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Warning: This chapter contains descriptions and/or implications of strong abuse and resulting mental trauma.

I unlocked my room and went inside. The girl still hadn’t woken up.
There ain’t much I can do until she opens her eyes, is there? Should I allocate points and stuff on my status screen?

I was about to open the status screen, when she started to stir.

“Are you awake…? Good morning.”

She didn’t react to me calling out to her.
Or rather, her eyes are blank, so is she still half asleep?

I tried waving my hand in front of her eyes. When I did that, they suddenly came alive, and she immediately started to check her surroundings.

“Where… am… I?”
“In an inn in a place called castle town.”

When I replied to her, she gazed at me for a short time, and then, I wasn’t sure whether it was because she had noticed she had been sleeping in a bed, started to panic.

“Ah… ah… uhm… I am sorry for using the bed, I’m so very sorry! So please don’t hit me, I beg you. Don’t hit me… please don’t hit me… I don’t want to hurt…” she begged while prostrating herself.

I had no idea she’d been driven to such extremes. Just what the hell happened to her?

“Nah, I was the one who made you sleep there. No need to apologize.”
“You… put me there? So, it’s for this, I guess…? Erm… it’s my first time… I know it depends on your likings, but… if you could be gentle… My ear and my tail are missing, and I’m just skin and bones since I can’t keep any food down, so… sleeping with me surely won’t feel very good, but…” she stammered, as she was trembling with tears in her eyes.

It looked like she had misunderstood me again.

“No, no, that ain’t what I’m plannin’, y’know.”
“Then… what is it? …I mean, I am so sorry. As a slave, I should talk respectfully to you, Sir. P-Please don’t hit me…”

That’s quite a serious case…

“I’m not plannin’ to hit you. Besides, if talkin’ like that is easier for you, then that’s fine.”
“R-Really!”
“Yup.”

This is seriously worse than I thought.

The coachman had told me that the slaves had been harshly educated for some time at a place like some training¹ facility before being sent to the merchant.

Did they do that to her there…? No, that’s unthinkable. I feel like the merchant said something along the lines that her missin’ ear and tail lowered her value. If so… did that happen to her before she was made a slave?

“I-I’ll do as you say, then…”
“Sure. Oh, right. I still haven’t told you my name. I’m Shuu. What’s yours?”
“…I am Rir²…”
“I see, nice to meet’cha, Rir.”

I tried holding my hand out to her. She carefully extended her own hand towards mine and took it.
It felt thin, cold, and frail. Moreover, she still seemed to tremble a bit.

“Do you know why you’re here?” I asked her.

In case she doesn’t know, I gotta tell her what happened.

“Yes, I wonder, did you buy me… the defective product, from the merchant, Master?”
“What, you heard that?”
“Well… only a little. I don’t remember how we got to this place. By what manner did I come here? Could you have carried me, Master…?”
“Well, yeah… I carried you on my back.”

When I told her that, she prostrated herself again and started to apologize. The tears in her eyes, that had started to stop, welled up once again, as she begged and begged for my forgiveness.

“No, no, you ain’t got to apologize for that…”
“B-But! Despite me being a slave… I caused you trouble, Master… I am so sorry… please forgive me…”

What should I do?

I’ll have to be gentle… that should be obvious… Should I try pattin’ her head? No… I can’t pat the head of a girl who, from how she looks, is probably my age… she won’t like that, right?

Should I try takin’ her hand like earlier?

“Settle down a bit… I’m not angry. Y’know, I won’t do anythin’ to you,” I said while taking her hand in an attempt to calm her down.

If she tells me that’s gross, I’ll be the one who ends up cryin’.

“I… I’m sorry, I… uhm… I’m scared…”
“O-Of me!?”

So, she’s grossed out after all!? I’m gonna cry. I wasn’t expecting any reward, but tryin’ to comfort her and then bein’ called scary is obviously hurtful, y’know.

“No, that’s not it. How should I put it… erm…”
“If it’s too hard to say, you don’t need to tell me now.”
“…Yeah.”

The hell, so I was wrong?

In other words, the thing she’s scared about… is someone will do somethin’ to her because of what she did… that about it? From what I concluded earlier, the slave trainin’ probably isn’t to blame… so seems like somethin’ happened to her before she became a slave, after all.

The wounds on her heart look rather deep. I kinda wish I could do somethin’ about that.

…Oh, that’s right, the reason I came back here was to ask her what food she likes and other stuff, right?

“Hey, Rir. Are you fine with me askin’ some questions?”
“That’s okay. There are also some things I’d like to ask you, Master. Besides, I am your slave.”
“…Gotcha. Then first… How old are you?”
“I am… 16 years old. I will turn 17 in the 16th month of this year.”

Seriously, so the calendar in this world has at least 16 months? But… in other words, she’d be in the same year in school³ as me.

Woah, decidin’ how to treat her suddenly feels like it got a lot harder.

“How old are you, Master?” Rir asked me.
“Me? I’m 17. I turned 17 around the eight month⁴.”
“I see… So, we are almost the same age, aren’t we?”
“Yep, looks like it. By the way, why do you keep callin’ me ‘Master’?”
“Because you’re my master. You bought me, didn’t you…? Shouldn’t I have addressed you like that?”
“Well… if it’s easier for you to call me that, that’s fine.”
“That helps.”

I don’t like bein’ addressed as “Master”, since it really makes us appear as slave and master, but… If she herself prefers that, it can’t be helped.

Let’s move on to the other questions.

“T-Then, what food do you like?
“Food that I like…? I have an illness that prevents me from swallowing food properly and makes me vomit everything up. But if I don’t eat anything, I will end up dying, so at the training facility, I relied on the trainers to shove it in by force. Though I still threw up most of it. For that reason, I hate food.”

Dang, that’s a problem. All I get from that is that the trainin’ facility wasn’t the reason for her to get like this⁵.

T-Then let’s ask her what food isn’t that bad for her.

“Gotcha… Is there any food you’d prefer?”
“What I’d prefer…? Anything that isn’t insects, feces from magic beasts and livestock, or soil should be fine… Oh, and also no urine. I’d much prefer the peels of vegetables. Also, the bread and soup we had in the training facility tasted good, I guess.”
“…!”

I found myself hugging Rir, and even though I should have been the one to comfort her, tears started to flow from one of my eyes before I knew it.

TL notes:
Sheesh, that doesn’t bode well for Shuu. Now, on top of having to keep her alive, he’ll also have to play counselor to deal with the various traumas she seems to have suffered.

1. The original used here is 調教 (“training”, “breaking”) which normally seems to be used for animals, not people.
2. The original is リル (riru). “Lill” would’ve been another possibility.
   Combining 1. her being a wolf demi human, 2. her last name フエン (fuen) which we’ll learn in volume 10, and 3. the fact that the Japanese seem to love to abbreviate “Fenrir” as “Rir”, I’m guessing that that’s the intended name.
3. In Japan, kids apparently are in the same grade if they’re born in the same year, no matter if someone is born in January or December.
4. He means august, but Japanese doesn’t use names for months, just numbers. I left it as a number since Rir likely wouldn’t understand the Earth month names.
5. I’m sure force-feeding her (and likely various other abuse) didn’t exactly improve her condition.