Master and Slaves

"I am Enrico, of the slave shop ’The Merciful Shepherd.’"

The fat man, the slave merchant Enrico, bowed his head respectfully.

Muriel looked at Enrico with loathing.

Sophia glared at Enrico with that gaze, enough to kill him.

"I am glad Muriel and Sophia pleased their master. The two of you had barely been trained, so I was worried."

Wearing that unpleasant smile as always, Enrico said such a thing.

Muriel and Sophia’s faces grew sterner still.

Even so...

"You remembered well."

Fifteen years had passed since then.

He had been a person who did not matter, and yet I, who because of the petrification felt it like something from about a year ago, had forgotten.

There, he was a merchant after all.

"Yes. All 4,219 slaves I have sold until now, I remember every name and face."

Not boasting. He answered as if it were natural.

Muriel and Sophia looked at him with suspicion.

But it was a fact that Muriel’s and Sophia’s names had come out.

"Even so, fine slaves you have gathered. All of them seem to be Dules. Are you sending them to each of their masters?"

Enrico looked at the other Dules and asked.

"No. All of them are mine."

"Eh? Ah, i-is that so. Forgive me."

Hearing my words, he seemed quite surprised.

He choked on his words and bowed his head in a hurry.

With that momentum, several of the things Enrico was holding fell.

"Ah!"

In the rush to pick them up, he dropped still more of the luggage in a scatter.

Unable to watch, I helped pick them up.

Azret and the Dules who were close helped too, and one of them, Rosina, looked at what she had taken and muttered.

"This is a magic medicine. And quite harsh..."

Harsh, meaning what... poison!?

"Ah, no, this is... a slave was badly injured. I use it for treatment."

Enrico answered Rosina not with the unpleasant smile from before, but with a weak smile like a wry one.

"You injured her, didn’t you."

Sophia muttered sharply.

"Ah, will you not have a priest come?"

Maybe because he felt the other Dules turning hostile at Sophia’s cut-in, Azret stepped between them.

"Yes, that was my intent, but with no knowing when the enemy will attack, they cannot leave the temple, and every order refused. If I take her, they will see her, I am told, but she is in no state to be taken out..."

Enrico answered, wiping the sweat that sprang from his brow.

I felt a gaze and looked that way. Rosina and Sheena were appealing with their eyes.

Well, that was like Rosina and Sheena.

"Could you show me that slave?"

"Eh? Ah, but she is in no state to sell..."

Those words stung.

"I’m not thinking of buying her! I have a priest among my Dules, so I’m telling you to let her be seen!"

No, I had not said that, but the air should make it clear.

"Y-yes! Th-this way, yes."

Enrico jumped in surprise, then soon guided us to the shop.

...

"Hey! Ruhen! Ruhen!"

The moment he entered the shop, Enrico shouted.

"Yes, master!"

From the back of the shop, a thin man of about twenty appeared.

"How is that girl’s condition?"

"She has not woken yet."

The man in the shop answered while taking Enrico’s luggage.

"I see..."

Enrico’s shoulders dropped.

"Um, these people are..."

"Customers. Come, this way."

He answered the man’s question in one line, then guided us to the back.

We went quite far in, and there was an iron door shut solidly.

He opened it without using a key.

There were stairs going down, lit by magic light.

"This way."

We went down those stairs, and where we arrived there was an iron grate left open.

The door just now, unlocked, and this. It seemed careless, but maybe it was fine because the man watching the shop was there.

Pass the iron grate, and desks and chairs were set, and further in there was another iron grate.

This was probably where a watchman stayed.

But the iron grate further in was not locked either, and Enrico opened that door too without using a key.

"This girl."

Then he said it while opening the door of the iron-grate room right beside it.

Inside, a luxurious futon unsuited to this place was laid, and on it slept a person with their head wrapped in bandages.

The face not wrapped in bandages was swollen too, and one could not even tell man or woman.

Seeing that, the Dules glared at Enrico all at once.

But Enrico showed none of the flinch from before, and was not making excuses either. He explained plainly.

"She was like this from the time she arrived this morning. Apparently she was brought by ship from further east than the East Land, from the end of the east. By the time she reached the port she was already weakened, I am told. The merchant who carried her said it was a wonder she arrived this far, brought overland."

Even during the long explanation, Rosina and Sheena rolled back the futon and carefully took off the bandages wrapped around her body as well.

"This way of wrapping bandages is careful and skilled. And..."

When all the bandages were off, many wounds were visible, festering, gone even to purple.

"Terrible..."

The Dules put hands to their mouths and were speechless.

But Rosina spoke as if impressed.

"The treatment is proper too, and the medicine is suitable."

"Long ago, I studied medicine a little."

Enrico said it to Rosina in a mutter, with a wry smile.

Which meant Enrico had treated this child.

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"But it is too late to heal with medicine."

"As I thought. I thought magic medicine might do, and went to buy it... If she did not regain consciousness by tomorrow morning, I was also considering disposal."

"Disposal..."

Muriel and Sara, knowledgeable about slaves, glared at Enrico again.

But seeing Enrico’s face, as if he had bitten a bitter bug, that gaze turned down.

Muriel, who had been made to command in war, and Sara, who had been made to fight in the arena, probably knew well what that meant.

"So, can she be saved?"

"She can be saved, but not right away. Most of the wounds are ones quite a bit of time has passed on... Right, ten days at the soonest, maybe."

Her usual drawn-out tone hid itself, and she answered my question seriously.

In that time, Sheena cast healing magic over the whole body.

Rosina, finished talking, also started casting magic on the worst wounds among them.

"I will help too."

"Ah, me too."

Birga and Sophia entered the cell too and chanted healing magic.

I suddenly felt a gaze, so I turned, and Tiria was appealing with her eyes.

I knew what she wanted to say.

"Yeah, that’s fine."

I nodded, and Tiria entered the cell too and chanted healing magic after Birga and Sophia.

Maybe because more people were healing the wounds, Rosina left the healing of the wounds to them and carefully undid the bandages on the head as well.

Long black hair spilled out.

She seemed to be a girl.

Looked over again, one could tell she had features like Yuki’s.

Next, large drooping ears like a dog’s appeared.

"Uh, the Bista beastkin, was it?"

"Yes. The wolf-dog breed."

Enrico answered.

Wolf-dog... breed...?

"Among the Bista beastkin there are three breeds: the wolf-dog breed, the tiger-cat breed, and the rabbit-rat breed. The ears are distinctive, and drooping ears like hers are the wolf-dog breed."

To me, who had tilted my head, Muriel quietly told me.

Come to think of it, when we took Torrestia, there had been Dules with all sorts of ears.

I had known they were Bista beastkin, but not the difference in breeds.

I looked into the cell again. Those distinctive ears were torn partway and festering.

But Rosina ignored that and first cast healing magic over the whole head.

After a while, the girl stirred a little.

Then she opened her eyes a crack.

She seemed to have regained consciousness.

"Oh!"

Enrico raised a voice of wonder.

Good.

For now, with this...

"!"

Suddenly the girl opened her eyes wide, sprang up, and leapt to a corner of the room.

"Guh!"

But she could not even land. She fell on her rear and slammed her back into the wall.

"N-no, don’t move suddenly!"

Rosina shouted and moved to approach with Birga.

"D-don’t come!"

The girl raised a shout.

Those words were different from the words I had been hearing until now, but they were nostalgic words.

I looked at Yuki before I could stop myself.

Yuki looked at me too.

The language of our homeland, the one I always spoke with Yuki at night.

"It is all right. We are only healing your injuries..."

Rosina approached while calling gently to the frightened girl.

"Uuuu..."

But the girl raised her tail and growled, as if threatening.

"It is all right. No need to worry. We are allies."

I smiled and spoke to her in the language the girl spoke.

Then the girl looked at me with wide eyes.

"Tenshou... Shin... -sama..."

Then she muttered in a voice so faint it could barely be heard.

The people around looked at me too, surprised.

But I had no memory of this girl, and to begin with I knew no one among the Bista beastkin.

And I had never heard of a Tenshou Shin.

Had she mistaken me for someone?

The girl tried to walk toward me, but after about three steps her strength gave out and she collapsed.

Rosina, who caught her in a hurry, laid her on the futon, and with the others resumed treatment.

"An acquaintance?"

"No, I don’t know her... I think."

While answering Muriel, I looked at Tiria and Yuki.

Tiria had been with me the whole time since I came to this world... she should have, and Yuki had been my lover in the previous world... apparently.

Those two shook their heads, so I did not know her... I should not.

First of all, I had no acquaintance who was a girl with dog ears... I thought.

"Um, but her features resemble Japanese people... the people of Master’s homeland."

"No one said you could speak."

"I-I am sorry!"

Scolded for speaking on her own, Yuki bowed her head in a hurry.

But not only that. She had probably been stopped from speaking my secret where outsiders such as Enrico and Azret were.

Luckily, Enrico and Azret only wore puzzled faces, and neither cut in.

"Anyway, she seems to be recovering, so leave the rest to Rosina and the others."

I said that and looked at Rosina, and she nodded firmly.

Then the other four nodded too.

Reliable.

"Thank you. Then, please relax upstairs."

Enrico moved to guide us back the way we had come.

"Wait a moment."

Azret stopped him.

"Is something the matter?"

Enrico asked Azret.

I too, at Azret’s serious face, waited for the next words, wondering if something was up.

"Are there no other slaves?"