160 A Hard Life
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The next morning, Cassandra was visited by a prostitute that was a partner of her mother, apparently, her mother was found dead in the streets, stabbed to death by a drunk man that wanted services for free. Her mother apparently had rejected him and spit on his face, making the man go insane, taking a knife and stabbing her in front of the other prostitutes, who couldn’t even help her out of fear, most of them ended running away, leaving Cassandra’s mother to her bitter fate.
The man escaped, and had not been caught yet, and even the authorities didn’t seem to care about the death of just “another whore nobody cares about”… Even the guards and soldiers didn’t answered the prostitutes, pushing them away and back to the red-light district, without letting them walk inside the capital of the duchy where most of the commoners with some money and the nobles gathered.
“Sorry girl, your mother is dead… I… We couldn’t do anything… Damn, you’re still too young to start the job… And you got a little sister? He best shot you got is going to an orphanage. I can bring you there. Your mother was… my childhood friend. It is the least I could do for her.”
“…Thanks.”
Cassandra was left shocked by the news, but despite such a sorrowful death, she couldn’t help any sympathy for her mother, and only pitied her… At the end, she didn’t felt a pain in her heart for her mother’s death, but she felt hollow. Perhaps the abuses of her mother made her this way, someone incapable of relating her emotions.
The prostitute brought Cassandra and Ruby to an orphanage, where things seemingly seemed to improve… Only on the surface, as things became worse. The kids abused the two girls, and were unwelcome of her. They disliked someone else taking away the food from them, and constantly stole their food and abused them.
It became hell in earth, even worse than her previous living conditions. In such a place, Cassandra learned more about how the real world truly was, the strong devours the weak, it was the law of the jungle even in society. If she didn’t fought for her food, she and her sister would die of starvation. And without a penny left from her mother, as she was stolen of her money most likely by the prostitutes themselves when she died, she had absolutely nothing than… her fists.
And a rusty knife she once found when she was digging for insects or plant roots in the orphanage backyard. It was an old and rusty knife, with almost no sharpness… But no kid had such a weapon in the orphanage.
Cassandra was forced into an unjust world, a young girl born without opportunities, without any sort of hope, she decided to fight for her survival.
The next day, after Cassandra grabbed the piece of bread given to her to feed herself and her sister by the nuns, she ran back to the room where the beds where to feed her sister resting there, and she was, as always, chased down by a group of kids.
“Cassandra, give us the bread!”
“You little bitch, why are you running so fast?!”
“Catch her!”
Cassandra had smartly lured them into a dark area of the large and old orphanage building, and was cornered by them, as she stood still in the darkness, the trio of boys slowly walked towards her, pointing their fingers at her, they had spirits, but much like any commoner, they were useless spirits that didn’t had any force, and they were all Talent-less, without Skills either.
“Why is she standing there?”
“No matter, catch her!”
“Give us the bread already!”
“…”
Cassandra awaited them until they got very close, and then, her spirit emerged. Indeed, spirits, everyone had one in this world after all, the three kids before her had useless spirits such as a River Grass, White Cloth, and Conch, and they didn’t even had Mana to summon them for too long, often preferring to use their fists to fight and force other kids to give them their food and even money, if they ever had it.
“What the…?!”
Cassandra looked at them expressionlessly as she unleashed several threads into the kids, these threads were very weak, and couldn’t do much at all… However, they managed to entangle their foot together, and made them trip into the ground.
TUMP!
“Uaggh…!”
“T-Those are spirit threads?”
“Y-You whore!”
“…”
Cassandra looked down into the kids as she took out her rusty knife, she didn’t smiled, she didn’t looked like she intimidated or sad either, there was a frightening look of utter indifference in her face.
“W-Wait…! What are you doing- Guaaggh!”
“H-Help!”
“No… stop!”
Cassandra used the rusty knife to stab the kids in their throats, roughly and painfully, she killed all three of them before they could scream for too long and be noticed, and stole anything they had with them before running back to the room, without anybody noticing…
The next day, the corpses of three kids that died agonizingly were found, causing a commotion in the entire orphanage, and this continued for the next months, as the corpses of those that always abused the younger children and extorted them for their food were also found death in a similar position…
Over the time, and years, many kids knew who it had done, but they never spoke a word, some were simply and utterly terrified of Cassandra, the “Butcherer” as they called her, while others followed her, and saw her as their savior for having killed all the bullies.
Cassandra developed a pleasure for taking the life out of miserable people she abhorred but justified it inside of her mind thinking that it was for her little sister, who had been growing more over time.
However, things gave a sudden change once more when she reached 10 years of age, as Cassandra was suddenly bought by enslavers, sold off by the nuns of the orphanage alongside various other girls her age, and even including her little sister…
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