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Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Four Heirs
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The negotiation with the Ashen Hand had ended much smoother than expected.
The information I'd pushed by even chewing and swallowing Adam and Eve's Fruit seemed worth verifying, at least in her eyes.
Of course, that gaze of hers was still like this.
A bastard desperate for the family's acknowledgment, putting on a death-defying show?
Such a look.
But my spirit alone had caught her interest.
"Three days from now, we'll strike the Versailles Barony. Come for the blue fruit four days later."
A single chance.
The princess had tested me that way, and I'd seized it.
For a first contact, it was pretty successful.
On the way back, I slipped the antidote fruit from the teahouse manager into Karen's mouth.
Since that organization had been the original source of the sedative, they naturally carried the antidote.
And now, on the road back to the mansion.
"…Karen, you okay? Your face looks a bit—"
"Ah, please don't talk to me. My head's been throbbing since morning, and if I have to hear your voice on top of that, I might just lose my mind?"
She was utterly vicious.
Having been forcibly put to sleep and then woken, a lingering headache was only natural.
But even so, this attitude was downright astonishing.
She might be a maid in name only, but that tongue-clicking was a blatant disregard for who was servant and who was master.
I swallowed a curse that rose halfway up my throat.
'…Fine, hold it in. I'll replace her soon enough anyway.'
That was when the shadow of the Argent mansion came into view.
And it was right then.
A whip crack echoed from the main gate.
Crack!
"Hurry up and move? Want me to make you crawl? Or should I break a limb or two as an example?"
It was an ice-cold voice.
A line of merchant wagons stood before the mansion's main gate.
But these weren't carriages announcing a noble visit.
Iron railings, hardened stains of dried blood and mud, scraps of cloth crawling with maggots.
"Transport vehicles for hauling people" was the more accurate term.
Clunk.
As the wagon doors opened, chains clinked against each other in an eerie metallic ring.
And one by one, faces utterly drained of hope were shoved to the ground.
Hardened ropes around their necks.
Wrists swollen with scabs inside iron collars.
They were less living people and more like half-dead lumps of organic matter.
A mother clutching her child, an elderly man barely standing while gripping his whip scars, a woman curled into a ball since even rags weren't allowed.
Despair formed a procession leading into the mansion.
"Ah, so it's that day today."
Karen let out an irritating snicker.
"New slave intake day. Those poor things can't even imagine the hell that awaits them, huh?"
She spoke as if sightseeing a familiar landscape.
It should have sent chills down the spine, but she seemed to enjoy it.
Eyes that accepted this hell as a matter of course.
In Vengeful Goddesses, slaves fell into two broad categories.
The first were contract slaves like Karen—nominally paid to serve the household.
The second were ones like those being dragged in chains right now, bought and sold their entire lives, treated like beasts of burden.
And once a month, the Argent Family brought in hordes of the latter.
They purchased people like they were expensive merchandise.
Used without a penny in pay as family property until their bones ground to dust and their breath gave out, then discarded.
The reason the Argent Family reigned as one of the kingdom's four great houses.
The filthy truth no one dared voice aloud, yet everyone knew.
Wealth built on the blood and suffering of slaves.
And that vile, ugly foundation was the house bearing my name.
Lucas Argent.
The family this possessed body belonged to.
'…Fuck.'
A scene I'd witnessed countless times in the original story.
Yet seeing it with my own eyes made it feel entirely different, even if it was the same.
Revulsion.
My head throbbed hotly.
My stomach churned, my vision narrowed.
The instinctive human loathing for filth-ridden malice.
But—
I swallowed it down.
Right now, I was a whelp with claws and fangs yanked out.
A newborn tiger could die bitten by a pig.
If I charged in now, the outcome was obvious.
So… I endured.
As I ground my teeth and prepared to head inside the mansion, it happened.
While passing the procession of dead-eyed slaves, a voice tore through my ears.
"Ugh, why's this one so damn broken?"
"Sorry… It's a beastkin, runs too fast… By the time we caught it, it was pretty banged up…."
"You bastard! Even so, this is scrap! You think the Argent folks will buy shit like this?! Fuck—"
Thud! Thud!
The sound of kicking a meaty lump.
At the slave hunter's toe, a small orange shadow tumbled across the dirt.
For a split second, my pupils shook violently.
No one hesitated to name the biggest buyer in the illegal slave market.
The Argent Family.
Other nobles traded discreetly in back alleys, but this insane house took it a step further.
They didn't just buy and use—they raised them themselves.
Sponsoring, arming, and training slave hunters.
The literal industrialization of "hunting."
Farms cultivating humans as resources.
And once a month, the captured slaves were dumped into the underground training grounds.
Survive, and they became toys for perverted nobles. Fail, and they were discarded.
If both were hell… was there value in choosing?
Nine out of ten went straight to the training grounds.
The remaining one out of ten was reserved strictly for internal Argent Family use—
More precisely, toys handed to the family's heirs.
The future kings and monster candidates who would devour them.
And some among the freshly arrived slaves were part of that select tenth.
Chains scraping the floor.
Huddled slaves trembling in terror.
Opposite them, atop stairs lined with a lavish golden carpet, stood the four heirs.
"Good. Plenty of usable ones this time too."
"That's why the start of every month is fun."
"Enough chatter. Let's divide them quickly."
"Agreed. Time is money, after all. Brother, sisters."
The slaves couldn't lift their heads.
No—they dared not.
These four before them were the future rulers set to inherit the kingdom's worst evils.
And they would soon realize it.
How they'd been dragged here, and how they'd be crushed from this point on.
Torture disguised as training.
Treatment that didn't even call them human.
And ultimately, gruesome deaths.
But there was one fact these slaves didn't yet know.
The Argent Family's heirs had a special rule.
"Alright, then. I'll start with my introduction."
The first to step down from the stairs was the eldest.
The Argent Family's first heir.
Wolfram Argent.
His skin was corpse-pale, his eyes like hollow glass orbs drained of any murderous glint.
Even standing plainly, he exuded a crushing weight like a massive boulder.
And following the family's ancient rule, he was the first to declare the slaves' fates.
"I am the first heir of the Argent Family, Wolfram Argent. And I seek the strong."
"Strong…?"
"Strength… from a slave…?"
Wolfram's voice continued without inflection.
"Upright, loyal ones who live and die at their master's command. The slaves who enter under me will face days crueler than hell itself."
The slaves' breaths caught.
"But I promise you this."
His voice dipped ever so slightly.
"Should you endure that hell and grow into my knights, I will grant you boundless honor."
"!!"
A faint stir rippled through the slaves.
It was a proposal no one could have anticipated.
They'd expected the Argent eldest son to be a monster who broke slaves for pleasure and sadism.
Yet here he was, demanding knighthood from his own slaves.
As some slaves' eyes shook while tracking his words, a clear voice rang out from the stairs.
"Next is my turn. I'm Seratina Argent."
The second heir, Seratina.
Skin clear as a white lily.
A gentle smile evoking a saint.
A face that clashed most with the cruel Argent name.
And her proposal was equally unexpected.
"Dear slaves. I want lovable, beautiful ones."
"Lo-love…?"
"Hehe, no need to be scared."
Seratina softly raised her fingertips.
"In simple terms, I value beauty. Slaves by my side will groom their bodies and make efforts to become more beautiful."
She smiled with utmost tenderness.
"And I promise: if you remain beautifully by my side to the end— we'll stroll through the gardens together."
A few slaves flushed even amid the terror of death.
Love?
Gardens?
Using such words for slaves.
But Seratina was utterly sincere.
She extended her hand to the slaves as if offering friendship.
And the third heir descended the stairs next.
"…I'm Walter Argent."
A frail build, deep dark circles, the eyes of a magic scholar who'd pulled all-nighters for a month.
Unlike the previous two, he spoke curtly, without emotion.
"I want comrades to research magic with me."
"Com…rades?"
Walter lifted his head and scanned the slaves.
"If any of you have knowledge of scholarship or magic, come under me. That's the only condition."
The slaves who drew breath glanced at each other furtively.
"For those with knowledge, I'll provide generous support."
It wasn't an extravagant reward.
But in this hellish world, knowledge meant a chance to breathe.
In a status-driven society where birth decided everything, the knowledgeable could be beasts for life under the wrong master—or reborn as scholars if fortunate.
It was an offer those in the field couldn't ignore.
And the final voice followed.
"Hehe~ Hi, slaves."
The youngest heir hopped down the stair railing.
Syl Argent.
A sparkling tiara, fluffy dress, a princess smile mixed with sugar and cream.
"I'm Syl! And what I want… um~ just play with me when I'm bored! That's it!"
"Play… mate?"
"A play partner…?"
The girl was genuinely seeking a friend to play with.
No cruel conditions, no painful costs.
Just a child's playmate.
Thanks to that, some slaves thought:
Yeah, if I serve that kid, I might survive.
And this was the Argent Family's selection rule.
The heirs didn't choose slaves.
They waited for the slaves to kneel on their own.
Letting desire, fear, and hope be chosen by the slaves themselves.
That was the Argent way, handed down from ages past.
So the four heirs merely laid out their conditions, issuing no further coercion.
Moments later.
As selection time arrived, the slaves began to move.
Those seeking strength headed to Wolfram.
Those enchanted by beauty to Seratina.
Those with knowledge to Walter.
Those desperate to survive to Syl.
Footsteps that seemed born of their own wills.
And that was when.
Thud.
Amid the fervor of selection, a small fox beastkin with orange fur collapsed straight to the floor.
Without grasping even a single chance.
Truly the image of refuse, denied even the bare minimum opportunity to be chosen.
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