Serfs Belong to the Duke

Monster wellsprings. The fountainheads from which monsters emerge.

Labyrinths sometimes form from monster wellsprings.

In truth, no one has yet figured out what monsters actually are.

No matter how much scholars investigate, the fundamental nature of the phenomenon remains utterly unknown.

The prevailing theory is that when the Creator King made this world, some kind of mishap caused them to start spawning.

Incidentally, the Church of the Sun God has a doctrine stating that when the exalted Sun God descends upon this world, all monsters will vanish.

All believers will be saved, and a long era of peace will follow.

Of course, after the statue incident, I knew that was rubbish.

Trusting them at face value was difficult.

To begin with, joining the faith didn't even require a baptism.

You simply declared your belief in front of two existing followers, and just like that, you were a member of the Church of the Sun God.

That very simplicity was what had let them spread so far.

Proselytizing during famines and disasters, when people's anxieties were laid bare, they'd blanketed the entire continent.

As a result, the Church of the Creator King had all but vanished, and every other faith that worshipped different gods saw its influence shrink by the day.

Yohane let out a small sigh.

Rattling along in a carriage, his mind kept drifting to pointless things.

Monsters had threatened and harmed humanity since ancient times.

At the same time, defeating them granted people power through some inexplicable mechanism, and the materials and magic stones harvested from monsters had been of tremendous benefit to civilization.

There had supposedly even been eras where, without monsters, mass starvation would have swept through populations.

But fundamentally, they were a threat to humanity.

Monsters produced casualties every year, and adventurers and soldiers knowingly risked their lives to cull them.

Adventurers who kept slaying powerful monsters long enough could reportedly face a Dragon head-on by themselves.

Yohane, for his part, had been thinking that if his slaves got that strong, they'd attract too much attention.

Stronger was always better, of course.

In fact, if they became famous enough, maybe he could start making merchandise.

Having been brought along on the duke's inspection, they were rattling along in a sturdy carriage.

Naturally, the atmosphere wasn't right for casual conversation with the duke. And chatting exclusively with Azu and Orleans would make a poor impression.

Besides, the rest of the group was in a separate carriage.

Yohane killed time by letting idle thoughts run through his head.

Azu, sitting beside him, had her eyes closed and her head resting against him.

She probably still wasn't back to full strength. He decided to leave her be.

Orleans kept staring at the Fire Elemental Stone.

The scorching heat it had given off earlier seemed to have subsided, but it still radiated a strong glow.

Unfortunately, no one present could say what that meant.

"Almost there."

At the duke's words, everyone looked outside.

Yohane's movement woke Azu.

Up ahead lay their destination: the monster wellspring.

A monster wellspring would shrink as the monsters within it were continuously slain, eventually disappearing entirely.

But it was known that the site always retained some kind of residual trace.

Yohane and the others followed the duke and a handful of soldiers.

Elza glanced at Alexia and murmured.

"My, you've got goosebumps."

"I can't help it. There's something… unpleasant about this place."

"It feels like the moment right before you run into a monster."

"Is that so? I can't really tell."

The slaves all gave Yohane a look that said, "Really?" and he flinched.

Maybe there was an unpleasant aura—he could sort of feel it, now that he thought about it—but compared to the three of them, it barely registered.

The difference between a merchant and an adventurer, if nothing else.

They arrived at the site.

This close, he couldn't have claimed to feel nothing even if his life depended on it.

The ground was gouged out in a large depression, and something like symbols had been carved into it.

But the script was completely unrecognizable.

So was whatever it was supposed to mean.

It was simply eerie.

"This is the place. We've been conducting monster culling and land surveys for generations, but I've never heard anything about a monster being sealed here. If something exists, this would be it."

"I see…"

Hard to argue when he stated it with such confidence.

Especially given that the man was one of the highest-ranking members of another nation's elite.

Yohane simply nodded.

He didn't claim to understand the heart of the problem yet either.

As he was studying the monster wellspring site and wondering what to do, the ground suddenly seemed to shudder.

Black miasma seeped from the gouged earth and began trying to take shape.

"I thought you said it was dried up!"

Alexia leveled her battle-axe at the miasma, but before she could cast a spell, fire erupted from nowhere and scorched it away.

The black miasma was engulfed in flames and vanished.

"… That was a barrier."

"A fire barrier suppressing the monster wellspring, then."

"Since no monsters normally came out, it was assumed to be dried up."

The Fire Elemental Stone drifted out of Orleans' hands and floated over to the wellspring.

Then the symbols carved into the ground began to glow red, as if responding to the Elemental Stone.

At the same time, the surrounding temperature climbed.

Then Azu pressed a hand over her right eye.

The power she held as a vessel of the Creator King's kin appeared to be reacting to the elemental.

He went to her side and steadied her by the shoulder.

"Thank you, Master."

"Don't worry about it."

Azu seemed to have settled down.

The Fire Elemental Stone slowly cloaked itself in flame.

What stood before them was unmistakably a Fire Elemental.

The Fire Elemental returned to Orleans.

Orleans gently embraced it.

A strange sight. The fire should have burned her, yet it didn't harm Orleans at all.

"So the covenant's purpose was to seal this monster wellspring. I see. I'd always thought this region had fewer monsters than other areas, and now I know why."

The duke felt as though a long-standing question had finally been answered.

"If the covenant isn't renewed, the seal will break… that cannot be allowed. You, girl."

"Yes."

Orleans answered when called.

"If you are my serf, then you are my property. I will put you to use."

"I understand."

Even witnessing that, there was nothing Yohane could say.

Not a single word of it was wrong.

Yohane himself wouldn't want anyone meddling in his affairs with his own slaves.

Slaves were his, and his alone, to treasure.