Extra's Survival: Raising SSS-Rank Characters Is My Only Option

For the first time since Jin had met him, Sir Gareth’s face showed open surprise.

However, it lasted only a moment before the old knight put it away, but it had been there, and the other three knights weren’t nearly as fast. Harun’s mouth was actually wide open.

”Freeing him, young master?” Sir Gareth repeated carefully,

”Yes. That is what I said. What is the procedure?”

”That depends.” The knight spoke slowly. ”On what kind of slave the boy is.”

Jin paused.

He knew slavery existed in this world. Of course, he did. The novel was full of it.

Elven slaves sold for high prices in underground markets, the barbarian slaves captured after the war, the harsh mines of the north housing thousands of slaves, etc.

The author had written much on it and how the heroes saved them from their fate. But he had never bothered to write how any of it actually worked.

How a person was owned, how one is priced, transferred, freed, or anything else for that matter.

It was either that the author thought it wasn’t important or he was too lazy to do so.

”There are kinds?” Jin asked, with a blank face, trying to feign ignorance.

”Two, young master. Broadly speaking.”

The knight held up one finger. ”Bought Slaves.” A second finger. ”And bound.”

”What’s the difference?”

Jin asked rather bluntly.

Sir Gareth stared at him because the knowledge about the slaves was pretty much common, and the young master himself had even brought one - but still he wasn’t aware of it.

’But then again, he never paid attention to any lessons.’

The infamy of Encrid was so high that Sir Gareth genuinely thought the brat must have drunk through the lesson if he ever learned on the topic, that is.

”A bought slave is property by paper and by tally,” Sir Gareth said. ”It’s similar to how we trade. A deed of sale, a name in the registry and a tally-brand. Here.” He tapped the back of his hand.

”Struck when they are first captured or put into sale with a sealer’s iron. It is small, but it is also permanent.”

”Permanent?”

Jin turned his attention to Gus and noticed a brand on his forearm - a cross enclosed within a circle. The mark looked like an old burn, its charred flesh long since healed into a scar.

Amid everything that had happened, Jin had never paid Gus much attention. It didn’t help that Gus always wore long sleeves, deliberately keeping the mark hidden from view.

”Permanent. That is the entire point of it. A bondmark is expensive, but a tally costs a few coppers, so every slave in the empire carries one. A man with a tally on his hand and no papers in his hand belongs to whoever catches him- anywhere, under any lord - and catching him pays a bounty. To be honest, that’s why most slaves don’t run. There is nowhere to run to as the mark goes with them.”

Jin took in everything the old knight said.

”And when a slave is freed? Is there a way to remove this tally?”

”Nothing takes it off. At manumission, the administration strikes a counterbar through the tally and enters the name in the freeman’s rolls. The bar and the deed together are his proof of freedom.”

Sir Gareth paused.

”The empire does not let anything be free easily, young master.”

Jin didn’t know why, but he felt like those words had deeper meaning than what he could understand now.

”So a freed slave walks around for the rest of his life wearing the brand?”

Sir Gareth just nodded.

Jin could feel Gus visibly tiring grow as small as possible - he couldn’t even begin to imagine what emotions the boy might be feeling right now.

”And what about a bound slave?”

”A bound slave is bond marked.” He touched the back of his own neck, just below the skull. ”A brand, set here, over the spine-seal. It is not done with Iron and fire like a tally. It is done by a licensed sealer, and it costs accordingly.”

”What does it do?”

”At the rite, a sigil is struck - a coin of star iron, quenched in the master’s blood. From that day - the two are linked. If the master grips the sigils and wills it, the slave feels pain. The distance and place don’t matter. If the master breaks the sigil, even my mistake.....the slave’s heart stops.”

The old knight said it like a fact about the world. ”That is why marked slaves do not run young masters. There is no distance that helps.”

Jin kept his face still.

Somewhere in the back of his head, a scene from one of the volumes was quietly clicking into place. A minne overseer, standing on a wall, and a runaway in the field below - and the overseer had crushed something in his fist, and the man had simply fallen mid-stride, like a puppet with the strings cut.

The comment section and the forums had argued about that scene for a week. Magic? Poison? A skill? Until the author revealed in later Chapters.

’Life and death in a coin....and there are licensed people to carry it out.’

Jin hated how cruel it was, and at the same time - he once again realized that he was no longer in a civilization made of equality.

But he still had one question.

”If there exists such an airtight method, why does the paper kind exist at all?” he asked. ”Why aren’t all slaves marked?”

”Gold, young master. Gold.”

Sir Gareth said as if it was obvious.

”The sealer’s fee, the rite of branding. A bondmark costs more than most slaves do. Not to mention there are only a few sealers because of the limited Star Iron - nowadays, there are only so many that you can count them on fingers.”

Jin remembered that.

”You only mark what is valuable, or what is dangerous. A trained sword, a master craftsman, a slave with talent worth the strangling.” Sir Gareth shrugged with his eyebrows. ”An attendant? A scullery boy? That is silver thrown in a well.”

Jin turned and looked at Gus.

He was standing exactly where he’d been, watching the conversation about the rest of his life with fixed attention of a mouse watching a circling hawk.”

”So he is a bought slave.”

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