CH.290 Clearing away Slave Marks

CH.290 Clearing away Slave Marks

“I apologize for the surprise visit, but something came up, and I must inform you of it personally.” I apologized to Lord Peks as I met him the next morning.

We had returned to the town of Pekkers using B.E.S. Crystal Core in the morning.

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After arrival, our group broke into three separate groups. Mariina went with Alice to get in contact with the local adventurer’s guild’s guild master, Lua, Ria and Wilma stayed with the ‘adventurers’ while I went with Agunan to give a report to the local lord about someone in this area using the illegal slave mark. As well as informing him that someone has definitely put a hit on Wilma.

He actually took the news quite well, but the fact that Mariina was already in contact with the Sage’s tower, using the adventurer’s guild’s communicator thingy might have helped with that. He did also apologize for the trouble, but I just told him it is not on him, so it is fine. I just hoped he would help the adventurer’s guild looking into the illegal slave trade.

I did recommend also looking into that newer workshop, because I’d bet at least some money that they are involved in all of this. I don’t think I need to go into detail as to why I would think that way. Baron Peks promised me he would audit them, so hopefully they will get some punishment, if this guy can find some dirt on them.

Well, if he can’t, it doesn’t really matter to me. Sure I want to see them punished, but in truth, I don’t really care that much. Thanks to their BS, I got a skilled artisan working for me after all.

“The sages will have a council and decide on if they are going to share the information.” Mariina told me when I arrived at the adventurer’s guild. “It will take at least two to three days for us to get the information, if they even decide to share.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just do it then.” I concluded. Sure we could wait three days, but why would we? I have a much quicker and easier solution.

“Can you really do that?” Mariina asked.

“... do you really need to ask that?”

What I was trying to do was actually something extremely simple to accomplish. I just had to free some slaves. At first, I thought I should try something like Snatch Steal or Brain Control to transfer them to be mine, but that is too complicated and it wasn’t a good forever solution.

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Laura did make a good forever solution using Creature Swap. By giving away some of my monsters to the control of the Master of the slaves, the slaves would be transferred to me. Permanently. Then I can just kill, well more like destroy, the monsters, or let their summoning time run out. And if I use cards without sleeves, the card would just vanish after use. I could even use something like tokens for that. But still, too convoluted, when there is a much simpler answer.

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I can just free them. They are slaves because of a magic mark drawn on their body, right? So what do you do when you need to clean away magic? Well, you use the Feather Duster of course.

“Harpie’s Feather Duster.”

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An oversized feather, which didn’t really look like a duster at all, appeared in my hand. I then used said feather duster to gently dust away the slave seals on the two young catfolk, granting them their freedom.

We again left the town that day. We had no reason to stay here, and Mariina does have a schedule to keep. Of course, we now had two new people with us. Two little catfolk kids, who I agreed to employ. Like with Wilma, I will need people working for me, so why not pick up this duo.

They actually have no home to return to, as they were sold by their parents. They are two of the nine children their parents had, and they simply couldn’t feed everyone. And because the boy, Einar, had the Taming skill, and his sister Eline had the Summoning skill, the two of them were sold because they were worth the most.Rêạd new chapters at novelhall.com

And the real reason I took them, instead of handing them over to Baron Peks, is the fact that they are the only ones who know the person that drew that forbidden slave mark on them. We did get a description from them, but it was so generic that it would never get us the correct person. Well, maybe never is a strong word, but it would take a long time and lots of false hits.

As for what happened with the adventurers. Well, they did get to keep their lives at least, but they were turned into slaves and would probably be sent out to fight monsters most don’t want to fight. So in short, they are not for me to worry about. They didn’t know the original person who drew the slave mark, as they picked them up from a traveling merchant, whose description didn’t match the description given by the catfolk. So it is likely that that merchant knew how to transfer the illegal slaves, but might not know how to draw the slave mark. I left looking for him to the Baron, as well as the adventurer’s guild.

So back to the two catfolk. Einar’s tamed beasts were all defeated by us, so that isn’t something I had to worry about. I meant taking them with us. Unlike summoned monsters, you can’t just unsummon tamed beasts. And you can’t put them away in a magic bag or even something like Storage. You’d literally have to transport them, like you do. But we don’t have any, so I don’t need to do that. Laura did tell me about an extra skill that could actually store tamed beasts, but that was quite a rare extra skill and not something most tamers would have. But maybe Einar will get it eventually, and I might even be able to cheat that skill onto him with an install. If I feel like rewarding him for good work.

Eline on the other hand had three summoning contracts. One was with the lightning tiger, but she couldn’t currently summon it, because I killed it. Technically summoned monsters don’t die, but if they do ‘die’, the summoners will suffer some penalties depending on the contract they had with the beast. Anything from losing the contract to not being able to summon them for a few days may happen. Other than the lightning tiger, she has a contract with a D-rank forest tiger and an E-rank baby tiger. And because of her contract with the lightning tiger, she could summon it again two weeks after its ‘death’, so that beast will be summonable for her again.

Of course my plan for the two was simple. Well, maybe not so simple, but still simple. I wanted some maids and butlers. And these two would be the first for that. Well, first after Ria. She is the OG. And I guess Einar will be my first butler. I think that job will fit him well, as with his Taming skill, he can tame monsters that will be able to pull my carriage.

And of course Eline will be a decent combat maid with her summoned beasts. She might not reach Ria’s level, but it will still be nice.

Teaching them will of course be my two Dragonmaids, as well as the aforementioned Ria.

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And because the mission that gives me Dragonmaids is worded the way that it is, I should get a Dragonmaid card for each of them eventually. Actually, I should get one for Wilma as well. She is my employee after all.

... But as good as all of this is, it did leave us with a small issue. My carriage just isn’t large enough any more. It could fit the five of us fine, and even the addition of Wilma wasn’t a big problem, but now with two more people, I’d either have to hurry up making a mana source for the spatial expander, but I actually already had something for that.

And that was a mana transfer device. I could link it with a magic stone, and then have the stone instantly send mana into the device. Wait, did that make any sense? I’ll try to explain it so that everyone will understand.

So basically, I’ll have to have a magic stone that holds mana. Then I can link this device to it and it can pull mana from that stone. Hopefully that explanation makes a bit more sense.

This was something I both accidentally and purposefully made. I wanted to make something like this for when my HomeBase infinite mana factory finally goes online, but I wasn’t meaning to make it when I did. I was actually working on a wireless magic communicator. Basically a magic walkie-talkie. But instead I got something that was close to this, so I just converted the failed walkie-talkie into a mana transfer device.

I think I’ll try to hurry up with my HomeBase plans, but it just isn’t ready to be implemented yet. The factory tests are good, and it should work out, but I’m still min-maxing efficiency, placements and all of that. I want to have my HomeBase be as well designed as the Hero’s country, if not better. No point in doing it poorly, only to have to rebuild it all from scratch.

Outside of the population increase causing me to use some of my monsters for additional transports, our trip had been going well. And I think Einar and Eline enjoyed riding Ancient Gear Beast and Leogun.

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I even ended up summoning some of my more classic machines, Overdrive, Oni Tank T-34 and Labyrinth Tank. ... Sadly, two of those are just a bit... out there, so using them might be a bad idea.

Spoiler[collapse]Daily Pack tokens: 100Current Pack tokens: 1144 Available sets : Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon Metal Raiders Magic Ruler Pharaoh’s Servant Labyrinth of Nightmare Legacy of Darkness Pharaonic Guardian Magician’s Force Dark Crisis Invasion of Chaos Ancient Sanctuary Soul of the Duelist Rise of Destiny Flaming Eternity The Lost Millennium Cybernetic Revolution Elemental Energy Shadow of InfinityEnemy of Justice Daily Reprint Tokens: 100Current Reprint Tokens: 981 Available Reprint sets: Dark Beginning 1 Dark Revelation Volume 1 Dark Beginning 2 Dark Revelation Volume 2 Spoiler[collapse]Spoiler[collapse]Spoiler[collapse]Spoiler[collapse]Spoiler[collapse]Spoiler[collapse]Spoiler

Silent Insect, Success Probability 0%, Elemental HERO Neo Bubbleman, Anteatereatingant, Chain Thrasher, Next to be Lost, Hero Kid, Demise, King of Armageddon, Proto-Cyber Dragon

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Well, that is a Demise. Hi Demise. Sorry I never got you with Manju, but at least I was now able to pull you from a pack. I still need your waifu, but I’m working on it.

Next.

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SOI 8

Malice Ascendant, Grass Phantom, Beelze Frog, Tenkabito Shien, Success Probability 0%, Full Salvo, Machine King Prototype, Super Junior Confrontation, Phantasmal Martyrs

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And that is all repeats, but let’s hope Phantasmal Martyrs is a sign of the incoming Sacred Beast. Next.

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SOI 9

Full Salvo, Generation Shift, End of the World, Beelze Frog, Anteatereatingant, Machine King Prototype, Elemental HERO Neo Bubbleman, Ancient Gear Cannon, Cyclone Boomerang

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At least Cyclone Boomerang is new. And I might be able to reverse engineer it and make some cool weapon out of it.

I think next pack will be the last, so maybe something amazing?

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SOI 10

Next to be Lost, Beelze Frog, End of the World, Parasitic Ticky, D.3.S. Frog, Symbol of Heritage, Miracle Kids, Adhesive Explosive, Damage Condenser

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... I mean... it is something new. And it is an SR, so that is good. Sadly it just... isn’t amazing. It is alright, I guess. And Adhesive Explosive is new as well. And it is actually better than Damage Condenser. So this isn’t a bad pack to end things on.

I think I’ll pull another ten tomorrow, so I can get a Sacred Beast, and maybe some Enemy of Justice packs as well. Yeah. I think I’ll do that. Then let Laura take over and full complete the sets.

“... Lord Brian... would I be able to ask something?” Wilma asked me that evening. We were once again keeping guard, as the others slept. I got some looks from Alice and Lua when I decided on the order we would keep guard, but I’m honestly just min-maxing out System Support efficiency. It is best if one of us System Support holders is always awake to keep guard.

“You already did, but I’ll assume you want to know something else. Go for it.” I granted her permission in my almost classic slightly snarky way.

“... that day... when you came to my workshop...” Wilma began. “... I died... didn’t I?”

“Why would you think so?”

“... it is just... I remember... this strange place... It felt like a dream... I was only there for a second... but it felt... I don’t know.”

“And why would that make you think you died? It could have been just a dream.”

“I ... I thought so too... But then I heard about the smoke bomb... Something like that. If what you told me... about how smokey the room was... I should have died, I think. But I thought it was impossible, because I’m alive. ... until I saw you resurrect that catfolk boy. He was dead. I’m sure he was. There is no way he would have lived for that long... with a big hole in his stomach.”

“Perhaps. So, where are you going with this?”

“... well, if you really can do that, and it is easy enough that you did it to someone who attacked you... maybe you did it to me?”

“... I see. Well, that is one possibility. Or maybe what we told you earlier is the truth? That you were simply passed out from the smoke. So, do you want to actually know the truth, or was that just you asking about things?”

“... I ... I wish to know the truth. Did you resurrect me that day?”

“... No. I did not.” I answered honestly, with emphasis on the I. Because Lua was the one who used a Monster Reborn on Wilma.

“I see...”

“But you did die that day.” I then added. “When we arrived, the smithing room was already completely full of smoke. Agunan was the one that came into the room and took you to the other room. Lua tried her best to keep you alive, but she isn’t great when it comes to breathing problems, and you ended up passing away.” I explained to her what happened. “After that, she was the one who used a Monster Reborn on you and resurrected you. I didn’t do it.”

“... she can do it too? ... what is she?”

“Ask her yourself. She might answer, or she might not. Her secrets are not mine to share.”

“... I see. I’ll... think about it... But at least... I’ll make sure to thank her.”