[Hanako] Chapter 3: Herr Klein's 'Properties'

[Throndir]

《Chapter 2: Slavery

《Chapter 4: A Slaver's Deal

《Chapter 3: Herr Klein's 'Properties'》

《Summary》
Hanako wakes up from fainting. Finds Trudy. Finds out that she's in Klein's estate. Trudy asks for help from her to remove the other collars. Hanako removes other collars. Hanako learn how magic works. Hanako attempts to train with a sword. Hanako prepares a plan for the slave contact that will come the next morning.

Characters Met
Trudy
Elf Slave
Common Slaves
Soldier Slaves

Returning Characters
Soldier Girl (now Trudy)

Information
How magic works
How Item Speaker works

Developments
Planning for slave contact

Location: Herr Klein's Estate
Date: Day 1 - Time: Early Morning/Late Night

You had dreams about the pink-haired being who called herself Erato. It was peaceful as you simply watched things together in her personal bed-turned-cinema. But eventually you stirred awake.

When you opened your eyes you found yourself lying on a comfortable and soft bed, though, it wasn't Erato's. The room you were in looked completely different, and there was a distinct smell of pine in the air. There were a variety of swords showcased on the walls, and there was a tattered remains of a portrait with sword slashes through out it that was hanging on the wall. There was also the skin of something that looked like a cross between a bear and a wolf that was decorated and seemed to have been used as a rug on the floor as well. Apart from that, there was a table, a chest, a shelf with some books and decoration in it, two cabinets, and two short tables on either side of the bed. One of the tables had a lamp that was burning, giving a warm glow to the rest of the room. Lastly, there was a chair placed near the foot of your bed.

Seated on that chair and fallen asleep was the soldier who had killed Klein. She was resting her head and arms at the foot of your bed. She was breathing peacefully, and was fast asleep.

There was a window as well, and looking through it, you noticed that it was dark out.

[Asta]

How long was I out? she thought, noticing the darkness outside the window.

Hanako sat up and looked around the room. "Now where am I?" she asked no one in particular, and quietly got out of bed. Culturally instilled politeness demanded that she try not to wake the girl sleeping in the chair nearby. She padded over to the portrait on the wall that had been slashed to ribbons, most likely by the soldiers she had freed earlier. What goes around comes around Tubs.

Next she examined the swords on the wall, reaching out to touch one carefully. "I guess I'm gonna have to learn how to use one of these eventually..."

Last, she went to the bookshelf and picked up a book at random and began to flip through it aimlessly, not that she expected to be able to read it but figured there might be pictures to look at while she waited for the soldier girl to wake up.

[Throndir]

The sword on the wall that you touched did not react, though you noticed that you could pull it down. When you got near it, you realized there was a faint glow on it.

Flipping through the pages, you realized that this book was mainly all words, however, even though the characters themselves were unrecognizable, you were able to understand their meaning. From that you realized the book you were reading seemed to be some sort of war story.

You could feel free to do other things before the girl wakes up. She wakes up shortly after before you leave the room though.

Stirring awake, the girl blinked her eyes, and realizing you were no longer sleeping in the same spot, she bolted straight up. She found you shortly after. She seemed to blush slightly, but kneeled down to one knee, and knelt her head.

"Ma'am! Thank you for saving us!"

[Asta]

She raised an eyebrow upon realizing she could read the foreign script. Will the surprises never end today? she thought.

At the sound of the girl stirring awake, she slid the book back onto the shelf and turned to face her. The girl was already kneeling again, some color in her cheeks.

"Ma'am! Thank you for saving us!"

Cute. is what she thought, but instead replied: "Huh? Oh, don't worry about that. People aren't property. You don't really need to kneel either, I'm nothing special. You on the other hand are pretty good with that blade miss...uhh?"

She made the statement a question, she very well couldn't continue the conversation without the woman's name.

[Throndir]

"Trudy, ma'am! I would like to kneel if that is okay with you. And thank you for the compliment!" The soldier said.

"You're the hero... and if only you were summoned a year ago..." She shook her head, visibly saddened, but she regained her composure.

"There is a request I have to make ma'am... Since you're awake now! Can you please... please remove the collars on everyone else too?"

[Asta]

"Trudy! Fantastic, it's nice to meet you. You can call me Hanako, I'm not big on formality really."

Truth be told, it was actually a little embarrassing the way Trudy called her "ma'am". The implied reverence made her uncomfortable. "If you'd rather kneel that's okay, but if you feel like standing up please do so." she said.

"I've got some questions I'd like to ask you, but first things first. Lets get those collars taken care of. How many are we looking at? I'm probably gonna have to take care of them one at a time, or I'll end up on the floor again." She motioned to the door, "Shall we?"

[Throndir]

Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Guest room
Date: Day 1 - Time: Late Night

"Yes ma'am, forgive me ma'am!" The soldier replied as she stood back up. She proceeded to answer your questions.

"There's about 30 others... Some are young." She said finally. "Lastly, one of Herr Klein's contacts- that is... that fat man Klein's contacts come every morning to discuss new slaves on the market. He was a high-ranking noble... We hid and burned the body, but his death would soon be apparent..."


Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Hallway outside guest room
Date: Day 1 - Time: Late Night

Trudy began leading, first grabbing the lantern on the desk, she then opened the door presenting a fine wooden hallway. Klein must have fancied himself as some sort of hunter, as throughout the hallway were various heads from different creatures. Many of them looked similar to the ones you have on Earth, though, there were a couple that looked different, or even species that you haven't seen before. It was strangely alien.

When the door opened, two of the soldiers that you remember from before stood at attention. Then realizing it was you, they quickly kneeled down instead. They held their right arm horizontally in front of them. You took it as their form of a salute.

"Frau Hero! Thank you for saving us."


Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Cellar
Date: Day 1 - Time: Late Night

At the end of the hallway was a set of stairs. Nodding to the other two soldiers, Trudy continued onwards, then stepped into the staircase, heading downwards. Eventually you must have made it into a large cellar. There were many bottles displayed, probably some sort of wine, along with a variety of cases. You even saw some locked chests throughout the cellar.


Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Dungeon
Date: Day 1 - Time: Late Night

From there, Trudy opened another trapdoor, revealing another set of stairs. This one was steeper and looked to be in more disrepair than the ones higher above.  The hallway was dark as well, using the lantern she lit up the path below.

"Watch your step Frau Hero."

Eventually it lead to a long hallway, each side of the room were cages. You noticed that many of them were children, both boys and girls, the rest seemed to be women from between the ages of 15 to perhaps 30. You also noticed, that some didn't wear clothing at all, some wore simple rags, and most all of them had bruises. They each wore a collar as well, and you noticed that they had a slight glow to them all.

Trudy grimaced.

"The other soldiers and I were the luckier ones... The locks are magical. When the cage is damaged, the locks explode... When they trigger, that happens." Trudy pointed to an empty cage nearby, with the iron grate on it warped and blackened with soot. The explosion seemed to cover all the way to the back-end of that particular unit, and there were also damage do the neighboring ones as well.

Feel free to respond separately for each section, or only the latest, if you prefer.

[Asta]

Of course he had regular meetings with someone that could cause me trouble... Hanako brooded. Nothing can ever be cut and dry.

"Hmmm, tell me more about this contact of Klein's while we make our way down. There's probably nothing but trouble going to come of that."



As she walked past the soldiers in the hall she nodded appreciatively when they kneeled and saluted, though it made her uncomfortable. Really need to do something about that she thought.



In the cellar, the locked chests caught her eye a moment. "Any idea what's in those?" she queried gesturing to them but not stopping, there were more pressing matters to attend to.



As they descended through the trap door into the dungeon Trudy's warning was prudent as Hanako likely would have lost her footing otherwise.

"Watch your step Frau Hero"

"Really, just Hanako is fine we're friends right? At least I think we could be frie- what the fuck is this!?"

She changed gears in mid-sentence, the shock of what she saw keeping her from filtering out the uncouth language. "What the hell was he doing with them?" she questioned, almost making it a demand out of outrage. "No, never mind, tell me later.

Hanako listened to Trudy's explanation of the cages and collars and the unpleasant explosive results from tampering with the cages. "This is going to take some doing" she said, "Before I try messing with these like I did with yours, do you know if a key exists for the cages or the collars or is it via some command word? I'm not particularly well versed in magic and if I'm being honest with you what happened earlier was in a lot of ways blind luck."

[Throndir]

Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Guest room
Date: Day 1 - Time: Late Night

"From what I know, he's a slave trader. That fat man keeps in contact with a couple of them. At times the traders bring their goods with them and the fat man buys them on the spot, and at times, they simply report what they have in stock, or if they've found something that would entice him."


Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Cellar
Date: Day 1 - Time: Late Night

Trudy shook her head.

"They've been closed and locked since we were here. And he's never opened them. I'm not actually what he keeps there, but no one was foolish enough to try opening it... At least... not when we had our collars..." Trudy paused as she stared at the chests. But she shook her head a moment later.

"We'll always have time for that later."


Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Dungeon
Date: Day 1 - Time: Late Night

"He was a sick man. All the nobles left alive in our country are..."

"The magic worked with him, every time he wanted one of the slaves, he would come down here personally. I accompanied him for one of those trips, but he seemed to be able to simply pull the doors free without any need of a key or saying anything. I'm not sure if it worked with proximity with him though..."

[Asta]

"Hrmm... Lemme take a look at one of those locks..." she said, walking to the nearest cage leaning in close to look at the device but taking care not to touch it.

She wracked her brain for anything she could think of regarding the locks type, its origin, its relation to the cell; anything that could tell her how to open it without killing the occupant (not to mention whoever was messing with the lock).

Knowledge, Slavery:

Rolled 1d20+10 : 18 + 10, total 28

[Throndir]

Knowledge (slavery): 28
The lock on the jail cell looked ordinary enough at first glance. However, you were able to see a faint glow of light emanating from them. You did notice that Trudy lifted the lantern closer to you when you began examining the locks.

Just like the collars and manacles earlier that day, you seemed to know everything there was to know about locks. Just like with the previous ones, you knew the locks were magical, you also knew that given how the glow from the locks looked like, along with some barely-visible runes etched into it, you knew that this particular kind of lock was one that was trapped upon tampering. You were also able to verify Trudy's claims that the locks indeed unlock themselves when the owner, in this case, Herr Klein, was around.

Unfortunately you knew that Herr Klein was no longer around.

You also knew that these ones, like the collars you had disabled before, were on the more complicated-side among the types of locks and collars you somehow knew about. Unlike a normal kind of lock, these ones were completely magical, without any way to unlock them through non-magical means, without triggering it. They were either expensive, or this country simply used these types of collars and locks for their slaves.

You also confirmed that a slight trail of light came from the locks and spread itself throughout each bar of the cages. But you also knew that the owner of the lock could trigger a forced explosion as well without the need for tampering the jail cell.

[Asta]

"Well, there's definitely no way to pick these using normal means. Did you happen to uhh, take anything off his body before you... got rid of it? It's likely that I could open them the way I opened yours but the possibility exists that the lock might still consider that being tampered with."

Hanako didn't want to take any chances and accidentally kill someone. If it came down to it and there was no other way, she would have to find out which of the captives would be most comfortable with the prospect of getting blown up if something went wrong. It would need to be a cell with the fewest amount of people with the the least amount of additional people in the surrounding cells. It was a pragmatic, but very unpleasant approach that she didn't necessarily want to take.

She looked around the rest of the chamber, to see if there were any unoccupied cells that might also be locked, hoping there would be somewhere she could try it out first.

After looking, she thought about reviewing what that green window had told her about her powers. She concentrated on the concepts of "Slavemancy" and "Item Speaker" to carefully review the information in case she had missed something.

[Throndir]

"We took his clothes, his boots, jewelry, and weapons he kept on himself. He had a bag of coins that we took as well. He was in his underwear when we burned the body."

There was a couple of cells that were still empty. Counting the individuals, there were 30 people in the cages, but there were 10 more cages that were still empty.

You brought back up the description for Slavemancer and Item Speaker as pop ups appeared in your vision. There didn't seem to be any change. Item Speaker still had three question marks.

Focus on『Slavemancer』
Ability to have all knowledge related with slavery. Ability to know the creation, use, and application of all tools related with slavery. Control over slavery items.

Focus on『Item Speaker』
???

[Asta]

"Hmm, is it possible that you could bring some of that jewelry down here? It may work like some kind of magic key based on how close he was to the lock" she said, then thought a moment. "Also I'm going to do something that may seem... weird, but It might pay off in the long run."

It was a distinct possibility that one of his rings or necklaces or whatever other kind of jewelry was on him might be enchanted to work like some kind of magical RFID tag that served to unlock the cages when he was close enough so it would be worth inspecting them before she tried anything dangerous. Also... there was that second ability that didn't seem to have any information about it.

Perhaps... she mused silently, turning back to the nearest magic lock.

She looked at the lock, really concentrated on it, tried to think of it as something like a person as silly as that was. Then she tried to talk to it with her mind, feeling silly all the while.

Uhh, hello? Mr. Lock..? Ms. Lock?

[Throndir]

"Very well ma-" She paused, remembering what you said earlier. She seemed to fidget a bit, but continued shortly after. "Very well..."

"Hanako."

She finally said, smiling. It occured to you that was the first time you've seen her smile. After that, she proceeded to head back up the stairs, planning to retrieve the items that they took of Herr Klein.

When you began to focus on the lock, you saw wisps of light come from you and speed towards the lock you focused on. You felt slightly tired from the attempt, but all of a sudden, the lock spoke.

"It's mister. Do I look like a girl to you? Absolutely rude." The sound seem to come from the lock itself.