Chapter Four:
A Brother’s Frenzy
“I MEAN, THIS ISN’T RIGHT! THEY HAVEN’T COMMITTED any crime, but they’re slaves just because they look a little different.”
It had started with something small and insignificant. This morning, I asked Abel something out of idle curiosity: “What would you want to do if you became a Magic Knight?” He answered that he wanted to create a small village; to gather the people he cared most about in a place where he could protect them. He explained that not everyone was strong, so he wanted to use his strength to at least ensure the safety of those within his reach.
He also said something else:
“I want to free slaves.”
He mentioned wanting to free the “beastlings” and “elves” in particular, those that were only enslaved as they belonged to a demi-human race. The terrifying thing for me was that, at first, I didn’t understand him. I hadn’t even considered it odd that those of the demi-human races were enslaved.
Why must they be freed? It’s only natural that the demi-humans are our slaves. Subconsciously, somewhere deep inside, that must be what I actually believed.
Even scarier, my subconscious opinions on the matter weren’t uncommon. I wasn’t any sort of radical outlier when it came to slavery, and almost everyone who listened to Abel’s spiel thought it was completely normal that all demi-humans were slaves. Everyone, that is, except for Lily, who seemed to have heard it from him before and didn’t look terribly surprised.
Come to think of it, I’ve only rarely seen beastlings and elves in my family’s domain, but whenever I have, they’ve almost always been serving someone… The only exception being adventurers that seem to come from other nations.
“Demi-humans are the slaves of humankind.”
Everyone knows that. It’s just common knowledge in the Kingdom of Milestia, a reality soaked into every bone in my body. That’s why I didn’t notice it.
I felt strange, thinking about this, as if some knowledge that wasn’t even contained within my brain was denying what I knew to be true.
It’s only because I was reborn into this world that I realized it. I—Luke—never thought it strange until this very moment. How did Abel come to defy common sense like this? Wasn’t he born in this country?
“No sense in thinking about that now.”
It’s not a problem that I can resolve immediately, and honestly, there are other things that I need to focus on. I guess once I’ve become one of those Magic Knights and have all the freedom and authority that entails, I might go ahead and change the stupid “common sense” of this world. We shouldn’t be exploiting and excluding slaves from society. We should be using them in a more sensible way. I’m not fond of these illogical practices. That said, emancipation would pose a number of issues, and all this can’t be solved in a day or two. I’ll need to study more history books.
My thoughts wandered in this way as I left the library, but I quickly forced myself to switch gears. I had to prepare for my last class of the day, Special-Magic Battle Practicals. The name of the teacher for the class hadn’t been written on our handouts—it just said “guest instructor.” There were actually several other classes with similar instructor listings, so it wasn’t that unusual. The description for the class read that it featured “practical battle demonstrations, on the assumption that one’s enemy might deploy special elemental magic.”
Mwa ha ha, now that sounds like exciting stuff. I wonder what class is going to be like. I’m sort of looking forward to this.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Long time no see, Alice.”
“No… It can’t be…”
Alice reacted in shock and horror. Even I was completely taken aback.
“Nice to see you too, Luke,” the instructor said with a smile. “I think it’s been a year and a half since we last saw each other?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He was a young man with silver hair, sharp blue-green eyes, pale skin, and unmistakably handsome features.
It was, of course, Alice’s older brother, Yolande.
“Is everyone here? We’re about to get started!”
Alice was more shaken than I’d ever seen her before.
“Hey,” Mia whispered to Alice. “Your brother’s like, super good-looking, isn’t he?”
“What do you see in him?” Alice hissed.
She looked at Mia with deep, genuine displeasure in her eyes.
But objectively speaking, Yolande is a really attractive guy. Some of the other girls in class were also whispering about him.
“H-he’s so cool…!”
“Whoa, he’s super hot!”