7 How I Somehow 'Defeated' Thieves

Becoming a slave was the worse thing you could ever ask for. Why was it worse than being worked till death?

It was because becoming a slave meant losing your freedom to whoever became your master for yourself, your children, your grandchildren and it went on.

It was something that became established when there were too much people in poverty like those in my village without any skill in magik or alchemy.

There were too many riots from starving unemployed people who were barely surviving in their day to day lives.

In order to control these people, many powerful kingdoms agreed to make the existence of 'slaves'.

People in extreme poverty would sell themselves to become slaves and lose their freedom in exchange for food, clothing and shelter that would be provided by their masters.

Losing their freedom meant they would essentially have no will of their own unless their master allowed it that would continue for generations until their master would let them become free.

However, people would be constantly be pushed into desperate situations that would lead them into becoming slaves in order to not die from hunger or from the wild cold in the winter.

Currently, Jamie's face was drenched from tears as she kept on mumbling repeatedly, "Please don't report us... I don't want to become a slave."

She kneeled down into a deep dogeza* while the rest of her family members followed in response to my silence.

What we did not notice while we were immersed in our conversation was the group of knights who were right behind me as they came in worry for the young rugged girl who decided to fight the thieves all by herself.

"As expected of the hero!" One knight said to his colleagues.

"Look how she made the thieves submit to her in defeat in a little period of time!" Another knight praised.

I looked around my surroundings to try to comprehend what was happening based on the knights' remarks.

"A bunch of thieves are grovelling in defeat while abandoning all their weapons," the young girl impressively said.

"This is almost impossible unless our hero defeated them with her wild intimidation skill!"

The knights all nodded their heads in agreement.

Huh!!! There was actually a skill such as intimidation to get people to kneel down before you!

The knights started ruffling the hair on my head in thanks while all of the sudden, the young girl started whispering something in their ears.

It must have been something like, 'I'm sure that hero should deserve more praise! Let's start-'

The knights started throwing me up into the air and in response, Aunt Gilda's family started to look startled and worried.

"Emilia didn't do anything! It was us who became thieves because we spent all our wealth on frivolous items!" Jamie suddenly yelled us while rising from her dogeza.

*A dogeza is an element of Japanese etiquette which involves kneeling directly on the ground and bowing to prostrate oneself while touching one's head to the floor (Wikipedia).