Stroll through the VillageI went the the village closest to the castle
Even though I say the closest, it"s in a place far from where Rune and Rau"s village was
Rune and Rau"s village can already not be called a village anymore
Since it"s the same as ruins
The fields are full of weeds and the houses have been neglected, left destroyed by the demons
This sort of village is one that"s been completely abandoned
There"s no way other villagers would brave the danger just to come here and neither humans nor demons have any interest in this crumbling village
Crumbling on its own, it"s just a matter of time before it returns to dirt
This world is dotted with a lot of such former villages
(This must be a spirit village, huh…..)
This world"s races each have various traits so you can quickly tell
Beastmen have beast ears and tail
Elves have pointed ears and nails
Spirits have colorful hair and wings
Humans mostly have blond hair and blue eyes
Demons have horns growing from either the top of their heads or their foreheads and blue skin
I"ve been told that only humans have mutations, but in actual fact other races also have special variations
For example beastmen have albinos, elves can have dark skin, spirits can have variations in wing shape……
The demon"s mutation is probably growing wings
The spirits are frantically trying to raise a barrier
But it makes no difference to me
Me suddenly appearing inside the barrier causes them to panic
I understand that I am the cause
But I won"t apologize
(Are there kids)
Spirits, up until they turn twenty, age at about the same rate as humans and beastmen
After twenty their aging seems to stop and once they pa.s.s 200 years old their appearance finally starts aging again
In the confusion the children rush to their parents
The parents all hide their children from me
However, just when it seemed like it was too late to try and escape (as he"s frozen from fear) there was a guy—
"Haju!"
A guy who seemed to be his parent called out, but perhaps because he was too frightened to run he didn"t move
He just made a face that was twisted in fear
(A boy, huh…….)
As for Rau, I wanted her to make female friends though
The other children are all a bit bigger or smaller [age-wise, than Rau]
…….it can"t be helped
"How old are you?"
Even though I called out he just shivered and didn"t give a reply
"Say your age"
"5, years……."
When I put magic power into my words he finally replied
(A year older than Rau, huh)
Would it be better to search for guys the same age as Rau in a beastman village?
For the time being, shall I put him as a possible friend candidate?
"Say your name"
"Haijir ki Nigeenz"
"Haju!? Why, your name……!"
The guy who seemed to be his parent was being noisy
"Haijir ki Nigeenz, huh"
With this he"s become subordinated to me
Haju begins to cry out of fear, and his parent cries out of despair
"Haju, at my place there is a 4 year old beastman, will you play together with her?"
When I speak out, after a short pause he nods
Though he"s still crying
"Rau, to here"
"Kya-!?"
She let out a surprised voice at the sudden scene change
"Shin-sama!……Where"s here?"
"Spirit village"
Rau looks around while looking anxious
At the sight in front of him, Haju stops crying
"Why"s this child crying?"
"It seems I scared him"
It"s not "seems," he probably genuinely feels nothing but fear
I easily made him subordinate to me
"There"s no need to cry? Shin-sama"s nice"
Saying that, she would not let go of my hand
(Now that I think of it, wasn"t Rau afraid of strangers?)
Since she wasn"t afraid of me, I completely forgot
However since he"s a fellow child, she"ll probably get used to him quickly
"This child is Haju, it would be good to have a friend close to your age, right?"
"Rau, will become friends with Haju?" [Rau"s 3rd person speak]
"Don"t want to?"
She shakes her head back and forth
As I thought, children need children as friends
"………Are you taking Haju?"
The voice of the guy who seemed to be his parent called out
Even while crying he glared at me
Spirits can instantly tell the amount of magic power someone has
In other words, they can immediately understand whether someone has more or less power than them
It may be obvious, but since he could tell I had more the parent didn"t bother preparing to attack
"No, you both keep living here. I"ll just occasionally bring Rau along so she play together with Haju"
There"s no way I would take him
Supposing if such a day came that I did, it would be after this village was attacked
After everyone was eaten by demons for example
Since Haju has my divine protection, he won"t be eaten
However, if he"s taken by humans it won"t stop them
Though after I"ve subordinated him, he can"t be made a slave of other humans
Even if they capture a guy who can"t be subordinated they can"t do anything [to subordinate him]
So it"s likely that they"ll abandon him somewhere
In other words, even if I don"t do anything Haju will survive
I know the whereabouts of guys subordinated to me
The parent is flabbergasted
The other spirits as well, everyone has the same expression
Of course, Haju too
It seems that they all thought I would take him
Normally he would probably be taken, but, too bad, I am nothing like normal
It"s enough as long as he can occasionally accompany Rau
If I find any beastmen children, it"s likely that Haju will no longer be needed
It"s fine to just cancel my divine protection at that time
Cancelling my divine protection can only be done with guys subordinated to me
If there"s someone stronger than the guy who subordinated them then it is possible to overwrite it
Well, guys who are able to do that seem to be quite scarce though
"…..I can keep on living together with Haju?"
Not seeming to believe it, he asks for confirmation
"Aah[yea]"
When I confirm it he lowers his head while his tears flow
I had no intention of causing damage, I also had no intention of separating them
I also have no intention to protect them
Only Haju who has my divine protection should survive
I won"t decide what guys my things can become friends with, and from now on I intend to search for several other friend candidates
Since school will probably have nothing but humans, I want to let her make friends with other races
The remaining three are adults, they don"t really need to make friends
They can make friends with the guys in the garden as they please
"Rau, play with Haju today"
"And Shin-sama?"
"I will take a stroll around here"
"Rau will go too!"
She clings to my legs
"Won"t you play together with Haju?"
Even though I went to all the trouble of subordinating him
"It"s enough to be with Shin-sama ~mon"
"I"m just going to look and see whether there"s any danger though?"
Like whether there"s a demon king"s castle or if there"s any enemy-like humans loitering about in this area……….
In the case that this sort of village were to be attacked, if seems like they would come do reconnaissance on it several times though
"Will you come back soon?"
She looks up at me anxiously
As expected, after I thoroughly spoiled her, she became quite timid
"I"ll come back soon, since I"m just going to scout out the area a bit. If there are any humans or demons, you won"t be able to relax and play, right?"
I pat her head and she finally lets go of my sleeve
Since she"s scared of even just seeing the scene of carnage, it"s easier to get Rau to let go compared to Rune
Leaving behind Rau, I teleport to outside the village
(So there"s a village in such a place)
The village seems to be hidden in a forest
Moreover there"s a barrier
I can easily enter, but it should be able to defend reasonably well against a demon attack
If it"s demons with a bit of power or humans, they would be enough to tear the barrier
In other words, it"s not absolute
Since it"s a difficult to find location, it seems to just be that no ones noticed it up to now
(Demon, search…….. So there"s none nearby)
In a considerably distant place there seems to be demons
Is it a demon king"s castle?
Exterminate?
It"s troublesome so I won"t
If they were to attack my things then I would kill them all, though
(So it"s nearby the town…….)
The town closest to my castle
In the town that we frequently go to, there"s no slave shop
However, that"s not to say that there"s no guys who kidnap other races there
Just that there"s no slave shop to take them to
And so, there are guys who make a living with just that
For other races, those guys are quite annoying existences
They"re easy to find and kill, but even if you kill those guy similar such guys appear one after another
Since in this world slavery has taken root
If there is a demand, it"s inevitable that guys willing to do such work will come out
Glossing over it with such words, that is evil
However, evil appears in all worlds
Even in j.a.pan which was called relatively peaceful, there was a large number of evil people
On the news criminals like muggers and murderers frequently appeared on television
My own can"t be glossed over either
There are many times I solve my problems through violence and I was taught to settle things through money by my parents
I am aware of how dirty I am
However, this is me
I have no intention to change nor have I thought that I want to change
I will continue to survive like this
(I have to immediately do something……doesn"t seem like that"s the case)
Spirits can use magic power and compared to other races the likelihood of them getting captured was lower
……..though that"s just in comparison to beastmen and elves
When there"s no exceedingly strong spirit the barrier will be unstable
So they aim for that weakness
This village"s barrier as well, isn"t that strong
If the opponent was a guy who was a bit strong then it would probably end up easily broken
When I returned to the village, Rau was playing with Haju
There were also other children
As I thought, if it"s with fellow children she"d adjust quickly
I took out a chair and gazed over that scene
Rau seems to be enjoying herself
I"m glad I brought her
Her clothes have already gotten dirty
What the heck have they been doing to get that dirty?
In the short gap I looked away did she fall down?
However it doesn"t look like she has any injuries
Since she has my divine protection, even if she falls down herself it"ll just hurt a bit but she won"t be injured
If I think about it, it"s a strange power
Though since Rau seems to often fall down I"m glad she has the divine protection
If she didn"t she"d become covered in sc.r.a.pes
"Ah, Shin-sama! Can Haju be shown the toguneen recently harvested?"
Rau who noticed me ran over this way
"One toguneen from the food storehouse, come out"
In my hand appeared the toguneen the four people harvested and I pa.s.sed it over to Rau
She seems proud since the size is outside the norm
"Lookie, lookie, it"s such a big toguneen"
She proudly showed it to Haju
"Shin-sama made the field for us. This time we"re growing sa.s.shyuri"
Sa.s.shyuri is a daikon radish like vegetable
While the flavor is similar to daikon radish, its color is green
Since I have no taste I haven"t eaten it, but the color is not one that makes you feel like eating it
"Shin-sama"s castle"s, growing in the garden. Rau, is watering it everyday, you know?"
Kids, really like to talk about what they can do themselves
As expected, it"s probably because they want to be praised?
When I listen to the children while they have such a vague conversation, the adults fleetingly glancing towards me enter my line of sight
They are probably worried about my race
Have they not heard from Rau?
……after hearing will their faces pale?
Just glancing, n.o.body comes to talk to me
However I don"t feel like talking to anyone
"Shin-sama~!"
After a short while, Rau come to hug me
My clothes were muddied
When the surrounding guys noticed that their faces became quite pale
Since Rau is wearing a slave collar, they probably think that she"s my slave
If it were a human"s slave, if they did something like what Rau did they would be beaten or perhaps even killed
"Are you good?"
"Yeah"
However Rau isn"t a slave
Me getting angry at Rau, I would not go to such an extent unless she tried to leave
I hold her and the chair disappears
The surroundings have shocked expressions, but for something like clothes I can take out as many as I want, or even easily use cleanup
It"s not something I even care about
"You know what, you know what, [Rau] wants to come here again!"
"Say if you want to come, I"ll bring you again"
Even while speaking Rau was in a daze and didn"t notice she got my clothes dirty
When I pat her head she smiled happily with her entire face
Since Rau is a childlike child it"s just too cute
I don"t like adult-like children
……kids like I used to be are the worst
"Cleanup"
Although I whisper it quietly nevertheless thankfully the magic power seemed to take effect and could cleanup
The surroundings seemed to be shocked again, but explaining one by one is troublesome
"That toguneen, [Rau"s] giving to Haju"
"Is that so"
As I thought, being together with someone near your own age seems to be enjoyable
I intend to also go to other villages, but since Rau is shy of strangers it should be fine to take my time
"[Rau"ll] come again"
She called out towards Haju and all the children nodded
(So this village had four kids)
When we come next time shall I buy presents to bring
While holding Rau I teleported to the castle
Author"s note saying that the "likes" broke past 1500