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Chapter 2 - 4 (part 2)

The First Slave?

After receiving Serna's apology, I apologized back myself and asked what had happened before.

Serna seemed a little startled, but slowly began to speak.

She told me that about 3 weeks ago, Banza had suddenly attacked the village in the middle of the night. There had been about 60 people living in the village at the time. They had planned it out beforehand to attack at night, right when the villagers weren't doing anything, and everyone ended up being captured.

They separated them into women and men, then immediately killed off all the men.

There were 25 women left after that, but 13 among them were deemed too old and then killed in the same way. In their eyes, only the 12 women left had value. However, two of them were totally unable to cope with the situation and committed suicide by biting off their own tongues. After that, Banza made Serna and the other women all wear “Slave Collars”.

As she explained, Serna showed me the Slave Collar she wore, hidden underneath her scarf. It seems she was made to serve us tea while wearing the scarf so we wouldn't become suspicious over the absence of women in the village.

Originally, “Legal Slave Merchants” were the only ones allowed to use “Slave Collars” but, there are criminals and underground organizations in this world too, much like the last. They're able to obtain them through underhanded means and it's said to be impossible to completely get rid of them.

“You must not harm your master”

“You must obey your master's orders”

“You must protect yourself within the scope of your master's orders“

These rules that the slaves are forced to follow are similar to the three rules of robotics, and in effect, act like a curse. If you try to remove the collar forcibly, pain would spread throughout your body, and in the worst-case scenario, you could even die.

The slave collars essentially couldn't be removed without their master's permission. Additionally, only purification or dispelling magic more powerful than the original curse would work to remove it. Again, said purification or dispelling magic couldn't be used without the master's permission, so it wouldn't have any effect if you tried it on your own collar.

There are different types of slaves: criminal slaves, war slaves, general purpose slaves, illegal slaves. Criminal slaves, just like their name states, are slaves that were formerly criminals. They could serve for at least a year but sometimes depending on the weight of their crimes, it could last indefinitely.

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War slaves refer to those who were taken as prisoners during war and made into slaves, many of them on the losing side.

Many general purpose slaves were people who either sold themselves into slavery, or parents who were looking to reduce the number of mouths they had to feed. Most of them went voluntarily, but there are some parents who sold them off.

Lastly, illegal slaves are those who were kidnapped or headhunted by slave hunters, people who were illegally sold. After a complaint, only if it is judged to be valid can the slave be released, and the shop that sold them punished accordingly.

During the judging period, while under strict supervision, the collar is temporarily removed. If it is discovered that either you deliberately lied, there was a major discrepancy, or you attempted to escape, your complaint will be rejected and you will become a criminal slave indefinitely.

Illegal slaves aren't often brought up however, as they're hard to tell apart from regular slaves so detecting them rarely happens.

Both war slaves and general purpose slaves have no set time duration, the owner determines when to release them, but they must serve for at least one year.

Slave owners are divided into states (Kings), n.o.bles ruling over territories, organizations and individuals. Criminal slaves are only permitted to either states, or n.o.bles if they have the king's permission. They may also be decided by application.

War slaves and general purpose slaves can be owned by anyone, no matter what age. If the slave's owner was a criminal and then died, the rights to the slave goes to either the person who killed them, or the person who first discovered them.

Just as I remembered that, Serna said,

“So until we have been deemed illegal slaves, Tenma will act as our master. Nice to meet you, please treat us well.”

I quickly told Serna that I hadn't been expecting this to happen at all.

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Then, with the worst timing possible, the three catgirls seemed to only have heard the master part and approached me with eyes full of raging fire.

“What's the meaning of this, Tenma!”

“Taking advantage of someone's weakness is the WORST, Tenma!”

“Tenma you lewd, creepy, PERVERT!”

They blamed me completely. Sernsan and I tried to calm them down, but it had no effect and they continued to harshly criticize me.

Only after more than half an hour had pa.s.sed did they start to calm down, after I had explained the situation. Serna and I were talking so fast while explaining it to them that we were out of breath.

Now, after kneeling on the ground and apologizing to me, they're crouched in a corner of the garden in embarra.s.sment.

“He~y, you guys. I don't really care anymore, so just come over here. Let's eat already.”

The three catgirls jumped at hearing my voice then timidly turned around. I tried to look as gentle as I possibly could and waved them over.

It worked and they nervously made their way over to me.

I gave out the soup and bread to the trio and we ate lunch together. Sernsan brought food to the other ladies inside the house, and it seems they all ate together too.

After we finished eating, the catgirls were back to their usual selves. When everyone was taking a break, I started to speak.

“I think we should return to the city as soon as possible, but what do you guys think?”

“I think that, considering the women, maybe we shouldn't.”

Lilly was opposed to what I thought was best.

“I agree with Lilly. I think it's better to observe the situation a little more before we move.”

“I agree with Tenma. I think we should inform the guild quickly about what happened in this village. Also I want the slaves to be freed quickly, if it's possible.”

Nelly was opposed but Milly agreed with me. Our opinions were split into exactly two even sides.

Dear readers, Refulgent here, if you're reading this on an aggregator site, this chapter may contain errors or broken reference links. Please visit FourSlimes dot com to read the properly edited version and show the translator your support.

While I was considering our next move, Sernsan came out and started to speak.

“Um, we have talked it over and… we want to leave this village as fast as we can… all of us are in agreement…”

She spoke with a shy sounding voice, then continued,

“I know it might a bit much to ask. But, we want to get away from this place, where it's so easy to remember those painful days… is our honest wish.”

The two who opposed were convinced by her request, so we started preparing to leave.

First, we looked for carriages so the women could ride in them, but also to transport the thieves in. Fortunately we found enough undamaged carriages along with some horses. I picked out three carriages and cleaned them a bit, then hooked up the horses to them. The bandits were all lumped together in a shabby looking carriage.

I had almost forgotten about Banza, but threw him in together with the thieves. Of course, their arms and legs were all bound.

The catgirl triplets rode together with the women's carriage, and I was the driver for the thieves' carriage.

The women had no intention of living in this village afterwards, so they asked to collect items from each house that could be sold for money. They would sell them in the city for some temporary funds to live off of. They would take any leftover carriages and horses with them as well.

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Finally, as I stored the things from the food cellar away in my bag, I had the catgirls and Sernsan make an inventory of each thing that went in, one by one.

We finished before evening had arrived, but decided to leave regardless.

Just as we were going to leave, I realized that s.h.i.+romaru and Slalin weren't inside the Dimensional Bag.

I tried using Investigation, and they came running out from the direction of the forest.

“What were you guys doing over there?”

Hearing me, Slalin didn't hesitate to “open his mouth” right in front of me, and ejected the bodies of 6 dash boars in quick succession, as if he was spitting them out. I looked back at him, dumbfounded, but his body opened up once again and this time he spit out two more boars that were 2 times bigger than the last ones.

These boars were called King Dash Boars, and at C rank, they were a higher rank of monster than normal Dash Boars. They're normally around 2.5m in body length, but one of them was over 3m long.

Slalin and s.h.i.+romaru looked proud. My eyes were wide after seeing a little 60cm (2 foot) slime expel wild boars one after another.

I put the Dash Boars away in my bag, and gave Slalin and s.h.i.+romaru lots of praise while petting them. They were both very pleased and I gave them some meat, then they went back to their cozy corner (in the Dimensional Bag). We all pulled ourselves together and finally departed from the village. Along the way, some minor things happened: a thief tumbled down from the carriage, a wolf type monster looked in our direction, but we still made smooth progress. Just a bit after the sun had set, we finally reached the city.

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