I hadn't slept for a long time in a week. Usually, Merry would woke me up the minute the light from the sun started to hit us. This time, though, she wasn’t waking me up.

I stood up, my feet making contact with the cold floor. Usually, Merry would wake me up with cold water so my body would be used to the cold before it even hit the ground. This time, though, it didn’t happened.

My attire was hanging and I remembered that I had officially paid my debt to the owner. That’s why Merry didn’t came today. I remembered now.

I cleaned myself up with the leftover water from the bucket and then wore my clothes. My jacket was still with Merry, so I only wore my shirt and pants. I picked up my bag and went outside. If my time here in this orphanage was uneventful, I would have left immediately but since that didn’t happen, there was something I had to do first.

I headed over to the kitchen hall where they must still be eating. I entered and I saw everyone there. I immediately saw the woman I was looking for but before I could come to her, the children rushed to me.

“Terrin, are you really leaving today?” Ania said. This girl got a little bit attached to me because of the sad face she was making.

“Yeah, I am.” I said, crouching over and patting her head.

“It’s okay, Ania! I’m still here!” Jack came and tried to cheer her up.

“But I don’t want you.” Ania said.

“Yeah! We don’t want you!” Sarah was like the big sister of Ania.

“How about we play with Terrin for the last time?” Jack suggested. He was like the big brother which I maybe he was.

“I can’t really play with you right now because I have to talk to Ms. Arina but I’ll come back here someday okay? And here, I’ll give you this.” I gave them all the candy I have.

“What is this?” Ania asked.

“That’s a candy. First, you unwrap it like this and then eat it. Be careful of the others, some of them are hard.”

They ate it and sure enough, they liked it. I guess even from another world kids like candies, huh?

“What is this? This is delicious!”

“Where are you really from, Terrin?”

“I’d never tasted something so sweet!”

“Make sure to save it, okay? There’s no more of it.” They all said yes.

I left the children to succumbed to the sweetness of the candies and headed over to the owner of this orphanage, Ms. Arina.

“Oh, Terrin, how nice of you to stop by here before leaving.” She took a sip and crassly added “What do you want?”

She was eating with Frunk by her side. Merry was placing the food and by the looks of it, what she said last night was true. Her body seemed okay and she seemed strong enough to properly move.

“I’ll get straight to the point.” I grabbed something from my bag and showed it to Ms. Arina. “I’ll give you this gold if you let Merry be free.”

This was my plan. I had planned to save Merry from this hellhole. I know that she would get angry of what I was going to do but regardless, I was going to do it. I knew I couldn’t just escape with Merry because she has that crest on the back of her neck. So this was the next best thing I could do.

I took a glanced at Merry but I didn't know if she was angry or surprised as she just stood there, her eyes directly staring at me.

Ms. Arina took a bite from her food and munch on it for a while. “No. One gold coin isn’t enough."

“Then how about three?”

She seemed surprised. “No. I want five gold coins.”

“Okay, I got five here.”

“What!? T-Then I want eight!”

“You greedy woman! But fortunately, I still got eight gold coins!”

“Fine! Give it to me!” thankfully, she succumbed to her greediness because I literally didn't have any money left.

I gave her the gold coins. She looked at them like how a lion would look at a deer. I guess even in another world, people were greedy, huh?

“Now let go of Merry.” I demanded.

“Wait a minute. What’s these strange symbols and if you had the money in the first place, why didn’t you just pay me and leave?”

“They’re from my country. I thought that my country’s currency wouldn’t work here but If you exchange them to a pawnshop or something, they would give you a lot of money.”

“Where are you from again?”

“That doesn’t matter! What matter is I gave you the money and you let go of Merry.”

“Okay, okay. Before that, we have to summon a Slave Trader.”

“Slave trader?”

“You don’t even know what a slave trader is? Do you live under a rock?” she said mockingly. “Frunk, call him.”

Frunk immediately obeyed her and went outside.

“Isn’t that nice, Merry? Your naïve prince charming here is rescuing you.”

Merry just stood there. I don’t know if she is with me or against me but I would free her.

“Do you really think freeing her would be the answers to her problem? People would still hate her. As long as she is like that, people would always hate her.”

“That’s okay. I’d rather be free than be someone’s slave. I know that’s how she feels.”

That’s how she must feel. Being a slave and beaten up wasn't living, it’s a slow and painful suffering until you die.

“Don’t you know I’ve been very kind to her? She’s only receive a handful of beatings from me. Others don’t even feed their slaves and beat them up every day. Seriously, I’m not a villain here.”

“Beating her up is even once is bad enough. You may not be a villain but you’re certainly not a good person.”

“Ha! What an oblivious person. You’ll see my point someday. Either way, I got a lot of money right now.”

After about five minutes, Frunk returned with what I assume was the slave trader.

“Good day, Madam Arina. I heard from your servant that you need me. How may I be of service?”

“Yes, transfer my Slave Authority to that young man.”

“As you wish. Let me set up my equipment first.”

“Slave Authority?”

“Yes. Slave Authority is what allows a person to fully control a slave. If a slave disobeyed a command, the crest will activate and electrified a slave until it obeyed the command. The more a slave disobeys, the more the pain it will receive.”

“Wait a second! I want her to be free, not to be my slave!”

“The only way for a slave to become truly free is if you went to the Temple of Shaina and ask one of the archpriest to remove the crest. The removal is also expensive, that’s why most free slaves doesn’t want to remove the crest and go on to live their life like that.” The slave trader explained.

It frustrates me that I couldn'tdo anything about it. It disgusted me that I had to become her owner but she’ll be essentially a free person when I am her owner.

The slave trader went outside and got his equipment. There was a suspicious black ink, a needle, a brush and a small square paper. He explained the process to us.

Firstly, he removed the Slave Authority to Arina by placing the paper on the back of her neck which her crest was, the same place as Merry. According to the Slave Trader, the owner and the slave must had their crest in the same place. The paper absorbed the crest. it burned and disappeared, leaving only a trail of smoke. Naturally, I was surprised but dismissed it as some kind of trick or something.

Secondly, the slave trader needed a small amount of Merry and my blood. He pierced our fingers with the needle and blood came out. It was a bit painful as someone who grew up in a mostly harmless life but it wasn’t something I couldn't handle. It went the same for Merry too as she wasn’t showing any emotions of pain.

The blood slowly dripped to the ink. The ink, like a hungry animal, consumed the blood and spread it across its body. There wasn’t anything visible that changes to the black ink when the slave trader decided that it was finished.

“Where would you like for the crest to be?” the slave trader asked.

“Hmm…I would like to be in my chest.” I don’t want to be seen with that crest and since I didn't plan walking naked on the streets, this was the safest choice.

“As you wish.” He turned around and faced Merry. “Remove your dress, slave.” Without a single hesitation, Merry started to undress.

“Wait, wait, wait!” I stopped Merry. “I thought I was the one you’re putting a crest on!”

“Yes but I will also put in her, so the order does not matter.”

“Okay, okay, just put on my back. That should be fine, right?”

“Yes, it is and I almost forgot, what is your name?”

“It’s Terrin Tachibana.”

“What a strange name…”

Mary turned around and showed her bareback to us while covering her chest. She still hadn't said anything and still being passive about it but what I saw on her back deepened my resolve to free her. I saw horrifyingly large and small scars. It looked like they happened a long time ago because they looked dry. I didn't know if this was because of an accident or from someone but I felt that I really had to save her.

The slave trader plunged the brush in the ink and let the black liquid fell onto the back of Merry. The moment it dropped, there was a sizzling sound like when you put a water on a hot frying pan and just like when it happened, there was also a rising smoke. I looked at the face of Merry and palpably, she was in pain.

The liquid that had fallen started to make a shape. After a while, it was finished and he put it on mine. I felt what she felt and with that, the transfer was finished. Ms. Arina paid the slave trader which was very surprising and then the slave trader left.

“You can leave now.” Ms. Arina, along with Frunk, left. After they left, the children went to Merry.

“Are you really leaving, Merry?” Ania asked. It seemed the children like Merry.

Merry looked at me and said “I guess, I am. Ania always remember to wash your teeth at night, Karl stop stressing Frunk, Sarah study hard to become a good servant and always watch them over like a big brother, Jack.”

This was heartwarming to see. This was why children were great. If you teach them the right things, they could grow to become a person that respect all kinds of people.

“Okay, Merry.”

“Leave it to me! I’ll keep annoying Frunk!”

“I will, Merry.”

“Yup, leave it to the big brother.”

The four said. After that, they hugged Merry and went to their class. As for Merry, I guess she wasn’t expecting that as she just stood there with a little smile on her face. It was my first time seeing her smile, so it was quite a shocked to me.

“You should really smile more. You look good when you smile.”

“As you wish, Master.” She tried to smile forcefully. I couldn’t help but laugh on it.

“Hahaha…but seriously though, we have to work on our relationship.”

“Relationship?”

I nodded, “Our relationship should be Master and Slave on the surface but in reality, I want it to be equal where you don’t have to obey me and choose whatever you want to do. I know this is ironic but that is my only command to you.”

“Okay...I have no choice but to obey your command anyway.”

I’m really happy that she was accepting things right now but at the same time, I find it bizarre that she’s not refusing.

“I know this is late but why did you accept my proposal? Usually you would say ‘I don’t need your help’ and push me away.”

She looked at me. After about what seems like ten second, she coldly said “Of course, I still don’t trust you. I really despise you…but since you’ve spend eight gold for my sake, I couldn’t just let that go unnoticed. So this time, I’ll be accepting it but don’t get me wrong, I still hate you.”

I facepalmed. “So in the end it was the money that did the job, huh?”

“Eight gold coins are a lot of money. If you just had twelve more gold coins, you could just directly go to the temple and ask them to free me. I don’t even know why you spend eight gold coins on a slave, a slave usually only cost ten silver and that’s one tenth of a gold coin. Are you stupid or just really stupid?” Damn, she became talkative.

“That woman tricked me! But that’s okay, I guess. It was worth it.” I smiled.

She turned around and then quietly said “It might be but you’re still stupid.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” She looked at me and said “So, what will we do next?”

“Well, let’s get out of here first.” That being said though, I really don’t have any idea what outside was like. Sure, I was summoned on the streets but I only saw a couple of things before passing out.

“Okay, I’ll just get my things.” she then left.

After waiting for about ten minutes, she returned with her stuff. She had her bag but strangely, she was still wearing the maid outfit. There was also a flower necklace on her neck.

“Why didn’t you change?” I asked.

“I don’t have any spare clothes, the only clothes I have is the clothes from before.”

“But why don’t you have any spare clothes?”

“Slave owners usually only give their slave clothes once. The same goes for me though I get to keep this clothes. You don’t even know that?"

These slave thing was really an unpleasant business. Why and how did it come to this?

“All right, we’ll just buy on the way. For now, let’s leave here.” We started to leave.

I have no idea what will be my next step was but for now, I’ll gather as much information about this world as possible and save Shakna. She was waiting for me to save her.

We started to leave and went for the exit. As I opened the door that led outside, the sunlight was the first one to greet me. The cold wind and the sound of everything that was moving quickly creeped into my body and ear. As I take my first step outside the orphanage, one thing that was in the back of my mind slowly made itself the main attraction and that was…

I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY LEFT!