Claire was headed back to the slime village after a long and tiring journey to convince both the birdmen and lizardmen leaders to come to the meeting 2 days from now.
She was exhausted, and didn't want to have anything to do with others for a while, but she knew that taking a break was nothing more than a dream. After all, she had vowed to help others, and there would surely be others waiting for her in need of her help when she got back to the slime village.
"I have to do my best to help everyone! I can't allow myself to think about things like relaxing and being lazy!"
She picked up the pace and continued walking towards the village.
----
When Claire arrived at the village, there were many new faces.
A horde of goblins were helping the slimes with the construction of new and improved facilities in the village.
The elf seemed to be ordering the goblins around, telling them what to do and where to put things.
Two spider people seemed to be tying things up with some thick threads in order to be hauled.
It was busy, but Claire smiled to herself as she saw this.
'How peaceful...'
Claire entered the village, and upon seeing her Iotar and the elder ran up to her to greet her.
"Determined! Welcome back to the village! As you can see, their excellencies have returned from their journey and are currently assisting us with the improvements to the village.", Iotar explained.
'Their excellencies?'
Claire wondered about this odd title, but she decided not to give it much thought and approached the antiheroes.
"Antiheroes. I have returned from my trip and was somehow able to manage to convince the leaders of the lizardmen tribes and the birdmen tribes to meet here in two days for a conference... however, unfortunately neither side seems willing to negotiate a peace. Do you have some sort of plan for this?"
Trevor looked at Claire as if she was an idiot.
"Our goal in inviting the leaders here was not in order to negotiate peace. While there is a small chance of that happening, as a pessimist I am working under the assumption that it will not happen."
"Eh? Then why did you have me running myself ragged to gather those leaders here?"
The spirit girl seemed to be giggling to herself, and the red demon stood forward and spoke.
"There are multiple reasons... but the biggest thing is that we have decided to publicly announce who we are to the world."
"EH??!"
"Of course, it is a risky move. If we were trying to maximize caution and minimize risk, I would never in a hundred years have allowed this to pass... however, there can be no gain without risk. I have deemed that the risk associated with going public is acceptable given that we will not gain much by staying in the shadows. After all, if we are to establish a trade network, we cannot keep the public image of the slime village as it is now.", Trevor explained with a cold calculating tone.
"I see... so you aren't trying to negotiate peace with the two warring tribes?"
"Only an optimist would attempt to do such things."
"But... I visited the tribes! The lizardmen have a deep respect for me, and surely will respect you all if they see you in person! Not only this, but the birdmen also gained a mutual respect for me when I traveled there! Even if they may be odd, I am sure they will listen to reason if we try to convince them to not go to war with each other!"
Claire bit her lip.
"I cannot stand the thought of those children in the lizard village and the children of the birdmen village facing off against each other and hating each other... I wish to end their hatred towards each other, no matter what the cost!"
Even if the lizardmen children had pulled pranks on Claire, she was not offended in the least. On the contrary, she pitied them. Claire always had loving parents supporting her, and the fact that there were orphans on the street who had turned to delinquency made her heart rage. Not only this, but after seeing Rithargus go delinquent as well, she felt responsible- not only for him, but for changing the overall situation of these children. She wanted to become a mother to the children who didn't have parent's to return to.
She wanted the children of every tribe to be able to live their lives surrounded by others who loved them, and not blinded by a hatred towards other tribes.
"No."
Trevor had a stern look on his face as he bluntly rejected Claire's offer.
"But why!? Do you all not wish to help the children of the other villages?"
"We must think of the people in our own village before trying to take care of others. Look around you. Do you see all these new faces in our village? More people means more mouths to feed, but also more arms to feed with We need to establish our position and improve those who are under our direct jurisdiction before giving a single thought to people of other tribes. It is for the sake of the people who we are DICTATORS over that I have opened relations between other tribes. It is the same as when the leader of a country discusses matter with leaders of nearby countries. We must be open to discussion, however we must always put our own people first. If others wish for us to work hard so that their children may live happy lives, then they will come and become our slaves. If not, then they are not worth giving thought to unless it benefit's us."
"SLAVES!?! Who would become your slaves willingly!?"
"Oh, we haven't told you? All these goblins here willingly agreed to become our slaves as opposed to the alternative of being silenced. The same goes for the two spiderlings. There exists nobody in this domain who is not a slave, aside from the five of us."
"EHHH!!??! You can't just make others your slaves!!! That's wrong!!!"
Ashley then turned to Claire with a disgusted face and responded to her frantic complaints about the methods the antiheroes were using.
"What's so wrong about it!? We saved them from someone who was treating them worse than slaves, and plan on giving them food and basic necessities. If you think that they would have been better on their own, then perhaps we should let them go live in the wild without our help right now, and we'll see how they fare. We aren't here in this world to save people. We are here to do what we can, for our own profit- no more. Didn't we tell you this before?"
Garett and Samantha were standing by with bored looks on their faces as if the discussion was something trivial, and not even worth mentioning. Garett continued giving orders to nearby goblins who were carrying a large plank of wood.
'How can they be so carefree when they're using these people as slaves!? Do they have no sense of justice?'
"Why is it that people are so swayed by connotation?", Trevor asked.
"Huh?"
"People often seem to believe that certain things are wrong, without giving any thought or reason to it simply because it is commonly believed to be wrong. Slavery is one of the examples of this. The action of ruling through terror- of taking delight in the suffering of others... perhaps that is wrong... and I won't claim that we are saints here by any means... however, there is nothing wrong with taking on workers and paying them under the condition that they provide satisfactory labor, no? And if both parties agree, then it is acceptable, right?", Trevor asked.
"I suppose so..."
"These people are being paid with security. Food, housing, protection. Every basic need one could want can be provided if these people are only willing to give up their pride and become our slaves. Not only this, but these goblins lacked pride in the first place. They must have struck gold on our deal then! They've gained everything at the small price of the title of a slave."
"Geh.... but still.... slavery..."
"You are too caught up on the bad connotation of that word. Look in front of you, and tell me that what we are doing is wrong. Oi! You two over there! Come here for a second!"
Two goblins who were nailing some planks to a new structure quickly put their tools down and rushed over to Trevor.
On a side note, the reason why there were now tools present in the slime village was because Garett had been seen building the outhouse earlier by one of the male slimes, and he had taken an interest in the tools used. This man happened to be a craftsman, and because of this, he had put much effort to create stone tools that resembled what Garett was using. After producing many of them, the slime village was now booming on construction- and this was well needed with the population increase, however the new goblins provided exactly the needed labor to make up for the increased demand in housing.
On top of this, Samantha had suggested that they begin to farm on the outer reaches of the village, and had directed some goblins along with Iotar, the one who understood herbs and soils best, to begin the preparations of the fields. Garett had plans to look into this later so that food production could be maximized.
The slime people did not need to eat much after all, and were able to sustain themselves off the wild, but that was not true of any of the new members of the village.
The goblins genuflected and lowered their heads to Trevor.
"What is it, your excellency?"
'Your excellency.. I see now... they are calling the antiheroes by these names because they are their slaves... grr.....'
"What do you think about being freed from our control? I have the power here and now to set you free, but in that case I will cease to provide anything further for you. You must produce everything for yourselves on your own, without the help of anyone who chooses to not be freed from servitude."
The two goblins became fearful, and looked at each other with worried faces.
"Have we done something wrong, your excellency?"
"Has our work thus far been unsatisfactory? If so, we will strive to improve! Please do not let us go so easily!"
"Nothing of the sort. I was merely presenting the offer. Your work has been beyond satisfactory- I am very pleased actually. Please continue as you are. I am sorry for interrupting your work, please forget what I just said."
The goblins breathed sighs of relief before smiling at each other and bowing once more.
"Thank you for your kind words, your excellency!! We will never forget your kindness!"
The two then returned to their work, and Claire stood surprised.
'Perhaps they only use the word slavery in the lightest sense... these people are not serving out of fear, but rather out of reliance on one another.... no, perhaps there is some fear present, but it is only the fear of being let go...'
Claire argued with herself internally, wondering if this was really alright but decided to let things be.
Perhaps these antiheroes only meant to appear unjust from an external point of view, when in reality they were not so bad.
She decided once more to trust them. After all, looking around...
Everyone seemed happy.
These were not people terrorized by a dictator. They were people who had an ultimate respect towards their leaders, who could not bear the thought of being cast aside or considered useless.
Every single person was working hard to make things comfortable for the antiheroes.
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