Chapter 171: The History of the Slaves and the Traces of the Otherworlders (1/2)

“I will go and gather the slave candidates. Please wait here for a while. Oh, and before I forget, the basic things to pay attention to in regards to the slave laws and the how-tos of handling slaves can be found in this book here. We give it free to first-time customers, so please take it with you.” [Orest]

After the selection of the slave candidates, Mr. Moulton left a book with me and left.

As soon as the door to the room completely closed, the atmosphere in the room quickly loosened up.

“Good grief, you did well enduring him.” [Serge]

Starting with Serge-san, the adults all congratulated me for successfully enduring Mr. Moulton’s mischief.

“Still, he sure is an amazing person.” [Ryouma]

“Deep inside he really isn’t a bad person.” [Pioro]

“He’s just really unmanageable.” [Serge]

“Frankly, the fact that he’s bold enough to do whatever he wants when we’re right in front of him is worthy of praise.” [Reinhart]

“He was mostly looking at you, Boss, but he was also looking at me the entire time.” [Fei]

Huh, so the reason why Fei-san was so strangely quiet was because of that.

“I also didn’t expect that he would have investigated me that much. Did he investigate you guys too?” [Ryouma]

“Not really, but I think there is one thing he did that we all experienced.　That… Talk about slaves who are agreeable to night activities. He told me the same thing too in the past… And of all things, he said it right in front of my wife, Elize.” [Reinhart]

“When he did it to me, he started babbling about the night-service maids not just in front of my wife but in front of my daughter too. They looked at me so coldly afterwards. Miyabi’s eyes were especially cold…” [Pioro]

“That man has a bad habit of investigating his customers and prodding them to get reactions. I don’t know if it’s because he does stuff like that that he has such an eye for people or because he has an eye for people that he ended up learning that bad habit… The former president, his predecessor and father, supposedly had mixed feelings about that and cried a lot.

As I’ve said before, there’s no mistake that he’s a brilliant young man. But he’s also nasty enough to abuse his all-seeing eye to just barely avoid seriously angering the person he is talking to.” [Reinhart]

So despite treating his customers like that, he’s able to achieve a high satisfaction rate by thoroughly servicing his customers and avoiding any fatal pit falls that would truly enrage them.

What he’s doing requires an extremely good sense of balancing human relationships.

I don’t think I could do what he’s doing even if I tried. If I really did try it, I’ll probably end up destroying my store.

“Don’t worry. It’s impossible for me too.” [Pioro]

“He’s just wasting his talent. There’s no need to copy him. In fact, you shouldn’t copy him.” [Serge]

As they say, genius and insanity are separated only a by a thin veil. Seeing Mr. Moulton, I can’t help but think that true.

“Anyhow, we finally managed to gain ourselves a much needed break, so why don’t we relax for a while?” [Reinhart]

“Right.” [Ryouma]

“How about ordering some drinks?” [Pioro]

Pioro-san rang the bell and ordered some refreshments from the woman that came.

As for me, I decided to use the time to read the book I got from Mr. Moulton.

…First, regarding the basics of slave and the how-tos of handling them.

Unlike what the word ‘slave’ would suggest, the slaves of this world actually do have human rights.

Although slaves don’t have the freedom to choose the work they will be doing, they are – to some extent – able to push conditions on the person purchasing them.

They have the right to food, clothing, and shelter. They have the right to receive treatment when they fall ill or are wounded. And they also have the right to rest from time to time.

These conditions aren’t any different from what I’ve previously studied or from the treatment of the people I’ve hired normally, so I won’t have any problems here.

What I’m really interested in are the ‘old slave laws’ that were created at a certain country and were in effect before the present slave laws were implemented.

I’m also interested in the history during the time of the old slave laws until the time of the modern slave laws.

…These are some really interesting stuff.

The old slave laws tolerated the disregard of human rights and the cruel treatment of other humans.

The country these laws originated from no longer exist, but everything began from the implementation of one law.

There were rules regarding the slave system before then, but the treatment of slaves varied from territory to territory.

What standardized the treatment of the slaves and worsened it by a lot was the introduction of a tax known as the ‘Unemployment Tax’.

At the time, that country tasked the citizens with the same ‘duty of work’ as prescribed in the Japanese constitution.

I don’t know if that was done by an otherworlder like myself, but either way, neither Japan’s duty of work nor this country’s duty of work was meant to compel the citizens to work under forced labor. That was only something that came into play due to the introduction of the ‘unemployment tax’.

Supposedly, it was introduced with the hopes of encouraging the people to work and to enrich the country.