9. Inheritance
9. Inheritance
9. Inheritance
I suppose I had thought they would be there from the start.
My eyes had been stolen by the flashy mansion and the bizarre Japanese-style collectibles, so I had been trying hard not to pay attention to them.
But now, it's time to wrap things up.
"Noona likes you quite a bit, Seonmin-ssi.
So, I want to tell you this personally, not as part of the job.
It would be better to dispose of the slaves while you have this chance."
"It makes me feel good to hear that someone like Noona likes me. But why is that?"
"It doesn't look like the slaves will be of much help to you, Seonmin-ssi."
That's true.
Actually, I don't need slaves.
"Hmm. Then, in what way are the slaves disposed of?"
"Actually, there's no compensation even if you dispose of the slaves."
I clearly heard it costs about 1.5 billion Hwan to purchase them.
I won't get a single penny in compensation?
"It would be a waste, but can you do it?
Living with slaves?"
I couldn't think of an answer to that question.
"They're healthy young men, so you're interested, right?
But don't you have any aversion to inheriting your father's women?"
Of course I have an aversion.
If it weren't for this situation,
if my father had been a bit more normal,
maybe I could have met them as something like a stepmother.
"The slaves are probably conditioned to fit Kim Gyeong-hak-ssi's tastes.
In many ways, they're second-hand goods.
Since I'm also part of the Organization,
I understand keeping slaves, but if you want to keep slaves,
I think you should take in ones that fit your own tastes, Seonmin-ssi.
Later, when you raise your rank,
Noona will pick out a nice and pretty one for you."
Conditioning to my father's tastes.......
"There are more things to worry about than you'd think.
Living with slaves."
No matter how much the Organization handles,
it's obviously something that shouldn't be exposed to the eyes of the world.
There would be no end to the things to worry about.
"And as you know,
Bamboo Rank members cannot purchase slaves.
Inheriting them is possible, but
you'll have to be periodically supervised by a Supervisor.
Because the Supervisor has a lot of authority,
it's hard to say you're the actual owner."
She points out the downsides one by one.
It's truly full of downsides.
It's a waste of the purchase price,
but it's not my money anyway,
and I've gained billions in assets today.
Even if it's a waste, keeping them just seems like it would be a headache.
If the slaves were by my side,
I feel like I would instantly become closer to my father.
My thoughts reached that point,
and the moment I was about to ask her to dispose of them, I felt a chill.
I was already accepting the slaves
as objects, like my father's koi or bonsai collectibles.
I wasn't just becoming like my father;
I was already thinking with the same perception as him.
My father, the Organization, the lawyer in front of me—
they all saw the slaves as property or objects,
but those slaves,
whom I hadn't even seen the faces of yet,
were clearly human.
My mind was so taken by the inheritance received from my father
that I was clearly becoming like him.
"What happens to the slaves if I refuse to take them over?"
At my question, her expression changes subtly.
"They will return to the Organization, undergo re-education,
and go to auction to meet a new owner."
She clearly said that the slaves
had already been handled by someone else
and had no value.
If that's not a lie,
then even if they return to the Organization,
only a more miserable future will remain.
"A new owner... is that possible?"
"Of course it won't be easy,
but there's no need for you to feel uncomfortable, Seonmin-ssi.
Whether they are sold to someone, educated by the Organization,
or go to a faraway place, time flows.
Once they fill their allotted time anywhere,
they are free."
"Then, how much time do those slaves have left?"
She sighed with a complicated look on her face and answered.
"Eight years."
Damn it, why is there so much left?
Sending them away is a duration that increases my guilt,
and living with them is a daunting amount of time.
If there were only 1 or 2 years left, the choice would have been easy!
"And the other one has about 9 years left."
Good god. It wasn't even just one person.
What should I do?
I decided to dispose of my father's inheritance
easily today,
but I never thought there would be such a difficult problem at the end.
"This is why Noona recommended you dispose of them this time, Seonmin-ssi.
You're too kind a kid to keep slaves."
Kind? Me?
I've lived my whole life thinking of myself as a piece of trash.
But,
listening to the stories about my father and the Organization,
I really do seem like a kind person compared to them.
At least I'm struggling not to remain trash.
"The Organization manages even the sold slaves.
If you're Chrysanthemum Rank or higher,
you could refuse the management, though."
"What kind of management?"
"It's management of the slave's condition.
They look at physical condition or mental state,
but they mainly check the conditioning status.
It happens sometimes.
Things that deceive their masters by taking advantage of their kindness."
Kindness.
The kindness of a master who bought a slave?
I can't get a feel for it.
"The masters who buy slaves
aren't all sadists like Kim Gyeong-hak-ssi.
There are those who bought them because they had trouble dealing with women,
and those who bought them because they resembled their first love.
There are also those who bought them to enjoy with,
but whose hearts grew weak."
Because my father's impression was so strong, I didn't know,
but it seems more diverse people buy them than I thought.
Thinking of a slave auction,
I thought only people like my father would gather to do it,
but I guess that's not the case.
"Even though the Organization worked hard to condition them,
there are trash-like things that change when the environment suddenly shifts.
There are those who use weak-hearted masters or
masters who don't know how to handle slaves
to sneakily change their duties and status as a slave,
which they should naturally be doing,
and there are even truly insane ones
who mistake themselves for lovers instead of slaves."
The reason she is explaining this so diligently
must be because she thinks I fall into both categories:
a weak-hearted master and a master who doesn't know how to handle them.
"I heard the money the Organization spends to make a slave
is about 700 million Hwan.
But the selling price is more than double that.
That includes the costs for management and conditioning."
"What is the standard for deception?
Each master would have different desired play or preferences, right?"
Perhaps there are people who want to share lover-like love with their ideal slave.
There might be people who use their harsh circumstances
to pretend to be good people and satisfy their own moral satisfaction.
"It's the Supervisor's subjective standard.
If the master doesn't like it, they can just refuse."
This is the problem.
Usually, management is optional,
but in my case, because I'm Bamboo Rank,
it becomes a mandatory requirement, not an option.
No matter how much I want to take in and live with the slaves,
if the Supervisor decides it's deception, it's over.
The problem with a Bamboo Rank member,
who originally cannot have slaves,
having slaves is revealed here.
In a situation where such a huge amount of money is involved,
being supervised by a Supervisor is unpleasant in itself.
Basically, life with a slave would be my sex life,
and being supervised by someone was truly terrible.
Her words to just give up the ownership rights to the slaves
rather than endure this stress and do unnecessary work
were truly advice for me.
But, is it really okay to do that?
I'm just at the level of being uncomfortable,
but wouldn't it be a terribly incomparable thing for the slaves?
I don't know much about those slaves,
but didn't my father ruin their lives from the first step to get his hands on them?
Thoughts trail on.
No, actually,
wouldn't they also prefer to meet a reliable new master
rather than being under me,
a Bamboo Rank member who is anxious about when their status will be decided by a Supervisor?
I'm a virgin.
Can I sexually satisfy them, who have been conditioned as masochists?
The story that if they don't meet another master,
they get sold off somewhere.
Isn't slave life under one master perhaps more miserable than life as a prostitute?
There isn't a single thing I know right now.
"For now, I want to see them in person and decide,"
"You're a kind kid, Seonmin-ssi,
so if you see them in person, your heart will grow weak, won't it?"
She keeps trying to dissuade me from taking them over.
"That can't be helped.
If I see them and think it's not right, I'll give up immediately."
She showed a slightly displeased expression,
but soon erased it and returned to her usual face.
It seems she was offended that her goodwill wasn't conveyed.
"Then, let's go finish the work."
She stood up and guided me to the annex like the owner of the house again.
Passing through the garden, we headed to the entrance of the annex.
As the door to the annex opened, I intuitively thought.
This place is exactly the place I imagined.
The structure of this place comes into view at a glance.
A living room as wide as a school classroom
and small rooms attached instead of four walls.
The small rooms have sturdy iron doors like a prison,
with small iron bars pierced through to see inside.
There are 8 rooms surrounding the living room.
That man, he must have intended to collect 8 slaves.
In the living room, there was a huge bed that looked like it could fit 4 people,
a Triangle Wooden Horse, chains connected from the ceiling,
and an X-shaped Frame made for binding arms and legs.
A shelf with items like whips, red candles, dildos, or vibrators
neatly arranged.
Items I often saw in things like BDSM movies.
There was furniture that looked like a wardrobe on one side,
so I peeked inside and saw bondage-like outfits
or underwear of unknown origin neatly organized.
Lawyer Kang Min-jeong, without a surprised face,
touches items like whips or canes on the shelf.
Since she said she was in a high position in a dangerous organization,
she seems used to this kind of thing.
The small rooms, except for one, have their doors open.
Chains connected to the walls, items like dog bowls
were placed casually, and naturally,
there was no bed, just a single blanket.
The small room next to it that I glanced at was the same,
so I thought the structure of all 8 small rooms would be the same.
Now, unlike the father's women from those days,
I came to realize that this was truly a place where slaves were kept.
The room closed at the very end.
The slaves must be waiting there.
"Are you interested in this kind of thing too, Seonmin-ssi?"
She asks suddenly.
To be honest, my sexual tastes are similar to my father's.
However, I'm a madman trying to pretend to be a normal person,
and my father was a madman with no intention of putting the brakes on himself.
While I couldn't answer, she asks another question.
"Have you ever thought about wanting to tie a woman up here
and hit her with a whip like this?"
She swings the whip in the air.
"It wouldn't be as much as my father,
but honestly, it would be a lie to say I'm not interested.
Well, that won't happen though."
"What do you mean it won't?
You're an Organization member now too,
and a rich man who inherited a fortune."
She teases me with a 'kik' and a coquettish eye-smile.
"Do you want to tie someone like Noona up here and hit her too?"
"Ah.... no.... I don't."
"No need to get so serious, it's a joke.
Still, you shouldn't think about tying Noona up here and hitting her."
She says with a playful face, smiling brightly.
Whether it's a joke or not,
it doesn't matter because I'm a person who doesn't have the ability to tie her up here anyway.
"Because Noona is also a person on the hitting side."
Her words must be true.
She resembles a cat playing with a mouse.
Perhaps if I had accepted her teasing boldly and composedly,
rather than reacting with embarrassment and not knowing what to do,
she would have lost interest in me in an instant.
With the whip in her hand, she heads toward the room at the very end.
As the thick-looking iron door opened,
I could finally see them there.
A person wearing a Japanese kimono,
kneeling and unable to even look this way.
A dog collar is fastened around their neck,
connected to the wall.
And there are two of them.
They were my father's last inheritance, the slaves.