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Chapter 49: Polyergus Ant

 

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That night on top of my bed.

I was sprawled out and staring at my DORECA.

True Eternal Slave.

A new weapon that used Eternal Slave Kai as material.

By all accounts it was the superior version…the stronger one.

As usual it required 0 magic——and the materials were related to slaves.

Slave Heart x4.

There was a problem.

It needed 4 materials…and I had 3 slaves.

I didn’t have enough.

I did not have enough to make it.

Most likely I’d need one more slave.

I had no problem with increasing my slaves, if I had the chance, I’d take it.

The problem is I hadn’t seen any.

「Haaaa……」

I sighed and closed my DORECA.

Seiya’s slave popped into my head.
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「The town of Pelmi has been destroyed.」

I’d just begun work in the morning when I received that report from Yuria.

The contents of that report were so amazing, but she said them with the same look as usual on her face.

「Where’s Pelmi?」
「It’s past the town of Bisk. They had asked for help and had been given pushinee to help with their food shortage.」
「Fumu」

I hadn’t been told about this, but I don’t particularly mind.

My policy was to share pushinee with places that asked, Yuria was left to deal with such matters.

「The town was destroyed…who did it.」

I asked, but I already had my suspicions.

「Maxim」
「As I thought. Why?」
「As usual, he attacked the town, destroyed it, and took all the people away for labor.」
「Ah…」
I nodded in understanding.

「They’re like Polyergus ants.」

They are a species of ants that fundamentally don’t have worker ants.

Instead of that, they have their soldier ants attack other colonies and steal away their hard worker ants to use in their workforce.

It’s like 「grasshopper play」 in a game.

Maxim is like that, he didn’t bother to take care of his economic responsibilities and instead focused on military matters. The only way to maintain his way of living was to steal away the workforce of other places.

I was discovering less and less reasons to even contemplate surrendering to Maxim.
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I took Mira with me and headed to the town of Pelmi.

「It’s awful……」

Mira covered her mouth at a loss for words.

The town of Pelmi had been reduced to ashes.

The ruins of the town itself didn’t even feel like people had lived in them.

「There was no reason for this…」

Mira and I entered a home that was only half burnt, but we could see that all the valuables had been taken.

Nothing useful was left, I was sure they’d been stolen.

I looked around the interior of the home and heard voices from outside.

「Why’d we hafta come back to this town ahh?」
「We left this town burnt, but there’s a lot of stuff left over. Hidden wealth, hidden rooms, and children hidden away…」
「Yeah yeah, we gotta check.」

All of those men spoke in disgusting voices.

I took Mira with me and exited the house.

There we saw three men dressed in military outfits.

「Oi, you guys.」
「Oh they’re actually here!」
「See, there’s stuff still left over.」
「Some ‘good fortune’ left over huh?」

They all guffawed.

「You guys are Maxim’s subordinates?」
「So what?」
「Who’s the highest rank?」
「It’s me. What? You want to bribe us to let you go? Let me just tell you th——」

I touched the blue gem and sucked Mira into my blade.

It turned into an ice sword. I split the two men who hadn’t spoken up in half.

They were split in half, yet not a drop of blood came out, because they’d been completely frozen.

「—at bribes won’t work on me ya got it?」

He hadn’t had enough time to process what had happened.

He looked at me, then at his two companions.

He looked confused for a moment, then flew into a rage as he understood what had happened in a split second.

「You bastard!」
「Fuu…」

I swung the ice blade again.

This time I didn’t cut anything. I increased the freezing power and froze the man’s lower half.

From his stomach downwards he was frozen and unable to move.

I stood before the man as he finally completely understood his situation. The blood drained from his face and he looked at me in fear.

「Pl-please, let me go.」
「Answer me. What happened to the people in this town? Did you kill them?」
「Th-they haven’t been killed. They’re precious workforce.」
「……where did you take them」
「O-over there. That squad has them」

He motioned towards the gate with his chin. His hands were still frozen so he was unable to point.

「How many are in the squad?」
「Th-there are 300 in total. When we arrive to attack a town there are usually that many.」
「I see.」
「P-please. Just let me——」

Once again I swung my slave ice sword.

The man who had been begging for his life was completely encased in ice.

I left the three of them there and exited Pelmi.

(Master are you going?)
「Yeah」
(Ok!)

Mira said and I felt as if she was nodding emphatically.

The cold air emanating from the sword seemed to become much stronger all at once.

After walking in the direction that the man had indicated we finally saw them.

There were many tents each with Maxim’s soldiers surrounding them.

For some reason, they seemed to be in an uproar.

I approached from the rear to watch.

I saw a disgusting sight.

The soldiers had made a ring where a young man, with his hands tied behind his back, was in the ring with a long clawed slave beast.

The man and the beast were fighting.

「Hey hey what’s wrong? Be more serious about this!」
「Yeah! Remember your wife and kids will be released if you win!」
「If you lose, your wife and kids will be ours to play with.」

As the soldiers cheered, I saw a woman and children in the distance.

And even further away I saw townspeople and slave beasts all bound.

……it was an enraging sight.

I called out from behind the closest man.

「Oi」
「What? It’s just getting good, talk to me later.」
「……oi」
「I said talk to me l——」
「Mira」
「Un!」

I touched the jewel once more and made an ice sword.

Then I split him in half.

「Wh-who are you!?」
「A-an enemy!?」
「He came alone? Reckless!」

The soldiers all turned to face me, cursing and pulling out their weapons.

「Around 300 hmm?」
(Let’s do it Master!!)
「I intend to.」

I was filled with anger as I swung my sword.

I cut one after another.

Yet not a drop of blood was shed.

I wonder if Mira was angry as well, because the cold strengthened even further as frozen body parts were scattered everywhere.

「Why are you——」
「You won’t get away with thi——」
「Please save m——」

They were all split apart without a chance to finish their sentences.

Nor were they able to escape.

I put more magic into my sword.

Altogether I must’ve put in around 100,000 magic into my sword.

The resulting cold was incredible and I used it to freeze the soldiers’ feet to the ground so they couldn’t run.

It didn’t take more than half an hour to eliminate all 300 of them.
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「Are you all alright?」

I returned to the captured townspeople of Pelmi and used my sword to begin removing their bindings.

「Hii」

They were frightened and stared at Eternal Slave Kai.

「Oh, sorry.」

I let Mira out.

The blade returned to being metal and the freezing power disappeared.

「There, it should be alright now.」

It wasn’t necessary, but I let Mira out to reassure them.

「A person came out of the sword……is than an eternal slave?」

A bound man said.

「Yeah, how’d you know?」
「I knew about them, but I’d never seen them before.」
「There weren’t any in Pelmi?」
「No.」

The man shook his head. It’s a bit of a shame.

I needed four slave hearts so I was hoping that Pelmi might have an eternal slave.

Well…I guess it can’t be helped.

I released the townspeople one after another.

They released more townspeople as well.

Before long everyone had been released.

「I don’t know who you are, but you saved us.」

Their representative was the mayor-looking older man who stood in front of me.

We were talking and when it reached to the point where I was asking what they’d do from now on…

「I will——」
「Master!」

Mira yelled loudly from behind me.

It was a voice filled with surprise.

「What’s wrong?」

I turned and looked at Mira.

Several unconscious humans lay at her feet.

They weren’t soldiers, and I could see slave beast claws lying around.

It looked as though she’d taken it upon herself to defeat the slave beasts.

「You turned them back into people, good job.」
「Forget about that Master, look at this girl.」
「Hm?」

I approached Mira and looked down.

I was surprised and figured out why Mira had called me.

It was a girl with golden hair and pointed ears.

She looked almost like an elf——an eternal slave.

「She’s the same as me」

Mira murmured.
Yes indeed…she was just like Mira, an Eternal Slave who had been turned back from a slave beast.

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