Dragon Princess Will Do Her Best To Prevent The World's Destruction

Chapter 39: Character Stereotypes

"I want to be a sailor one day. Maybe a pirate? Someone who can have fun on the sea, anyway. Bell had been in the forests for so long, and this damp room for nearly a year, it's just so dreadful. The open air! The vast ocean! Bell is going to become a singer there, like a siren!" Bell continued to babble on about her random stories.

Yeah, trying to get any sort of information out of her was impossible. Over the past few hours of questioning, I've only got several pieces of information to show. Quite a lot, really, judging from who the person doing the answering was. Still, you would expect someone who claimed she had been here for almost a year to provide a lot more information than these vague sounding ones, even if she was a slave.

To begin with, this place apparently wasn't a legal slave trading business. I was slightly surprised, but that was merely a reaction of a modern human. After all, I did read somewhere in the information reports on the Koraine Kingdom that slave trade was legal, albeit restricted, in regards to penal or non-human slavery.

I have no idea how that loony elf understood the humans' code of laws, but perhaps she was more intelligent than I gave her credit for. Anyway, this was an underground business that dealt with high value slaves, like combat slaves or, uh, slaves that fulfilled primal desires, let's just put it that way. Although I could be an overpowered slave in the first category, but I have a feeling I was sent here with the latter in mind.

I wasn't particularly worried, since I would be outta here before I get sold off. For now, I required some time to plan.

Moving on, the slaves could be inferred to be rather lucrative, or at the very least popular goods, since Bell claimed slaves often came and went. Except for she herself, of course. Never figured out why she wasn't sold off, because even being crazy she had her uses, I think. And no, I wasn't going to believe that she was 'too popular to be sold'.

Second piece of information, slaves here were apparently 'branded'. In addition to the physical burn mark, that is. There was something that could 'brainwash' the slaves into absolute obedience. Probably the drug known as elf dust, if I understood Bell's jumbled sentences correctly. No idea how that worked, but perhaps something like using addiction as a driving force? Opium? Might be a twist in a fantasy world, though.

I wasn't too worried about it, again, since I was about to leave anyway. That, and also I had basically absolute resistance to low level status effects. Even if they had some sort of special item that could negate my skills, my reduction passives should negate the effects somewhat, buying me enough time to consume a cure all item I had stacks of in my inventory.

In the end, she didn't provide any information that would be of use to me, huh? What I wanted was the surroundings, a basic map or direction of the city, or at the very least the rough location of this settlement. My absolute last resort was to call my subordinates to come fetch me, but right now that seemed like the only option I had...

Discreetly, at least. I could just transform into a dragon and fly off into the distance, and reach Eden somehow. After all, all wind currents lead to Eden, similar to how all roads lead to Rome. Huh? I could transform into a dragon? What did you expect! I am literally the Dragon Princess, you know!

"Hey, Bell. Do you want to leave this place?" I interrupted her rambling.

"Hm? Sure! Don't bring me back to the forests, though. No fun at all! They tried to kill Bell, both the elves and humans! Something about being a heretic? The only heretics are the ones who hates me! No one is allowed to hate Bell! Hmph! Ah, I don't know how to swim. I'll just go swim in the ocean!"

Her speech logic was getting worse, somehow!

Yeah. There was this issue as well. I wanted to help Bell despite my non-interference policy, because it seemed like she was kicked out of her village for reasons that might have something to do with Aura? Who knows? Anyway, on the off chance it was our responsibility, then at the very least I wanted her to be free. As much as I dreaded unleashing such a sketchy person upon the world...