwer, the other thing about this place that I neglected to give much thought became more visible.

The populace. Upon entering a new place, the first thing that one should think about is who or what lived there am I right? I'm a rare species indeed.

I scanned. Scanned and scanned. I looked and saw. I didn't make sense of what I saw though. There was nothing wrong with me. I was just overwhelmed.

By a feeling. What was this feeling? I wondered. Then it struck me.

Ah. I knew what this feeling was.

Before I knew it, I was off the steps and on my marks. Then I pointed my mother's blessing of a naked ass to the stars. Braced myself.......then BOOM! Off I went.

The feeling was adrenaline. I had no idea being publicly nude felt so liberating. I never understood my liberation until I saw how many layers of enslavement the members of the populace put themselves under. Poor souls.

I wanted to express my freedom. Get a feel for it even. Similar to how a slave would flex both their wrists and neck the moment they lost their shackles.

I flexed by dashing. I dashed as if I was pushed of a mountain. I felt as fast as if I got pushed off that mountain on a bike.

Yep, I was fast. Like a cheetah who wore its long tail in front. My tail never rose to the skies though. Only pushed west then east by the bullying wind.

That was when yet another feeling struck me. One of realization. An Epiphany.

So, this is what she meant by become celestial.

My eyes watered at the thought of me completing my mission so soon.

I turned to allow my bewildered observers to gaze upon the eyes of a victor and that was when my eyes met another's.

A young beauty though she looked slightly older than me. She had long, curly, golden hair covering half her face so to be fair I only met one of her eyes. It was polite and silver when greeting my two that were brown with less etiquette. She was standing behind two others so I could only see up to her cleavage and man did she have! No wonder it couldn't be blocked!

Upon realization that our eyes had met, she greeted me with a smile. What was with these women robbing the goddesses! First their bathwaters, now their smiles and divine light!

She gets it though.

She gets that this was an act deserving of such a smile. Her eye began to widen.

My body must be beginning to descend into the heavens before her. Don't be shocked my princess. I am merely leaving this husk, advancing to the next stage of existen-

My inner monologue was interrupted by the sound of me crashing into one of the wooden cottages causing it to tumble down, burying me in rubble.

They were a lot less sturdy that they looked. I thought as my conscience faded.

*****************

I woke up in shackles. Not clothes. Literal shackles. Around my wrists, neck and ankles.

Old and rusty; almost as if I racked too much they'd fall right apart. That wasn't the case through. They were insanely heavy; too heavy for me to lift my arms over my pelvis and my feet above my ankles. This must've been my punishment for belittling slavery.

I sat there unintentionally on even colder floors this time. Cold wood. Of course, I had no say in the matter since my body wouldn't be able to handle the strain of trying to get up.

My head moderately pained me. This pain was the combination of my accident earlier and the tightly knotted bandages around my forehead strangling my blood vessels.

How strange is this? I thought. Went through the trouble of chaining me up for flashing the crowd earlier most likely. Yet they didn't try to help me correct my wrongs by putting me in some rags. Yes rags. Not an orange jumpsuit. Based on what I've seen so far this place didn't seem to have that whole common era vibe to it. The more I examined the room, the more medieval I got from the place.

The entire cell I sat in was composed of wood. Not good wood though. A bed with dirty white sheets poorly made with a fragile wooden skeleton, a small wooden bucket that was probably meant for the passage of waste and a wooden bucket of water was all that kept me company in my cell.

The cell was isolated from what I saw. Not even a barred window to look through. Not that I'd be doing much looking. It was isolated and underwhelming. If I had not have been heavily chained, I might've forgotten that I had been imprisoned.

The place had only gotten the isolation part of the jail experience right. It was oddly well kept with even the waste bucket being almost completely clean and the floors looked as if they were polished regularly. The dirtiest looking thing in the room were the sheets and my chains. The sheets were probably stained, and time ate away at my chains, so they were impossible to clean. What I had gotten from those two things along with fragile wood that made up both the bars of the cell and the bed was that these people weren't that big on replacing furniture. This place had forgotten that a jail should feel dirty and uncomfortable. Not like a low-quality guestroom.

The room's size limited it to only one cell. It was a little smaller than my bedroom with the half empty cell taking up almost half the room leaving a thin space for a small chair and desk leaned right beside the door facing the cell. It seemed the person who sat there had just left.

In the middle of an examination of my area of confinement, I slowly began to fell a strain on my neck. This strain stealthily become more and more bothersome until I finally realized where this strain was coming from. My head. It was getting heavier. My eyes were losing their strength as well.

What's this? The aftereffects of my before b-day all-nighter finally coming into play? Nah. That can't be it. Did I get a concussion when I ran into the building earlier? No. This felt fainter than that. What exactly was this feeli-

BLAM!

A loud bang again interrupted my inner monologue. This time the bang came from an armored hand crashing into the wooden bars. Huh? When did they get in here?

My low eyes examined my guest. They were clad in rusty armor from their feet up to their neck. I didn't how they were beyond that point. My eyes were too weak to bring me any further.

"Shit! Seems like ya fed da bastard a lil' too much whalerum. He could bite it on yas." the voice sounded wavy and deep.

The kind of voice you'd hear when you had had it up to here with drugs and were ready to pass out.

*******************

Then came the water. The coldest thing I've felt thus far. That was probaby because I was hit point blank with it almost drowning on impact. They tied my hands just to make sure all of it soaked into my skin.

"Talk."

The voice sounded forcibly deep.

"*Cough* *Cough* Trust me, *heavy breathing* when I tell you *heavy breathing* I didn't *heavy breathing* need *heavy breathing* a face-full *heavy breathing* of refreshments *heavy breathing* to do that. *Heavy breathing* I appreciate the courtesy though."

A powerful back hand that threw my face left and a tooth into the wooden wall followed.

"Games won't do us any good. Answers will." I racked my jaw to see if it was intact then shot back at my interrogator.

"Or some fresh clothes would. Do you think violence will force me out of exhibitionism? And how do you expect me to talk when you fuck my mouth up!"

I was always either cheeky or grumpy whenever I woke up. Rarely both. I guess this situation itself was already rare to begin with. A naked boy sitting on a wooden chair with both arms tied behind his back being interrogated and abused by a rusty knight. I guess this situation could also tend to fetishes I'm glad I didn't grow to develop.

I still felt droopy. My eyes regained their strength, but my neck was still just as weak. My head felt drifty and ached much more harshly than before. I felt as if my mind sat among the borders of the conscious, the sub-conscious and the unconscious.

Probably this was why I wasn't freaking out over my current predicament. I couldn't accurately sense the gravity of it.

With my neck still dysfunctional, my head faced the floors. This was when my eyes caught the armored hand dive down to my pelvis grabbing my junk then squeezing it as if it were plushy.

"And why would I offer security to the most valuable bargaining chip here? Now answer me *Squeezes* Are you a spy? *Drags* If so, who do you work for? *Squeezes and Twists* Or are you a distraction? *Sinks armor claws in* To throw our troops off so your invaders could catch us off guard maybe?"

The maddening pain brought tears to my eye which dripped to the wooden floors followed by the rackling of the chair that the knight held steady with the other hand afterwards.

"P-Please ... your gonna give me a heart attack!" I begged in a strangled, pained voice.

" Stop? *Increases strength of grip and twists even more*.... YOU WANT ME TO STOP?!" the forcibly based voice devolved into one of less volume and even began to crack. It had a sense of pain in its tone. As if on the verge of tears.

"AGGGGGHHH!!!!" I wailed scrapping my tonsils in agony.

"Yes. I want you to stop." that voice sounded like my salvation.

The knight's stranglehold was released. The sensation of pain and the damage I refused to look at remained though. In my bitterness and agony, I shouted at the knight:

"Don't you have the faintest sense of sympathy?! As a fellow man?!"

The knight's clawed grip fell upon my shaved head raising it to their eye level then said to me coldly:

"Is that something I'm supposed to have now?"

My eyes again met another's. This time they were unfriendly and bloodshot. They belonged to a shortly cut, orange haired woman with a thick slash scar starting from the top left corner of her forehead to the base of her right jaw.

I was obviously shocked.

"Verenia! Look at what you've done!"

"Blame the bastard's tight lip. This is his fault."

"And it will be your fault if he's too traumatized to give us the information we need. Stop letting your feelings get the best of you."

"Hmph." She threw down my head and stormed out of the room violently slamming the door behind her.

"Well then, now that that's over with." My salvation then began to untie me. "The reason why she kept you tied up was because she was afraid of being forced to kill you if you tried anything funny. I'm not like her though. I swear by the blood of the cardinals that I wouldn't hesitate for a second if I sense even the slightest hint of malice in the glint of your eyes."

My salvation went over to the corner of the room where my tooth flew to take both it up and a chair right beside it while continuing, "Heh. Not that I think that they're capable of such a thing though."

"Huh?" I sounded muffled as my mouth began to mourn the tooth loss by giving me a swollen gum. I still I had to voice how puzzled I felt.

My Salvation then proceeded to hand me the lost tooth forcing it into my numb hand she brought to my lap before taking a seat in front of me concluding while doing so:

"Sure, they looked weaker than earlier, but they still possess the same purity."

I denied my neck's weakness in that moment forcing myself to look up in that moment because of a hunch I got.

Spot on. I thought of the hunch as I stared on with a widened eye. My savior turned out to be the golden curly haired beauty from earlier. With her long hair held up in a ponytail, I was finally able to meet her other eye. It wasn't as polite as her other one though. White and dead. Killed by the long, thin slash starting from above her eyebrows to the bottom of her lip.

Her smile had gained a different layer. This was because of the lack of layers ironically. Around her precious teeth on the right side of her face stood not a single layer of skin to protect them from the outside world. The slim slash merged with her exposed teeth.

"Done staring?"

"Uh. Yeah. S-sorry."

"Hehe. No need. It's smart to get a good look at a monster the first time you see it."

"More of a marvel than a monster."

"How so?" she rose her left eyebrow wondering.

"Because of how unaffected your beauty is by it. I'd dare say it adds a layer to it."

"Trying to sweet talk your way onto my good side I see."

"Everything around you could be considered a good side. From the base of your feet to the breath surrounding the height of your hair. I'm just trying to reciprocate the feeling of comfort honestly."

"Hehe. Guessing your survival instincts would be going crazy in a predicament such as this."

As smothered as my words came off, I meant everyone. She was just as breathtaking as when I first saw her. Though it took some time to adjust to the entirety of her face, when I finally did it added even more flare to what was already there. I wondered if the opinion I had of her face was widely upheld or if it was just my personal bias. I kind of doubted that it was my personal bias since even" gold in women" according to Barlo didn't glitter in my eyes at times. Even if this wasn't the truth, I still didn't want her to feel as if she made me uncomfortable since so far, she'd been trying her best to not repeat her subordinate's mistake.

As she laughed at my remarks, she got off the chair she sat on with it turned backwards resting her head on the back of it to go to a bag she had brought in with her. She pulled out a sack containing some liquid and some rags.

She then came back over me and began to feed me the liquid after opening the sack saying:

"Drink this to remove the numbness."

As I swallowed the tasteless liquid, I felt sensation returning to the hand she moved to my lap placing my tooth in as well as several other parts of my body.

"What was that?"
"State three waters."

Something told me she didn't mean the third scientific state. She then threw the rags on me continuing in a much stern but just as soft voice, "Put these on. I have some questions for you."

After throwing the roomy rags over my head and getting a feel for what I had on, she then began her questioning.

"Who are you?"

"Name's Jeiya Aragi." I answered her and the serious atmosphere with some seriousness of my own. I figured it'd be unfair to not take a person who helped me out seriously when they wanted me to.

"Where are you from?"

"Well for starters, I'm not from this country...... well more accurately I'm...... Uh.... Umm.." I was struggling to find the correct words to explain my situation since I didn't completely understand it myself.

"Where are you from?"

"Another world." I figured she just wanted me to come clean.

"Ah. I figured you weren't from here." She looked slightly less surprised than I thought she'd be. Did I stand out that much? I wondered forgetting that I was flashing the streets not too long ago.

"Could you care to explain it a bit more in detail?" she began to inquire even further.

I then went on to explain both where I came from and how I got to her world to her. Sure, I didn't dive into many details in my description of home but for the little details she got, though she tried to maintain the face of an interrogator, her eye still glistened with almost childlike amazement as I went on.

"Now that's enough about me."

"I assume you have your own share of questions for me?"

"Yep. Lots."

"Very well then." As she got up, she went to the door opening it for me gesturing me out of the room while saying, "Come. It'd be easier if you saw."