So the Medieval Age Has a Split Inheritance System…
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Derpy
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 02 – Whipping
I read a lot of other-world-themed novels in my previous life. No matter how unfavorable it seemed, there was definitely a way out and it would soon become an overwhelming force. However, in the past 10 years, no matter how much I searched for loopholes, I learned that there was no such thing, forcing me to stand up after being reprimanded by that vicious goddess.
…That said, what I was doing now was like an extension of my search for a loophole. There was a reason why I only selected slaves with the self-maintenance characteristic when I bought them—it was to hurt them and let them level up. If I managed to make them acquire self-regeneration, which was a superior version of self-maintenance, they could grow into a unit that could fight decently.
However, there was no way other people hadn’t come up with this simple idea. Moreover, the reason why this method wasn’t practiced was that the slaves who continued to be tortured may be driven to insanity from feeling pain all the time. They couldn’t get used to it.
That was why I bought another thing as well. It was an artifact with a special ability that appeared quite frequently in this world. It was an E-rank equipment with the characteristics of “(pain) empathy” in the form of a whip.
…To put it simply, the wielder would feel the pain inflicted by the equipment. It would inflict damage on other people, but they wouldn’t feel that pain. It was practically a weapon without any real merit, so I could buy it quite cheaply.
What I would do from now on was very simple. Use the whip to inflict damage on the slaves to raise their level of self-maintenance. If the idea that they wouldn’t go insane if they couldn’t feel the pain wasn’t true, then it would not succeed. And if I can’t endure the pain I inflicted, I will be the one who becomes insane.
Well, if I was driven to insanity and could no longer think, perhaps that could be considered a success in a way. Once I could no longer think of anything, it meant that I was released from the pain of life in a sense. Even if I might die in the future, if the fear of death was gone, perhaps that is also an option. This was how cornered I was.
In front of my 20 slaves, I announced the fact that I would keep hitting them with a whip from now on. However, I also told them that they wouldn’t feel any pain from it. That in the future, I wanted them to acquire self-regeneration characteristics to play a central role in my army.
“To put it bluntly, you people were purchased to become pawns to help me rise up from the losing side. The moment I win, I will grant you your freedom and allow you to have your families. And as for those who cannot acquire the characteristic or die along the way, they will quickly be replaced. This unit will always walk side by side with death.”
And the moment I hit the back of the first slave in front of me with a whip, a terrible pain ran through my back. On the other hand, the slave seemed to wonder why he couldn’t feel any pain. But it didn’t change the fact that where he was struck by the whip his flesh was still gone and the blood was still flowing.
If I kept doing this over and over, their bodies would soon reach their limits, so I rotated to another slave and hit their back. After all had gotten their turn, I hit their hinds next. Every time I swung my whip, a tremendous amount of pain shot through me.
…If I continued to do this every day, I might really go insane. On the other hand, even if there was no pain, the slaves seemed to be having a hard time with all the blood they were losing. Please do not go crazy before me. The cost per person was still equivalent to 100,000 yen even though I could acquire them quite cheaply thanks to buying them in bulk.
But well, I guess there was no need to worry about them going crazy. Every time I struck the whip, they saw me tumbling and rolling to the ground, which made them more worried about me instead. Since they had a self-maintenance trait, they did not really go down easily just from two lashings.
As a matter of fact, although it was true the pain caused every time I whipped was so great it made my vision spotty, since there was no actual wound, the pain would go away after some time. If I only did 40 lashings a day, perhaps I could endure it.
If I kept doing this for five years until I came of age, perhaps I might be able to acquire self-regeneration too? After giving each of them treatment, I made them go to the adventurer guilds and request jobs that anyone could do, such as cleaning the gutter or repairing castle walls, just to acquire small change.
…The income and expenditure barely ended in a positive, with the purchase of slaves and providing the slaves a bare minimum meal. The idea of purchasing slaves and making them work so that I could have a comfortable life sounded like a nice idea, but if we upped the scale, it was clear that there would be no more jobs available for the slaves sooner or later.
Using slaves to farm to be self-sufficient? Those who think farming could easily succeed for beginners without any cheats should go ahead and try that in modern Japan. There was not much insurance, so if a typhoon came, it would be an instant death sentence. Not to mention that chemical fertilizers are not something readily available, and the breed of crops wasn’t well developed either. Even in modern Japan, which had the help of machines, it was still something tough, dirty, and dangerous. There was no way I could succeed in doing such a thing in the Medieval Age.
Since I would inherit a county later on either way, it would be better to make use of the territory. There was no way I wouldn’t take advantage of this. As long as I succeed in strengthening my military, there will be a way out. The problem was that my mind might burn out before I could succeed. The pain of whipping was a bit harsh for a former modern person. It was amazing I didn’t actually pass out despite receiving lashes 40 times over. My clothes got really dirty because I kept writhing on the ground in pain, but I endured quite well.
I managed to get through the first day, but I had no idea if I could do the same after a week. Even so, I will continue to whip the slaves. For the sake of finding a loophole.
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