How did things end like this?

You were just a poor, naive boy from a small village who came to the capital of the Empire with a dream of earning money, and yet...

You arrived with your friends, Sayo and Ieyasu, in the city with the goal of joining the Imperial Army. All of you were trained by an old general of the Empire. You naively thought your skills would grant you a position in their ranks and allow you to send money back to the kind people of your village, but... The very moment you arrived in the city, you met a young lady who offered you military connections in exchange for money, but in the end, she scammed you, leaving you with nothing. Then some thugs tried to rob you soon after. You should have learned your lesson then, seen how despicable the people who live in the Empire were, but instead...

When a charming and kind noble girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and a kind smile showed up and offered you a place to stay instead of the streets, you blindly accepted without questioning it.

Everything looked too good to be true. Her palace was enormous and warm, the food was perfect, and her parents were as kind and loving with you as she was... but that illusion quickly shattered.

You still remember how horrified you were when you first woke up in their dungeons. They had drugged you and locked you in this dump beneath their mansion, like they had with many other peasants before. But what really got you was that Sayo and Ieyasu were also there in cells, both completely battered and hurt, especially Sayo. Apparently, she got extra punishment from Aria for a motive as futile as "having better hair than her despite being a peasant girl."

You don't know how much time has passed since then, but every day is hell, with only the sound in this darkness being the groans and whimpers of pain from your friends. You don't know how much longer you three will last under the family's "care," especially Sayo... but you know that Aria will soon come again to deliver more "punishment."