In an old and musty hall of an ancient royal tomb, the gnolls and beholders kneeled in front of a majestic throne. But they weren’t paying their respect to the harpy pawn that sat there. No, instead, their reverence was directed at the fat pink slime that rested on her laps.
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Slade, the pink slime sitting on the throne, readjusted the heavy crown that kept slipping off his slick skin whenever he threw a fit.
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“What do you mean you lost the pawns? How could you possibly lose against frogonets? It’s the easiest prey out there!” He shook in ire, full of disdain for the gnoll hunters in front of him.
Slade acted as the regent of a Dungeon village populated by a group of gnolls and beholders, and his duty was to shape this newly born community into a glorious kingdom.
Ruling over a couple hundred people was already a great achievement, considering that this little tyrannic bouncy boi landed into this world as a toilet slime just a week ago.
Before that, he was just your average nerd struggling to find his place on Earth. After a tiring day of running around doing job interviews, the poor dude was chased by a truck.
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His efforts to dodge the metal behemoth were futile, for the truck expertly drifted sharp turns to run him over like a stubborn predator.
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What awaited him in the afterlife was a stressful rebirth in a Hekalys, a fantasy world where its rulers played around, building and conquering lands, like it was a 4X strategy game. Their war speedruns were caused by their ability to summon pawns and heroes from another world, constantly fueling the never-ending cycle of conflicts.
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Thus, Slade was summoned by a sovereign, not to be a hero, no. But a freaking living toilet instead. His early task was just discarding his summoner’s bodily waste because maintaining hygiene in underground Dungeons was annoying.
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By some miracles and efforts, his sovereign found potential in him, and decided to test how far the toilet slime could go. So, she created a blessed town, gave him the necessary military might to subdue the local population, and appointed him as the ruling lord.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
In the span of little more than a week, Slade went from shit purgatory to what he thought was peak life. He could now order people around, and had a well-deserved harem of pawns and aggressive shotacon gnoll witches at his beck and call. Really, life was great and he couldn’t wait to expand his waifus collections to other species.
Needless to say, Slade had lived in the comfort of modern Earth all his life and had no fucking idea what he was doing on the throne. Obviously, that was a problem. If his town came to collapse, not only would he return to eating shit all day, but he would also lose the waifu collection. Now, that was unacceptable, especially the last part.
Despite how ignorant he could be about management, he knew that it was bad to lose pawns in hunting, which was a mundane task necessary for the daily operation of his dungeon.
“How the frick did you survive until now? I bet you just sent the pawns on their own without proper supervision. Was the nap worth it?” Slade could picture it. The gnolls had rented pawns to help out their hunts. One day, they felt lazy and sent the pawns without supervision, thinking they’d be fine on their own.
Slade thought of pawns as NPC slaves. They had standardized personalities with an in-built emotional devotion to their owners, with moderate problem-solving abilities to complete simple orders. However, they had limited long term memory and an inability to adapt and learn. It was similar to how neural networks with fixed parameters ran. As a result, pawns tended to die easily and always needed a supervisor.
The huntresses prostrated, begging for mercy. “My lord, we apologize, but this is untrue! We really encountered a situation where our lives were at risk.”
Slade rolled up his eyes. Of course, they’d never admit making such a mistake. “It doesn’t really matter anyway, I won’t waive the fee for damaging the pawns. Shaki, what’s their deposit?”
Shaki, a female troglodyte hero, stepped forward. “Four adult female gnolls, five gnoll children, their hut, three sets of fine leather armor.”
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Slade gestured to Shaki to approach and whispered. “Holy shit, that’s a lot. Are you sure about that?”
Shaki replied evenly. “Pawns can do things that trueborn slaves can’t. You can ask a pawn to fight fearlessly for you, but that doesn’t work as well with trueborns.”
Slade announced his ruthless verdict. “Alright, send those four good-for-nothing to mine the ore. Also, make it mandatory to have a pawn handler license to rent pawns.”
The stern woman from another world would certainly cook up a rigorous training course for handler license.
But the gnolls begged until the end.
“Wait, you can’t do that to the warrior caste! The elders won’t tolerate it.”
“That’s right, there will be a food shortage if we become miners.”
“My Lord, we stood side by side in a glorious battle against the beholders. Do you remember? Spare me at least!”
They fell silent after running out of excuses, expectantly waiting for the lord’s response.
“Lol,” said the slime, “Lmao”.
Shaki led the group of gnolls to their new job, dragged by troglodyte pawns. They wouldn’t be mistreated as expendable labor, but they would no longer cut corners under her watchful eye.
It was true that this decision was bound to cause problems, like food shortage and political instability since the group came from the same clan. But he couldn’t let gnolls take the show and bully him.
Also, Slade had no qualms enslaving people. War and profits were the beginning and end of civilizations. Countries went to war for profit, and made profits for war. Those who couldn’t match the arms-race were conquered, slaughtered, and silenced in secrecy. This was the scheme that emerged from countless histories, especially in Hekalys. The only subtleties that varied across the board was the who, why, and how much.
Well, heroes from other worlds weren’t at risk of death, so they could take it easier. A good person would say “being in a position of power isn’t worth being so vile,” to which Slade would answer “I just got my harem, ain’t no way I’m giving it up!”
That’s right, most summoned heroes didn’t want to lose their position of power because they were too soft on the locals.
“In any case, you can morally inoculate the population to slavery by using debt. It’s morally right to pay back what you owe, isn’t it?” Slade muttered, recalling the debt slaves from Earth.
He scanned the empty throne room. With this, he ended the daily hearing, but he needed to deal with the immediate issue of food shortage.
“Harpy squad, let’s show them how to properly hunt,” Slade commanded his pawn.
“Your wish is my command, master.” The harpy pawn stood from the throne.
The slime melted into new shapes, wrapping her in a tight suit. He could command the harpy’s body and she would faithfully follow his motions. He was still getting used to it, but hopefully he would improve over time and make it look less grotesque.
Together, they left the hall.
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