Chapter 83 Heated Debate

(Glup Glup Glup)

– Puhh.

I sighed out of relief as I drank the glass of water, feeling full as the taste of the bacon still lingered in my mouth.

The others were also half-way done eating and were very satisfied by the food. Some started their own conversations no longer tense or nervous by my presence, but still a lingering caution could be seen through the corners of their eyes which was inevitable and didn’t bother me much.

As I had such feelings towards these people who I didn’t know for too long, but listened to them long enough to understand them barely which was enough for me. For now as I looked at everyone, feeling that it was time to ask them about the current circumstances…

– Everyone, I would now like to discuss with you about the things that will happen since you are here. It is only the most reasonable thing to do since I never expected to actually bring slaves into my house… no offense.

The girls hearing my respectful speech nodded while some flushed for a moment by my blunt words, but they understood what I meant by that. The few girls that were standing in the kitchen also stopped the dish washing and looked towards us, gathering their full attention towards me as continued talking.

In the end, I started talking about the effects of the slave contract and how the slave would die if they distance themselves from the user in a certain radius. Everyone here clearly knew much better than me but listened closely as I came to the main point which was…

– What do you want to do?

I asked everyone in the room. The sudden question was met with a few confused looks as they didn’t seem to understand what I meant by that, making me clarify my question. I explained to them that I could ask around and maybe somehow reverse the effects of the spell that had been engraved on their soul. This explanation was also met with extreme surprise and shock but the only one who wasn’t shocked was Christina as she interrupted the conversation with her own explanation about the spell.

– It is almost impossible to reverse the spell as it is too close to one’s soul. There are too many risks involved in this procedure and the minimal error would easily lead to the death of the one being counter spelled, meaning that if something goes wrong in one of those tries, then it is bound that you would either die with a full corpse peacefully or die with a mutilated and horrifically painful death… Trust me, I had seen people try to counter this spell in particular and I have never seen it work before. I even saw a mage of the 10th rank try, ending up getting himself and the person who was trying this on killed…

Christina said with a bit of emotional remembrance in her voice. She probably remembered how that mage she talked about died and had a pretty haunted face as she shook it off and started walking towards me with a determined face. She stood next to me suddenly bowing down on one knee making me a bit surprised.

– I’ve already decided on what to do the moment you had accepted me Master Dawn. I will follow you and your orders alone. My loyalty will be only for you to have… so please, can you accept me one more time…?

The last bit of words was said with a bit of anxiousness and longing as she continued to stay at this very position making me feel nervous. But I quickly organized myself as I looked down at her and asked meaningfully:

– Don’t you want to see your family? Mother, father, siblings? How about revenge? That guy you talked about, don’t you want to get justice?

She flinched at my words which were hard to bypass as every person sought someone to get close to once, even I had Stella… And revenge was also something I personally couldn’t let go of, no matter what people told me; “a grudge is a grudge” with a meaning that is only sated if the other party got what he or she deserved. There was not a single person that felt hurt by the act of betrayal and didn’t want revenge afterwards. It more so counted for people who were close to you until you realized they were just dropping poison in your drink or wanted to make use of you later on.

This basic concept was plainly understood by everyone even if they didn’t want to admit such thing. It is the human instinct to punch back when punched and Christina knew that very well as she shuddered lightly, but then again her answer was also surprising nonetheless.

-Returning home is meaningless and to do so, I would need to travel a long road which would most likely inconvenience you because of the kill radius. I also don’t want anyone to try to reverse engineer the spell on my soul as I fear that death can be too easy. But the main reason I didn’t want to return home is because… I had enough of the power struggle in my home… My sisters and brothers turning against each other for the inheritance, and people like Christopher lurking in my love life just for profit. It already had me understand over the years when I lived as a slave that it wasn’t worth the trouble to return, and instead having them think I am dead is much more comfortable to me. After all, right now Master Dawn, you are the sole reason why I can accept this so easily as I want to serve you my whole life. No matter how hard it may be or how much I may suffer, I will never regret staying with my savior who ordered me the very first time we met that I was allowed to stop smiling. So this is my decisions and I won’t back out of it, even if you say no to me. If that was the case, then living has no meaning to me…

Her words were extreme but I could hear the sound of truth and sincerity in those words, making me flush furiously. I felt like she was confessing her love to me which may or may not be close to the truth… who knows.

I looked at her and considered what she said, making me scratch my head awkwardly as I couldn’t really refute her, which was even more so embarrassing. She even said she would commit suicide if she doesn’t serve me and she also said no wasn’t an answer… how can you reason with something so unreasonable?

As I was thinking like this, Elisabeth had also stepped forward doing the exact same gesture as Christina next to her with a smile on her face as she said:

– I am with Christina on this one. I have nowhere to return to, no close ones or friends, and staying with prince charming as his beautiful housekeeper seems very attractive to me. After all… even as an assassin, I keep my word and return the favor which is my life and all I have so please accept me for the second time too.

She winked at me seductively as when she finished saying that, giving me the slight wrong idea but also the truth. Her words were sincere too and upheld her pride as a moral person who stayed true to their words.

After these two started to kneel down like this, the others also kneeled down next to each other forming a circle with me in the center of it. They stated one by one their reason why they wanted to stay with me, ranging from simple thankfulness to a matter of honor. For some reason, their words were mostly flowery and well versed making it even harder to see some kind of deception as they all talked through their soul with their true intention. Even Sarah who was sitting next to me wanted to stay and when I asked why she just said:

– Because…

And left it at that which was really not a reason but felt like it really was a reason. This made me confused as I dismissed it and looked at everyone and raised my hands once again, telling everyone:

– Alright alright, alright! Stop kneeling down already! I understand, yes. I accept! All of you don’t have to be so formal about it…

The girls seeing me getting red because of this giggled for a bit as they stood up one by one. Out of all the people here, Christina had the most amused expression on her face. Huh, that girl planned this from beginning… clever girl.

It’s not like I didn’t think about them staying with me. No, I actually expected Christina or some of the girls to stay with me but not everyone. I thought that they wanted to go home and be with their close ones which didn’t turn out the way I thought it would… No, it didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything, I just needed to make small corrections to my plan and that’s all… Man, I also need to talk with Steward. I didn’t call him since I came back here and honestly saying, I wanted to call him after this meeting and discuss it with him.

– What did I miss!? Why is Dawn blushing? Oh my god!

I sighed as I looked at Hestia who had suddenly appeared inside of the room. She was very curious while looking at everyone and studying my face with amazement. The others didn’t seem to feel like they wanted to explain as they looked the other way making small grins on their faces…

– It doesn’t matter, why are you here? Did you finish already?

I quickly changed the topic out of curiosity and embarrassment. Hestia also noticed that I intentionally changed the topic but kept quiet as she replied to me with a small grin on her face:

– Yes, the girl is currently on your bed resting. I had done what I could but couldn’t get the eye to heal. It took a lot out of me to make the scars fully disappear, but it was still a piece of cake for me!

She said energetically as if it was nothing, making the others smile because of her success. But in the end, she couldn’t deceive me. Her forehead was slightly drenched and her eyes showed signs of tiredness… she really did give it her all while hiding it as if that was an everyday occurrence which it obviously wasn’t.

– Oh really… good to know.

I said with a lighthearted smile on my face which betrayed my knowing look. I said this as I stared into Hestia’s eyes making her flinch as she realized that I had noticed… but didn’t say anything.

With that done, I started to turn towards the others with a firm idea in my head. But for now, I needed to place everyone in a room and have them get familiar with the house after all… They were now going to live here with me, Hestia, Leraje and Stella.

-We have 3 floors and a basement. Since you are going to stay, I’ll show everyone their room and also you can use the bath if you want after I show you around the house. Is everyone alright with that?

– Yes!

Everyone said in sync as they smiled brightly on the prospect of a room and a bath which I was about to provide them. I also explained to them the building a bit more in detail how it was a half shop half house. And mainly where we currently were, such as the country and city which everyone seemed to be familiar with, but had never step foot into. They looked outside through the windows seeing the pedestrians and cars moving by, minding their own business watching them with huge smiles on their faces. More than once, a guy would stop just to look at the girls and then walk away still looking behind his back towards the girls, who didn’t even notice him.

The house tour continued for about 1 hour. After we finally finished the first and second floors, I also gave them rooms. As for now, we had only 5 fully furnished bedrooms, 2 of which I and Stella used. Well actually, Stella never used her room if I remember correctly but that didn’t matter as I divided the rooms and made space for 2 to 3 girls per room. Sarah, the white haired girl and Stella were going to sleep in one room while the other 10 girls including Hestia would sleep in the other 3 rooms. I wasn’t worried about the space because even 6 people to 1 room in this building was already too much free space for them, as each individual room had a lot of space and was well furnished. In the future, I was going to renovate the rooms a bit giving each girl one room for personal privacy. But for now, this should do and everyone else seemed happy as well.

Of course my room was for me and Leraje mainly because we were both males. But thinking about it more clearly, he never used a room before and preferred to stay as an object or a shadow looking over the building to make sure it was safe. He was actually just a bodyguard for my sister and seemed to be comfortable with that job alone so I didn’t think about it much.

Everyone agreed that I should have my own room, but some of the girls said that they didn’t mind sleeping with me which got them into a heated debate on who was going to sleep with me first… I didn’t even agree to it and wanted to tell them that I would sleep alone until Hestia came into the conversation and said that she was the only one who was going to sleep with me, almost daring the others to protest against her which they did. I eventually got fed up as I started shouting and scolding them while they sat on the ground holding their knees together with ashamed and apologetic expressions on their faces…

(Ring Ring Ring)

Feeling surprised, I had noticed that my phone was ringing. The other girls also heard the sound and looked at me as I pulled out my phone looking at the screen… it was Steward.