What Makes A Good Lord? (5)

Lately, I truly felt what people meant when they said time flew.

After meeting the god, my daily life changed and I lived quite a different life, but I was still able to recover to some extent.

Now, instead of bowing their heads to greet me, they simply spoke to me with consistent honorifics.

What was more, it was about to be two weeks since the imperial princess had left.

“They said they’d settle accounts every half month, so will they send various things today…?”

As I thought about the future while making a cosmetic from Tiger’s Fang Grass—nicknamed “Tiger Balm”—Beni, beside me, chimed in.

“What kind of goods do you think they’ll send?”

Over the two weeks, Beni and I had become quite close; perhaps because we’d shared some heated nights, Beni no longer minded having her body touch mine.

Even now, she clung to my arm as if tucking her chest around it and spoke to me in a coy voice.

“We’ll get a response from the supply line soon. Before that, shall we finish this first…?”

Unlike simply pressing out juice, the production of “Tiger Balm” enhanced the effect by adding medicinal ingredients that could help improve the skin, and after Seria and Beni were the first to apply it, their skin had grown so clear and luminous by the day as to be hardly recognizable.

Thanks to that, the days I embraced Beni felt… happy.

Even Allena noticed Beni’s change and quietly asked for some Tiger Balm, so I planned to distribute it to the maids.

“Tiger Balm feels like a magical cosmetic.”

Judging from the sparkles in Beni’s eyes, she liked it a lot. In this world, things that should have developed generally hadn’t, or people simply didn’t think along those lines.

The idea of “improving the skin” hadn’t even occurred to them.

“Well, maybe because of the Demon God’s curse, they don’t feel the need to care for themselves…”

Maybe I was accelerating(?) the Demon God’s curse. As time passed, men who couldn’t get erections and women who kept becoming more beautiful. Perhaps, looking at those women, men would feel something akin to torture.

Would they resent me or curse me?

I mused on that for a moment, then snorted.

“With invigorators around, maybe it’s all okay…?”

It might be a good deal for everyone: women who steadily cared for themselves and became more beautiful, and a medicine that ensured that effort didn’t go to waste.

Well, even without men, I figured there were always women in any world who wanted to take care of themselves.

“They may think Tiger’s Fang Grass has no value now… but later, its value will surely change.”

For the moment, its health effect might be called minor, but when it came to skin, Tiger’s Fang Grass had efficacy superior to any other herb. I imagined its value would spike before long and it might even vanish from the fields.

Back on Earth too, whenever rumors spread that something was “good for virility,” some animal would suffer near-extinction. I thought this might work along a similar vein.

“What are you thinking about?”

Beni, watching my expression, asked. So I told her the notion I’d just had, and she admired it, saying that was possible.

Truly, Beni was someone who was easily impressed by little things. After that, we sped up the Tiger Balm production; when we had filled one big tub and were portioning it out into suitable containers, we heard a knock at the workshop door.

I figured the moment had come; when I opened the door, Vincent stood there with an unfamiliar woman, and I asked out of curiosity:

“Who…?”

“We’re from the Emmanuel Merchant Company. I’m Janet, the company head. This trip wasn’t on the schedule, so we couldn’t bring a large party; only we merchants came separately. We came first to pay our respects to you, my lord.”

I hadn’t thought they’d arrive already.

But the woman who introduced herself as Janet cast a quick glance toward the workshop behind me. I subtly blocked the view and spoke.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Viscount of Ingrad. By the way, is it a three-day schedule?”

“Please, lower your form of address.”

“That’s for me to decide. For now, could you answer the question I asked?”

“Y-yes. It is. Three days. The item list is, first… this.”

She handed me a thick wad of papers. I received it and immediately passed it to Vincent.

“Since the butler, Vincent, manages goods, let’s go take a look.”

At my words, Janet bowed and stepped aside so I could pass. I wondered if all merchants were like this; when we reached the location of the teleportation array with her and Vincent, it was even more of a mess than I’d expected.

When had merchants and porters ever experienced a teleport before?

They’d apparently been gathered in a hurry, so it was obvious they had even less experience. At least Janet had recovered fairly quickly and made her way to me; she was a woman of grit.

“We’ll have to get this organized. Vincent, please. Oh, and give the people some medicine. Looking at them, if we’re unlucky, we won’t be able to make them work at all.”

“Understood, my lord.”

A brief look told me most of the “goods” were “humans.” It seemed the imperial princess of this empire intended to pay most of the cost in “slaves.”

Moreover, the slaves looked so terrified they were vomiting—and it wouldn’t have been strange if they dropped dead at any moment.

“Sigh, it’s true I’m short on humans, but I wasn’t planning to bring in slaves specifically…”

What with the beastkin, that would be more trouble still. Now it meant I had to worry about human slaves too. And from the piles of grain and tools for cultivating land, it seemed they fully intended to have this domain properly developed.

“How many did you bring?”

“Three hundred slaves and twenty overseers. The overseers will stay if you request it… but you will need to pay their wages separately.”

“Have them return. And it didn’t look like that many—three hundred?”

“We crammed as many as possible into the cargo hold…”

“Phew… What do you people think humans are?”

Hearing Janet’s words, I headed straight to the teleportation-array site and began opening the cargo compartments and hauling out all the slaves tangled up inside.

They were a mess with vomit, and some even looked physically unwell. It felt like they hadn’t bothered to select anyone when sending the slaves.

Or perhaps they had just handled it all on paper, without seeing anyone in person, I thought, and said:

“Vincent, examine all of them, and assign separate rooms so that those who seem in critical condition can rest. As for the rest, gather them in the courtyard and wash them. They’re filthy.”

What was a slave?

The thought crossed my mind for a second, but for now, I figured it was more important to make them at least functional as people.

I told the perplexed Janet to rest and went out to the courtyard. Seeing the maids hauling water at my order, I headed straight to the pressing workshop and asked the beastkin to help fetch water, too.

When the beastkin saw the suddenly appearing humans, they looked puzzled; when the slaves saw the beastkin, they trembled in terror. At that moment, I found myself with a fresh problem: how to bridge that gap.

The first task, of course, was to prepare lodgings where the slaves could stay. Ingrad Domain was an environment far too harsh for humans to live in as it was.

If you climbed the hill behind the manor, there were ruins where humans seemed to have lived long ago; I planned to refurbish that area first.

“Since it’s the first day, even if a lot of people have to bunk together, they probably won’t complain.”

After we washed the slaves caked in vomit, we climbed the hill together. I had asked the beastkin to survey the ruins ahead of time and clear out any monsters. I figured by the time we arrived, most of it would be taken care of.

Moreover, since this spot lay literally within the fence of the lord’s manor, the only monsters we might see would be “goblins” or “gremlins,” at most.

“Was I supposed to use casual speech to slaves no matter what…?”

It felt awkward for no reason.

“The place you’ll all be staying is a bit of a distance from the lord’s manor, but it’s also near the lord’s castle where I’ll be living from now on, so I’d like you to keep things clean when you live there…”

The silence with not a single reply felt awkward. After that, we walked in silence; when we arrived and looked around, I noticed a roadway that had been built long ago.

And, seeing the beastkin cheerfully waving from the wooded area at the end of the hill, I could tell they’d mostly finished the job. There was no need to destroy the forest; I thought we should use the area near the roadway first, so I halted the slaves and spoke.

“We’ll build houses for you to live in. So, once again: please keep things clean. Understood?”

“Yes…”

Many people answered in single syllables. Being slaves, and I being a lord and noble, they must have been careful—very careful—with their tongues.

Thinking of the nobles of this world, I figured a slave might lose their head for a single misplaced word.

Whether there were really those who went that far, I didn’t know—there weren’t many I’d seen with my own eyes. For the task at hand, I moved the slaves back and began raising buildings using Construction.

It was a single-story building that would remind you of a goshiwon—with each room about three pyeong in area, a size that would make basic living not too difficult.

I had no intention of truly working slaves to the bone. Since they had come to me, I intended to guarantee at least the minimum needed for them to live something like people, and as they stared, flustered, at the buildings rising up, I asked:

“Are there slaves who were brought here with family? If so, it would be best to say so right now.”

At my words, a few slaves raised their hands and clutched their families tight. Seeing children among them, I figured perhaps a whole family had become slaves due to some debt.

After separately identifying those who formed households, I assigned them appropriately sized rooms so they could live together; realizing these were houses for them to live in, they all stared at me in shock.

Wondering what I’d done wrong, I turned to Seria, who had come with me, and asked:

“Did I do something wrong?”

At my question, Seria let out a long sigh and said:

“Slaves are generally all crammed into one building to live. They aren’t given private space like this… let alone by a lord.”

“Ah, is that why they’re surprised?”

I thought they were overreacting to something trivial, but I didn’t yet realize this would become a turning point for the slaves.