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Chapter 110: What Are You Making Again? (1)

“Alright, make sure to stamp your palm clearly.”

Ghislaine presented the slave contract. The bold letters declaring ’10 years’ stood out, glaring at them.

Claude and Alfoy, along with the wizards, trembled as they accepted the contract. Signing it meant they would become real slaves from that moment onward.

With tears welling in his eyes, Claude said, “W-wouldn’t a draw be better?”

“What nonsense is that? I won. Hurry up and stamp it.”

“Can’t we just work hard without a salary? Must it be a slave contract…”

He thought it sounded like saying that being unpaid was like being a slave, but he never expected her to actually bring a slave contract.

What a mind-boggling person she was.

“Hey, you agreed to work hard, didn’t you? This is to make it official. You could run away saying you couldn’t stand it.”

“Ugh…”

Having bet against the lord without a trace of fear, he had to take responsibility now.

If he refused at this point, it would cost him his life.

With a lost expression, Claude slowly placed his hand over the contract.

“Aah, I really should quit gambling. This is filthy, seriously. I’ll stamp it! Here I am, begging through tears, and you don’t even care!”

Bang!

The moment Claude stamped his palm, he immediately folded his tears away.

“Done? Ugh, I knew it would feel fishy. The lord sure does love to gamble. Let’s see what comes next.”

Claude was quick to give up, accustomed as he was to losing at gambling.

But as the heir to the Mage Tower, Alfoy was different.

This was the first time he was treated so terribly. And all for merely losing a bet.

Tears streamed down his face, real tears, not for show.

“I-I can’t do it! I don’t want to! No way!”

Alfoy stood up, hesitatingly taking a step back.

Claude snickered beside him, his tongue clicking.

“That’s what gambling is all about. Losing limbs and then regretting it until you die. ‘Why did I do that?’ You’ll think. It’s laughable!”

“You jerk! Am I like you? Like you? You’re a gambler by nature! I’m not!”

“Then who jumped into this high-stakes bet in the first place? Only pros should be in on this, not beginners like you.”

“It’s because of you! I trusted you because you seemed so confident! I thought you would win!”

“How would I know?”

Claude shrugged with a smug expression, as if saying he had no responsibility.

Alfoy, infuriated by Claude’s shameless attitude, started lashing out.

“I’m not at fault! It’s all the Chief Officer’s doing! I didn’t know! My circumstances are different! Please, let me off!”

“Oh, act like this at a gambling house, and you’d really be in trouble.”

“Shut up! It’s your fault!”

Claude was already half a slave due to the debt he owed Ghislaine.

But the wizards were different.

It had already been half a year since they arrived here. With just another half a year, they could return to the Mage Tower.

Yet being abandoned in this pathetic place for ten years was quite the predicament.

“I swear I’ll never do it!”

Ghislaine nodded in response.

“Then you’ll die.”

“I don’t want to!”

Crash!

The mercenaries nearby caught the fleeing Alfoy and forced him down against the ground.

Even on the floor, Alfoy kept squirming until the mercenaries held swords to his neck, at which point he stopped thrashing.

“Hey! This is too much! I’m the heir to the Mage Tower! You can’t treat me like this!”

Ghislaine grinned wickedly at him.

“Do you know why I didn’t intervene when you were acting all high and mighty?”

“What?”

“If I had beaten you down there, you would’ve just apologized and backed off. That wasn’t the goal.”

“You, you couldn’t be…”

Alfoy’s face went pale.

Thinking back, the lord had been quietly observing since the time he made the bet, a stark contrast to how he usually dealt with unruly behavior.

Recently, Ghislaine had merely smiled, no matter how much Alfoy mocked him.

Alfoy thought maybe Ghislaine had completely given up.

The strangely relaxed attitude made him a bit uneasy, but he brushed it off as arrogance.

But maybe…

“You… you didn’t intentionally draw me into this bet, did you?”

“Now you’re starting to catch on?”

Ghislaine grinned widely.

Alfoy and the wizards were left smiting the ground in regret.

They should have suspected something was off when this ill-tempered fellow wasn’t acting like his usual self.

Caught up in the excitement of winning the bet, they had failed to notice Ghislaine’s true intentions.

They thought insisting on not canceling the bet was merely about preserving their pride.

If he had really thought he would lose, he would have just gone all-out to beat everyone into submission. But that thought never crossed his mind.

Ghislaine licked his lips, as though feeling a twinge of disappointment.

“Honestly, I was hoping for more people to fall for it, but not many took the bait. Still, with one Chief Officer and six wizards, that’s quite the catch, isn’t it?”

“Ugh, you devil…”

“What are you talking about? How could someone as conscientious as me be in the wrong? I didn’t force anyone to bet. It’s just a fair outcome. Now, hurry up and stamp it. You already signed a confidentiality contract, so this works out perfectly.”

While moving forward with this scheme, Ghislaine had one concern in mind.

That the wizards might leak the spells and magic circles used in this operation to someone else.

Yet now that they were slaves, there would be at least some minimum restraint on that.

If a slave revealed their master’s secrets, it would surely cost them their head. If they valued their life, they wouldn’t speak.

“I don’t want to! I don’t want to!”

As Alfoy held out, Ghislaine sighed and pulled out an axe from her belt.

“Well, if you hate it that much, what can I do? Since you’ve helped me and we share some bonds, I’ll settle for a wrist.”

“Wait! Do we really have to do this?”

“It wouldn’t be honorable for a lord to just let it slide. My dignity would be at stake.”

“Dignity? Honor? You didn’t care about those before! What lord goes around swinging an axe like that?”

“Now I’m planning to care a bit. I need to start building ties with the other nobles too. Losing a hand won’t affect my magic at all, right?”

Claude chimed in jokingly from the side.

“Right. Losing a wrist should be the price to pay to quit gambling. If not, next up is the ankle.”

“Shut it!”

“Okay then, off goes a wrist.”

With a terrifying expression, Ghislaine raised the axe.

Alfoy’s face turned pale.

This crazy woman would charge full speed ahead once she made a decision.

Just as Ghislaine was about to bring the axe down, Alfoy shouted in desperation, “I’ll do it! I’ll sign the contract!”

*

Ghislaine received the contracts from the other wizards and tucked them away carefully.

Alfoy gleamed with excitement as he watched her place the documents somewhere.

‘I need to tear that up.’

Even without magical constraints, a record would remain.

There was no way he could leave evidence that he, an heir to the Mage Tower, had signed a slave contract.

While Alfoy concocted his plan, Ghislaine handed a new document to Claude.

“Here, take this.”

“What is this…?”

“Something else you need to do.”

“Are you joking? I already have so much work!”

“Nope. You seem to be doing a fine job so let’s add this. It’ll be quick.”

“…and what happens when it’s done?”

“A new task begins.”

Claude rolled his eyes as if he was expecting that.

But when Ghislaine raised her fist, he immediately lowered his head and started skimming through the papers.

“What is this? It’s just names listed here…”

“Oh, I need you to locate these people and bring them to our territory. Anyone unwilling must not be forced. If they need money, feel free to give them whatever they ask. They’re important people, so treat them delicately. Got it?”

Narrowing his eyes as he checked the suspected locations written on the list, Claude blinked.

“Seriously, you want all these people brought here? Are their locations accurate?”

“Probably. Some might be elsewhere right now. There’s nothing to be done about that.”

The document Ghislaine handed him was a list of followers he had in his previous life.

If he could find all those thousands of followers, that would be fantastic, but realistically, that wasn’t an easy task.

So he picked through them, recalling only those who had talent and were absolutely necessary for his territory.

His standards were quite modest.

“That’s over a hundred people.”

“Yeah, that’s not too many.”

Claude bit down hard to hold back his anger. The paper he was gripping crumpled in his hands.

In truth, finding people wasn’t too difficult.

Since he wasn’t dragging anyone against their will, it wasn’t necessary to track someone down if they weren’t present.

The real problem was simply the lack of anyone available to do the task.

“We’re already short on people to work in our territory! When in the world are we going to gather everyone from another country? We don’t even have anyone to send!”

“Just find someone from other territories too. Use the information guild if needed. Money is no object here.”

“Ugh… damn it!”

Claude felt like cursing but quickly shut his mouth.

Even before becoming a slave, he was the kind of man who would throw a punch if things went awry, but now that he had signed a slave contract, there was no way they could stop him outright.

“Aah, I’m exhausted.”

He was already overwhelmed with work, sleep-deprived and feeling as if he might die, only to keep being loaded with more tasks.

Had he realized just how dreadful this turn of events was, he would have never followed out of gratitude.

He’d really landed in a serious mess.

“Since I can’t turn back time… I’ll just have to avoid you as much as possible.”

Claude took a subtle step back, trying to escape before the work was dumped onto him.

But just then, Ghislaine muttered softly, causing Claude to freeze in place.

“Hmm, now that we’ve secured food, it’s time to start a business to make some money.”

“What are you plotting now?! You packed so much into the Mana Convergence Circle already. The territory residents have more than enough to survive. What else do you plan to start in this pathetic land? Is there even anything to sell?”

“Don’t touch that. I’ll just stockpile as much as I can to use when it’s needed later.”

“Wow, this is frustrating.”

Claude sighed as he looked up at the ceiling.

The most fundamental and critical problem had been solved.

Now, if he just used that to make money, everything would be done, so why was he suddenly acting like a miser?

“There’s way too much to stockpile. Wheat isn’t something that can sit for long. What will happen when it all rots?”

Every territory would stockpile food in preparation for famine or war.

But the wheat Ghislaine had improved, even in large quantities, could last a long while.

He wouldn’t be able to consume it all, so what was the point of stockpiling?

Ghislaine spoke dismissively, “Our food doesn’t spoil that easily. Even just storing it away will keep for a couple of years.”

“Is that really true?”

“We can sell or distribute it cheaply just before it’s about to spoil. Since it’s big, it shouldn’t be hard to sell later.”

Claude nearly instinctively retorted before swallowing the words back.

He didn’t know a thing about that crazy wheat, so it was hard to speculate.

In any case, he’d find out soon enough in a few years.

“Fine, whatever. But stockpiling food means we’ll still have to keep selling Runestones… so how will we make money?”

“I can’t create resources, so we’ll have to make specialty products. That’ll earn us some cash.”

“Oh wow, you think our lord can do anything… did you think I would say that? Do you think specialty products are just made on a whim?”

What could be produced in a land lacking resources and technology? Unless there were specific techniques secured, it was obvious they wouldn’t even be able to ‘produce,’ let alone create a ‘specialty.’

Claude narrowed his eyes, glaring at Ghislaine.

“That wheat was only possible thanks to using mana. Making anything else is a whole different story. We need techniques and people. Do we have any of that in our territory right now?”

“We don’t have any yet.”

“Then what will we even make? Don’t waste time and money on pointless things; just sell the food. Please, let’s think logically!”

At that, Ghislaine laughed wickedly once again.

“Wanna bet? This time, let’s raise it to 20 years.”

“Wait! Hold on! Ugh, man.”

Just as Claude was about to yell, he stopped short, instinctively sensing something ominous.

His gambling instincts kicked in, and a brake was suddenly engaged in his mind.

 

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