Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 4
>Chapter Title: New Slaves
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While whatever was happening outside went on, Odil spent the entire day poring over a mountain of parchments. Aside from bringing him lunch and dinner, there was nothing for me to do. I had already finished cleaning in my spare moments.
Thump.
“Phew, I’m pretty much done with my work.”
I flopped onto the bed I had woken up in, letting out a light yawn.
“Ah, I can’t fall asleep.”
I sat up straight and scratched the back of my head.
‘Let’s try to remember the original story before it’s too late.’
Thanks to reading it right before I fell asleep, I could recall the plot of the novel easily. To summarize, it went like this.
One day, the Demon King opened a gate to the demon world and appeared in the human realm. A god, knowing that humanity would be annihilated, bestowed divine power upon a righteous human, designating them as the Hero.
The Hero, along with their companions, fought the Demon King and won! So far, it’s a fairy tale.
‘But following the recent cliché, the companions betrayed the Hero… and the Hero died.’
From there, the plot took a rather unexpected turn.
The companions returned to the castle and lived, enjoying all the honor that should have been the Hero’s. But then, a problem arose. The ‘Demon King’ they had killed was not, in fact, the Demon King, but the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings!
The real Demon King appeared belatedly and invaded the kingdom. The king of Iskenia, upon learning this, threw a fit, demanding the Hero’s party defeat the Demon King.
Just as the cliché goes, the Hero’s party, who had been completely ignoring the Hero, arrogantly challenged the Demon King, only to be captured, tortured, and killed. The king, too late, went to the temple to pray to the god.
[ You dare kill the Hero I chose and now come asking for help? ]
The god, who knew the king and the Hero’s party had colluded to kill the Hero, immediately cut ties with humanity. In response, the king promptly bowed his head to the Demon King and pledged his loyalty. Iskenia then became the Demon King’s land.
‘The real story begins here.’
The already-dead Hero actually had a daughter. As a newborn, she had drifted into Iskenia and was sold as a test subject to a black mage at a young age.
‘And that’s here.’
Subjected to horrific experiments, the Hero’s daughter began to lose her mind. Then one day, a knight infiltrated the black mage’s laboratory and rescued her. The Hero’s daughter, Iris, didn’t escape alone; she saved the other test subjects as well. In her great mercy, she even saved the trashy administrator, Rian.
‘I can just escape with them then.’
All I had to do was be as kind as possible to Iris when she arrived and accompany her to the empire.
‘I should stay far away from the ducal house.’
I rubbed my arms, shivering slightly. It was because I remembered Rian’s fate in the novel.
‘Let’s not act like an idiot and get cocky just because of my hair color.’
The administrator, Rian, used his white hair—the same as Iris’s—to lie that he was her older brother. As it happened, when Iris and Rian arrived at the ducal estate, the head of the family, Iris’s mother, was away, so there was no one who could disprove his lie.
Having tasted the power of the ducal family, Rian came to believe that if only Iris disappeared, everything would be his. He threatened to kill Iris several times. Terrified, Iris ran away from the ducal estate.
‘Rian was tortured to death by the matriarch when she finally returned...’
It was only natural she’d be furious that the daughter she had spent so long searching for had gone missing because of Rian.
‘I’ll just go with her as far as the empire. After that… maybe I’ll go live in a forest or something? I’ve always wanted to try farming… sounds perfect.’
Just as I was smiling placidly at the thought.
Thump, thump!
There was a rough knocking at the door. *What’s going on?* The thought had barely formed before the body’s original memories began to surface.
‘Ah, it’s the slave trader.’
Although Rian was in charge of all the chores in the house, he wasn’t allowed to deal with the slave trader.
Odil was only a moderately skilled black mage, so he didn’t have a very large residence. That was also why there wasn’t even a proper guard in the underground prison.
Because of that, if the underground prison were ever opened, the children could escape to the first floor. Of course, the black mage’s hideout was deep in a back alley, so escaping to safety was a long shot, but it meant escape was possible.
To prevent this, the black mage had placed a spell on the first-floor door. He had made it so that no one could open it unless they could trace a magic circle in a specific pattern. He had even drawn a magic circle that would explode if someone tried to force it open.
‘His personality is plain to see.’
Because of this, not even Rian, who was trusted by Odil, could open the door. In fact, he couldn’t even approach it. This was especially true because Odil had become so dependent on Rian’s service that he couldn’t live without it.
Clatter, thump!
It sounded like Odil had gone down to open the door and something was being moved. I approached the door and pressed my ear against it.
“This should be enough, right?”
>“Ahem, well.”
The two of them, who would normally have haggled loudly, concluded the deal quickly.
‘Could it be Iris?’
If it was a slave for whom Odil had offered a price high enough to satisfy the slave trader, it seemed plausible. I thought, my heart pounding.
‘W-what should I say for a first impression? Hello, miss? Wait, Iris doesn’t know her own status, does she?! Then what should I say? Hey, Iris? No, it’s our first time meeting, so just… hello? Still, she’s a lady, so being informal is…’
The thought of meeting Iris, whom I had only read about in the novel, face-to-face made my heart pound.
“Rian!”
>“Yes!”
As always, Odil called for Rian to take in the new slaves. I hurried out of the room and went down to the first floor.
“Move these ones to the new cell.”
>“Yes!”
When I nodded vigorously, Odil gave a satisfied nod and went back upstairs. I approached the children locked in the narrow iron cage.
“H-hyeong.”
>“Shh, it’s okay. I’ll protect you.”
Inside the cage, two children who looked like brothers were hugging each other, watching me with wary expressions. Next to them, a red-haired girl was slumped over with a dazed look on her face.
‘Gasp… these children! They’re Iris’s friends!’
These were the three who had escaped with Iris. My gaze fell on the brothers holding each other.
‘Were those two boys…?’
I thought they were girls.
I quickly shook the thought away.
‘I could have been mistaken.’
With that thought, I opened the cage.
“Alright, come on out. I’ll show you where you’ll be staying. Try to be as quiet as possible, because Master Odil might come down if you make a fuss.”
Maintaining the kindest voice I could, I opened the door. The two children who looked like brothers hesitated before getting up and slowly stepping out of the cage. The older brother, Noah, glanced back and forth between the door and me. I stepped inside the cage and said,
“There’s a spell on the door, so you can’t get out anyway.”
>“...!”
Noah flinched and pulled his younger brother into a tighter hug. I lifted the girl who was lying limp on the floor. She was like a ragdoll in my arms, her pupils dilated and drool trickling from the corner of her mouth.
‘She’s a wolf beastman, so they must have given her a sedative… but they gave her too much.’
Even for a beastman, it seemed like too much medicine for a child, and I frowned. I wanted to let her rest, but if I left her here and Odil saw her, she’d be dragged straight to the laboratory. I had no choice but to carry the child toward the stairs leading to the basement.
“You’d better hurry downstairs. If Master Odil catches you, you could be taken straight to the lab.”
>“Ngh...!”
At my words, Noah, who had been looking around for an escape route, hesitantly moved toward the stairs.
“Sigh. I have the mark for controlling slaves, so could you stop hesitating and just go down? I’d rather not force you.”
At my words, the faces of Noah and his younger brother, Nero, turned pale. On the inside of my wrist was an insignia that could compel the actions of slaves. It was a mark given to me by Odil, who couldn’t be bothered to manage the slaves himself. That was how much Rian was trusted by Odil.
If a slave disobeyed an order given through the slave insignia, they would faint, foaming at the mouth in excruciating pain. Whether the two children had experienced it themselves or had only seen it, they trembled as they descended the basement stairs.
“Go in there.”
The cell they were assigned to was right next to the one where the other children were kept. The cells were separated by walls, not bars, so it would be difficult for them to see each other.
Creeaak.
I opened the rusty cell door, went inside, and gently laid the girl down. I picked up a blanket that had bugs crawling on it, shook it out, and covered her with it. After lightly tidying her hair, I dusted myself off and stood up.
“D-do you live here, Hyeong?”
>“...! Nero!”
Seeing Rian’s gentle demeanor, Nero had mustered the courage to speak. Shocked by Nero’s unexpected action, Noah pulled him into a tight embrace and took a step back.
“That’s right, I live here.”
I answered Nero’s question casually as I headed for the cell door. Not expecting me to answer so readily, Noah stared at me with wide eyes.
‘Aww, so cute. They’re really tiny.’
I smiled fondly at Nero. His cat-like face, reminiscent of a black kitten, and his large eyes were truly adorable.
‘I should bake them some cookies.’
With that thought, I left the cell.
Click. As I locked the door, a thought occurred to me.
‘But does this lock even work properly?’
In my original world, locks were devices that could be opened by sticking two thin metal rods in and jiggling them around. A sudden curiosity struck me.
Thump, thud.
The curiosity didn't fade even as I left the underground prison.
‘Could it really work?’
It wasn't my lock-picking skills I wanted to test. I was curious if the laws of the Gag Anime World still applied.
‘Alright, let’s give it a try.’
I turned off the heat under the soup I was making for dinner, opened a kitchen drawer, and grabbed two metal rods.