Elemental Cats

Stitches' snapped. He saw red. The patient he had been working on was a decorated soldier and had given more than his life several times, fighting for the Starsling Kingdom and the humans in their war against the demons. And it wasn't the first time the soldier ended up in Stitches' healing room.

As soon as their previous injuries healed, they would already be out on the battlefield, fighting and killing demons. Stitches had naturally gotten a lot of opportunities to know the soldier. But despite his insistence, the soldier refused to rest and stay at the camp to make full use of the allotted rest time. Before Stitches knew it, the soldier said something like, "Every day I rest more than I need it, is another dead family at the hands of the demons," before sprinting into battle while tearing off any remaining bandages.

However, the prince, one of the descendants of those who only had power thanks to the sacrifice of people like the patient on the table, ignored the soldier's life. The soldier's entire body and internal organs had been in a delicate balance, where the slightest disruption could lead to the soldier's death. Stitches might have been able to save the soldier's life if all the prince did was cancel the healing. But, now that the soldier hadn been dumped on the ground like a sack of potatoes, it didn't matter how quickly Stitches acted. There was no way he would be able to save the soldier.

One of the princes of the kingdom that the soldier served had killed the soldier for nothing more than a scrape on his arm. A scrape that didn't even require a healer. A simple towel would have been more than enough.

There were no way Stitches, who had just lost a friend, could remain rational. Only an insane person would stay calm when forced to heal the murderer of a dear friend, no matter the circumstances.

The only thing Stitches remembered after that was the prince's bloody face. Although it only took a few moments before guards came in and stopped Stitches from continuing his pummeling on the prince's head, the prince was already within an inch of his life. And it wasn't due to the injuries he had sustained before stomping into Stitches' tent.

Later, during a hearing, when asked if he regretted it, Stitches had a simple answer.

"The only thing I regret is not landing a few more blows."

Everyone present knew that a few more blows would have almost definitely killed the prince. Even those who wanted to save Stitches in consideration of how many lives he had saved and how great his potential as a healer was couldn't do much when he basically confessed to the attempted murder of a royal descendant. Not that there were many who wanted to help him to begin with. The rampant nepotism and aristocratic favoritism had already made sure that most of the people Stitches had beaten were related to the people who could weigh in on his sentence.

Given the severity of his crime, there were a few who wanted him executed. But since the problem was with Stitches' unruliness and lack of obedience, the general consensus leaned toward making him a criminal slave. With the war burning through people and manpower like a slaughterhouse, Stitches was a valuable resource.

But it wasn't as if they had a bunch of slave collars lying around. The collars had already been used up or gone missing. However, there was a solution only a short boat ride away.

Since there were a lot of criminals and deserters brought to the battlefield from all over the place, the easiest way to make all of them submit would be to have what could make them submit next to the battlefield.

The last stop before entering battle for most criminals or forcefully enlisted manpower, who, at least during the war, were nothing more than slaves, was a large floating platform. Aside from having the ability to move freely through the Void, the platform wasn't anything special, and the only thing on the hunk of rock and metal was a house and a garden. However, despite its appearance, the platform was far from simple. And during peacetime, it had only been rumored to exist, even in the higher echelons of the kingdom.

The owner of the platform was a mage whose name had exploded in notoriety since the military began bringing in forced manpower. Beltor had quickly grown infamous due to his strength and what he was capable of doing with it.

Beltor was a mage at the eighth level. He was far from being the only one in the war, and there were people in the kingdom stronger than him. But what made him scary was his inclination. Beltor's inclination gave him curse attribute mana. Mages who used curses were rare, but not to the point where Beltor was the only one in the entirety of Starsling Kingdom.

People feared Beltor because of the kind of curse he specialized in. Subordination curses. Beltor could enslave almost anyone at a lower level than him. Even people at the same level as him or higher have been known to fall under his curses, even if temporary.

And the kingdom had found a way to fully utilize Beltor's abilities by having him curse anyone who showed signs of not wanting to fight in the war.

Stitches was going to be sent to Beltor's Platform along with a few other rebellious individuals.

With Beltor's infamy, and the rumors going around, Stitches knew what was going to happen to him even if he hadn't been told his sentence. However, Stitches didn't have any intentions of allowing himself to become a slave and be forced to heal arrogant pricks for the rest of his life. So as soon as he found out, Stitches began planning his escape, and that was when he thought of the pirates he had encountered on the way to the front lines.