Recruitment
The journey went very smoothly.
From what Leon heard, it was said that you should be careful of bandits on unsafe mountain roads.
In fact, when you think about it, it made sense.
4 carriages.
Each carriage had the insignia of the Marquis Parostel and Marquis Rothbane.
Even if the bandits are out of their sanity, they will have no choice but to return to their sanity if they see the insignias lined up side by side.
Even the demons noticed and hid, only silence was heavy in the carriage.
“Come to think of it······.”
In the end, it was Arya who never thought she would open up the conversation first.
“I didn’t hear why you stopped at Barzio and wanted to go.”
Isaac and Tina, who were sitting to the left and right of Leon at her question, looked at Leon with curious expressions.
“To save a slave.”
At those words, Arya couldn’t keep her poker face and wiggled her eyebrows.
Even so, it was a word I never imagined would come out of Leon’s mouth.
And it was the same with Isaac and Tina.
The trade of slaves in the Philo Kingdom is not illegal.
Rather, the slave trade was an active movement among the aristocracy, which required a lot of manpower.
However, it was not a good thing from a social point of view because there is a high possibility that illegal measures will occur in the process of forcing humans.
However, when a noble family needs to be managed and there are no servants to follow,
When it requires physical labor that people avoid, such as mines,
Even when the master did not trust his subjects, slaves were often used because they were useful, such as signing a slave contract and exercising coercion.
However, even in this case, the story was only applicable to wealthy merchant groups or lower-class aristocrats.
There were countless servants who came to follow the family on their own without needing to seek slaves for a title that was comparable to that of a marquis family.
However, Leon has a slightly different position.
Arya immediately remembered it and asked again.
“Does it have anything to do with you being a bastard?”
It was a pretty sensitive topic, but Arya asked without hesitation, and Leo answered without paying much attention to it.
“I know. Not long ago, I was a child who did not exist in the world. Lately, although the atmosphere has been acknowledging my existence, my reputation within the family is still not very good. No one is going to follow me, so I have to sell my feet to save my man.”
Arya was silent.
Arya also knew a little about Leon.
The incident in this direct dungeon was an opportunity for his servants to obtain information about Leon.
Leon’s information thus confirmed was different from Arya’s expectations.
When she first saw Leon’s genius, Arya felt a sympathy for him and thought that maybe Leon was also a genius created by the Farostel family.
Although the training given to Arya by the Rothbane family was very painful, it was also proof that the family loved Arya.
However, all of Leon’s actions were different from Arya’s from one to ten.
Arya was only faithful to what her family had to do.
If you don’t do your job properly, you lose everything.
Instead, Arya was given everything she could enjoy as a noble girl.
For example, an annex made only for Arya,
Dozens of servants working only for her,
From beautiful dresses and expensive accessories to various elixir.
But nothing was given to Leon.
Locked in the attic of the annex, the servants’ quarters, and enjoying a life worse than that of the servants, Leon has done everything with his own will and ability.
It still is.
It didn’t look very good for the son of a high-ranking nobleman to save a slave, but Leon’s act of boldly thinking to achieve his will was a dazzling figure that Arya couldn’t even dream of.
But Arya, who soon had a question, tilted her head and asked.
“But why Barzio?”
A market where slaves can be obtained exists in any territories of some size.
Even though it was not necessary to save the slaves from Barzio simply to save the slaves, Leon had specified the destination before leaving the wagon.
Before heading to Freud, Rothbane’s estate, I want you to stop by Barzio.
Of course, the reason Leon went to Barzio was because he found out that she was from Barzio after going back to the ‘Witch of Condemnation’, which he had heard rumors about before returning.
“I am not trying to save an ordinary slave.”
“then?”
“Barzio is the southernmost point of the Philo Kingdom. Badel, which was the border just recently, was invaded by the demon realm, and refugees who barely survived are coming in. And among them there will be many who are tainted with magic.”
At that moment, Arya’s eyes widened.
“no way?”
“okay. I’m going to get a half demon.”
half demon (半魔).
It was an anchovy, meaning those who were contaminated with magic and began to change physically.
A being with a demonic body, although not yet fully transformed into a monster.
Since Magi is a disease that never heals naturally, if left untreated for a long time, the half-demon will eventually turn into a monster and run wild, but if expensive magic was administered at this time, the mutation could be prevented.
Magi is a kind of malignant tumor that triggers cell mutation so that it can adapt to the harsh environment of the demon realm, making the organism stronger.
If the mutation is stopped in the middle, the human mind is maintained and the stronger body is maintained, so a more biologically evolved human can be created.
But, of course, the appearance had to be terrifying.
Neither a perfect monster nor a perfect human, the ambiguous appearance of a half-human, half-demon was bound to arouse disgust in ordinary humans.
Humanity, who suffered numerous casualties due to the invasion of the demon realm, was growing an endless anger towards demons.
Those who have lost their families, those whose families have been destroyed, those who have lost their country.
For such people, Banma was a good target to face the lost anger.
Demons that do not speak to the weak who do not have the power to fight are only disasters, but anti-demons are the weakest under the ordinary in their social status.
A wealthy rich person can purchase magic potions to cure them even if they are infected with Magi, but for those who do not have the ability to heal Magi on their own, being sold into slavery is the only way to survive.
Therefore, the formula of half demon = slave is established.
Of course, Banma was never the one who took away their family, but the original anger and hatred grow bigger, the more distant the emotions.
The mere appearance of the monsters was enough to make me feel physiological disgust.
And the witch of condemnation that Leon was looking for was also one of these half-demons.
It is also very special.
Unfortunately, Leon wasn’t the only one to know the special.
The original history is that a wizard who realizes that the Witch of Condemnation is a special half-demon will conduct various experiments using her as a test subject.
Before that, Leon was planning to rescue the Witch of Condemnation and make it his party.
Fortunately, Leon arrived at Barzio’s slave market before she was sold and found the witch of condemnation imprisoned.
As if imprisoned for a long time, the inside of the cage was covered with filth she had eaten and wrapped around it, and the witch of condemnation who was wallowing on it had hardly any original human appearance left.
The lower body was strangely bent like the joints of a four-legged animal, and the nails were strangely twisted and grew long, reaching 30 centimeters.
A large tumor grew on her spine that looked like a hunchback, but her face was so distorted as a bark that her original shape was unrecognizable.
It was only because of two characteristics that Leon could recognize her.
A single horn that grew out of her left forehead and unique eyes dyed with colorful colors.
‘You’re younger than I thought.’
Leon was able to guess her age because of her small size.
Even 10 years from now, she is too shabby to be a witch who drives wizards from all over the continent into fear.
But Leon was satisfied that her eyes were still alive.
Her body was already full of large and small wounds.
Proof that she has been abused by countless people just by the fact that she is a banma.
Distrust towards humans had already begun to sprout in her, so it would have been the wizard’s job to nurture that distrust into anger.
The Witch of Condemnation, who was taken as a test subject and treated horribly in the wizard’s laboratory, finally escaped the laboratory with her awakened ability, and then started slaughtering all the wizards in sight with only a desire for revenge.
But now, there was still room for rebirth.
“Don’t do it with this kid.”
At Leon’s words, the slave trader who was rubbing his palms to make the fingerprints disappear next to him had a troubled expression on his face.
“But this child is not yet on his way.”
Even slaves have grades.
There were many knights who committed crimes, or slaves as capable as wizards, but the most important factor in determining their rank was how well they were tamed.
At most, I bought a slave to work as a worker, but if I didn’t do the job properly, there was nothing more difficult than that.
By that standard, the girl in front of me was the worst.
The assistant who was trying to tame her was bitten by her.
If such a slave was sold to a noble noble and the slave bit his master, the responsibility would be on the slave trader.
But even more important to the slave trader is that at most a wealthy customer came, and what he was looking for was at best a cheap slave of this poor quality.
Leon immediately opened the subspace pocket, grabbed the magic stone as soon as he could get it in his hand, and dropped it into the hands of the slave trader who was rushing out.
When the magic stones, worth at least hundreds of gold in all, overflowed their palms and fell to the floor, the slave trader rolled his eyes and fell flat on the floor to collect them.
Not only Arya, but also the girl who was locked in the cage was surprised by such a sight.
The girl knows best than anyone else that she is nothing more than an ordinary commoner, except that she is a half-mad.
The thought of a boy paying such a price that he could not even dream of for the rest of his life on his own had to complicate his thoughts.
“It won’t be enough.”
“No, of course! Hello! Hurry up, open the iron bars and deliver the goods to the customer!”
However, for Leon, it was a satisfactory transaction.
If you can recruit the Witch of Condemnation as a minion with hundreds of gold at the most, it’s pretty cheap.