“Understood, so I just need to show this in the wharf.”
A messenger from the feudal lord arrived just as we were finishing breakfast, with the permit to board a ship.
It will leave after lunch, and we need to make sure we’re there on time. But it’s not today, so we’re going to the slaver like we planned.
“I see. This will free the slave, but that’s not a problem, right?”
“No problem.”
Sera and I face each other on top of a shady looking magic circle, and as the slaver chants a slave freeing spell, the collar around Sera’s neck breaks in two and falls on the ground.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes…”
Sera looks up, as if surprised by my question.
And then, I wipe the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You’re crying.”
I say, and she realizes she’s crying. She didn’t notice it at all.
Rurika and Chris come running, and they all smile at each other with tears in their eyes.
I hear something and look around, and see that Mia, and for some reason the slaver, are crying too.
Hikari is just staring at Rurika, Chris, and Sera.
“Do you want that off too?”
“…No, this is proof.”
I don’t understand what Hikari means.
The three of them calm down and come back, and we decide to celebrate Sera’s freedom by going to the only sort of cafe in Marte that sells Japanese-style sweets, and eat cake there. And after we leave, we wander around town.
I notice that Sera is a little more animated than usual, surely because she’s been liberated from that bond after such a long time.
She ussually has the air of an older sister around her, so it feels novel how she’s smiling more.
“Thanks.”
“Thank you.”
Rurika and Chris both thank me, but when I tell them we wouldn’t have taken so long if they were the ones who bought her, they look at me with perplexed expressions.
“Five hundred gold coins is a lot of money.”
They tell me they were saving money, in case the people they were looking for really did end up as slaves, but when they were reunited with Sera, they didn’t have quite enough money to buy her yet.
But on the other hand, does that mean they got a lot of money for those potions?
I don’t know how much they were worth before, but I imagine the war and the appearance of the demon king increased their demand. People were pretty happy when I picked medicinal herbs, so there probably aren’t a lot of people accepting those quests to begin with.
“That’s not it. It’s that there aren’t that many people that can pick them like you.”
“Yes. People don’t normally pick that much in a single day. If they do pick a lot, it’s because they stayed there for days.”
“Yes yes. But that also increases expenses, meaning profits aren’t as high too.”
I see. So that’s what it is… I picked that skill because it seemed like a standard one, but it really wasn’t a bad choice at all. The Appraisal skill really is overpowered.
That night, we all gather in Hikari and the others’ room again to talk about what I saw during the bandit hunt.
“Are slave crests a common thing?”
I ask, and three of them tilt their heads. Hikari doesn’t really react to my question, because she heard about them from Richard too.
“Where did you learn about that?”
Asks Chris with kind of a scary face.
“When I was fighting the bandits. The ones that attacked us were actually criminal slaves. I used Appraisal on them, so there’s no doubt about it, but they didn’t have collars. And then Richard, one of the knights, told me that the patterns on the bandits were actually slave crests.”
“Really? But we don’t hear about slave crests much nowadays. I have never seen one either.”
“Then how come you know about them?”
“Grandma Morrigan taught me about them.”
Then we turn to Rurika and Sera, who look away for some reason.
“Rurika never really liked to study.”
“W-well, I was still a little kid.”
Chris says with a sigh, and Rurika responds.
I’m assuming that since Sera’s name didn’t come up, this happened after the war.
“But as for slave crests, I don’t think they are in use in any of the countries we visited. Although they might be used in less legal slave routes.”
“So shadier slavers… Wait, we’re getting off track. Do slave crests have any bad effects on the people that carry them?”
“I have never heard of that… Did something happen?”
I talk about what happened when we fought the bandits, from beginning to end.
“If you cast Appraisal on them, that means it’s probably right, but… Crazed?”
“Yes. Like something made them go crazy.”
“That is news to me. And it made them stronger?”
“I can’t think of any other reason.”
“Yes, and one got stronger all of a sudden when he killed another.”
Hikari backs me up.
“And ma… S-Sora, he must’ve been really strong if he was able to go toe to toe with you.”
Sera is still having trouble saying my name. It just goes to show how long she had to call people master.
“He was fast too.”
Says Hikari, sounding frustrated, and making me remember just how strong he was.
“…Maybe it was just an isolated incident. But we should report it.”
I don’t know if I should report the part about him being a half demon, so I keep that to myself.
They don’t even know about the Crazed status condition, so I might end up fanning up some weird worries. And I don’t even have evidence, because he went back to human after he died.
It’s still a little hard for me to believe it too, to the point where I wonder if I didn’t just see something that wasn’t there.
Celes’ face suddenly pops into my mind, but there’s nothing I can do about it. If only I had a phone…
I’ve actually tried and failed to make a magic item to use for communication already.
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Thx for chapter so that’s how they gathered money well if its potions then isn’t the mc just paying twice. Half demons this could spell trouble for the future if they are involved
Thanks for the treat.
Who is Celes?
The library lady back in the academy city. In cahoots with the demons and guild master.