Micky looked around at all the slaves wandering around inside the ‘outer’ city of Aene. He wasn’t against slaves, though he had hardly ever seen any even in the towns he had come across. But here it was obvious. They were also constantly begging and scraping, it disgusted Micky. Slaves were actually incredibly common. Though the reason was simple and also disgusting. People reproduced too much.

Slaves were most common in the cities for a few reasons but it basically came down to the simple fact of math. A mortal old woman could have children no matter the age so long as she kept drinking a [Health Potion] of almost any grade or continued to get [Heal]ed. And the older they were the more common that was. Not to mention almost no woman wanted to actually go through menopause. There were of course women that did, but that was by some choice because they had decided to forgo [Health Potion]s and [Heal]ing in general for some crazy reason. There were crazier things, like people that only ate plants, it’s ludacris Micky knows but he has heard enough stories that they are probably real… maybe.

Anyway, that was even just human women, and not including those races that held hive like social structures or birthed multiple children at a time. So the simple fact was, Micky was saved from this life. By being born outside a city, which in itself is astronomically rare as cities house the majority of the races population, Micky had beaten the odds. This didn’t prevent many that even Micky knew closely that weren’t sold into slavery.

Here though, most people were not sold into slavery. Here they were usually forced into slavery. And that was for a very simple reason. They were so useless that they were allowed to live. Those that were incredibly poor had two ‘choices’ in life, three if a war was raging on. They could become slaves, be forced to work, get food, ‘clothing’ (this is optional), and a place to stay. Most of which is dictated by law and standards. Slave law is even a very ancient and convoluted practice in and of itself.

The other option is becoming an adventurer if they didn’t become… or were voluntold to become a soldier to be war fodder. The surprising thing about the soldier path was that there were indeed plenty of wars and skirmishes between noble houses that were apparently ‘recruiting’, and yet nothing about the skirmish up north.

But the real path for those that sought ‘freedom’ was that of an adventurer, mercenary, or the underkingdom. These were the three ‘free’ guild paths. Of these, the adventurer’s guild was the obvious choice. For too many reasons, simply the fact it was the ‘easiest’ and ‘cheapest’ was a start. This was also why adventurers were looked down on in many, if not most, nations. Because [Debt] adventurers were a thing, it was nothing like what Micky was, and most adventurers would be offended enough to dual you if you got the two confused, but most still didn’t care.

This trash would send themselves, literally, into the jaws of death to remove their [Debt]. It was a very rough life, and only the most dedicated and lucky would be able to survive. Should they not fulfill their promise, the guild would find them, and they would wish that they had become [Slave]s instead. [Sex Slave] for the pretty ones is the best outcome, from there it only got worse.

So it is clear that Micky who is a [True] adventurer, or just adventurer, would also not want to be confused with that monster fodder. As for helping them? Why would you help weeds? They are a drain on society, the best that they could do would be to die fighting for the races against monsters.

Of course, Micky knew that it was truly the monster's own uncoordinated feuding that kept the monsters back. This thought made him realize that it was just a simple, but effective, way to control the population. But slaves could still be put to use, every noble could find something to do with idle hands. So the slaves pledged themselves to the nobles, who as fellow [Citizen]s had equal rights to each other and equal status in the nation, at least until they became slaves… technically…

Micky remunerated on this as he passed the lazing peasants. Micky never would have thought he would use the word himself, but these people were the races unwanted filth from some unspeakable hole, at least in polite company. And it showed, even as oblivious as Micky himself was, he could tell that several pickpockets had come by to… pick his pockets. And this was even while he was daydreaming.

Prin and Kux had other ideas. Not only were there pickpockets, but there were also attempted assassinations and thugs simply trying to intimidate him. Micky had let the first pickpocket that he knew of escape with their life, it was just some peasant kid. He had to continually restrain Kux from chasing them down, or as she put it ‘strolling around and seeing the sights’...

Of course, after that near catastrophe both Prin and Kux created a wider corden around Micky and by proxy the girls. Though they both were not exceedingly thorough in spite of assassins and thugs, who seemed to be attempting to attack Micky for no other reason than to try, and not some orchestrated attack against his own person. This did not mean that they weren’t wracking up a kill count however. Micky was completely, well not completely, but only vaguely aware that the two were leaving a string of bodies. Prin and Kux would be unnerved by the frequency of it all, if the people around them, and there were a lot of people around them, being completely nonchalant about it all.

Prin herself, a bandit Princess, had heard about how it was inside the cities. But she hadn’t known just how awful it truly was. Murdering in the street wasn’t simply common but expected. The slaves were immune by virtue of being unworthy of bothering to be attacked by the riffraff. Though it wasn’t an uncommon sight to see fellow [Citizen]s or nobles to simply cut down or run over the slaves for being in the way. It explained why they gave Micky and crew a wide berth without fuss.

All of this while under the stone towers’ uncaring glare.

And all of this was not why the wall in the exterior were useless as the guards had said. No, it was useless because the monsters were already in the walls. Monsters commonly spawned in the streets. Micky only heard the screams when he was inside the hotel room he was staying in. Mana flowed strangely through the outskirts of the city. While it was different in the internal section of the city, in the external section a monster could spawn at any time, at any place. Of course, this was not a problem for anyone with a modicum of wealth. The inn itself had a mana regulator. And while it did not have an eathor regulator as well, that was only for the super rich to brag, and none of those would stay in the outskirts. Though some of the fancier hotels did have them.

With a mana regulator in place no monster could spawn inside. They could still spawn outside of course, but a competent mage of any king could feel the mana flux even in their sleep. Micky was at least competent. Which is why he awoke to the mana flux even before the screaming. He also found it interesting that monsters even spawned in the first place, as they usually did not spawn out in the open where other things were around to see them. Though he supposed they weren’t exactly as they didn’t tend to spawn around mages. That was likely because Micky was controlling the mana around himself unconsciously though. It would be something interesting to study, if he were an arcane mage. He isn’t so as long as it was affecting him, he went back to sleep, unnerved but quickly.

Getting back to the carriage in the morning was equally a challenge, and several more desperate bodies were lane down in their passing. Prin and Kux had examined a few and found that they were no higher ranking than [Initiate] in the assassin and mercenary guilds, not even completing their trials. It appeared that they were planning on taking Micky out to prove themselves and then taking proof back to the guilds and then seeing if he had a bounty of some kind to claim. There was always a bounty for these types, or almost always, or so they thought. And that was reason enough to die horribly. Neither Prin nor Kux were known for ending it cleanly, at least after the first few.