Slaves and Strikes
The cultural hub of Fortmus was currently riding a strong tailwind, completely dominating the novel market. For a long time, the industry had been flooded with mass-produced romance novels, and publishers had been anxiously wondering what would happen when that popularity finally faded. Then Milene appeared and everything changed.
Thanks to the royal palace personally verifying the first edition, her books were flying off the shelves in the capital and were gradually spreading beyond its walls. Yet on this particular day, Hugo, president of Portmus Publishing, found himself in the worst possible mood.
“President! We have a huge problem!”
“What is it?”
Jerry came running in a panic. Right, right. It can’t possibly be that author K has already finished the next volume, can it? It was all good and well, but if the manuscripts kept coming out at that pace, he was starting to worry about the author’s health first.
But when he looked at Jerry’s face, it clearly wasn’t that.
“The mages in charge of printing… they’re on strike.”
“A strike? What do you mean?”
His previously pleasant expression crumpled in an instant. A strike? Of all things?
“They’re demanding a raise in their daily wages!”
“Why all of a sudden? Haven’t we been paying them enough?”
“Well… the truth is, the mages responsible for printing read author K’s work.”
“They read it, and?”
If they read it, they should have bought the book. Why were they throwing a tantrum instead?
“There’s a scene in the novel where peasants suffering under an evil landlord—who is actually a monster disguised as a human—demand higher wages. It seems they decided to imitate it.”
“Even so, would they really copy something from a novel? I know author K’s writing is incredible, but still…”
“Maybe they’re just testing the waters? We did rush the latest print run quite aggressively, so the mages have been working pretty hard.”
“Hmm.”
“It looks like they’re thinking, ‘We know how amazing author K’s books are. If we don’t print them, you won’t make any money! If you want us to print, pay us more!’ That’s the vibe I’m getting.”
Testing the waters, huh. Honestly, they should be satisfied with getting to read the novels before they go to print. What more did they want? Still, with author K’s work currently in production, this was a serious obstacle.
“This is bad. How much of a raise are they asking for?”
Since it was urgent, he could probably stretch to five thousand linos. But then Jerry held up four fingers.
“Four thousand?”
“They’re demanding an increase of forty thousand linos per day.”
“Ha, I thought you were going to say something else. Wait… what? Forty thousand linos?”
Forty thousand linos? What kind of nonsense was that? Their base daily wage was already sixty thousand linos, and they wanted another forty thousand on top? If it had been four thousand, he could have considered it for this one time, but forty thousand? This was insane.
He already thought sixty thousand was more than enough. These were just half-baked mages. Wasn’t that plenty? They were making more than the mages who wandered around doing adventurer work for a living. Sixty thousand linos was already impossible to raise. If he gave in now just to put out the immediate fire, they would never budge again. He couldn’t let himself be taken for a fool.
“Can’t we just fire them and find others?”
“Right now, aside from the ones at the Magic Tower, almost all the mages in the capital have gone out to the provinces.”
So that was it. They were taking advantage of that fact. This was trouble. If the manuscripts that needed to be printed immediately started piling up… in the worst case, would he really have to give them the extra forty thousand?
“They’re using that against us. Damn it, this is bad. In that case, we’ll have to fill the gap with sheer numbers. What about the stock for the bookstores?”
“We’re not short yet, but at this rate, we need to either secure new mages quickly or come up with a countermeasure. The biggest issue right now is manpower.”
So they needed workers immediately?
“Is that at least a relief? Do whatever you can to find some!”
“Yes, sir!”
Who would have thought a novel could influence reality like this? After Jerry hurried out, Hugo let out a deep sigh.
Through the liberation of slaves, Sophia further captured the hearts of the capital’s citizens. The media manipulation that followed was, of course, a bonus.
Therefore, I planned to steal the role that Sophia was originally supposed to play.
According to the plagiarized novel, the slave market was located in the slums.
The slave market is at the entrance to the capital’s slums. You must be guided by the guards there.
It was called the capital’s slums, but while the exterior looked like an ordinary slum, the interior was connected to the black market. The slave market was one of its branches.
After some twists and turns, I managed to secretly locate the capital’s slums. Or rather, I simply looked for a back alley heavily guarded by muscular thugs, and it became obvious.
“Whoa, what’s a young lady doing in a place like this? This isn’t somewhere you should be.”
“Uh, no, that’s not—”
Faced with the hulking men in front of me, I instinctively shrank back. For a moment, I had completely forgotten I was currently in Milene’s body.
“Come on, miss. Is that any way for a lady to talk?”
“I came to look at slaves.”
“Well now, looking at slaves? What exactly do you mean by—”
“I brought plenty of money.”
I shook the pouch filled with gold coins. I had brought half of the advance I received. Roughly one hundred million, so half of that—fifty million—plus some spare funds.
“Miss, what if we just take all that money from you?”
“That won’t happen. Even if this is the slums, the slave market has its own rules, doesn’t it?”
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew that entering a shady place like this in this body was dangerous. But even the slave market in the slums had its own code of conduct. The novel had said so. If I hadn’t known the contents of the novel, I wouldn’t have taken this gamble. After all, even Sophia had come here alone to buy and free the slaves.
“Looks like you’ve heard the rumors. Tsk.”
“Wait here a moment, miss. I’ll go ask the boss.”
As expected, they shrugged and went to call their superior. Not long after, a dignified middle-aged man appeared accompanied by the thugs.
“Hehehe, what a big customer we have here. And such a young lady at that. Allow me to introduce myself. My office is right nearby, so please follow me.”
The man who appeared to be the boss handed me a business card directly.
Pons. A slave merchant who sold slaves in the kingdom’s slums. At the same time, someone who wanted to quickly dispose of his current stock and move on to new ventures. He was a character who appeared in the novel as well.
Once we reached his office, I was even served tea. Even a slave merchant knew how to treat customers like kings.
“Hello. My name is Milene.”
“Milene? Ah, you share the same name as the young lady who was recently dumped by Prince Schwald and reduced to commoner status.”
Ah, so that story had spread everywhere. Even though I wasn’t the real Milene, it still made me a little angry.
Slave trading was a process filled with complicated procedures. You had to give your full name and state the purpose for which you would use the slaves. This was supposedly a legalized slave system.
“That would be me.”
“Pffft—! N-no, that can’t be. Ahem. Are you truly her?”
Pons spat out his tea, dirtying the table.
“Yes. Still, I’ve earned quite a bit of money, so I don’t think I’ll fall short when purchasing slaves.”
“If you’ll pardon my asking, for what purpose do you wish to use the slaves? Just so you know, we don’t deal in illegally captured slaves. Most of ours became slaves after failing to repay debts. I doubt a young lady like yourself is looking for the kind of slaves lonely noble wives might seek at night.”
Ah, that was the problem. I had come here intending to steal Sophia’s role, but I hadn’t thought about what would happen after freeing the slaves. In the original story, that bastard Schwald was there to handle things, so it was fine. But if I said I was going to free them without any plan, he might refuse to sell them to me.
I needed a more constructive excuse. What should I do with the slaves after freeing them?
Hmm, I needed to think this through. If I backed out now, the story would proceed exactly as in the original, and that was unacceptable.
“Um, I plan to use them as workers.”
“Workers? Ah, since you’ve become a commoner, you want to replace servants with slaves. In that case, we have plenty.”
Pons was rubbing his hands together as if he had caught a golden goose.
“I’d like to see quite a few. The truth is, I want to try doing something big.”
“Something big?”
“How should I put it… I’m thinking of gathering people and starting a business.”
This much should be enough, right? I was still planning to just free them, but there had to be a reason Pons was asking so specifically.
“What kind of business are you considering? Ah, I’m just personally curious.”
“It will probably involve publishing-related work.”
Publishing-related work. I just said it off the top of my head. It wasn’t like I was going to open my own publishing company. Anyway, if I said it was publishing-related, even if he asked later, I could just say I was the author, so it wasn’t technically a lie.
“Hmm. Then how many would you need? Actually, demand for slaves has decreased lately. We currently have about ten left.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes. As long as you pay the price, whether you free them or put them to work in a business is none of our concern.”
Ah, I got nervous for nothing. Well, the original story didn’t go into that much detail either.
“By the way, this is just my personal curiosity…”
“Yes?”
“You seem quite different from the wicked woman rumors I’ve heard.”
How on earth did even a slave merchant know about that? It seemed Milene had suffered far harsher rumors than I thought. Sophia was probably the one who spread them.
“Whether I’m a wicked woman or a saint, it all depends on public opinion. Besides, I’m a commoner now. It’s not something you need to worry about, boss.”
“Hmm. I understand. Then please take a look at the slaves.”
The boss guided me to the back of the building along with his subordinates. Behind the building were iron cages similar to the prison I had been in. The slaves were inside wearing rags. Most were here because they couldn’t repay their debts. None of them had been captured illegally. Though it was possible most of those debts belonged to their parents, or had been deliberately incurred to turn them into slaves.
Several of them looked at me with a mix of tension, wariness, anger, and confusion. Now that I saw them up close, they all appeared to be in good physical condition.
“They mostly look quite healthy?”
“Only stupid thugs starve their slaves. To command a high price, the body must be strong, don’t you think?”
“That makes sense.”
He had a point. There was no reason to feed worthless slaves! Feeding them just enough to slightly increase their value was the right move. Looking at it that way, this slave merchant seemed to have a pretty good head on his shoulders.
Anyway. How much would the price be?
“Hmm, adding up all the sale prices comes to fifty million linos.”
“Uh, isn’t that a bit rough?”
It seemed way too approximate. Saying the total sale price was fifty million linos… couldn’t it be more expensive or cheaper? Was it five million per person?
“Normally, if we negotiated each one individually, the price could go higher depending on the discussion. But since you’re buying all the slaves at once, I’ve set them all at the lowest price of five hundred thousand each.”
It probably wasn’t a scam. Wait a second. Wasn’t this development almost exactly like the original?
Haha, it seems the rumors were not false after all. I am truly satisfied to be doing business with you, Lady Sophia. Very well. I will sell all ten slaves at the lowest price.
It wasn’t exactly the same line as Sophia’s, but she had received the same treatment. However, because the original story had been twisted, it seemed I had earned this boss’s goodwill instead.