What appeared in front of us was indeed quite fucking awful.
Although it is a pretty common trope in all of Isekai, I had always hoped that such stuff actually didn't happen in this world.
But yeah, when we massacred the bandits and saved this family of hunters from being sold as slaves, we realized that it wasn't the case.
Slavery is quite certainly a thing in here. Especially in these "lawless" areas of the city.
So the thing in front of us when we just arrived here was a large group of slaves, around ten ice giants raging in ages, from kids around 5 to older women with ages similar to Draugann, all of them wearing these damned Slave Collars and being lined up for exhibition.Most of the common folk can't afford slaves or simply don't like the practice, but there is a lot of merchants going around here, and all of these disgusting old men looked at these people with eyes filled with interest. It seems that it is always interesting to look up for slaves to these idiots.
"How awful…" sighed Benladann, her face seemed to be filled with pity to these people.
Maybe we could have resisted the urge to feel pity if they were criminals or something, but these people clearly looked like common folk, there was even a little 6-year-old boy there… What the fuck is wrong with these people?
I really just wanted to rush there and crush into pulp the seller while freeing the rest of these people…
But of course, I would never do something as reckless.
"To think that we saved ourselves from being sold as slaves…"
"Indeed, it was all thanks to our lord…""Our lord's benevolence knows no bounds, he doesn't even treat us as servants…"
"Oi, what are you implying? You're not my slaves! If I ever work out you to death it's because I want you to grow stronger," I said.
"Fufu, my lord, we didn't mean that…" chuckled Dregeann, the mother of the family.
"Anyways, it is indeed awful, but we can't do anything, for now, we must first get inside and investigate, Benladann," I said, as I held her hand tightly.
"I-I see… Yeah, I understand…" she sighed, as she walked at my side, glancing at the little and malnourished boy chained together as he trembled in fear while the various merchants looked at him as a "good".
"(Of course, this is a lawless area, isn't it? Then I don't think these slave traders will mind us cutting their throats at night. After all, anything goes here, isn't it?)" I told her through telepathy.
Benladann's yellow-gold eyes immediately flashed with a crimson hue.
"Hm… That's right…" she said.
Perhaps at day, we won't do anything… But what about the night? What if we just infiltrate the slave trader's hideout, kill him and his thugs, and we rescue these people, putting them inside Fuyu and protecting them while rehabilitating them?
Doesn't sound so hard to pull out, as long as there are no survivors.
But for now, let's concentrate on the present.
We reached into the deeper areas of the outskirt town, as the hunter family led us through the area towards their hut. Through the way, we saw a lot of farms with big, blue-colored plants growing in shallow water, they reminded me of rice… And indeed, they were rice-like plants named White Grain.
They were used as a cheaper replacement for bread, and the people here boiled it just like rice and ate it with boiled and pickled vegetables, meat, and so on. It was a staple for poor families.
The snow was soft beneath our boots, as we slowly walked over it and rounded up most of the town, seeing the large houses constructed by the ice giants where many people lived
"Here's our hut!" said Gaston, the father of the hunter family, their cabin was quite big, and it had two floors too.
"Oh, looks like a nice place," I said.
"Come in here for a little bit, let me offer you some herbal tea, my lord," said Dregeann. As we accepted and entered their humble home.
They had a large table where they usually sat around to eat, we were served not only herbal tea but some things we had not eaten before, which they had saved in the house, such as boiled White Grains, with dried salted fish, pickled radish, and permafrost carrots, and even a boiled egg on top, which was made with the rice.
"it looks so good! Thank you for the meal!"
Benladann quickly began to dig in, as I started with the big, boiled egg, cutting it into pieces as I saw the tenderness of the white part and the yellow yolk inside… This egg was like a whole ostrich egg, so it was immense! But for an ice giant, it might not look so big, mostly because I remember my past life and the little eggs we had back then.
It was a bit salted, so when I took a little piece of the egg with some rice on top, the flavors went pretty nice. Although a bit dry, nothing that some herbal yea didn't take down.
The egg was indeed nice. We had been trying to find eggs this whole time, but the ice crows hide them way too well… And our own crows have not laid any eggs either, I don't think they like each other, despite being male and female.
I devoured everything in no time and called for seconds. We ended eating like four plates before we decided to stop to leave some for the rest of the family. My stomach was bigger than it seemed, so I could keep eating for hours if I wanted. But this was more than enough for now.
"Thanks a lot, that was delicious. I loved the boiled eggs… I wonder if we could make cheese omelet with it, or fry it with grease oil…" I said.
"Omelet?" wondered the hunter family, it seems that they didn't know about the preparation of such a thing using eggs… Hehe, I shall show you later on!
After our meal, we rushed outside to go shopping.
However, there was a shady group of guys waiting for us outside.
