By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter 21

Chapter 5 Episode 21: The History of Slavery, and the Footsteps of the One Who Came before

“Please wait here while I gather up the candidates you’ve requested. And this booklet outlines general information and warnings regarding your new slave. Please feel free to keep a copy for yourself.” Moulton left after placing the booklet before us, having narrowed down the candidate pool some more.

When the door closed shut, the air in the room relaxed at once.

“Well...we survived that,” Serge said, and the others chimed in.

“He was quite a character,” I said.

“He’s...not a bad guy, deep down.”

“Just hard to deal with.”

“It never ceases to amaze me how brazen he can be in the company of all of us.”

“When he wasn’t looking at you, he was looking at me,” Fay admitted. So that’s why he didn’t say much during the meeting...

“I didn’t expect to have been inspected so closely. Did he do the same to all of you?”

“He hasn’t dug into my life like that, but I think we’ve all had a similar experience with him, like the bit about...choosing a slave who is willing to engage sexually. He gave me that spiel, too. In front of my wife, no less...”

“He did the same to me while my wife and daughter were in the room. The way they looked at me after that... Especially Miyabi and her icy stare after she’s looked into things...”

“I’m not sure whether his bad habit of asking questions to get a rise out of people at every turn had built his keen eye for character, or vice versa... The previous chairman, his father, often expressed that he felt conflicted about his son. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s no doubt as to his business prowess. Worst of all is that he astutely drives everybody to the verge of snapping.”

Accordingly, Orest never went as far as to ruin a business relationship with his attitude, judging his customers to see if they needed any follow-up to mend the relationship. That would require an incredible sense of social balance. No way I could pull off that same stunt; I’d surely drive my shop out of business in no time.

“Don’t sweat it. I can’t do it, either,” Pioro chimed in.

“He’s simply squandering his talents. There’s no need or benefit in trying to imitate that.”

A Japanese adage came to mind: There’s a thin line between a moron and a genius.

“Let’s take advantage of this time and rest up for a bit.”

“I second that.”

“Then why don’t we get some drinks?” Pioro rang the bell, asking the lady who stepped in for some drinks.

I decided that I might as well read up on the booklet provided to me. The first page contained an overview of slavery. In contrast to my first impression, slaves were guaranteed some human rights in this world. They lost their right to choose their occupation, but could request some conditions for their master to abide by. They were also automatically granted the right to food, clothes, and shelter, as well as adequate treatment for any injury or illness and reasonable time off. That much concurred with what I had expected through some research I had done before coming here; it was basically the same as hiring a normal employee.

What caught my interest was the old system of slavery, established in a certain nation before the current system was in place, as well as the history of the transition from the old to new system of slavery. This was definitely worth reading into...

The old system of slavery was more of what I had expected before, where owners ignored the rights of the enslaved. It all began when a new law was enacted in a country that no longer existed at the time of me reading the booklet. There had always been slavery and laws regarding it, but they had drastically varied depending on the region. What had standardized and dramatically worsened the treatment of slaves was the implementation of the unemployment tax. At the time, this nation had assigned labor as one of the civic duties of its citizens, just like modern-day Japan. I didn’t know if that was because of anyone who came from Japan before me, but neither Japan nor this country had enacted this law as a means to force its citizens to labor.

That all changed with the enactment of the unemployment tax. It was said to have been implemented with the intention of improving the country’s productivity and wealth as a whole. Being jobless was not evil, and no one would be arrested for it, but any citizen not working was neglecting their civic duty. The government requested extra taxes in exchange for their shortcomings...

The decree had brought much suffering to the nation’s people. They simply needed to work to escape the tax, but anyone in the family who was willing but unable to work would become dead weight. Then, anyone who couldn’t pay the unemployment tax was sentenced to forced labor as slaves.

After the implementation of the unemployment tax, business owners had an unexpected surge of power. People wanted jobs not just for the income, but to avoid the oppressive tax and enslavement, which increased demand for jobs. What was more, those who had jobs feared losing them. Gradually, more and more business owners began realizing that they could afford to worsen conditions for their workers, further oppressing the lives of the employed workers. Meanwhile, the upper classes bribed the lawmakers, who were nobles and clergymen. With lawmaking monopolized by the aristocracy, conditions never improved for the citizens. Power continued to be consolidated, and any existing checks and balances were lost as more and more laws were enacted to make the rich even richer at the expense of the employed and enslaved.

Then it got good. Naturally, such an oppressive system led to a flurry of outraged workers and the emergence of a rebellion willing to change the country, by force if necessary. Long story short, the rebellion took over the nation in a successful coup d’état... The one who led the rebellion was apparently a man with dark hair and dark eyes, who could take on a battalion on his own and controlled the entirety of the battlefield with his intelligence. This was the part that got me wondering if I was in the same boat as him; dark hair and dark eyes may be a dime a dozen, but when coupled with those kinds of descriptions...

To top it off, the man apparently became chancellor to the nation’s ruler, devoting much of his time to stabilizing the nation and improving the lives of slaves, which led to the establishment of the current slavery system. For some reason, there was little evidence left of the man himself, except that his birth was clearly documented; he was born to slave parents.

However, the booklet continued, upon examination of other documentation from the time, it is difficult to believe that a child born of slavery was raised with any training in combat or military strategy. The consensus among historians is that his humble origin was fabricated to garner sympathy among the working class and slaves of the nation, and that the man was actually a member of the aristocracy who joined the rebellion in pursuit of justice... If he was from my world, his origins in slavery could still make sense.

“You seem enthralled by that piece of literature,” Reinhart called. “Is it that interesting?”

I looked up to find the woman from earlier in the room again. “Any refills for your drinks?”

“Oh, thank you,” I answered. “Some of these historical accounts are quite fascinating.”

“Now I’m remembering how that part of the history of the slavery system was written into an epic. Sorry to interrupt.”

“No, thanks for the heads-up.” I hadn’t heard the woman come in.

I paraphrased the parts I found interesting to Reinhart as I took my second cup of tea, then returned to my reading.

After a successful rebellion, he had strived to improve the treatment of slaves. Apparently there were many who called for the abolishment of the entire system, but that would have crumbled his nation, since it had built its economy on the expectation of producing and exploiting slaves without any rights. That would also lead to the dismantling of all jobs related to slavery. Not everyone who participated in the old system of slavery were criminals; some of them were forced to take part in order to protect the livelihoods of their own families.

Another issue was what the freed slaves would do. Without a single coin to their name, they would lose even the bare minimum that was guaranteed to them through their enslavement—clothes, food, and shelter. How were they supposed to survive with nothing to their name? While the abolishment of slavery would have freed all slaves for the time being, it would have also triggered widespread confusion and conflict. The leader of the rebellion argued that thoughtless abolishment would only be turning a blind eye to all of the damage that slavery had done. That was why he opposed abolishment, but devoted his remaining days to drastically improving the treatment of slaves. His nation fell shortly after his death, but the new system of slavery, along with the cruel flaws and history of the old system, spread throughout the neighboring nations, prospering as the foundation of the current system of slavery.

The booklet only briefly outlined the most noteworthy points in history. Further research should tell me even more... And I might even learn more about it by asking Gain and the other gods. What stuck with me the most was the incredible life this man had lived, surely filled with struggle and anguish for him to have accomplished so much... Far beyond what I could have imagined, living my cozy little life.

I hid my face with the booklet, and offered my thoughts to the Man Who Came Before.