Volume 4 Chapter 74 The Handmaid
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Inside an abandoned mine in the Horn Mountains of the Kingdom of Schweilitz.
”These are the people.”
Just before stepping through the Transfer Gate, I introduced Professor Karl Krepelin and his medical relief team to Rocani of the Androgynos Group.
”So fast…”
Rocani was overwhelmed with emotion, choking back sobs. Sure, I’d made it back in just two weeks round-trip without any advance consultation, but… was that really something to sob over?
”Pleased to meet you. I’m Karl Krepelin, leader of this medical relief team. Normally, I serve as a professor at the Third Medical Magic Laboratory of the Kingdom of Schweilitz Magic Academy.”
When Karl introduced himself, Rocani started sobbing again, exclaiming about how such a respected person had come all the way here. It felt fishy, but Karl gently extended his hand for a handshake.
Karl. This person looks like a beautiful old woman on the outside, but he’s male. He’s one of the Androgynos Group. He’s got that thing between his legs too. Swap “grandma” for “old man” in your head.
Maybe moved by the feeling, Karl forgot to ask the important questions. Karl’s handsome, but he has no luck with women. Too easily fooled by a granny’s looks, I guess.
So I took the initiative. “The relief team’s mission is three months. During that time, the Androgynos Group covers room and board. It’s not free—we’ll discuss compensation after the mission concludes.”
The moment I said that, Rocani’s face suddenly returned to normal. Not only that, he shot me a glare before muttering, “We’ll discuss payment later,” and stepped through the Transfer Gate.
Schweilitz had already received seeds for New Continent plants—tomatoes included—from him. Despite that, before we left, I’d been instructed by the Kingdom Office to inform them about compensation first. To Rocani, it probably felt like: “I’ve already paid in advance with those seeds, and you’re still demanding more?” But that’s just how Schweilitz operates.
Following him, we stepped through the Transfer Gate. But once we’d transferred, I shot Karl a look that said, “See? Now it’s even harder to negotiate.” But Karl wasn’t paying attention—he was just stunned.
Not by my words, of course. The Androgynos capital was on the opposite side of the planet. The time difference was twelve hours—it was already night. Spring was barely beginning to show, but the capital was high in the mountains, and the night cold matched deep winter. The shock of such a sudden change was understandable, but Karl was a professor—he needed to get it together.
”We’d like to host a welcoming banquet immediately. Please, this way to the lodging,” Rocani said.
At Rocani’s words, Karl looked even more lost. Probably he and the rest of the team were eager to get to work—they wanted a strategy meeting, not a party. He shot me a pleading look, but I shrugged. “Negotiate for yourself.”
”Well, gathering intel at the party isn’t a bad idea either,” I offered.
”But—” Karl started, but then seemed to realize he couldn’t be too rude. Reluctantly, he followed.
We emerged from the Hub Tower and hurried toward the lodging. The team from Schweilitz was dressed for early autumn, though they wore mage robes for appearance’s sake. Naturally, our pace quickened. When we reached the inn where Pamela was staying, we were immediately shown to the banquet hall.
We’d arrived with the relief team so quickly that apparently they hadn’t prepared rooms or meals. Rocani issued instructions, and the inn staff scrambled.
No proper seating—it was a standing buffet. Karl and I were seated at the most important table.
The hall’s heating was cranked up, and improvised distilled spirits and cheese were brought out. Soon, other elders arrived and exchanged introductions.
Proper food arrived soon enough—though it was all banquet food, salty and greasy. The silent young Androgynos with beautiful faces brought it to us.
Our internal clocks still said morning, and the food sat heavy on Karl, the eldest among us. But he was an adult—he plastered on a strained smile, forced it down, and offered polite compliments about how delicious it was.
”Apparently, the infection source was an Amazoness who came to the trading city of Takere,” one of the elders informed us.
According to their investigation, tracking the source led to an Amazoness sailor who had visited Takere. I panicked for a moment—surely not the Amazoness from the bath?—but it turned out to be someone else. Kamea, the one I’d become physically intimate with, was part of the crew that brought rice, but the first to bring syphilis ashore was a slave trader who arrived on a sugarcane transport. I didn’t quite understand how an Amazoness could be a slave trader, but at least it wasn’t Kamea.
Looking at the Androgynos Group’s domestic situation, before I’d left for Schweilitz, they’d reported twenty-five infections. In the two weeks I’d been gone, that number had climbed to thirty-two.
”Three colonies are being quarantined,” the elder said somberly.
”Colonies” are settlements built around the dome-shaped Mother Mushrooms, where the Androgynos lay and raise their eggs. The problem is that syphilis infects the mushrooms too. When that happens, the eggs laid there and the larvae until they hatch also become infected—so the colony is sealed off and the Mother Mushroom is burned.
This is a serious matter for the Androgynos. After all, Androgynos summoned from human souls are only a few per household—Rao’s place, which I’d first visited, had just three. The majority are summoned from animal souls and called handmaids. There were dozens of them doing housework and farm labor.
”What happens to the handmaids?” I asked.
The elder explained that, following what happened eighty years ago, uninfected handmaids were partially sold off, and infected ones were put down. This time, because the syphilis alert had been issued relatively early, only a few handmaids had been infected. Their fate remained undecided.
Just then, Miao, the Medical Magic mage, finally arrived, and Karl’s group could begin their actual work discussions.
”Well, I should be going,” I said, preparing to leave the table—but Rocani caught me.
”Hey. What’s this about compensation?” he asked in a low, clipped voice.
I wanted to say, “How should I know?” But that would’ve been immature.
”We weren’t told the details either, honestly. I was just told to pass along the message. Probably…”
”Probably what?”
”Probably it means they want continued diplomatic ties between our countries even after the relief mission ends,” I suggested.
That was the implication in the Kingdom Office’s words. But since nothing was stated explicitly, it was also entirely possible I was reading too much into it. What if the Kingdom Office was genuinely planning to demand a fortune from the Androgynos? The thought was a little frightening—but I’d leave the mediation to Karl, not me.
More importantly, I had something far more personal and urgent on my mind.
”Anyway, I’ll take my leave here,” I said, offering a quick farewell to everyone except Karl, who was deep in conversation with Miao, and slipped out of the banquet hall. The moment I was out, I broke into a run. I’d picked up my room key at the front desk earlier.
When I entered the room, a small figure lay curled on the bed.
”Pamela,” I called.
The lump under the blanket turned toward me.
”Larry?” Pamela’s voice.
”Yeah, I’m back,” I said, already stripping off my clothes.
”You have no idea how hard it’s been, holding back.”
Right. With the risk of syphilis, I’d been forbidden from sleeping with anyone but Pamela. A whole two weeks I’d held out. I dove into the blanket she’d kept warm.
”Naked?” she asked.
Every point of contact was bare skin.
”Goodness, I missed you so much,” she said, her slender arms surprisingly strong as they wrapped around me, pressing her hips against mine, grinding. Ah, the body of a petite elf mage—a few bones poking here and there.
But still.
”Pamela, I’ve been holding back for so long—if you keep that up…” I warned.
Dead serious, I was about to finish before we’d even started.
”It can’t be helped. I’ll start with that thing you like. But you’d better take proper care of me afterward,” her telepathic voice said.
”Thanks, Pamela. I’ll take care of you,” I replied.
”I’m warning you, though—my mouth is not your s**men toilet.”
With that reminder, the petite elf mage slipped under the covers.
* * *
The next morning, Pamela and I headed to the inn’s dining hall. Since the others were supposed to be staying here too, I expected to see Karl and the team—but when I asked the staff, they said no one had come down yet. Jet lag, or maybe too much drinking.
As we were about to take our seats, a young Androgynos I’d met before approached to greet me. Before I’d left for Schweilitz, he’d come to me without introduction, accompanied by a dwarf, to ask about steam engines. His name was Cisco Cliff-Blue the Sixth.
”I heard you’d returned,” he said, bowing his head. After asking permission to sit beside me, he took a seat. The brazenness from our first meeting was gone.
This Androgynos had gone into pottery—ceramics—after graduating from the capital’s Core Basics school, following in the family business. He’d had three older siblings, but they’d all left, unhappy with the family work. When his parents died and he became head of the household at a young age, a copper vein was discovered near the colony. A dwarf who bought the mining rights began visiting and they’d grown close.
When I asked about the mine, he said many young handmaids—animal-souled Androgynos—worked there. He’d proposed ore carts to the dwarves, thinking it might make their work a little easier—he’d seen it in a picture from a book about society in his past life. After some trial and error, he’d worked with a young dwarf from the mine to lay tracks in the tunnels and build the carts by hand.
Of course, with no bearings, they couldn’t carry all that much ore—but it still drew attention. The young dwarf started a company making ore carts, and Cisco helped out while still doing his own work. He laughed, saying it was a joy to combine the dwarves’ metalworking skills with his past-life knowledge to make not just carts but all kinds of metal products.
One day, a dwarf coal mine operator asked if there was a way to pump water out of the shafts more easily. The first thing that came to mind was Watt’s steam engine.
Only, Cisco didn’t know exactly how it worked. He’d thought and thought, designing cylinders and pistons, but couldn’t get it right. The problems were controlling the power and getting the gears to mesh properly.
That was when our black ship had arrived. Hearing that the captain was visiting the capital’s research institute, Cisco couldn’t sit still—that was how he’d first come to see me while I was resting in the infirmary.
In his past life, he’d been a student when he was reborn here. So he often remembered seeing things but didn’t know the mechanisms. The steam engine was like that.
Over breakfast, I explained pressure-regulating valves and backlash—intentionally leaving gaps in the gear meshing.
”Thank you so much. I’ll figure out the rest myself,” he said with a grateful smile.
I didn’t dislike this kind of young man. But the Androgynos all had such beautiful faces and such large chests that it was easy to forget they were male inside. And they had… that thing between their legs too.
”By the way—handmaids are bought and sold like slaves?” I asked, voicing a question that had been nagging at me. Hearing him talk about handmaids working in the dwarf mines had sparked my curiosity.
”Yes. It’s one of our country’s most important export industries,” Cisco replied matter-of-factly.
”Exported to the dwarf mines?”
”No, no—to the Amazoness lands, and the Shura kingdom. Amazoness is the main customer now. Ever since they dug that canal through Central America, they’ve been buying them up like crazy.”
”A canal? Like the Panama Canal? This world has something like that?” I asked, confused. I mean, the Panama Canal needs all those sluice gates to raise and lower water levels—surely this world didn’t have that kind of technology.
”Not the Panama Canal. Nicaragua,” he said.
”Nicaragua?”
”You’ve never heard of it? In my past life, I read about it—the canal that was supposed to be built after Panama,” he explained.
I had no idea. Cisco explained: there’s a huge lake called Lake Nicaragua, with a river flowing from it to the Atlantic. The elevation difference between the lake and the Pacific is only thirty to forty meters. Not much at all. Even in his past life, there had been talk of building a canal there long before the Panama Canal—he remembered reading an article about it.
”So the Amazoness built a canal there?” I asked.
”That’s right. They apparently dug a hundred kilometers of canal. Now they’re developing the area, and handmaids sell well to the Amazoness. Of course, they have to be programmed first—to understand commands, to not resist,” he said casually.
At that, I understood what Rao’s work was all about. And I understood, vaguely, why Rocani had been so vague about this country’s industries.
Cisco, who was telling me all this, had probably reincarnated young—he saw nothing wrong with the country’s morals. To him, handmaids were no more than cats or dogs. But Rocani—whenever I spoke with him, I got the sense he was a middle-aged man inside. Probably reincarnated at an older age. He couldn’t quite forget his past-life ethics, which was why he was bothered by selling human-shaped handmaids as slaves.
But slavery is normal in this world. Maybe my own morals are already pretty thoroughly poisoned.
The conversation ended, and Cisco left. As he left, a tired-looking Karl and his team shuffled into the dining hall.
—
Summary:
Larry returns to the Androgynos capital with Karl’s medical relief team, navigating Rocani’s theatrical emotional displays and negotiating compensation terms. After a banquet where syphilis outbreak details are revealed, Larry reunites with Pamela for an intimate night. The next morning, Cisco explains the handmaid export industry and the Amazoness canal project, forcing Larry to confront his own moral corruption in a world where slavery is normalized.
—
Trivia:
Rocani is biologically male despite appearing as a beautiful old woman.
Karl Krepelin’s name may be a Led Zeppelin reference (Krepelin/Zeppelin).
The Androgynos capital is on the opposite side of the planet with a 12-hour time difference and high-altitude cold.
Syphilis infects both Androgynos and their Mother Mushrooms, forcing colony closures.
Handmaids are animal-souled Androgynos who are bought and sold as export commodities.
The Amazoness built a 100km canal through Nicaragua using handmaid labor.
Handmaids must be “programmed” for obedience before sale.
Rao’s household has only three human-souled Androgynos and dozens of handmaids.
Cisco reincarnated young and sees handmaids as no different from cats or dogs.
Rocani likely reincarnated older and retains past-life ethical discomfort with slavery.
Larry was forbidden from s*x with anyone but Pamela due to syphilis risk.
The syphilis outbreak originated from a slave trader, not from Kamea.
Larry’s internal monologue reveals he believes his morals are being “poisoned” by this world.
The steam engine subplot connects to earlier worldbuilding about technology transfer from Earth.
The chapter’s author notes indicate the next update is scheduled for Tanabata (July 7).
Notes:
• Schweilitz – This kingdom, featuring towering academy spires and a full military arsenal of Royal Army troops, forces the protagonist to return. Ruled by a king involved in a hostage exchange, this political power holds a captive feared for execution. It also ordered the confirmation of Princess Rosa’s corpse, driving a scheme that the Queen has caught onto.
• Ho – Ho is the family name of Oliver, a 17-year-old deck crew member and comrade of the protagonist. As a member of the military unit that defended Garao Village, the young man was ultimately murdered during a night watch, slaughtered alongside Marx-san.
• Karl Krepelin – Professor of the Third Medical Magic Laboratory, researcher of medical magic, romantically interested in Darina.
• Rocani – Leader figure of the Androgynos Group. Appears as a beautiful old woman but is male inside. Emotionally performative and politically calculating. Received Larry’s party at the Transfer Gate and hosted a banquet. Ambivalent about the handmaid trade.
• Karl – Professor Karl Krepelin, head of the Third Medical Magic Laboratory at Schweilitz Academy, is a sharp-witted, handsome, yet naive professor. Pragmatic and exhausted, he leads the medical relief team with a blunt, cynical demeanor. While he provides Larry with academic guidance and informal intelligence on political movements, his talkative nature earns the protagonist’s spite. He is married to Darina.
• Pamela – Pamela is a blunt, sharp-tongued older mage who balances archaic speech with a rural Southern American dialect. Petite and telepathic, this scholarly mentor to the protagonist and Earnest acts as an affectionate, no-nonsense romantic partner to Larry. Whether offering unsentimental strategic assessments or assisting with rituals, she pairs old-fashioned warmth with a confident, authoritative presence.
• Pam – An escort to the protagonist who is observant and loyal.
• Kamea – Amazoness sailor and Larry’s physical partner. Brought rice to the trading city. Unrelated to the syphilis outbreak’s origin.
• Rao – The Red of Mount Yue, Fifth Generation, is a confident, androgynous colony leader with an elegant yet weary demeanor. Unfazed by nudity, she balances refined politeness with a teasing nature. As a spirit magic programmer, she manages colony operations, coal negotiations, and the obedience of her handmaids. She oversees a household of dozens, including three human-souled members and her two reincarnated successors.
• Miao – Medical Magic mage who arrives late to the banquet. Part of Karl’s medical relief team. No spoken dialogue in this chapter.
• Larry – Larry is a dark-haired, weary 16-year-old reincarnated Second Lieutenant, cynical Acting Captain of the Izumo, and Associate Professor. A pragmatic, sardonic narrator and Mana user, he founded the Fee Grand Principality, carries Philip IV’s sword, and seeks to protect his companions. Haunted by past trauma and complicated relationships, he struggles with moral conflicts while awaiting his next assignment.
• Cisco – Cisco Cliff-Blue the Sixth, an earnest and friendly young Androgynos, leads the colony near the coal outcrop. A pottery artisan who collaborates with dwarves on engineering, he is a reincarnated former student who naively accepts the handmaid trade. As Earnest’s primary contact for negotiation, Cisco serves as the crucial link to the human trafficking information brought to Rao-san.
• Zepp – A professor leading the Second Laboratory.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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