The group of five young men now had four silver coins each. Odd and even, the amount was equal to copper coins, and the group had spent it all the day they decided to stay in the city for another week. But except for Van Minh, who now had eleven silver coins, the others only had four silver coins, but the mayor did not say anything about freeing the group from all expenses, and the horses were taken care of separately. Perhaps the seven days here might not be very pleasant, after all, this was still the harsh medieval world. What next?
Also from the day the five people caused the rebellion, Count Heilop tightened and strengthened control, inspection, and blockaded the entire territory to capture all the remaining slaves. The Crusaders – who worked for both the nobles and the Catholic Church – were constantly searching every corner, and the other nobles were also paying more attention to the slaves, by controlling them more, more harshly, more comprehensively, cutting off any future hopes of rebellion from the otherworlders like the group of five. Thousands of otherworlders were arrested, tortured and publicly executed in the following days. Jejimon City was also not spared from dozens of daily inspections…
"So from now on, we will call each other by the fake names on the cards, everyone. From now on, I will be Helzard, Van Minh is Aldo, Truong is Veritas, Quang Minh is Auburn and Hai is Fermos", Ky said.
"We should also live separately for a week in this Jejimon City. One is to do whatever we like, two is to avoid being arrested as a group at the same time.", Truong continued.
So the five of us split up…
A day passed, the sunlight shone through the room where I (Aldo) was sleeping. In the room that I rented for 7 days at 500 copper coins a day with full amenities…for the medieval world, I opened my eyes, sat up, stretched in a refreshing manner, folded the bed and cleaned myself. I still washed my face with a clean damp towel like in the old world, and used a toothbrush and toothpaste with mint ingredients to clean my mouth, of course, one of the countless things that people from the previous generation of Earth created when they were summoned to this world. Until today, I had the chance to take a bath since I was first summoned here 3 months ago, a habit that was not common for many people in the lower middle class and below. During the three months of being enslaved by Heilop, both I and the other four people now had the habit of sleeping naked for comfort. I looked down, touched my chest, I could feel my ribs showing a little, it was only three months of hard work and poor nutrition. I couldn't imagine what would happen if this continued. I stared for a long time, a knock on the door interrupted me, I quickly got dressed and opened the door. It was Vertias.
"Looking for me? What's the matter?", I asked.
"I just found a restaurant that serves delicious meat. I heard from Fermos that each serving is a pound for only 1 silver coin.", Vertias said with excitement, suddenly his face became serious, he sniffed around, then turned to look at me, "Fermos smells like lavender, Helzard smells like lemongrass, Auburn smells like musk, I use cinnamon so I also smell like cinnamon, now you smell like mint? Are we going to differentiate each other by the smell of herbs?", he chuckled.
I looked silently, Vertias realized the awkwardness so he stopped.
"Anyway, are you going to eat that dish with me? We'll share a serving, each of us will pay half?", Vertias said excitedly.
"Is it that fancy? A meal for a normal family of four costs only 100 copper coins, and one gold coin is equal to 1000 silver coins, and one silver coin is equal to 1000 copper coins. The two of us eating one meal is equal to 10 meals for a family of four?", I rolled my eyes and replied.
"Do normal families of four eat meat regularly? And we can order half a portion? Ordering half a portion is only 500 copper coins. Let's go?", Vertias begged.
"Then let's work to make up for our daily expenses?", I asked again.
"OK!!!", Vertias pulled me along, running as fast as he could to the restaurant.
When we arrived at the restaurant, half a portion of grilled meat was placed on our table. We both enjoyed it together.
"This meat is as delicious as rumored. The outside is crispy, the meat inside is soft, and the fatty fat melts in your mouth. "It's been three months since I've had such a delicious meal." Vertias praised, and he devoured the meat to fully appreciate its deliciousness.
"Do you find it delicious too?" Vertias looked at me, excited.
"Yes!" I replied.
"You're a bit bad at expressing your emotions." Vertias smirked.
"Yeah." I replied.
"Please, fix that." Vertias smiled wryly, then took another bite of meat.
After eating, Truong and I paid the owner 500 copper coins at the agreed 1:1 ratio.
"Let's go to work to make up for the cost, shall we?" Vertias said.
"Why don't we go to the library, read books and do chores for the librarian, wouldn't that be easier than hard work?" I replied.
Vertias stroked his chin for a moment and nodded.
And of course, it wasn't that easy. The librarian slammed the door shut, startling both of them. Veritas used all his strength to open the door, the librarian refused, so he tried his best not to let the door open. With the physical strength of a Metaller, there was no way the librarian was stronger than Veritas, just a moment later the door opened, the librarian was also dragged out.
"I told you, I don't accept you two to work. Go, even if you threaten me, I will not compromise.", the librarian said seriously.
"Okay, then let me and Veritas register for membership cards to read all the books in the library for 7 days. Here's the money.", I gave him a silver coin and 400 copper coins.
"Ah, yes, thank you.", he took the money, we gave him the ID card, he fumbled around in the desk for a while then returned the ID card and membership card to us.
Veritas and I nodded and left. Veritas had suggested that we both do seasonal jobs, which coincidentally didn't have any seasonal jobs today. We sat killing time near the city square. Veritas sighed, bored.
"How much money do you have left, Aldo?", Veritas asked.
"11 silver coins minus 1 silver coin 400 copper coins, 250 copper coins, minus 7 silver coins for 7 days of rent, I have 2 silver coins 350 copper coins, and you?", I replied.
"Nothing left!", Veritas replied sadly.
"Wait a minute, I've come up with a plan to make money.", Veritas suddenly shouted and ran away.
I didn't pay much attention, went back to the library and read books about the history, law, religion, anthropology and culture of this damn Mikhland empire. Basically, the empire is a federation of 77 different territories, including 6 grand duchies led by grand dukes, 11 duchies led by dukes, 15 marquises led by marquises, 20 counties led by counts, and 52 territories led by barons, under whom are knights, the lowest rank in the nobility system. The strongest territory has the right to set up its capital in its territory, officially lead the entire empire, and decide on foreign affairs. Currently, the grand duchy of Tueur a Gages is in charge of running the empire, and as I see on the map of the Mikhland empire, this is understandable, because this grand duchy alone has an area equal to 1/5 of the entire empire, even as large as an Elf kingdom located to the west, El'mr. I continued to search for documents related to the people summoned from Earth to this world (Apparently they called this planet Terre). I flipped through many books and found the term for me and many others like me, Homo externus, a term that appeared at the same time as the first time people from Earth were summoned to Terre as slaves, and the term "Homo veritas" also appeared to refer to themselves. "How arrogant, huh? And it seems to be the same as the fake name of this School.", I thought to myself. Actually, Homo veritas and Homo externus are identical. In the branches of Homo Veritas, there are also White (Albus), Yellow (Flavus) and Black (Noir). "The homo veritas even use terms that would be considered racist on Earth!", I thought. Also in this document, there is a passage mentioning that there are only Yellow and White people in the continent of Valoria where the Mikhland empire is located, while Black people are rumored to live in the continent of Deltho which is also wild and sparsely populated (Useless information unless we want to colonize this continent to create a living space for Homo externus). Surprisingly, the Albus and Flavus people do not have ethnic conflicts with each other in this empire, because they are busy oppressing and exploiting Homo externus.
I continued to pick up a book about the laws of the Mikhland Empire. After 10 minutes of reading, I realized that living in this empire is still miserable. I realized one thing after reading 100 pages about the Homo externus slave law (which takes up 80% of the volume of the slave law including use, sale, disposal, and the rights section does not exist, this law alone takes up 10% of the entire book, proving the effort in restraining and exhausting this group of people) is "The nobility uses, the Church destroys." Luckily, I found documents about the laws of other countries in the continent. Now I see the usefulness of the Universal Language (which only helps translate languages in this empire) that Heilop's assistants use, the main purpose of which is to make things easier. "Luckily enough," the other countries were "easier" than the Mikhland Empire: "Instead of torturing, they kill without mercy.", I thought to myself with disappointment. I continued reading these boring books until noon.
After reading the books that make you sleepy, I walked around the city square. There was still the guillotine, the heads of criminals falling down, mainly people from Earth who were summoned to be slaves but rebelled and non-heterosexuals, there was still the cheers of the people and the black-robed executioner, there was still the smell of blood, still the horror that I was not used to. Now I had two choices, either continue watching the public execution, or go to the slave market, and there was nowhere else to go. And it seemed that going to the slave market sounded like "The lesser of two evils" so I went there, reluctantly.
"Come on! Come on! Three slaves for only 900 copper coins. Everyone, buy!", a slave owner shouted loudly among the bustling crowd, next to him were three male slaves in their 30s and 40s, shirtless and chained on all four limbs.
"300 copper coins per slave, this probably won't sell well.", I thought to myself, approaching him for a moment, placing a silver coin in his hand.
"I'll buy, no need to give me back the change.", I patted the slave owner's shoulder, the man was about the same age as the other slaves, he wasn't even taller than me which was understandable, his clothes were no different from the slaves, probably only different in that his clothes weren't torn, he looked at me with a surprised look, handed me three ropes tied around the necks of the three slaves with a not-so-happy expression.
"By the way, can you break those chains?", I continued, my face showing no emotion.
"But why do you have to do that? It will make it easier for these slaves to escape!", the slave master replied with a more surprised look.
"Go ahead, I have my own way.", I replied.
The guy in front of me stared at me with confusion but then he broke the chains on the slaves' hands and feet. The three slaves looked at me with surprise, I didn't pay much attention.
I left the slave market and returned to the square. The three followed me automatically while I didn't need to hold the rope to pull them along as I had witnessed. "Are these people brainwashed to this extent?", I thought to myself. I went to a bakery, bought a French baguette with some meat and vegetables from the grocery store next door, divided the meat and vegetables evenly into the bread and divided the meter-long bread into four parts and gave each slave a part, they were of course very surprised but still accepted and ate them, some even had tears in their eyes.
350 copper coins were gone, so I only had 1 silver coin left.
Actually, in this world of Terre, thanks to magic, although the level of science and technology in this world was still very backward, only equal to the level of science and technology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance on Earth, the quality of life of… the nobility was much higher.
After that, I immediately sold them and surprisingly sold them for 6 silver coins.
"I'm so miserable, have I really degenerated in this rotten society?", I sighed.
And… after that, I repeated this several times. The amount of money I have by the end of today has reached 50 silver coins.
That evening, the square was brightly lit with magical street lamps that looked very modern. It was frivolous that the surrounding houses were only made of earth, rubble, mortar, thatched roofs, shingles, roof tiles, slate, and were somewhat run-down. Today was a big festival in Jejimon City, I just silently watched from a bench, not even knowing why there was a festival. The townspeople set up wooden tables in ten long rows, on the tables were soups, boiled vegetables, and the grilled meat that Veritas and I had eaten this morning, of course, barley beer and ale were indispensable. They were enjoying everything on the table, chatting with each other, the faces of every man and woman were red, showing that the festival participants were drunk, signaling that I should leave this port as soon as possible. Seeing that everyone had swords and knives on their belts, and that they were not sober, I returned to my room. Carefully closing the door, I extinguished the only candle that was lighting the room and went to sleep…
"If I were richer, I would have found a room with a magic light bulb… it's just that… I'm poor… I don't know, or even have magic…"
After selling more than 30 slaves, I lay down on a soft bed of animal skin and sheepskin and fell asleep…
The next day, I opened my eyes, waking up when the first rays of sunlight shone through the window. I sat up, touching the window glass with my fingers, feeling the smoothness of the glass.
"Is it a product of the externus or of the natives?", I wondered in my heart.
After cleaning myself, I opened the door, went out, went down to the first floor, and waved goodbye to the innkeeper – an old woman in her 50s or 60s. Then I walked out, and the sound of a golden brass bell mounted on top of the wooden door rang. Veritas was somewhere today, and I wasn't sure what he would do to earn money for the next 7 days. I ate breakfast with sandwiches, vegetables, sauce, sausages, and meat slices, and walked through the cheering crowd to witness the criminals being beheaded by the executioners with their faces covered in black cloth using a guillotine. This time it seemed different, the executioner then chopped up the decapitated bodies, placed them on a large wooden table, and people gradually gathered around, and… bought the bloody body parts. I glanced at them, feeling nauseous, and in that brief moment of inattention, bad luck struck. Two crusaders in full body armor, wearing white scarves with red crosses, pressed me to the ground, another one, who seemed to be a female crusader, approached, searched everything on my body for a while… for 5 minutes and then left empty-handed. I looked at them for a while, sat up, and dusted my body.
"This is the second time you've been harassed on the street, why don't you learn from your mistakes and prepare a knife or a sword?", Veritas approached me.
"It's the same with weapons! We're basically five times stronger than normal people, yet those crusaders suppress us so easily. They're no different from a bunch of enhanced people! No wonder no externus uprising lasts more than seven days…", I complained.
"That's true…but Cazador, the executioner, and the crusaders aren't the forces that suppress people, slaves, and externus like us.", Veritas said with seriousness.
"Did you witness something yesterday?", I asked.
"Yes.", Veritas nodded, "Well, yesterday when we had the newly bought slaves sow seeds, hoe the land, collect fertilizer…", Veritas said.
"You use newly bought slaves, negotiate with the townspeople to work for them, and let the slaves do the work for you?", I wondered.
Veritas nodded, "Yes. But I will only give the slaves 50% of the money I receive, which is much better than receiving nothing like a regular slave, and still better than the peasants who have to give 2/3 of their products every year, which is still 20 silver coins yesterday. (That's a bit much exploitation – I replied). Besides, no beatings, no oppression. What about you?"
"Buying and reselling slaves. For example, buying the surplus slaves, which are deeply discounted, and reselling them at a higher price. And I have to admit, the slave trade is the least controlled, frankly, it's so lax that it's unreasonable. This loophole allows me to earn 50 silver coins on the same day as you. But there are still 49 silver coins and 950 copper coins left after breakfast.", I replied.
"Okay, you're making good use of this loophole.", Veritas stared at me, then both of us went to the library, found a corner in the library and sat down.
"Enough rambling. Back to the main issue. In this Mikhland empire alone, there are five forces whose purpose is to maintain security but mainly to suppress, including Cazador – Hunters who hunt… homo externus like us, executioners – everyone knows what they do, crusaders – an army established for hire but not to conquer Jerusalem but to invade other kingdoms and protect the Catholic religion of humans from… all other religions, and suppress them, Thaumatica – Also Cazadors but using magic and regular soldiers – guards and elite troops of the nobles", Veritas said.
"Routine soldiers, executioners are fine. But Cazador, crusaders and maybe Thaumatica are difficult.", I replied.
"I think so too, Cazador is very clear, just know the number of homo externus uprisings that lasted more than 7 days regardless of the scale is zero. I heard that the uprising we left behind was suppressed in… 18 minutes, somewhere around 6 Cazador against 120 slaves. All with melee weapons. Thaumatica knows how to use magic, of course, magic, too difficult for us, a bunch of people who know nothing about magic. What about the Crusaders?", Veritas replied.
"The Crusaders are like Cazador, they are likely to have enhanced physical strength, speed and endurance. Maybe 5-7 times that of humans, maybe 10 times, at most 20 times. That is more than enough to suppress five of us who are unintentionally not human anymore.", I replied.
"Isn't it tense? We can only stay away or grit our teeth and endure…", Veritas commented.
"Well, this is the time to practice a full diet, exercise, rest properly and become stoic. In this harsh medieval era, it is difficult to survive without a healthy body and the strength to resist temptation and give up.", I said.
"What is stoicism?", Veritas asked.
"Controlling the instinct to do good without expecting pleasure, without fear of suffering. Oh, remember the masculinity that many people often criticize as toxic, especially young people and the West? Yes, now is the time to become manly.", I replied.
"Do you think that being too self-controlled, too rigid to the point of being mechanical and not showing emotions is harmful to men and the whole society? Those are cultural norms that limit men's behavior in traditional roles that emphasize dominance, aggression and emotional repression. It discourages men from showing vulnerability, promotes aggression and control, and downplays traits associated with femininity. This can be detrimental to men's mental health and relationships, and perpetuates gender inequality and violence," Veritas countered. "Well, that's a good argument, but no, it applies here in Terre. Forget about expressing emotions, adaptation is the right way for us. But masculinity is courage, integrity, compassion, wisdom, and the ability to act with strength and determination, solidarity. It is strength that is strong but not aggressive, defiant but not shameless, firm but not rigid, powerful but not pushy. Men with this quality have carried societies and led civilizations to greatness, because they were willing to take on this great and seemingly impossible responsibility. It is moral and sexual degradation, lust, cowardice, and irresponsibility that harm society. This is true for Terre and Earth.", I countered with sarcasm.
"Okay, okay.", Veritas sighed, "You have a different view of men."
"That is the standard definition of manhood, I believe other definitions are false. And what is your business here?", I replied.
"As for our future, I am planning to go to the Samel family's territory located west of Heilop's territory, then to the western Empire, where Islam reigns and the nobles treat the people better. What do you think?", Veritas asked me.
"Okay.", I replied.
"Oh, so fast?", Veritas was surprised, he smiled, patted my shoulder and left the city with the group of 10 slaves.
I watched him until he disappeared from sight. Another day of slave trading, this time I didn't earn as much as yesterday so now I only had 70 silver coins. (Luckily I didn't get robbed of my money, because I left it in my room). I arrived at the library at dusk.
There were no books on magic that could reverse summoning in the Jejimon City Library so it would probably be a long journey!
I lit a candle, put the "History of Homo externus" on the table, started flipping through the pages and looking for important information…
[1000-800 years ago, experiments to summon people from other worlds were conducted for research purposes. However, because the summoning magic circle is too simple (only consisting of a circle and a hexagon inside), it leads to a high rate of people being summoned to die due to incomplete body parts (75%), mutation (4%), magical shock (6%), psychological shock (2%), unfamiliarity with the environment (7%), having natural powers (5%) and the summoned thing is not human (1%).]
{Additional information: There were up to 12,000 attempts during this period, only 5,000 were successful, in which the non-human things brought into the world included Fleshness, Metallis, Corrisisk and Compatible.}
{Fleshness are cube-shaped pieces of flesh with 5cm sides, in nature will actively combine with humans in a symbiotic form, the host will be enhanced in physical stats such as physical strength, speed, reflexes, endurance, especially recovery ability and transformation ability, these This person is called Fleshmorph, however, a few pieces of this living flesh have gone missing and are believed to be buried deep underground and found in a few iron mines.}
{Metallis are "living" pillars 12 meters in diameter, 75 meters high, secreting an unknown chemical of the same name that causes the surrounding plants to grow strongly and genetically modifying the humans who eat these plants causing eye and hair color to change, all physical stats to increase, especially endurance and not including the ability to transform, these people are called Metallers.}
{Corrisisk is a green slime with the ability to shoot acid. An elite battalion of 1234 people was sent to destroy the slime individual. This individual was destroyed 978 years ago, before being destroyed it spat out a slime that corroded all life and 978 soldiers and killed them instantly, only 256 soldiers were lucky enough to return without a single piece of armor or cloth on their bodies. These people were then enhanced in all physical stats except the ability to transform, in particular, they gained the ability to resist acid, corrosive blood and spit acid. 130 of these 256 were buried alive, their bodies disintegrated, only 0.1% of the matter became a dark green crystal that could turn ordinary people into Corrithians like them if eaten or exposed for more than 20 years. The remaining 126 were exiled to a sparsely forested area in the far west of the island.} {Corrithian, Metaller and Fleshmorph were once considered branches of the human race. This is still controversial to this day, even though these three races are extinct.} {Compatible is a virus that has spread throughout human communities. This virus has infected all humans at the dawn of feudal society, mutating some genes in the human body, making humans capable of reproducing with all other humanoid races, something that was previously impossible.}
{The first human kingdom was the Filesos Kingdom, whose territory was the entire Kalmar Island located southwest of the Valoria continent. 820 years ago, an uprising of Fleshmorphs, Metallers, and Corrithians took place. The kingdom fought back fiercely but was ultimately defeated despite using divinely-given summoned beings in battle, and over 10 million humans who were not Fleshmorphs, Corrithians, and Metallers migrated to the Deltho, Valoria, and Aurion continents. Afterwards, these three new races divided the island's territory according to area: Fleshmorphs - 46%, Metallers - 38%, Corrithians - 16%. }
{The four races that migrated from the island were the Albus, Flavus, Noir, and Dwarf (with populations of 4 million, 5 million, 0.8 million, and 0.4 million respectively at the time of migration). 0.7 of the 0.8 million Noir settled on the Deltho continent, maintaining a hunter-gatherer lifestyle due to geography. The entire Dwarf population migrated to the northern peninsula of the Valoria continent, establishing kingdoms there. 3.5 million of the 4 million Albus and 5 million Flavus migrated to the east of the Valoria continent and settled there. The rest migrated to the Aurion continent. After many territorial struggles with the natives, the women of these groups were infected with a demonic substance that caused their bodies to grow taller and more muscular, turning them into the people known today as the Amazons.}
[In the newly established countries of the Albus and Flavus clans in the eastern part of the Aurion continent, experiments and improvements in the magic of summoning people from other worlds had made great strides in the past 800-600 years. There were 68,000 experiments, 60,000 successful attempts, summoning talented and excellent individuals from a place called Earth, they participated in the development of the economy, culture, society, medicine, education, and even the magic industry. They even went so far as to participate in the limited political apparatus of these countries, at one point 77% of the nobility of these kingdoms were these individuals. The prosperity of these kingdoms deeply influenced the politics of other humanoid races on the continent. 700 years ago, the Great Dragon Kingdom of Serpentine was established, following the above model.]
[During the period of 599-580 years ago, the influence and development based on talented individuals from Earth continued to spread and reach the continents of Deltho and Aurion. Dozens of large and small kingdoms were established and entered a period of prosperous development. This was the peak period of Earthlings in Terre.]
[579-576 years ago, the three races Corrithian, Fleshmorph, Metaller allied with each other. 570 years ago, the First Demon Kingdom Infernal - an empire located north of Aurion joined the alliance, creating the Four Pillars Alliance. 566 years ago, this alliance launched a war across the world. 488 years ago, the alliance successfully conquered the entire world, the nobles of Earth origin surrendered and switched sides to serve the Four Pillars (Actually, this ratio was 23%, the remaining 77% were killed). The brutal oppression and exploitation measures of the Four Pillars made tens of millions of people around the world resentful, and the nobles of Earth origin still assisted in these crimes.]
{The world's population 567 years ago was 650 million people, the world's population 488 years ago was 450 million people.}
[This domination continued until 247 years ago. Hundreds of races were nearly extinct.]
{The population 247 years ago was 700 million people, including 100 million Fleshmorphs, 75 million Metallers, 60 million Corrithians, and 245 million demons.}
[247-200 years ago, a revolution broke out all over the world. The Holy Kingdom of Heilig (Holy Land), the Demon Kingdom of Inferno (Demons dissatisfied with Infernal), the Great Dragon Kingdom of Serpentine, the Kingdom of Therasirus and hundreds of other kingdoms rose up. Hundreds of bloody uprisings took place. But in the end, thanks to the solidarity of the rebel members, the Four Pillars were defeated and had to retreat to their former territory. But it was not over yet, all the prisoners of the Infernal faction of the Four Pillars were executed by Inferno. They even developed a disease that killed 99% of the Fleshmorphs, continuously hunting down the Corrithians and Metallers, causing these three races to completely become extinct 150 years ago and the island of Kalmar became an uninhabitable land. The intangible heritage of the Four Pillars was completely destroyed;]
{The population 200 years ago was 300 million people.}
[To prevent a future repetition, the queen of the Talimud kingdom, Primerose Potestas, established a treaty binding the countries of the two continents of Valoria and Aurion (the Deltho continent was still too wild and had no country except for the territory of Heilig in the far north) 200 years ago. In the next 100 years, despite the emergence of new countries and the establishment of the Mikhland Empire Federation, stability was maintained by Queen Primerose and the countries gradually entered prosperity.]
[100 years ago, due to the ban on summoning Earthlings being partially lifted after 100 years of banning the practice, Mikhland became the first and only country to lift the ban, most of Mikhland changed the magic circle, redirecting the summoning of people aged 18-45, with high knowledge, a 5% chance of having great power after summoning, and a high risk of losing control to people aged 10-19, with an IQ of only 80 to 135, a 0.000000001% chance of having great power after summoning, and all those summoned became slaves and continued to work for free for the nobles to maintain the prosperity of this empire.]
"Hmm, know cause then…what else to do to change a stone slab with eggs now?", I thought to myself.