The Revenge of the Soul Eater

est Sarah to Ishka will be reduced by one, which would be great news to me.

 

  I wondered if I should be the one to bring that topic up to her as well.

 

  But it’s not like I can just ask priest Sarah to leave the village right away and move to Ishka.
Although I have the achievement of saving the village of Melte from the poison, so it’s not impossible for me to take advantage of that…But it would be so low of me to make her feel like she owes me like that.

 

  I have no intention to tie priest Sarah down with obligations.
I want to do this with mutual consent.

 

  For starters, how about I invite her to my home?

 

  Since she cooked things for Clau Soras before, I should be able to invite her naturally with that excuse.
Of course, I will invite those three children to come too.

 

  Well, since we wouldn’t be able to all fly on Clau Soras at the same time if I were to bring those children along, it would increase the time I’ll need to go back and forth and make it quite hard for me to come up with a plan…but whatever, I intend to take my time to lay the groundwork.

 

◆◆◆

 

  After the incident involving 『Falcon Sword』 settled, what I took care of before anything else was Ciel’s slavery problem.

 

  One day, I paid a visit to the slave merchant Fedor with Ciel and Lunamaria.

 

  「Then I will take their slave collars off.
That’s alright with you right, Sora?」

 

  The slit-eyed slave merchant double-checked with me in one of the rooms inside a building that belonged to the『Union』.

 

  In response, I nodded with certainty.

 

  「Yes, please」

 

  「Understood.
Now then――」

 

  Fedor touched Ciel’s and Lunamaria’s collars while muttering something.

 

  Then, the collars that have no connecting parts to them just simply came off their necks.

 

  Ciel, who was visibly nervous, blinked her eyes in surprise, and Lunamaria touched her throat with her hand like she did not know how to react.

 

  Fedor had a radiant smile on his face as he looked at those two.

 

  「The collars have been removed.
Along with that, their names will be taken out from our union’s list.
Miss Lunamaria, Miss Ciel, congratulations」

 

  In response to Fedor who congratulated them in an exaggerated manner, the two had a speechless expression on their faces as they just nodded slightly.

 

  Well yeah, they can’t just be happy even if they were told “you’re free from slavery” from a slave merchant.
How distasteful that sounds.

 

  As a note, the “their names will be taken out from the union’s list” part that Fedor was talking about is related to the collars――the slave collars that those two have been wearing all this time.

 

  I’ve said before that their slave collars were enchanted by several magic spells.

 

  When Lunamaria became a slave, the reason I made the『Union』 intervene was because I wanted the slave collars.  

 

  In the transaction, the benefit for me was the slave collars.
Then what is the benefit for their side? That is the handling of my slaves after I die.

 

  As to what that means, it means in the case that I die, my remaining slave, Lunamaria, will not be released but she will become the 『Union』’s property.

 

  It’s exactly because of that benefit that they lent me their valuable slave collars.

 

  As to why I’m removing those convenient slave collars, I’ve already said before that it had something to do with Ciel.
I thought that Ciel’s resolve to let me eat her soul was influenced by the fact that she’s my slave, so I could only release her from slavery to see if that’s true.

 

  And regarding Lunamaria, honestly, I’m just releasing her while I’m at it.

 

 However, the fact that Lunamaria became a slave is still a thorn that’s stabbing Larz’s heart.
If I pluck that thorn out at this time, I think it’ll sweep away all his hostility towards me. 

 

  Moreover, when I invite priest Sarah over in the future, if Ciel and Lunamaria have slave collars around their necks, my likability might greatly decrease.

 

  It’s possible that priest Sarah will say something like she won’t join a clan of someone who enslaves others.
I want to avoid that.

 

  I don’t think Lunamaria will rebel against me after all this time, but I thought I could use the chance to eliminate that concern.

 

  After I released those two from slavery, next was the preparations to welcome Claudia.

 

 “Ahh I’m so busy so busy”――When I said that jokingly, Miroslav brought up something interesting.

 

  She told me about how the royal capital’s guild master wants to meet me.