[The city of Greenclouds, the seat of power, Sam's POV.]

Out of the two remaining beastmen prisoners, only the gorilla-man was in any shape to enter the dungeon. He, too, had received a lot of injuries, but compared to others, the healing potions of Damian had done wonders for him.

"Go," Sam ordered.

The Gorilla-man didn't seem to be against the idea. The healing was only given to the two surviving intruders after they agreed to do this. Their leader had already given them permission, so they didn't care much. The Gorilla seemed to care a lot for the bunny-girl, so they had decided to use that.

They couldn't access the same dungeon plain. The Gorilla-man had to come back with Anthony, only that way he could get the man back.

"If you come without him, no one stepping out of it will stay alive for more than a second." Sam warned as the man opened his status to enter the dungeon. A visible shiver ran through the large back of the gorilla.

The beastmen quickly entered the dungeon. Now came the hard part, the waiting.

///

[Inside the dungeon, The Pasture of Silent Hooves, floor 10, Beastwoman prisoner Joanna's POV.]

"Anthony, Do you also feel it?" Joanna asked.

The old man shifted slightly, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes, something is indeed different."

They were outside the wooden room. After several failed attempt at escape, both she and the middle aged human had now stopped even thinking about it. In their last attempt they had almost died. Joanna, the stronger of the two mundanes, had tried to fight the red war-horse monster and had received injuries that took months to heal completely.

Even if one of them was a pathfinder, it would somewhat be achievable goal to reach the other side of the floor ten and reach the keypoint. But neither of them had any significant strength.

After years in captivity, Joanna had even stopped cursing herself for failing to become a pugilist. Her father was right, she was a failure. She did not regret the path she had chosen for her life though.

Normal people did not get kidnapped by dozens of armoured beastmen. If she got a chance to live her life again from the start, she would still choose to live a quite, ordinary life. Despite knowing where she would eventually end up.

"Is that a person?" Anthony asked.

There was indeed something moving in the far distance of the open meadow. To their eyes it was simply a black dot.

The small space outside the window was where both of them spent most of their time. It was always in shade and the full view of the meadow was visible from here. The four wooden walls were simply too depressing to stay cooped in for whole day.

At first Joanna was worried for her safety; being only woman among four men, one of which was bound in glowing chains.

But their captors barely interacted with them. Actively avoiding the room they were in. Even their food was delivered to the room without doing any chores. More than captors, they acted like caretakers. It was the strangest thing.

"It's Taub." Joanna recognized the large beasman.

"A senior officer, alone?" Anthony murmured.

That was indeed suspicious. Before they were left with three captors, the floor ten was filled with dozens of high ranking shadow organization members. All with their trusted men. With time, however, all had left leaving only the three behind.

Soon their captors also noticed the man. One of them went forward to receive the running beastmen senior officer.

They barely wasted time talking. One of the captors came up and took Anthony with him. Joanna thought it must be for some questioning or something. But to her shock she saw Taub picking up Anthony below the giant tree and running into the direction he had come from.

Did they really took Anthony away from her? Anthony seemed to struggle while shouting her name, but Taub cared for none of that as he forcefully took him.

Anthony. .

That was the only person she exchanged words with in this fake heaven. Day after day for years, he was always there. Despite being in his mid forty's, the man was surprisingly fit and dashing. His slightly grey hair did wonders for his square, sharp jawline face.

Despite being more than ten years younger than him, Jonna would be lying is she said she hadn't thought about things that might happen between them. For years they slept together and never had the man even done anything that would make her feel unsafe.

Instead, at times, Joanna had seen Anthony keeping watch over her when their captors were near and she was sleeping. He tried his hardest to hide the fact that he protected her as much as he could as a mundane man.

Joanna, being a beastman, was actually stronger than him physically yet there was a comfort in knowing there was someone nearby who cared for her.

And now.. he was gone. So rudely taken away from her.

///

[The city of Greenclouds, the seat of power, Sam's POV.]

Technically only five hours had passed, but to Sam they were like 5 decades. They could have gone back to Sanctuary but none of them did. Somehow waiting there seemed more difficult than waiting here.

It was like if he moved from this spot, the chances of Anthony returning will somehow decrease? If that made any sense.

That was just one thing that was going on in his mind, there were thousands more. When the dark swirling entrance of the dungeon finally moved a little, Sam's mind finally gave him some sanity back. The possibilities had now simply come down to two, either he was here or not.

The first person to return however was the old, familiar face Sam could never forget in thousand years. Seeing which dissipated all worries from Sam's racing heart.

In just a second Sam checked him from top to down; there were no injuries. And in another second he was hugging the man with utmost caution of his increased strength.

"Sam?"

An unsure voice rang behind. But it was spoked before Sam rushed over. He felt Anthony's hands holding him firmly. A relief unlike anything Sam had felt before washed over him at that moment.

His life was finally complete.

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