The next morning, I brought jars and wooden crates for soaps and shampoos.
As mentioned before, I canāt let people see the colourful plastic or cartons from the other world items, so everything had to be transferred into locally made jars and crates.
I devoted the whole morning to the mindless task of filling jars and peeling wrappers off soaps. [1] If I donāt do this, Iād end up wallowing in all kinds of unwanted thoughts.
[8] Thoughts such as:
What the heck am I doing with such a huge place?
How the heck am I going to keep it clean?
How do I take care of the garden?
[6] The trees! The weeds! The dust! The bird droppings on windows! The dead flower heads! The toilets!
[6] Even if I devote my whole life to the care and cleaning of this place Iād never be able to stay on top of everything. My life would be a living hell!!
I finally understood why this palace has three houses just for servants.
For a long moment, I stared at one of the servantās houses. These one storey buildings actually looked very nice.
Maybe I could just live hereā¦
[6] Haahhā¦ but it doesnāt make sense to pay so much money for a nice palace just to live in the servantās quarters.
I want to get a nice house and enjoy life a bit, maybe hire a couple of people to manage the house and transfer the wholesale soaps and shampoos. However, itās clear that just one or two people wonāt be enough to take care of this place.
Aaarrggh!! Even mindless refilling work isnāt really mindless, damn it! [5]
While Iām worrying over various things here, Fer, Sui and Dora-chan were frolicking around the gardenā¦
[5] The really huge garden with lawns and trees with lots of leaves andā¦
āLooks like I have no choice but to hire people. A whole bunch of people would be needed just for the gardenā¦ Maa, luckily the one thing I donāt have to worry about is moneyā¦ā
[6] I never thought Iād face a first world problem like this.
āIād have to get someone trustworthy. Able to keep a secret...ā It would have to be someone I can have complete trust with. My [Net Super] skill would be most likely be exposed. Even if they donāt know about my skill, theyāll know the special products come from me.
They would also be left to look after the house when I travel. [6] Just thinking about the expensive stuff left inside the house made me anxiousā¦ [5]
āGetting someone trustworthy aside, how does one hire help here? I guess I can ask Lambert-san about it tomorrow or make a trip to the Merchantās Guild and inquire thereā¦ā
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The next day, after I handed the stocks to Lambert-san, I opened the conversation withā¦ [5]
[4] āUm, Lambert-san, I'm going to need to hire some help to upkeep the place. You seeā¦ā
I listed some of my concerns and ended them with my hopes of getting people I could trust.
Lambert-sanās answer was immediate, āIn that case, you might want to consider getting yourself some slaves.ā
āS-Slaves?!ā the word shocked me.
I mean, I know that slaves exist in this world. Iāve seen them before but I never thought of buying oneā¦
āOh, thatās right. Mukouda-san is not from this country. Well, the slave system here is quite established. There are lots of advantages for both buyer and slave.ā
[9] āAdvantages? What kind of advantages could a slave have?!ā surely this goes against all humanitarian rights?
[4] āWell, hummm, how should I explain this. The slavery system here is part of a relief effort for safeguarding the interest of the weak. So it has a fairly solid foundation.ā
[9] āSafeguarding the interest of theā¦ weak?ā isnāt that kind of counterintuitive? Isnāt slavery just exploitative?
[4] āFirst, thereās the registration system. When a slave is purchased, the master must be registered as well. [1] As master, you must guarantee minimum living conditions for the slave.
Second, a contract is signed between master and slave. [2] As a slave, they have the right to buy themselves out of the slave contract. A minimum wage must be paid but otherwise, everything else can be negotiated freely. A confidentiality clause is usually one of the terms most masters would want as a way to protect themselves so that their secrets could not be leaked out.
I say that secrets of the master are kept but it also keeps the slave safe too because it is useless to go after the slaves to get their masterās secrets. This confidentiality clause would remain even after the contract ends or the slave has freed himself.ā
[9] āI seeā¦ā that certainly sounds reasonable. I mean, Iāve seen corporate slaves back in Japan with less favourable contracts.
[4] āMoreover, contracts are bound by powerful magic. Once a contract between the slave and master has been decided, a black circle would appear at the base of a slaveās right thumb. If the slave violates the contract, their whole hand would turn black.ā
[9] āā¦ that sounds quite disadvantageous for the slaveā¦ā
āHuhu, youād think so, right? Well, if the master violates the contract, the slave could run away to the closes Knight Station and report their master. If the master is found guilty of violating the terms and conditions of the contract, the master would be subject to thorough investigation.
This is why both registration and contracts are very important. If either side is found to be in violation of the contract, they could be charged with a crime. In some cases, the master might have to pay huge amounts of compensation or face the death penalty or criminal slavery if he had forced the slave to do things that are not part of the contract.
On the other hand, if the slave runs away, he will be punished according to the law since both the contract and registration are still in play.ā
[9] āErm,ā I said. āWhatāsā¦ criminal slavery? Is it very different from regular slavery?ā
[4] āCriminal slavery is a punishment imposed on criminals. Most criminal slaves are not given any human rights, so they are often abused,ā went on Lambert-san. āSlavery is basically a contract system between two parties where one is obliged to render a certain amount of duties over a given time under very strict terms and conditions. By the way, anyone who violates the contract would face a high risk of becoming a criminal slave.ā
āI see,ā I guess it made sense in [9] this world where people could be magically enforced to keep secrets. This is certainly different from my understanding of the word āslaveā. Criminal slavery sounds more like the type of slavery Iām thinking of.
āSpeaking of which, since Mukouda-san can afford it, itās better to buy a whole family.ā
āA family... of slaves?ā [5]
[4] āYes, it is unfortunate but whole families are sometimes sold into slavery due to debts created by one member of the family. Naturally, families would like to stay together but slave traders are also businessmen. They might be sympathetic but itās not always realistic to keep families together.ā
[6] āTh-that sounds harsh,ā
[4] āItās unfortunate but they do try to sell a family together for the first three months. If no buyer comes forth, the family would be split apart.ā [5]
āI see, to think that the traders would even consider such things.ā
āItās generally good business sense to get a family if you can. It lessens the chances of runaways, which people might do if they miss their family members too much. A family would also work harder together as a group to buy their freedom quickly.ā
āI seeā¦ā I said vaguely. I wonder if I could get a cute girlā¦
ā¦n-not that I plan on doing any weird stuff or anything but it would be nice to have someone good looking, right? Right? [5]
[8] I-isnāt it natural for a man to want to look at cute girls?!
āOh, speaking of which, you might want to consider getting slaves that could fight too,ā
āEh?ā [5]
āYes, the truth isā¦ā said Lambert-san with a grim expression.
[Gumihou: ā¦ Mukouda-san, you disappointed me.]
[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue
[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue
[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information
[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose
[7] Add Dialogue Tag
[8] Creative Licence Taken
[9] Slave System ā while it may seem despicable to the modern person. The actual slave system is quite complex and the term āslaveā could be used on anyone who is indentured to the master. From the typical slaves in manga where slave = dirty person in chains and have no freedom, to slaves with special skills as cooks, teachers and even business representatives who could command lower level slaves and travel to other countries and represent their masters.
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