Part 1
『Player Name: Kaga Michio』
『Current Character Levels & Equipment』:
Jobs:
Explorer Lv.32
Hero Lv.29
Mage Lv.31
Monk Lv.30
Equipment:
Wand
Leather Helmet
Leather Armor
Leather Gloves
Leather shoes
To give you a brief summary of the events that happened thus far, I guess it
would have to go a little bit something like this: I got transported into the
world of an online game that I wanted to try out as an alternative to killing
myself due to how miserable my life up until this point has been, and now
that I have been living in this strange, medieval fantasy world for a while, I
gradually got more and more used to my new lifestyle which involved
delving into the dungeons, which are called Labyrinths in here, where I
hunted down monsters and explored in order to make a living for myself and
the slave that I bought, Roxanne. Today, just like any other day, we went to
the Labyrinth from the early morning to maximize the potential profits as
much as possible and to limit the possibility of me being seen by other
Adventurers and Explorers. Now, you might be thinking to yourself: but
Michio, why are you being so cautious about being seen by others since this
is a game world, not a real one? Well, it is because of the stats that I managed
to roll for myself when I was creating the Character which I assumed I would
be using in the game, and the Bonus Points associated with them turned out
to be insanely high, giving me access to some pretty OP Bonus Skills like
Warp, which basically allows me to teleport pretty much anywhere in the
world, be it inside of the Labyrinth or outside of it as long as I have enough
MP for it and even more OP Bonus Weapons like my most trusted partner
and the savior of my ass: The Holy Sword Durandal, which allowed me to
make the majority of the fights with monsters a breeze that ended after one
sword strike. . . you see the picture I am painting here? These abilities are
basically like cheats, so I am trying to keep a low profile so that nobody
would get suspicious of me, which could bring me no amount of trouble that I
most definitely do not want in my new life now that I managed to introduce
some semblance of stability into it.
Today, Roxanne and I went to the seventh floor of the Labyrinth of Quratar,
where we are currently renting a house, early in the morning. Our target for
this morning visit there? To hunt down as many Slow Rabbits as possible so
that we could collect their Drop Items: Rabbit Fur and sell it in one of the
clothing stores of in the Imperial City, where we recently happened to
complete what I would call a miscellaneous quest for the male clerk who
worked the front desk there, which ended up with him taking a debt of
gratitude with us. This debt, which would normally be a pretty useless thing,
can actually be used to get ourselves one huge advantage: normally, the shop
where that male clerk works only accepts Rabbit Furs for sale if you bring
over one hundred of them, but right now, that limitation does not apply to us,
so we can bring as many of them as we want, which will be pretty convenient
in making the fund gathering for my next big purchase that much easier.
Now that we have cleared the seventh floor of Quratar's Labyrinth and
gained access to the eight floor, it means that from that point onward we will
have to be facing against groups of monsters made of up to a maximum of
four of them. This means that we will most lokely be dividing such groups in
such a way that Roxanne will fight two monsters at the same time and I will
also be doing the same, which means that things will definitely start getting
rougher for me since Durandal is no longer able to one-shot the enemies we
are fighting with, needing two strikes to kill them instead.
If you asked me, with her absurd dodging abilities, Roxanne should still be
able to effortlessly take on three enemies at the same time, leaving me to deal
with the last one in the group. Ever since I started taking her to the Labyrinth
with me, we had this unspoken agreement where she would take the aggro of
the bigger part of the enemy's group on to herself so that I could safely
engage only one monster at a time in a one on one battle, and I was fine with
that because as much as I tried to copy what Roxanne was doing, that is
observing the movements of the monsters carefully and evading their attacks
at the last possible moment, most of them were still too unpredictable for me
to be doing that reliably, thanks to which my confidence in my ability to fight
more than one enemy at the same time did not increase at all. And to make
things even worse, even when I am using magic, hitting the targets that are
constantly on the move, jumping around from one place to another in a
matter of seconds is just as hard, if not even harder than trying to hit them
with normal weapons. Take the Floor Boss of the Quratar Labyrinth's
seventh floor, Rapid Rabbit, for example. Hitting that guy with magic is
straight up impossible, and I was only able to land my blows on it when I
used The Hero Job's Skill, Overwhelming to slow the flow of time around
me (or was it that I got such a speed boost out of it that everything else
seemed to be moving like dorito-encrusted flies?) to such a degree where I
could whack away on it while it was powerless to do literally anything else.
That is exactly why I decided that instead of proceeding onto the eight floor,
it would be better for us to stay at the seventh floor where we could fight
against the groups of enemies that we already knew and knew how to deal
with them instead of plunging ourselves into uncharted territory, at least for
the time being. Here on the seventh floor, the maximum number of monsters
that a single group can contain is three, and as long as there will be three
enemies, then we could use our ideal strategy of Roxanne dealing with two of
them, leaving me to duke it out with the last one.
「Guh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .!!!!」
But then I remembered that time during our last trek through Quratar
Labyrinth's seventh floor when we were fighting against a group of three
monsters: one Slow Rabbit and two Minos. At that time, I also though that
our usual strategy was going to work the same way it always did, but it
turned out that I was gravely mistaken. Even though the attention of both
Minos should have been focused on Roxanne, one of them ended up charging
towards me, and due to how unexpected it all was I was unable to block its
attack properly, injuring my finger as a result. This just goes to show: while
in the Labyrinth, you absolutely need to be on high alert at all times and keep
a close watch on your surroundings, because there will always be a chance
that a monster that was not supposed to target you is going to target you after
all.
Anyway, there you have it, the reasons for my reluctance to go beyond the
relative safety of the seventh floor where we do not have to deal with too
many enemies at the same time.
Right now, we were engaging a group of three Slow Rabbits in battle. Just as
their name implied, they were pretty slow and mostly just hopped around on
the battlefield giving you plenty of time to take care of them, but even such
monsters that seemed to be pretty harmless at first glance could still be
dangerous if you let your guard around them. They might not look like it, but
those fangs of theirs could easily tear through a persons throat if they
happened to be allowed to latch onto it.
I dodged the jump attempt form the Slow Rabbit to my right, and then
smacked the Slow Rabbit in front of me with my wand before I backstepped
a bit and unleashed a spell to deal with the both at once.
(Fire Storm!!!)
Even though it is undoubtedly powerful, using magic has one major
downside: when casting your spells, you are leaving yourself completely
defenseless, even if it is only for a few second it takes to launch the spell
properly
Part 2
Thankfully, my Fire Storm manager to hit both of the Slow Rabbits properly,
leaving only one of them left, and that one ended up heading towards
Roxanne, since she was much closer to it than I was, and as expected, she
was able to easily avoid any of its attempts at attacking her. Using both her
Scimitar and her Wooden Shield, Roxanne pushed the Slow rabbit back away
from her and more towards me, giving me more than enough space to fire
another spell, Fireball this time, which hit it square in its exposed back,
burning it in an explosion of flames.
Now that all three of the Slow Rabbits were finally dead, their corpses
disappeared in a puff of green smoke, leaving behind their Rabbit Furs as
Drop Items. . . no, wait just a goddamn second. . . . . hey, there are only two
Rabbit Furs, even though we defeated all three of them and Rabbit Fur was
supposed to be their common drop with almost one hundred percent drop
chance? What the fu . . . . . . . . huh? No, hold up! Wait a minute! I think I see
something. . . . . . yeah, my eyes were not playing tricks on me. Instead of a
third piece of the Rabbit Fur, a small stone, or perhaps a Magic Crystal way
lying some distance away from the place where the last Slow rabbit has fallen
onto the ground. Upon closer examination, it looked like a small, shining
pebble, similar to Magic Crystal, but at the same time somewhat different
from it. What is this Drop Item, exactly? I have never seen something like
that before.
「Wow, you did it, master! You managed to find a Skill Crystal!」
Before I could use Identify on this thing, Roxanne jumped in and offered me
an explanation. Oh, so this is a Skill Crystal, huh? Then it is no wonder that I
did not know what that it, since this is my first time acquiring it. Now that
Roxanne finished her abrupt explanation, let us have a little look-see at this
thing with my Identify, shall we?
『Skill Crystal: Rabbit』
Yup, Identify basically confirmed Roxanne's words. This thing in my hand is
most definitely a Skill Crystal. It is roughly of the same size as the Magic
Crystal, so I would not be surprised if the people who do not possess Identify
were mistaking one for the other. From what I have heard before, Skill
Crystals are items that are used to grant various Skills to both weapons and
equipment, as long as they have free Skill Slots in them. Or at least that is
how it should be if I remember correctly.
「So this is a Skill Crystal, huh? I have to say, it is a little hard to believe that
something like that dropped from such a simple monster.」
「Yes, I agree. This is also my first time seeing a Skill Crystal in person.」
「First time seeing one in person? Then how did you know that this was a
Skill Crystal, and not just another Magic Crystal?」
「Because I have heard a lot about them from various stories.」
Heard about them from the stories? Is that literally all it takes to gain
knowledge about things in this world, or is there something else that I am not
noticing here? Well, now that I take a closer look at it from up close, I guess
it kinda shines a little bit differently than a Magic Crystal and its color is
different from the standard ones of the Magic Crystals (Black, Red, Purple,
Blue , Green, Yellow and White) but is that really enough to tell the
difference without seeing both of them at least once in your life so that you
could compare them?
「Is that so?」
I felt like that was the best possible answer in this situation.
「Thanks to master's amazing abilities we are able to defeat a lot of monsters
in quick succession, so I thought that we are bound to happen upon one
eventually, but the fact that we were able to obtain one so quickly makes me
positively thrilled.」
I guess that hunting for and obtaining Skill Crystals might just be the main
reason why some Adventurers and Explorers enter the Labyrinths in the first
place, huh? That is definitely something I am able to understand, because
those things are bound to be a very rare drop that should sell for a very high
price. How can I be so sure of that? Well, because ever since I have come to
this world, all I was doing was essentially nothing but monster hunting, and
after all this time, this is the very first Skill Crystal that I have managed to
obtain.
That being said, even though we might be able to obtain a substantial amount
of Nars if we sold that Skill Crystal, I do not think I am going to do that. Now
that I have gotten my hands on one, I would definitely like to give it a try and
see how it works on the equipment with the empty Skill slots.
Whenever I use Identify on a weapon or a piece of equipment, I sometimes
see that it has an empty Skill Slot, but I wonder if the procedure of infusing
them with Skill Crystals is really as simple as combining the two together in
the same way that I fused two Magic crystals before?
According to all the information that Roxanne has shared with me before,
more often than not, an attempt to fuse a Skill Crystal to a weapon or
equipment usually ends in failure. Because of that, I think it would be safe to
assume that weapons and equipment that have been successfully infused with
them can be safely classified as 「rare」in terms of rarity while the ones that
come with empty Skill Slots on them have to be at least 「uncommon」.
However actually fusing the Skill Crystals with weapons and equipment is
not that simple as it seems, because apparently you need someone with the
Master Smith Job in order for the fusion to be successful. And as if that was
not hard enough, only the members of the Dwarf race can become Master
Smiths.
So, all things considered, I guess you could say that in this particular matter
the odds are stacked pretty heavily against us with so many hurdles to
surpass. I mean seriously, where will we even find a Dwarf with a Master
Smith Job who would be willing to help us?
「Ah! Eh. . . . EEEEEHHHH???!!!!」
「What is it, Roxanne?! What happened?!」
「I-It is about the color of Master's Magic Crystal! I. . . I do not know how I
should explain it, but. . . but it changed its color! It was still green only a little
while ago, but now it is already yellow!」
Now that we have been done with our morning portion of the hunting on the
seventh floor of Quratar's Labyrinth and we returned home, Roxanne was
making quite a fuss about the color of my Magic Crystal when she checked
out on it during the post-Labyrinth equipment inspection. When I looked at it
myself, I saw that it has indeed changed its color from green to yellow,
becoming a Yellow Magic Crystal instead of a Green Magic Crystal.
Man, this might be the chance I was waiting for! According to my intel,
Yellow Magic Crystals should sell for over a one hundred thousand Nars, and
with so much money to our names, we should have the bare minimum of the
funds required for me to buy myself a new slave, under the assumption that a
Dwarven slave with a Master Smith Job is going to cost roughly the same
amount of money that I paid for my ownership of Roxanne. In that case, I
think we should pay a visit to the Slave Merchant in Vale as soon as possible.
「Roxanne, I would like to go to vale with you this afternoon.」
While we were eating breakfast, I decided to share my plans with Roxanne. If
we are to visit Alan-san in his Slave Shop, then naturally I would prefer if
Roxanne accompanied me during such an outing.
「A visit to Vale, you say? Is this something that I can help you with,
master?」
「I-I. . . . . . .. .. . . . I guess you could say that. You see, the thing is . . . . . . . .
. I would like to visit Alan-san in his Slave Shop.」
「The Slave Shop? So it is about master buying a new slave so we could
expand our Party like we discussed before?」
Part 3
「First things first, I want to make some adjustments to your will.」
「My will? Is there something wrong with how it is currently written?」
「I guess you could say that. Oh, but do not take it as anything personal,
okay? We have been together for some time now, and throughout that time
you have done so much for me that I feel like the least I can do to repay your
kindness is to alter your will in such a way that in the event of my death you
will be set free.」
The master slave system that is operating in this world works in such a way
that in the event of master's death – no matter what the circumstances of that
death were – the slave assigned to the master is going to die together with
them unless there are provisions against it in the contract. To put it in simpler
words: if the master bites the dust, then by default the slaves follow him to
his grave. It is a system that has been designed to act as a deterrent from
slaves turning against their master and make an attempt on his life, but right
now I feel like there is no need for me to have something like that anymore. I
trust Roxanne completely, and I have a feeling that she has also placed her
trust in me.
「Uhm. . . thank you very much for your consideration, master. . . but may I
ask where did that come from? Because that seems like a pretty big topic to
talk about so casually. . . 」
「Where did that come from, you ask? Hmm. . . There is no special reason for
that in particular. . . or rather . . . I guess that I just wanted to let you know
about it beforehand, since you will also need to be present when the
adjustments to your will are going to be made, and I felt like it would be best
to have you be aware of my intentions instead of dropping it down on you out
of the blue. Also, I trust you and I know that you knowing about it will not
change your attitude towards me in a negative way, so you can be sure that
will not be doing anything scummy like secretly changing the will back
behind your back. That is also why I do not think that this is actually all that
big of a deal to talk about, really.」
To tell you the truth, I do not know if Roxanne's presence is going to be
strictly necessary, but I figured that since it is a matter that is directly related
to her then it would be better to have her there with me when it will happen
and to also have her know what was going on.
「. . . . . . . . . I see. So that was your line of reasoning. You are right, master.
Even though I know of your plan now, it is not going to change my attitude
towards you in the slightest, but. . . 」
「I know, Roxanne. But I decided to put my full trust in you, even though
such a thing might and probably will be frowned upon by the rest of society,
but even so, I have already made my mind about that, and I am not going to
change it. The will affects you, so I wanted you to know that I want to make
changes to it to improve your situation. Also. . . 」
I knew that Roxanne was not going to betray me and stab me in the back
now, but I still want her to have a physical, tangible proof of my trust in her.
But then. . .
Roxanne stood up from her seat by the table with a clatter. . . . . . .
「Hmm? What is it, Roxanne? Is something. . .?」
. . . . . . . and then she knelt on one knee right in front of me.
「. . . . wrong? What are you doing?」
「Master.」
「Y-Yes? What is it?」
「If you truly decided to place your full trust in me, then please, I want you to
leave my will exactly as it is now.」
「Leave it as it is? But why? Are you really sure about that?」
「Yes. Whether it would be in my life or death, I want to always follow you
wherever you may go. Also. . . 」
For that next part, she lowered her voice so much that I was barely able to
hear what she was saying.
「If you trust me, then do not make a will of your own.」
「. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eh?」
All of a sudden, Roxanne said something that I was genuinely not expecting.
What exactly could she mean by that? What would she not want me to write
my own will?
「I. . . I am sorry, Roxanne, but could you please repeat that so that I could
understand?」
「Yes, of course. I will say that as many times as you wish, master. You do
not have to write your own will.」
「B-But why though? This is the part that I cannot wrap my head around!
Why would you. . . ?!」
「As master's slave, it is my duty to be the shield that protects you from harm
no matter the circumstances, so I will not allow you to die in the Labyrinths.
If I failed to fulfil that duty and survived on my own, it would mean that I am
a disgrace as both a servant and a warrior. That is why I want to ask you for
one thing, and one thing only: continue to order me to fight by your side.」
Roxanne said that with a straight face. It caught me so off guard that I forgot
to chew the meat that was currently in my mouth and finish the rest of my
share of breakfast and just stared at her, mouth agape. She does not look like
she is joking about that. Moreover, she seems to be deadly serious about it.
「W-Well of course I am going to keep relying on you in the matters related to
both Labyrinths and combat and I totally understand your point, but look, this
is a matter that is totally separate from the issue of the will, would you not
say?」
「Yes, I do, but this is no longer just about that. I want to protect master until
my last, dying breath, not because I am obliged to by our master-slave
contract, but because I want that as a person. And to continue to know that I
will always have your trust, I want my will to remain unchanged as a proof of
that!」
So that is her reasoning behind it, huh? Admittedly, it is more than a little bit
strange, but if that is really what she wants, then. . .
「Hearing you say that makes me very happy, but Labyrinths are not the only
things that might kill me, you know? What if I was to one day die because of
an illness, or a sudden myocardial infraction?」
「Even though I know heart problems or disease might claim us at any
moment, it changes nothing to me. No matter what the cause of your death
will be, I would still wish to keep my will in its original form so that you
would not have to worry, and follow you to the afterlife when the time
comes, no matter when that time might be.」
Myocardial infraction did not get translated to Brahim language, which was
not all that unexpected seeing how it is a medical term from a modern world,
meaning that a medieval one such as this would not be medically advanced
enough to even know that an affliction like that existed in the first place. Or
rather, the people of this world might know the condition of heart attack
itself, but they probably do not yet know what exactly is causing it.
If you also did not know, heart attack is otherwise known as myocardial
infraction because it is a medical condition where the arteries that supply the
blood to the heart muscle are getting infracted. Maybe here it is known under
some different, localized name, or perhaps it is lumped together with all the
other similar illnesses under the common name such as 「Chest Illness」?
「Uhm. . . are you really sure you want to leave it as it is?」
Part 4
「Yes. I am absolutely sure that that is how I want to leave it, so do not worry
about it anymore, master.」
「Uhm. . . you really mean it?」
「Yes. I really, really mean it.」
Roxanne's eyes were shining with determination like I have never seen
before in them. Looks like she really is serious about keeping her will as it is
without making any alterations to it whatsoever.
Also, this might be just me getting a little bit sidetracked, but this whole
situation looks kinda as if she was a Knight who is swearing allegiance to her
new lord. Yeah, given the development of this world's civilization, I would
not be surprised if it could be seen in such a way.
「Okay Roxanne, fine. If that is what you wish for, then we can keep our
contract exactly the way it is now.」
「Thank you for your understanding, master.」
「But I feel that I should at least ask: why are you willing to go to such
lengths in regards to this matter?」
「Because I think that master is a truly wonderful person. . . no, I think that
you are a great man. Even though you are so young, you are already so
strong, and you have more amazing abilities than I can possibly count, and
you are adept and capable at using them. Even though now we are starting
pretty small, I am sure that given enough time, you will definitely be able to
achieve great things one day. Based on my experienced, if anyone else would
be in the same position as you they would allow it to go over to their heads,
but not you. You are still kind and compassionate towards someone like me,
who you should be treating like nothing but a lowly slave, your personal
possession, so I feel like I have to return that kindness to you in any way I
possibly can.」
So in the end, it all boils down to her sense of loyalty, similarly to how it was
with the samurai in the Edo period and their lords in Japan. If my guess and
observations about her are correct, she probably longs to live her life in
accordance with the warrior's code, upholding all of its noble values such as
loyalty and honor. And if that is the case, then rejecting her here, it would be
a straight-up insult to her and all that she stands by and aspires to become. So
the only thing that I can possibly do here is. . .
「All right Roxanne. I see that you are serious about this, so I will accept your
feelings. However, there is still one thing that I feel like I absolutely have to
say: even though you praised me so much, I do not thing that I will
accomplish anything great, or even worthy of mentioning in my life.」
「And I am sorry for being so blunt about it, but I wholeheartedly disagree,
master.」
「You are free to do so, but it will not change the facts. Then again, maybe I
was the one who said that in the wrong way, so allow me to rephrase that: I
am here right now precisely for the sake of not doing anything that would put
me on everyone's radar.」
I am not an original inhabitant of this world after all, so why would I do
anything to change it in any way. If someone like me, who bends the rules of
this world simply by having access to a tool that allows to change my
abilities and characteristics in any way I see fit began to take unnecessarily
flashy and eye-catching actions, it would only cause unwanted confusion in
everyone around me and quite possibly caused me to gain attention of the
big-shots of this world, and that is something that I would like to avoid at all
costs. The only thing that I want right now is a quiet, simple life where I
would not have to worry about anything, and for that to happen, I have to
constantly be on my guard against getting drunk on the power that is in my
possession. I mean, do not get me wrong, it is all well and good to possess the
strength and use it in good faith, but if that strength leads to carelessness and
reckless behaviors fueled by the belief that I am invincible and nothing will
be able to harm me, it will bring doom upon me sooner rather than later. Just
as the flames that are isolated from the oxygen that would empower them are
naturally going to disappear all on their own, I should also make sure to
extinguish my own fire without spreading it too much.
「I. . . I am afraid that I do not understand.」
「And you do not have to understand. Just know that this is what I think about
myself. Now come on, we should finish eating breakfast before it gets all
cold.」
「. . . . . . . . . . . . . Understood, master.」
It was done in a kind of a forcible manner, but I managed to convince
Roxanne not to pursue that subject any further.
「With all that being said though, the matter of the will does not affect the
second reason why I want to go to Vale's Slave Shop. If we are not making
any adjustments to Roxanne's will then you do not need to go with me if you
do not want to, but it remains a fact that once we will reach the eighth floor in
the Labyrinths we will have to be facing against a maximum of four monsters
at once, and because of that, I think it is high time for us to acquire more
members for our Party, since it can be hard for just the two of us to fight
effectively from now on. At the very least, I think that what we would need
the most would be a good warrior who would fight at close distances, since
while we explore the Labyrinths I tend to fight more with magic, which is
effective at longer distances, but makes it so that there will be situations that I
would not be able to handle with it, like those ones where the monsters that
were not interested in me at all are suddenly changing their minds and end up
targeting me after all. That is why I thing that another member of the
vanguard who could fight together with Roxanne would be ideal, but if you
have your own opinions on the matter, then please, go right ahead and share
them with me.」
This is an important matter that we have to discuss, but it does not change the
fact that this is still a kind of an awkward topic to talk about right after we
had that little spat about changes to Roxanne's will. Be that as it may, it is a
conversation that needed to happen eventually. I guess I have become a little
more talkative due to my guilty conscience from basically tricking Roxanne
into green-lighting my idea of creating a harem for myself. . . but wait, do I
really need to feel guilty about this? No, I do not think I do! After all, it is not
set in stone that the next Party member I am going to acquire for myself will
be a woman. Yeah, exactly! Since right ow the person we require the most
would have to be a Dwarf with Master Smith Job and a warrior at that, then
the image that naturally comes to mind is that of a short, muscular, bearded
man hammering away at the weapons and armor pieces on an anvil. . .
although I cannot say that a prospect of having another girl in our Party is not
an enticing one. Just thinking about scenarios such as waking up in the
morning with Roxanne and another beauty at each of my sides. . . or having
my body washed by them during a soapy bubble bath from the front and the
back at the same time. . . hehe, hehehehe. . . . .
Oh crap. Just imagining it right now is already awesome, and when I think
that this fantasy might very well be turned into reality. . .
However, the biggest unknown right now would be the price I would have to
pay for another slave. Roxanne herself was already expensive since she
possessed the unrivaled beauty, had a kind and caring personality and could
also detect enemies in the Labyrinths through her sense of smell alone. . .
and she was also serving me pretty well in bed, so even though I had to go
through a lot to get her, ultimately it was all worth it.
Part 5
I think we have to prepare ourselves for the eventuality that the purchase of
such a clearly specialized personnel will definitely not be a cheap one.
However, no matter how much money this next slave purchase is going to
cost us, I feel like we cannot allow ourselves to make any compromises on it,
because our safety in the future battles in the Labyrinths is going to be
depending on it.
「I think that bolstering our ranks with the new Party members is a good idea
as well, since it will definitely be exactly like you said, master: the higher in
the Labyrinths we will go, the more difficult it would be to fight the
increasing numbers of enemy monsters with just the two of us alone.」
Good, it looks like Roxanne is not opposed to the idea of getting more Party
members after all.
Going back to the issue of choosing a male or a female slave for my next one
for a bit, this is a problem that runs deeper than it initially looks. I mean, just
think about it. Labyrinths are supposedly like a living organism all their own,
and so they actively seek out ways to kill Explorers and Adventurers so that
they could use their remains as sustenance for themselves to grow and
expand, so there might come a time when I will end up having to sacrifice
one of the Party members to prevent the rest from getting annihilated and
allow them to escape with their lives. Should it come to such a worst-case
scenario, then admittedly I would have an easier time sacrificing some
bearded old man instead of a potential hottie that could still be of good use to
me outside of the Labyrinths, either with house chores or in the sheets during
the night. Yup, taking an old man might just be the best thing to do after all
from a strategic point of view, actually. Having someone like that on board
means that I will easily know who to sacrifice in the event of things getting
dicey beyond the point of no return, and be able to make that decision in a
split second without any delays or having second thoughts. If such a time
ever comes around, I will do everything I will have to do to ensure that
Roxanne and I will emerge from such a predicament without as much as a
scratch on us! It might sound like a dickish thing to say, but thank you, some
random old man that I have yet to meet and turn into my slave. The sacrifice
that you will be forced to make one day will definitely not be forgotten,
because you will sacrifice yourself so that Roxanne and I, two younglings
who still have their entire lives to live, which you can be sure as hell that we
will do at your expense. And after that, it is No More Old Man! No more. . .
oh, but. . . but then it would be back to just Roxanne and I, so we would be
back at square one, huh? Well, dang it.
「You think so as well? That is good to hear then.」
「Yes. That is why I think I am going to come along with master after all.
Would that be all right?」
「Sure it would be, most definitely. Having a second opinion is always
appreciated, especially since there are still many things that I do not know
about or do not fully understand, so I am gladly going to take any advice you
would be willing to offer me.」
This is also going to be a good opportunity for me to see how Roxanne is
going to react to my attempt at picking a girl as the new slave. If it so
happens that I will try to pick a girl and she is going to hate that idea, then I
will not push it any further and just pick a guy instead.
「Very well then. Just let me know when we will be going and I will be sure
to be ready to depart at any time.」
「Please do.」
Then again, another thing that I forgot to consider with taking a man as the
next member of our Party. An ideal choice would have been an old man who
could be easily sacrificed without any regrets if push ever came to shove, but
what if the old man I would aquire turns out to actually be a perverted old
man?! Having someone like that in the same Party as Roxanne would be
pretty dangerous, not to mention that it would make me hellishly angry! I
swear to God, if I catch such an old geezer eyeing Roxanne's chest EVEN
ONCE, then the old fart will be sentenced to death. . . no, scratch that,
EXECUTED on the spot! So note to self: if I ever decide to include guys in
my party, old, young or anything in between, it does not really matter. What
really is going to matter is that I will have to discipline them in such a way
that they will know they cannot look at Roxanne, cannot talk to Roxanne, are
forbid from so much as breathing the same air she does or else! She is my
very first slave, and that makes her special in such a way that I am the only
one who is allowed to interact with her. . . . . . . . . . . . Arghhhh! But even
such a strict discipline would not amount to anything, since if we all lived
together in our house in Quratar, they would still be able to see Roxanne's
glamourous body clad in nothing but the negligee that I have bought for her
just the other day. . . . . . .! Just as I thought, old guys and men would be
useless to me! No More Old Guys! No More Men! From now on, I am
introducing a new policy: only girls and young women are allowed to be
added to my Party from now on! That is my final word, and something I will
not be budging on no matter how others might beg me to do so!
After we finished eating breakfast, we warped to the Labyrinth of Vale where
we hunted for the good portion of the day after which we went to the
Adventurer's Guild located in the town of Vale. This was the little detour that
we had to do before heading off to Alan-san's Slave Shop so that we could
sell all the items we have obtained during our trek through Vale Labyrinth's
seventh floor.
「We would like to sell all of those items, please.」
「Certainly. Please give me a moment while I calculate the exact amount, sir.」
There is another reason why we did some hunting in the Labyrinth before
coming here, of course. Now that I am selling all of the items we got from the
monsters there, I can safely utilize the gimmick of my Thirty Percent
Discount Bonus Skill. Since my aim is mainly to sell the Yellow Magic
Crystal here, doing so along with other items will not make the whole
operation as conspicuous as it could have been if I was selling the Yellow
Magic Crystal alone and nothing else beside it. After all, one hundred
thousand Nars is ten gold coins. If I only sold the Yellow Magic Crystal with
the Thirty Percent Discount Bonus Skill active, I would obtain one hundred
and thirty thousand Nars for it, in other words: thirteen gold coins, and there
is no way in hell that the Adventurer's Guild's staff would not notice this
clear-as-day discrepancy. That is why I should avoid selling anything else or
buying things from the Adventurer's Guild and make my shopping
somewhere else for a good while, just to decrease the chances of me being
placed on the Guild's blacklist and getting my face remembered. Maybe, I
should avoid coming to Vale to do shopping altogether for a while, after
purchasing my new slave today of course.
Thankfully, today is going to be the first time I will ever sell the Magic
Crystal that I own so there should not be too suspicious of me, but there is a
possibility that they might catch the wind and connect the dots if I were to
come and sell another Magic Crystal to them, so I should make sure to only
do that again after a substantial amount of time has passed as well. After all, I
could only accumulate so much magic energy in my Magic Crystal due to
having the Bonus Skill Crystal Accelertion, which increases the speed at
which Magic Energy is being gathered into the Magic Crystal. Without it,
getting my Magic crystal from Black to Yellow would have probably took
many, many years of tedious grinding.
Part 6
With my Bonus Skills, the speed of accumulating Magic Energy in Magic
Crystals is approximately sixty-four times faster. Even though it is pretty
darn useful, I do not have all that many occasions to be actively using it since
there is a multitude of other Bonus Skills that I have to distribute my Bonus
Points towards if I want our trips through the Labyrinths to be as relatively
easy as they have been up until now, but purposefully downgrading to using
Crystal Acceleration x8, x16 or x32 would be counterproductive, since now
that I had a taste of how useful Crystal Acceleration x64 can be, there is no
wa for me to be using its inferior versions.
Just before we headed out through the Warp portal back in our house in
Quratar, I had a little talk with Roxanne to confirm how the selling of the
Magic Crystals worked:
「Will we be able to sell Magic Crystals at the Adventurer's Guild?」
「Yes, we should be able to sell them there without any problems in
particular. In fact, I think most of the Guilds will accept them for purchase.」
Roxanne gave me an answer, confirming my initial suspicions. Now that I
know that we can sell Magic Crystals in practically every major Guild, it
means that we have six locations where I can sell my items to avoid attracting
any unnecessary attention: Adventurer's Guild in Vale, Explorer's Guild in
Vale, Adventurer's Guild in Quratar, Explorer's Guild in Quratar,
Adventurer's Guild in Imperial City and Explorer's Guild in Imperial City.
From now, if we alternate our shopping trips between all those places, none
of them should be able to add two and two together, or at least I hope so.
However, there is always a possibility that even while selling things in bulk,
the people working at the reception stalls might get suspicious about the
increase form ten gold coins to thirteen gold coins anyway, so perhaps it
would be better to stop using my Thirty Percent Discount Bonus Skill
whenever I am going to be selling Magic Crystals, which would allow to
avoid all those trouble whatsoever?
I placed the Yellow Magic Crystal in the tray before me along with the rest of
the items we obtained from slaying the monsters in the Labyrinth, placing
them is such a way so that they would cover the Magic Crystal as much as
possible.
「Those are all the items you wish to sell, or is there going to be anything
else?」
「That is going to be it, thank you very much.」
The female clerk took the tray with her and then disappeared into a room in
the back where she will proceed to count all of the coins she will be supposed
to give me. If I said that I am not looking for the result of that counting of
hers with nervous anticipation, then I would be straight up lying. I it going to
take the same amount of time as usual? Or maybe it will take a bit longer
because she will have to double check if she counted everything correctly?
「Sorry for the wait, sir. Here is the money for the items you have sold.」
Now, lemme just count the gold ones real quick myself: one, two, three, four,
five , six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. . . all right, thirteen
gold coins in total! And with that, I think it would be best for us to go and
leave the Adventurer's Guild as quickly as possible.
The receptionist lady did not look as if she noticed anything suspicious about
the entire transaction, but you can never be too sure, and I am not going to be
overstaying my welcome if I can help it, so I quickly grabbed all of the coins
from the counter and placed them in the Item Box, and the silver and copper
ones into my drawstring bag and promptly proceeded to walk out of the Guild
building.
「Okay then, now that that's done, shall we go to the Slave Merchant's
place?」
「Yes, master. Let us be on our way.」
This transaction that we just did also show me one thing: it would seem that
the people working behind the reception counters do not pay that much of an
attention to the processes other than accepting the items from the clients and
counting of the money they need to pay them for them. If they were
conducting a more thorough checks, then someone would definitely noticed
that something with my transaction was out of the ordinary and checking
everything out would have taken way longer that it actually did, which was
not all that longer from the usual waiting time. Who knows, maybe it is the
adopted policy of the Guild's to not dwell on the money from items brought
in by Adventurer's and Explorers too much? You know, maybe that is
actually for the better. If anyone started snooping around me and investigated
how much money I am earning and what are my living conditions, that would
be quite a problem (TL Note: You mean like the IRS?) so I am perfectly
fine with them if they want to be lax about it. You will not see me
encouraging them to be taking a more proactive approach to it, oh no, not in a
million years.
When we left the Adventurer's Guild, we found ourselves walking through
the streets of Vale for the first time in a while, but I cannot say that much has
changed about this place during our absence. Or maybe some things did
change, but it is just that I did not notice them due to how we would always
Warp straight to the Labyrinth without ever taking the time to make a detour
around the city?
Arriving at the Slave Merchant's shop, we knocked on the front door and
were greeted by usual servant of. . . huh? Wait, what was the name of the
owner of this shop? Because I seem to have forgotten it just now. Well
anyways, the servant came to greet us, just like all the other times I have been
here.
「Yes, how may I help you?」
He asked.
「We would like to see the owner. Go and tell him that Michio came.」
「Michio-sama, right? Understood. Please, follow me.」
He opened the door for us and took us to the usual guest room, where we
were told to wait for the owner to arrive in a moment. Huh? This room again?
Could it be that they think that I came to return Roxanne because I am
dissatisfied with her? Well, in that case, I guess I have to do everything to
show him that this is not the case.
「Roxanne, you go ahead and sit down as well.」
「Is that really all right?」
「Yes, it is totally fine.」
Having Roxanne sit right next to me is the least I can do to openly show that I
am not treating her in a disrespectful manner that would make the owner
think I came here to return her. *Scoff* Me, returning Roxanne? That is the
richest joke I have heard recently.
「Good heavens, if it is not Michio-sama? It is a pleasure meeting with you
today.」
「Likewise.」
The store's owner came into the room after a few minutes of waiting, and as
soon as he opened the door, I used Identify to check what his name was.
Alan. Oh yeah, his name was Alan the Slave Merchant! Now I remember!
Man, it is such a nice and simple name, how could I have ever forget it?
「Sorry for showing up unannounced, Alan-san」
I stood up and greeted him politely, but Roxanne only did the same after a
brief delay where she looked at me with a slight confusion written on her
face, which I found somewhat strange. For all I know, she should have been
taught proper etiquette in this establishment, but to omit something so
important as standing up and bowing to the person that you are meeting with.
. . no, wait, it might not be that at all. Perhaps. . . perhaps she has been taught
that as a slave all she would ever have to do would be to obediently stand
behind her master without uttering as much as a single word. Yeah, that has
to be it. It is not that this part of the etiquette teaching has been purposefully
ignored, but rather that neither Alan-san or the personnel of this shop ever
thought that she will find herself in a situation where that would be required
of her. Looks like having her sit down might have resulted in the reverse of
what I originally intended, and only ended up needlessly embarrassing her.
God damn it!
Part 7
「No no, it is quite all right. Feel free to visit my store anytime you want. Now
then, please, have a seat.」
「Thank you. Do not mind if I do.」
Alan-san's servant then brought herbal tea with him, but instead of bringing
three cups: one for me, one for Roxanne and one for Alan-san, he only
brought two cups, which he then placed in front of me and his employer, not
giving Roxanne as much as a passing glance, which was a very rude thing to
do. Even if he realizes that she is a slave, she is no longer the property of this
shop, but my companion, and I am not going to allow anyone to disrespect
her like that!
「First of all, allow me to say that ever since I bought her, Roxanne has been a
very good and reliable companion to me, both during the battles in the
Labyrinths and in the matters related to daily life outside of it. Because of
that, I have decided to come here again to buy myself someone who could
join us as another member of our Party.」
I started the conversation with such a statement where I have purposefully
placed emphasis on the words 「very good」 and 「reliable」and also made sure
to say them before the servant who brought us tea could leave the room so
that he could hear what I was trying to communicate loudly and clearly: I am
not interested in selling her. Not now, not never. You hear that, you servant
asshole?!
「I see. That is a wonderful thing to hear indeed.」
Alan-san replied with a faint smile on his face as his servant left the room in a
hurry. Okay, now that we got that out of the way. . . it might not be a good
idea to be so open about my intentions right from the get go, especially when
talking to a merchant out of all people, but since my purchase this time can
definitely be classified as a very specific one, then I think this one time being
completely honest with him might actually be to my advantage.
「Now, in regards to my next purchase, there is something that I would like to
ask you about first?」
「Oh, and what that might be? Go ahead, I am listening.」
「Would it be possible for me to buy a slave who has a Master Smith Job
here?」
「A Master Smith slave, huh? In other words, you are looking to buy a Dwarf.
I assume it would be for the purposes of blacksmithing and Skill Crystal
infusion?」
「Yes, that is correct.」
I nodded my head at him. I do not know if he is naturally so observant and
able to draw conclusions or is that something he aquired after the years of
working as a Slave Merchant, but having him read me like an open book,
while definitely uncomfortable, was a necessary evil that I have to put up
with in this case.
「I see. Yes, if it is smithing that you need then it definitely makes sense that
you would like to obtain a blacksmith slave for yourself. However, I am
afraid that I will have to cool your enthusiasm down a bit.」
「Why is that? Is it impossible to get your hands on slaves with a Master
Smith Job these days?」
So, making the purchase of a slave with such a specific Job is a no-go after
all, huh?
「Oh no, it is nothing as dire as that. But, well. . . while not impossible, I
would say that it is quite difficult. Before we continue, I feel inclined to ask,
and I hope you will understand that I am not trying to be disrespectful: are
you aware that the process of fusing Skill Crystals with equipment and
weapons tends to fail more often that succeed?」
Alan-san asked me that after he made a brief pause.
「Yes, I am fully aware of the risk that this process involves.」
「Good. That fact will not change just because the Master Smith is a slave, but
there is an entirely different problem related to it. Namely: when failures
begin to pile up one after the other without even a single success to speak of,
how do you think most masters react? That is right, the most common
reaction is that they begin to doubt the abilities of the Master Smith slave.
There are many nobles and wealthy city-dwellers who have their own slaveblacksmiths in hopes of having them smith them the highest quality weapons
and then infuse them with Skill Crystals. . . but more often than not such
business transactions tend to not end up all that well for either side. . . or
both of them.」
The fusion of Skill Crystals often fails. If I remember correctly, I talked about
it with Roxanne, and it was then that I knew that some of the blacksmiths use
that fact to their advantage so that they could commit frauds and prey on the
people who are unaware of that fact., and that is probably the reason why
most of the smiths are reluctant to take the Skill Crystal infusion
commissions or are outright refusing to accept them altogether. And since the
chance of failure remains the same no matter if the Master Smith is a slave or
not, then it might as well be that the slave that I will end up buying will not
be able to make even one fusion a successful one. But since I understand the
risk involved with the process of fusion, then the least I can do is to not get
unreasonably angry at the Master Smith, even when the failures do end up
piling up.
「Is that so?」
「Yes. I am afraid that it is so indeed. Of course, Dwarves themselves are
aware of that better than anyone else, so when Dwarven Master Smiths
become slaves, they will usually change their Job to something else in order
to prevent getting themselves abused over their smithing abilities.」
「And that is why there are no slaves who are simultaneously Master
Smiths?」
「I would not say that there are 「no」 slaves like that, but they have definitely
became more of a rarity in recent years. Also, I am afraid that I have to
inform you that because of that the price of the individual Dwarven Master
Smith slave tends to be quite high, definitely higher than that of your
ordinary slave.」
So that is the exact reason why they are so hard to come by. Well, I cannot
say that I do not understand where they are coming from, because when you
stop to think about it for a moment, then it definitely looks like all that awaits
Dwarven Master Smiths once they become slaves is nothing but a downward
spiral of misfortune due to the people who paid a lot of money for having
their Skill Crystals fused to their equipment and weapons getting increasingly
angry when they were keep on spending money without getting any tangible
results back.
With Dwarven Master Smiths, it looks like everything seems to be boiling
down to the bad reputation they get for their increasing failures. Due to this
bad rep, more and more Master Smiths tend to hide the fact that they are
Master Smiths, and it would not surprise me if it also discouraged ordinary
Dwarves from becoming regular smiths, a Job that is pretty much
synonymous with your usual image of a typical Dwarf. Because there is not
much of them in supply and the demand for their services continues to exist,
their prices and the prices of their services continue to skyrocket into
unimaginable sums of money. You would think that this is going to be it, but
no, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Even though the services of Master
Smiths are expensive as hell, it does not mean that the probability of success
increased. Actually, it is exactly the other way around: prices keep getting
higher, while the amount of failures stays relatively the same, not even
dwindling for a little bit. With every consecutive failure in the fusion process,
the master's dissatisfaction only grows, because let us face the ugly truth
here: no one wants to keep someone who is not going to be cost-efficient
around. If something is going to cost them an astronomical amount of money,
then it is a given that the masters of the Master Smiths would expect the
investment they made with them to start paying back at some point, only to
be repeatedly denied that expectation, and that leads us to the bad reputation,
which grows bigger and bigger with every accumulated failure. And that is
how the circle of their suffering continues to go round and round.
Part 8
It is a vicious cycle, but it is not like I can do anything to break it, so let us
just leave it at that and move on.
「Now, knowing all this, do you still want to buy a Master Smith Dwarven
slave, Michio-sama?」
Now I know how difficult it is to get your hands on a Dwarven slave with a
Master Smith Job, but in my case, they do not need to be Master Smiths
specifically. As long as I can get my hands on a Dwarven slave, I can always
use my Party Job Settings to switch their Job back to Master Smith. So, with
that in mind. . .
「I am fine with the Dwarven slaves not being Master Smiths, but I definitely
would like the ones that would be comfortable with going to the Labyrinths
on a daily basis. Do you happen to have some of those? Because I heard that
Dwarves can make for a first-class vanguard, is that correct?」
「Yes, your assumption is indeed correct. Dwarves are a physically powerful
race, so they can be of use not only in the vanguard, but in all the roles that
require high amounts od strength and endurance, be it a knight with twohanded greatsword or a defender with a tower shield.」
「Oh really? Then that means they definitely are what I am looking for right
now.」
I heard a little bit about it from Roxanne, although it was nothing more than a
simple talk, since back then we did not discuss the possibility of me obtaining
Dwarven slaves for myself because there was no need for us to do so, but
thinking about it now, perhaps I should have been just a tad bit more
inquisitive? Then again, that was till during the time where I preferred not to
talk to Roxanne about the matters related to other slaves because I considered
it to be a bit of a touchy subject, but at the very least I know that the races
such as Dwarves, Beastkin like Roxanne and Dragonkin are the best suited
raced for the vanguard, which is kinda confusing since in most RPG games
humans are usually the best tanks or meat shields, especially the Knights or
Paladins. Does that mean that these beastly races are secretly OP? Or maybe
that simply means that in comparison to their non-human counterparts, we
humans are the ones who are actually pretty weak? Because I can totally see
that being the case.
「However, as regrettable as it may sound, right now I happen to have only a
single Dwarf here in my shop, and I do not think that her personality would
make her a fitting choice for being put on the battlefield.」
「That is truly regrettable.」
He said that he does not think that 「she」 would be a fitting pick for the
battlefield, so this must mean that the only Dwarf in the entire Slave Shop is
a girl, exactly like I wanted. . . is what I would have liked to say, but in the
current situation, whoever that girl might be, I cannot simply jump the gun
with her, because that would put me is a losing position in this negotiation.
So be calm, Michio. Be calm and remember that this is business, and in
business, it is often best to take a slow and steady approach to things to
secure victory for yourself.
「Perhaps, if you are still going to insist on getting yourself a Dwarven slave
no matter what, I could write a letter of recommendation for you. With it, you
could easily visit another store that just might have what you need, and they
would do business with you without any trouble or difficulties. So how about
it? Would you like me to do that?」
「I will not lie, that would be pretty great of you, but are you sure it is okay to
be sending a customer away to one of your business rivals like that? Will it
not be bad for your business?」
「Normally that would be the case, but I do not mind it.」
「Really? Is slave trading not the kind of business where you have to make
each and every customer count if you want to stay afloat and br driven out by
the rivalling shops?」
And more importantly, am I you precious customer, or is it that you do not
have any need for me after all and you are just entertaining yourself by
talking with me? Or maybe he has somehow figured out that the last time I
bought Roxanne from his I have done so by cheating my way into paying
thirty percent less for her with my Thirty Percent Discount Bonus Skill?
Because if that is the case, then I might be pretty much screwed in here.
「You might be surprised, but this line of work does not suffer from a lack of
potential customers, even though some people might view the ownership of
slaves as somewhat. . . unsavoury for the times, but we have our own
shipping routes and enough of an established customer base to allow
ourselves to ignores any such voices of complaints. Also, because every
Slave Shop receives its slaves from a different area, there is no business
rivalry to speak of to begin with, so at times we the shop owners are able to
accommodate each other like that.」
「So every Slave Shop actually has its own sphere of influence and the area of
operations?」
「That is right. For example: this fine establishment that I happen to own
services the entirety of the town of Vale, and also stretches all the way
towards the plains to the south of it.」
So there are special circumstances to trading in slaves, huh?
「So that is how it is.」
「As I said, I will be more than happy to write you a letter of introduction to
the Slave Trading Company based in the Imperial City that I am on
particularly good terms with. They have an excellent reputation and a steady
supply of slaves of all races throughout the entire year, so I am sure that if
you decide to do business with them, you are going to be thoroughly
satisfied.」
「You are pretty confident about that, huh?」
「What can I say, spring is a busy farming season where slaves are especially
needed for their worth as physical labour in the fields, so you can say that
they are in constant demand.」
I thought that they might be in demand when there is the most manual work
to be done, but it is nice to receive a confirmation like that from someone
who knows what he is talking about. But if spring is a busy season, then does
that not mean that the slave companies will not be as eager to sell their slaves
to individual customers if they can make more money selling them to farm
owners or nobles who have their own patches of land? If I were them, I
would have done it like that and then waited with the selling of the slaves to
the individual customers until after the intense farming season would settle
down. And looking at it from the buyers perspective, the hasty purchases also
do not make any sense. If you know that you are going to need many slaves
to tend to your piece of land, then the smart decision would always be to
prepare as many slaves as you can in advance. If you do not possess the talent
or the ability to be forward-thinking like that, then that probably means that
the ownership of slaves is not something you should be dabbing into.
「All right. Got it.」
I guess I will simply have to go pay them a visit and see for myself if it is
going to be like that or not. Even if they end up doing business a little bit
differently from what I am used to, it should nor be too much of an
inconvenience for me, as long as I will be able to get what I want. The only
thing that I will have to keep a careful eye on is going to be the price.
「If you are saying that I am definitely going to be satisfied, then I guess I will
take you up on your word.」
「Before we do that, would you like to have a look at the other people I have
right now who might fit well for the position in the Party's vanguard? Most
of them are men, but I think that you will find a few who might satisfy yours
needs among them.」
「Hmm. . . thank you for the kind offer, we might as well do that since I am
already here.」
Part 9
Just like I said, since I am already here, then it will not hurt me in any way to
just go and have a look at what Alan-san is offering in his Slave Shop right
now. It is certainly a better option than going back so soon after taking the
time to come all the way here, and he must be feeling the same way. I guess
that is jus the businessman side of him speaking: he has a customer right in
front of him, so he probably cannot help it but to want to try and sell some of
his slaves to me.
「If it is all right with you, Michio-sama, then I will allow myself to remove
all of the slaves whom you have saw the last time you were here to make a
purchase. How about it?」
「Of course, I don't mind it at. . . 」
But no, wait a second. When I was here last time as a customer it was when I
bought Roxanne, and before that I was introduced to a bunch of other female
slaves, but none of them managed to catch my attention, that is how utterly
remarkable they all were. But if he does that, then. . .
「. . . I mean, if you do that, it will leave only the men in the room.」
「Yes, that is right. But this is an unavoidable scenario if you do not want to
look at the slaves whom you have already seen during your last visit, would
you not say?」
Hmm, he is definitely right. But on the other hand, I have already decided
that I did not want any guys in my Party, so maybe. . .
「You know what, it is fine. I do not think that I need to see anyone else
besides that Dwaren girl. . . 」
「Oh, so you remembered that she is a girl after I mentioned her gender only
once during the entire conversation? I have to admit, you have quite the
attention to details, Michio-sama.」
「T-Thank you very much.」
I regretted allowing those words to leave my mouth as soon as I have said
them, because that was a huge fuckup on my part. It might have been nothing
more but a slip of the tongue, but it does not change the fact that I allowed it
to slip that I do not care about the other slaves and am only interested in the
dwarven woman!
「Now, before we go see the slaves, including the Dwarven girl you seem to
be interested in, do know that she has only arrived here recently.」
Hmm? Is it just me, or is Alan-san looking a bit more flustered than usual
today? What a rare sight.
「I-I see. Is that going to be a problem?」
「No, not particularly. While her education as a whole might still be a bit
lacking, she has already shown that she has a good memory and aptitude
towards learning new things as they are introduced to her. For instance, she
has only been here for a few days, but she has already mastered the Brahim
language to such a degree that she should not have any trouble speaking it
fluently and communicating with you without any problems. Her overall
training might still be incomplete, but other than that, she should not be
inferior to any of the other slaves offered in my shop in any way.」
Yeah, I think I might be onto something here. Normally Alan-san looks and
talks like he is all confident, and perhaps just a little bit smug, but right now,
he seems to be unusually. . . meek, or defensive, even. Could it be because of
that one tidbit that he mentioned? The one about this Dwarven girl not
completing her training as a slave just yet? Yes. Yes, that has to be it! He said
that she has not been properly educated yet, and no matter how you look at it,
that is obviously her biggest weak point!
When I came here to buy Roxanne, her price was so high because she was
already through with her training and she learned Brahim and proper etiquette
so that she could serve any master who would have bought her properly. It
was all so that her value as a commodity could increase, but it is not like that
with that Dwarven girl. According to Alan-san she has only learned Brahim
so far and the rest of the necessary skills has yet to be taught to her, and if it
is like that, then it means that is a weakness that I can definitely exploit, since
they have not finished fully increasing that girl's value just yet.
「I see. Thank you for giving me this warning. Still, if you do not mind, then I
would definitely like you to show her to me anyway.」
「. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Certainly. Although I cannot say that she is someone
whom I can present to my customers with my head held high just yet, you
have shown incredible kindness to this shop and my business before, so I will
gladly bring her to you, Michio-sama.」
Next, Alan-san left the room, saying tha he needed some time to prepare
everything for me. Taking advantage of the fact that we have been left alone
in the room, I took a glance at the cup with my herbal tea. Even though I
clearly stated that my intentions in coming here today were not to sell
Roxanne, that servant asshole did not bring the third cup for Roxanne, and
while Alan-san was here I was too nervous to drink as much as a sip of it, but
it would be a waste to let it go cold, so instead of me having it. . .
「Would you like to drink my tea for me, Roxanne? I do not know why, but
for some reason I am still not used to drinking this.」
「Thank you very much, master.」
And so I gave my herbal tea to Roxanne. Haha, suck this, you slave-hating
servant. You did not want Roxanne to drink this herbal tea? Well too bad,
because now she was able to have a taste of it anyway! At least now I do not
have to worry about this tea containing any kind of weird medicine or drugs
in it like I was doing when I came to pick Roxanne up, because after that
little Bandit raid incident, I think I have done more than enough to get on
Alan-san's good side and succeeded in showing him that I do not have any ill
intentions in regards to him or the business he is running. Thanks to that, we
not only managed to secure ourselves a letter of recommendation for a slave
trading company in the Imperial City, but we also (probably) cemented our
business partnership as the merchant and his customer, so I think that our
visit here today can be describe as an all-out win-win for all parties involved.
「Roxanne, since that new Party member of ours would be fighting together
with you in the vanguard position, are there any specific things or qualities
you would like them to possess? Any suggestions or wishes at all?」
「Hmm. . . no, not really. I think that whatever master chooses to go with is
going to be the best choice possible.」
Whatever I choose will be the best choice possible huh? The thing is, 「What I
want」 is exactly why I am so troubled right now. Well, that was more or less
the answer that I was expecting. Well since Roxanne herself said that she is
going to leave that to me, I guess there is nothing to worry about, aside from
if she is going to end up getting along with the girl that I will end up
choosing. I got Roxanne because Alan-san assured me that she is going to be
amazing and it turned out that he was right, so if we look at it from that
perspective, the Dwarf girl should be amazing as well, even though her
training is still incomplete. I just have to keep my mind open and judge her as
she is without being prejudiced towards her.
I talked with Roxanne for a bit, and after a while, Alan-san came back to us.
「She is going to be here soon, but before that, I would like you to take a look
at the male slaves first. Pardon me for suggesting this, but would you mind
having your companion wait in the other room while I bring all of them here?
I think that this is going to be the best thing to do safety-wise.」
Part 10
「You are right. This seems like the most sensible thing to do since we do not
know what these guys might have done if they saw a girl as beautiful as
Roxanne.」
「Uhm, master. . . I really think that it will not be necessary to. . . 」
「No, Roxanne. I have to agree with Alan-san here. Leaving you in one room
with a bunch of guys who did not have any contact with a woman, especially
one as beautiful and attractive as you is definitely not a good idea, so please,
do me this kindness and wait in the next room until the male slaves are all
gone, all right?」
「Understood, master. I will trust in your judgement.」
Okay, that's good. If she was to stay in here while the male slaves were
brought in, then it was pretty much a given that all hell would have broken
loose, especially if these guys have been here for a long time without any
contact with the members of the opposite sex whatsoever. If they saw
someone like Roxanne after such a long period of (at least I assume) sexual
abstinence and probably not being in contact with women for such a long
time, it might even be possible that they would try to rebel against Alan-san if
only it meant that they could have a shot at pushing Roxanne down and
having their way with her.
And just like that, after leaving Roxanne waiting in the guest room, I went
after Alan-san upstairs to have a look at the male slaves he had available at
the moment. After scaling the set of stairs onto the first floor, we entered one
of the room that was the closest to the stairs. And there. . . . . .
Uhm. . . yeah, okay, I. . . oh my fucking god where do I even begin with this
one?
When I entered the room, the sight before me could only be described as. . .
overwhelming, to the point where even if I wanted to comment on what I just
saw, the words did not want to leave my mouth no matter what. Just one
glance at them was enough to fill my head with all sorts of questions that I
wanted to ask Alan-san, but I do not know if he will not find some of them to
be offensive. These guys are. . . they certainly look like all of them could fit
into the vanguard position exceptionally well. But, the thing is. . .
They are all scary as fuck! I am literally, legitimately scared of all of them!
Was Alan-san really expecting me to pick one of those? I mean, I probably
would have chosen one of them, but only if I was desperate enough not to
seek any potential alternatives, and let me tell you, I am not that desperate
just yet! For the current me, picking someone from among them is utterly
impossible. If I could, I would have respectfully declined and left the room
right now, but I feel like I cannot do it out of fear that they are simply going
to get killed by them if I so much as look at them the wrong way. . . but
surely none of them would have risked that now, would they? No, with the
owner by my side all this time, I am sure that none of them would have tried
to do anything stupid. . . unless I am wrong of course and they would have
jumped at the opportunity to kill us both the first chance they got? No, that
should not be possible. Since they are slaves who belong to Alan-san's Slave
Shop, or, in other words, they are Alan-san's slaves right now, they should be
bound by the limitations of the master-slave contract, meaning that if they off
him, then they will kick the bucket as well.
Man now I am really glad that I did not take Roxanne here with me. If she
were to come inside this room together with us, this place would definitely
turn into a bloodbath regardless of the master killing countermeasures
protecting Alan-san. If that scenario came to pass, then I think I would have
no choice but to defend myself with my sword. . . which I did not have on
me right now, because what kind of idiot would be walking into a store with
a weapon from the visit to the Labyrinth still on him, huh? A suspicious idiot,
that is who, and I am definitely not someone like that. And even if I had it
with me, there is no guarantee that I would have been able to brandish it in
time to actually defend myself.
No, the longer I stay here, the more I want to leave. I want nothing to do with
those guys, I just want to get the fuck out of here and forget I was ever in
there.
We were not the only people in the room. Other than Alan-san, myself and
the male slaves, there were also guys who looked like bodyguards in the
corners of the room, but to be honest, their presence did not do much to make
me feel safer. They had the same look to them as the gangsters in all those
detective movies, you know, the ones that would hand around dark alleys in
the middle of the night just so that they could mug you from all your
belongings and then just straight up shank you in the gut just for the hell of
it? Yeah, that kind of gangsters. The way they looked at me was telling me
one thing: they were ridiculing me for being here, wanting to buy slaves, but
you know what? Perhaps they are right. I mean, if I really decided to take one
of those guys as my slave, I am sure that I would have ended up dead or
rebelled against after only a few days, because money is not the only thing
you have to possess if you want to have your own slaves. You also need
enough charisma to make them not want to murder you simply out of spite or
because they do not like you.
Back when I was still in Japan I heard of the interviews where the
interviewers were putting an unimaginable amount of pressure on the
interviewees, but I never heard of the opposite thing ever happening, which
was pretty ridiculous, because I am the customer here. I have come to this
place looking to buy some slaves for myself and these guys were the possible
candidates, and yet, not one of them looked like they gave half of a shit about
it. I literally felt as if they, the examinees, were exerting pressure upon me,
the examiner, to just leave them the hell alone. And believe me, that is what I
wanted to do right now. Just get the hell out of there and be done with this
hellish place.
A customer intimidated by the slaves into not wanting to buy them. I do not
know how much strange shit has Alan-san saw throughout his career as the
Slave Shop owner, but that has got to be a first for him.
「So, how was it? Did any of those fine man stroke your fancy?」
Alan-san asked me once we finally walked out of the room. I really wanted to
tell him how I truly felt and exactly where he can stick such dumb questions.
. . but now is definitely not the time for that. Just know that I would never
decided to buy any of the men who were out there, not even in the midst of
the biggest desperation.
Absolutely impossible. Not in a million years. But if he needs to hear an
answer, then I might as well tell it to him in such a way:
「They all look incredibly promising. . . but I just do not think that someone
like me could utilize the [people with such talents properly. 」
That is not me being humble by any chance. That is my honest to God
opinion on the subject.
「If you would like to interview some of them individually, then that can
certainly be arranged.」
Is what he says now. Thank you very much for your willingness to do
something like that for me, but dude, that is not at all what I need right now.
Since he is willing to go to such lengths just to help me make a purchase,
then he definitely has to be a good person, or at the very least that is what I
am willing to believe. Also, there might be some people who will definitely
enjoy the company of such a. . . colorful crowd, but regrettably I do not
count myself among the ranks of such people.