Chapter 37.1. Modern-day Slavery

-???’s POV-

Dungeons are both a disaster and a bounty. Dungeons created many monsters and killed many humans. Disaster is the perfect name for them.

But dungeons are also a bountiful thing.

Why is that? There are several reasons.

The first one is each country is busy dealing with dungeons, and it’s hard to get into a full-scale war. In modern times, if there is a full-scale war, the number of dungeons will continue to increase, and many monsters will be wandering around, making it uninhabitable, or causing damage, and people need to exterminate them.

In the past, even if they aimed to unify the continent, it would still be a battle with swords and magic. It was like a proxy war in which a few magicians clashed with each other.

However, after the Industrial Revolution, ordinary people also had guns and used them on the battlefield. After the First World War, in which many people died, and many monsters took over a large area as if to shoot at the vacuum, which caused enormous losses, humans realized the folly of all-out warfare against each other.

And so, although it’s not peaceful, it’s the old world again. The war ended in a proxy war between magicians, and it came to an end with as little damage as possible.

Second, the domination of the magicians by the presence of monsters. That’s because people are less likely to fight each other in vain within their own country, which means that policies are less likely to be changed every time there is a change of government, etc. At least we no longer have a policy that changes from one administration to the next every year. I don’t know if that is good or bad. But for now, the scales are tilted in the right direction.

The third is, I don’t have to tell you, the materials from monsters. Magic stones, in particular, are utilized as a universal energy source. Electricity, gas, water, et cetera et cetera. From small machines to large heavy machinery. From small houses to skyscrapers aiming for great heights.

The same goes for materials from monsters. When mixed with cement, it increases hardness. When sprinkled on fields, it eliminates crop failure. There are special monster wings that prevent airplanes from crashing, monster scales that reduce water resistance and speed up travel when navigating the seaways, and so on.

The world has seen many monsters kill many people. However, more than that, the existence of dungeons, the power, the monster’s materials, and the dungeons’ existence enhance the world’s prosperity.

The Japanese Magic Empire is also enjoying this prosperity, as evidenced by its population of 200 million people. Many children are being born, and it is still growing. There are no abandoned villages and no aging society. That’s because more children are being born.

And the stronger the light of prosperity, the darker the shadow, and the more it emits a rotten smell like a bottomless swamp.

That shadow is like a group of slumlords managing a dungeon secretly from the country.

“Ora, hurry up and walk. Come on!”

Inside a kamaboko-shaped warehouse, a middle-aged man was holding a chain and yelling. The people he is yelling at are children from 12 to about 5. They were all different ages, but they were all receiving the same treatment.

They were dressed in dirty, frayed, holey rags that could hardly be called old clothes, and wearing iron collars with chains attached, which the men pulled on them.

He chirruped and chirped the half-rusted chains, yelling at them to scare them. I watched the children huddle and shudder, their grins and mouths twisted in amusement.

Occasionally, he deliberately yanks on the chains to which he is tethered, and then he watches the children fall over, relieving his daily frustration. He was a man of bad character.

“Oh, you guys are oranges. You must get your customers to buy them before they rot themselves.”

He takes them to the dungeon’s entrance of the dungeon, which opens raggedly, and the man starts talking rapidly, with a serious look on his face. His friends around him smirked and laughed, some of them wildly, saying he was doing it again.

The children stare in horror at what the man will say. The man feels superior when the children’s attention is on him, and he opens his mouth, acting all pompous.

“First, let me tell you where you stand. You are adventurers. You are the elite who were able to become adventurers at your age. You have become the most prestigious adventurers in the adventurers’ guild that we run.”

Of course, it was not an adventurers’ guild. But as the man said that, he tapped his chain on the floor.

“Ola, you must be happy! Clap, clap!”

“Yes, yes!”

“Yes, clap…”

“Yah!”

Seeing the horrified look on the man’s face, the children clap in a panic, almost crying. The man sniffs boredly as the sparse applause starts to fall.

“You, glorious adventurers, will now enter the dungeon. Here are your weapons.”

At the man’s eye contact, his men bring belts to the children. They began to tie the belts around the children’s waists.

“Oh, um, what’s this?”

The oldest boy raises his hand and asks with fear in his voice. The man does not take offense at the question. But grins and raises his index finger.

“That’s the poison of the deadly Venom Viper. You guys should use that poison to defeat the mithril eaters in the depths of this dungeon.”

With a dubious face, the boy asks the man who pretended to act one by one. He’s attached to his waist, and the stinger looks like he can’t remove it. Even if he throws it, the belt is too tight.

But the boy’s question is answered in the worst possible way.

“You guys can eat it. If it’s from inside your body, it can damage the mithril eater. When you get eaten by mithril eaters, you still attack it. That’s the strategy.”

“Eh?”

The boys did not understand what the man was saying. But when they saw the man’s smirking, ugly face, they realized he was not joking, and their faces paled.

“Oh no! We’re going to die!”

“I bet we’ll die!”

“Ouch!”

The boy tries to approach the man, but he is kicked away like a soccer ball and rolls over the concrete floor.

The man laughs it off and continues his story.

“So, back to what I was saying earlier. If you want to survive, you have to be bought by customers. It’s going to be rotten citrus, you know. Do you know what you need to do to get out of this?”

Looking at the children, the man snickers and tells them the worst way.