'Welcome heroes, I am king Retard, and today I want YOU to save MY country for a whopping 99 payments of 0.00!'
That sentence would be enough to describe the 1 hour long speech the supposedly benevolent king gave me and the other 5 idiots that got summoned along with me. Describing them? There's nothing to describe about them other then the fact that they are the trashiest trash that ever existed.
Hell, there was a catgirl maid during the summoning, and right after we were summoned, one of the guys just randomly began fondling her breasts. I'm curious as to how that did not count as sexual harassment, but if all the novels I read have even an inkling of truth in them, maids, slaves and other lower parts of society have no rights at all, and can only accept their fate. Funny, isn't it? I agree, it is not.
But who am I to care what a bunch of horny teenagers want to do? I have a much greater goal in mind. The king gave us bedrooms in the innermost part of the castle, close to where he lives. Although I doubt that those peanuts-for-brains could ever understand why he did such, it isn't hard. He doesn't want to give us a chance at escaping until he is absutotally sure that we won't rebel. Such trust, it leaves me blushing.
Well, I wasn't planning on running away anyways. Knowing how governments actually works is a huge advantage compared to the idiot heroes, since those guys barely know how to wash their laundry.
But it's not like I'm blaming them... In fact, they could all die for what I care. As long as it's not detrimental to me, they could even go and save the world, because I certainly won't. Really? Slaying a 'demon king'? That's retarded.
"Ed?" A voice calls behind me. I sigh in annoyance as I turn around and answer the intruder "How may I help you?"
It was the boob-fondler, of course. This guy is the exact stereotype for naive heroes, and it irritates me quite a bit. Not only does he not have common sense at all, he's shameless beyond belief, and yet when the princess tried seducing him, he turned all red and run away. It's beyond me how his brain works... oh, right... it doesn't...
He laughed awkwardly and said "Man, you gotta relax. You literally spent a week in the library, you need to go out some more!" whilst patting my shoulders.
I scoffed at him before answering "And? I believe that vegetables should not insult fruits for not moving around, since that would be a perfect elementary-school example of 'hypocritism'."
He pursued his lips and said "Ugh... fine. Still, you refused to train with mako-sensei, did the king send a magician or something to train you?"
That Mako girl? Oh, yes. The muscular sadist. She's in fact a nice person to hang out with, since she stays mostly silent and is quite blunt. Although she could tone down on the shouting during training. Well, it's not like I need to train my body or learn swordsmanship. The latter I already know, and the former... well, my skill should help if the knowledge I have about it is correct.
Reading books has always been one of my absolute favourite time killers. Nothing beats swallowing information like a dehidrated man in a desert suddently finding an oasis. Horrible reference? Yes, but that's besides the point.
Stats can essentially only be upgraded only if you train yourself vigorously, have a cheat skill or you've been summoned, as apparently 'heroes' can gain stats much, much more easily then natives, 'blessings of the goddess' and all. Do I believe that? Not a bit.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
As I was lost in my thoughts, the brain-dead hero poked my shoulder and asked "So?" With a weird expression. What's with that pitying face?
"Hm? What were you saying?" I ask. When did this guy even pop up? Wasn't I reading a book?
He sighed and mumbled "Nevermind... I'll just go say hi to Yuri-chan..."
I frowned slightly. That Yuri girl scared me. It's not that she's powerful, however, she has really good brains, no morals and a very... charming skill. The combination makes for a very dangerous enemy, should she become one. Also a bad ally, should she become one as well. Her personality is somewhat slutty too, as she successfully seduced half of the male heroes that were summoned, and by half I mean 1 out of 2. Depressing, isn't it? 2 boys and 4 girls were summoned. The goddess is obviously feminist.
Rolling my eyes, I dived back into the book. So the triangular theorem of circles is actually a squared rhombus... *Incoherent mumbling*
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~A week later~
"Welcome! This is the Shallow Forest's slave house, how may I help you?"
A beautiful woman with an ample bosom greeted me as I entered. I scowled internally as I thought 'What could I ever need in a place like this? Tsk, seducers are the worst', however, on the surface I answered with a smile "Greetings, I am looking for a battle slave, either gender is fine, and I won't care for the race. The price must range from the 20 golds to a maximum of 40. If possible, I'd like at least 5."
Her eyes perked up as she answered "Of course! follow me, please."
I did as ordered as I toyed with the small bag of money on my belt. The king was 'generous' enough to grant us some money to buy anything we wanted, and I immediately decided to adress the issue at hand, my stats.
During this time, the heroes had all reached around 4-5 in their stats, meaning they had 5 times the amount of strenght a normal person has.
Normal people in this world have stats hovering around 2-3, so technically they're only twice as powerful, however, the pitiful me is still stuck at the 1 cap. However, it's not like I did nothing this whole time.
Name: Edward Massaj
Race: Human
Age: 24
Titles: Bookworm
Skills: Arcane Magic Lv. 1
Strenght: 1
Dexterity: 1
Constitution: 1
Intelligence: 4
Wisdom: 3
Charisma: 1
Indeed, not only did I uncover the 'legendary arcane magic', my wisdom and intelligence also received a lovely boost.
As for the 'legendary arcane magic', it was really hard to discover. Truly. I had to not only read a book, I also had to occasionally refer to it! Imagine how hard that is. Sarcasm aside, it was easy.
Of course, for people of this world who understand nothing of how energy and laws work, they obviously would never be able to understand it. Even the heroes probably wouldn't be able to.
Arcane magic is not really useful yet, but I already discovered a couple ideas I'm refining right now. It might not match fire magic in destructivity, nor light magic in healing, but I think it'll be a pretty nice all-rounder.
Going back to the big-titted slaver, I looked at what she 'brought to the table'. There were around 10 slaves, mostly females with 3 males. I'm thankful to whatever deity (Not that bitch) for allowing me to be summoned that I wasn't born a slave, as these guys do not seem happy. scars of lashes cover their skin, silver collars adorn their necks and one even has an infected wound on her butt, which is in clear display by the way.
As the slaver praised on and on about how great these guys were, all the while they grit their teeth, I asked "May I know their statuses?"
Naturally, she immediately chirped "Of course sir~! Here you go."
A convenient feature is the 'share status' ability. Normally, people can choose not to share it if they don't want to, however, slaves cannot disobey, so the moment the slaver ordered it, they were forced to do it.
Let's see... Oh man, some of them are pitifully low... Seriously? That girl has a 0.5 for strenght, can stats deteriorate? No, that's not possible, otherwise I would be at 0 strenght right now... Still, that's quite impressive... Not in the good way.
Sighing, I picked the the highest one for each stat, which gave me 4 girls and a man. After paying and dropping a drop of blood on their collars, I went back to the castle for experimentation. Since I have no need for any slaves as of now, they're going to be useless after this experiment... If they live past this experiment, that is. And if my assumptions are correct, they won't. Too bad, really, but who cares?
It's for the greater good, after all. My own greater good.