My shirt is in shreds, so I need to do the walk of shame out the Guild and down the street to a clothing store. This world is really generic and rpg-like so there's probably stores that sell things ready to go rather than tailor stores. My hair is long enough to cover my ears, but it's still risky. I should hurry.
Vesra-chan's face is really red, presumably because my shirt is missing, but it isn't out of innocence. From the look in her eyes, it's probably the opposite, so I can't enjoy her cute expression at all. In the first place, I'm not the type of person to get off on taking my shirt off to make girls blush.
Vesra-chan seems to be a huge pervert, but since she's so loyal I don't think I need to worry about her. The main threat to me right now is that sexual predator of an Onee-chan. If she gets in close contact with me she'll discover I'm a human. That is not information I want one of the strongest people alive to have. I need to get out of town before she comes looking for me again.
How nostalgic. I remember skipping town a lot when some angry girls or their boyfriends came to beat the shit out of me. Saya hated it when I did that, because he had to deal with those people in my place. At least Saya will have it easy now that I'm gone. Now that I'm gone... I wonder how they're doing, Saya and my family. Ah, shit, I'm getting depressed, so let's stop thinking about that.
I got a shirt in short order, a really nice one this time too, since Myra gave me all of the gold, so I have extra to spend. I bought something that resembled a dress shirt for 30 silver. It's not a waste, okay. It's not like I'm going to spend the gold on anything else besides slaves, so it's fine. Me buying a nice shirt has nothing to do with picking up girls. I also got a hat resembling something like a beanie. It doesn't suit me, but I'm going to take it off as soon as I leave town anyways so whatever covers my ears the most is best.
I can't wait to see the reaction on that slaver's face when I walk in with 300 gold. She better have a lot of slaves ready! Good, she's the only one in the store right now. I swagger in and slam the huge pile of gold on the counter.
"I'm baaaaack! Did you miss me~?"
"Oh, it's you, esteemed customer. Welcome."
Huh? Is this her twin or something? Or is she just so impressed by the gold that she's treating me like a real customer now? Whatever, as long as I get her num-... slaves.
"Right this way."
She leads us down the hall. It's really dark, which I guess is normal for a medieval society, but I can barely even see. Can elves see in the dark or something? Vesra-chan seems fine, so maybe it's just a result of me living in modern day Japan that I can't see well in the dark.
"Please take a look, esteemed customers."
I hear the sound of iron creaking, and realize we must be in some sort of prison-type complex, with cells lining the hall. Now that I know what I'm looking at, the indistinct shapes gradually take form as my eyes adjust. I walk over to the cell that the slaver opened, but there's nothing inside. Am I seeing wrong?
"URGH!"
Someone kicked me in the back really hard. Oi, this body is a national treasure, be more careful! Vesra-chan is on the ground next to me, so she must have gotten the same treatment.
The slaver walks inside the cell and closes the door behind her. She has a gigantic grin on her face. Vesra-chan stands up and lunges at her, but she abruptly stops as if hitting an invisible wall.
"Tsk tsk, that won't do."
The slaver raises her arm and Vesra-chan is launched against the wall and pinned there by something. She walks towards me and reaches her hand to my face before stroking my ear under the cap.
"Ah~! I knew it! It really is strange to be covering your head all the time, especially indoors. The smell of a human is so distinctive too."
"What do you want with us?!"
"Haaaah? What else would a slaver want with two humans? Hey, if you're lucky, then maybe you can be my personal play thing, you know? I want to hear what sort of screams you make!"
Yeah. She's probably not talking about screams of pleasure, right? Still, this is a problem. Humans are no match for elves with their magic. Vesra-chan's state just proves that. If I want to get out of here, I need to convince her.
"Hey, could you release us? If you do, I can offer you something good."
"...I'm listening."
"See, I'm in the middle of building a country right now. If you release us, I can guarantee you a position of power. You would stand above thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of other people. How about it?"
"Hmm, I can't say I'm not intrigued, but I'm actually quite content here you know?"
Looks like that's not going to work. Maybe if I mix in a bit of lies it'll convince her.
"My country will be the most powerful one day. Are you sure you don't want to join us?"
"Nice try, but I have lie-detecting magic. As if a worthless human like you could possibly be capable of something like that."
Lie-detecting magic? Something like that exists? If so, then that makes things stupidly easy. Funny, even. I put my hand up to my forehead and start laughing.
"Hahahahaha!"
"What's so funny?"
"No, nothing. It's just, I really feel bad for you, you know? You have no idea what I am or what I’m capable of.”
“And just what would you be other than a human worm?”
“I'm an otherworlder. You guys have those right? Surely you know of our power."
The slaver narrows her eyes. It looks like it passed the lie-detecting magic. Good, for a second there I thought she was just bullshitting about the magic and my bluff would be seen through. The lie-detecting magic makes things easier for me since it essentially turns things that are technically true into things that are actually true.
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"Oi, slaver. You had no idea what I’ll do to you if you don’t release us."
That's true, she's shaken right now, so she has no clue what I would do, which would be to do nothing.
"I've possessed magic since the moment I set foot in this world."
Also true. If auto-translation isn't magic, then I don't know what is.
"Vesra. Tell this trash just how powerful I am."
"Of course! Hey, you disgusting elf, Hisenaga-sama's power is at least S-rank, alright?! Even I don't know the extent of his power!"
This isn't true, but Vesra-chan sincerely believes it, so it should pass through. If the lie-detector was based on actual truth, it might as well be a divination magic since you could just say statements like "The king is hiding in Irilyn." and see if the magic returns it as true or false.
"S-rank, huh..."
The grin on the slaver's face is long gone by now. She looks to be deep in thought.
"Interesting. I accept your offer. My slaves and I are at your service, master."
Her crazy grin returns to her face.
"You should watch your back, because if I find an opening, I won't hesitate to 'play' with you, okay~?"
Shit, why does my yandere harem keep growing? Is this a curse?
The evil slaver, whose name I learned was Aoi, took 10 human slaves with her and then followed us back to Tikral Village. She transported us there on some kind of forcefield that slid along the ground. She said she was proficient in healing and barrier magic, but the way she uses it, isn't it more like telekinesis? Seriously, elves are OP.
I wanted to deploy Aoi's slaves to guard the roads as soon as we returned, but I refrained. While Aoi's barrier magic would have certainly been useful for building the roads, I had her train new soldiers instead. It’s more efficient to have a future army than a single mage guard roads. Even if Aoi is powerful, she can only be in one place at a time. The reason I entrusted the training to her is because, apparently, she trained all of the slaves herself, and from what I’ve seen, she did a very good job. I feel sorry for the people who will be training under her, but it's necessary for the advancement of society.
It's already been a few weeks since Aoi started training people in the various villages. I wonder if any of them resent her for being an elf. Or her personality. That would be a problem. She and her group of recruits been traveling from village to village like a bandit gang, picking up new recruits in each village and training on the monsters in between. There have been no deaths yet thanks to Aoi’s magic. They number around 100 right now, which is good considering it's only been a short time. Once more roads are built and we further expand our network, Aoi will be able to recruit from even the farthest reaching villages.
Since the growing band of soldiers are all from different villages, they've taken to speaking elven with each other and in the towns they visit. A nice side effect from this is that the villages are gradually becoming more and more fluent in elven. Sooner or later, I'll need to implement a universal writing system, but for now, this is more than enough. Even better, the band of soldiers is also serving to increase the feeling of unity between the villages.
Today, I'm going to check on how they're doing, since they've stopped in Rukerford. I announced I was going to check on the quality of the soldiers, since they're our future army, but really I want to check on Aoi to make sure she isn't abusing anyone too much.
When I finally reach the village and see her, the scene before me is downright terrifying. She’s sitting in the town hall's dining room. Her soldiers are waiting on her every command, bringing her all manner of food and drinks. Many of the townsfolk are also obeying her, even that Saril guy.
However, they aren't obeying her out of fear or anything like that. Oh no, this is something much more sinister. When Aoi sees me, she smirks for a bit before letting her face return to the demure expression she had on when I first entered. Saril is kneeling next to her like a dog.
"Ojou-sama, please let me know if there's anything I can help you with!"
Aoi bites her lip and appears to look hesitant.
"Well... no, there's nothing."
"What is it, Ojou-sama? It's fine, anything is fine!"
Some of the other slaves are nodding vigorously in agreement with what Saril said. I say slaves, but they aren't the 10 slaves Aoi brought with her. It's just that, in such a situation, how could I call them anything else? My mouth is wide agape, but Aoi is the paying attention to me, giving the occasional glance. None of the other people so much as bother to even acknowledge my existence.
"Uhm, the truth is, my foot hurts. Only a little bit though!"
"Why didn't you say so earlier, Ojou-sama?!"
Saril is already massaging her foot even as he’s saying that.
"It's just that, I didn't want to trouble you! I'm sorry, I should have said so sooner."
Aoi has tears in her eyes, and her lip is trembling. It looks incredibly fake to me since I’m used to such acts. To these cattle though, she must look like a delicate flower.
In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore and left quickly but quietly, carefully closing the door behind me. That was the first and last time I visited the Aoi and her soldiers.