Slave Comapny

It was lucky that they didn’t stay long in the adventurer’s guild and ate anything, if they had, they wouldn’t have experienced the amazing feast Avian cooked up as the entire dining table was filled with all sorts of familiar and unfamiliar foods, the smell of each individual dish alone was enough to tell how delicious they were, they didn’t start eating until every single bowl, pot and pan was on the table, Ogra who was restraining herself the most looked like she was about to faint, but when Avian finally sat down with everyone else he looked at her before telling everyone to go ahead.

-THANKS FOR T HE MEAL!

Everyone said, Ogra not wasting anytime as she grabbed a bowl and started shoveling all sorts of dishes onto her plate before devouring them like a demon.

Because the girls weren’t used to seeing Ogra eat like this yet, they couldn’t deny how gross it was while also making them feel hungry at the same time for how well she ate.

The only one who wasn’t bothered by this was Avian as he didn’t much of her healthy appetite considering her loved food just as much as her, but couldn’t possibly eat as much as her.

Avian also wasn’t worried Ogra would eat everything, he made sure to make enough that even Ogra wouldn’t be able to eat it all, he also warned her as she ate to only eat half of each dish present so that others could it eat it as well lest she would get punished, Avian didn’t know if his words got through to her, but considering that Ogra changed her target each time she ate a particular dish he thought that she understood.

The reason their table today was so sumptuous was because Avian wanted to give the girls a sort of welcome party and what better way to make it happen, but cook some delicious food.

Deborah, Gabriella and Cornelia grabbed anything that looked interesting and delicious to them and tried it, looking at them eat he could see their preferences while also observe their melting expressions as they took a bite of each dish making Avian feel a bit satisfied within.

Gabriella liked the fried meats.

Deborah was fascinated by the different salads.

And Cornelia simply chose anything that she didn’t eat before as she already experienced Avian’s cooking on their week long travels.

Usually on a table like this, conversation would be flowing very frequently, but everyone was so focused on the food that they didn’t even think about talking, it was only when Avian pulled the rabbit girl beside him onto his lap exposing her to everyone that the girls momentarily raised their heads towards the rabbit girl who sat on Avian’s lap.

Ogra was obviously still eating, but they started to get used to it as they stopped minding her while looking at the rabbit girl who was actually the only member they hadn’t talked to yet.

The rabbit girl in question, felt shy and scared as she didn’t actually want to sit on Avian’s lap and be exposed to everyone like this, even though she couldn’t see she could still feel their stares which is why she wanted to get down, but Avian gently gave her a head pat while enveloping her with his arms instantly stopping her meager resistance as she felt really good sitting like this even if she was exposed to everyone.

As for the girls, they were already aware that she was a person with a rare magic blessing, a [Shaman], none of the people present knew much about magic, but they did know that any blessing related to magic was a powerful one.

A good way to understand this were people who had the [Wizard] blessing, since magic blessings were so rare and very useful both in strength and utility, a lot of people sought after people who had these blessings, because of this an person with the [Wizard] blessing would never need to worry about finding work, in this world if you were a [Wizard] you were automatically put into the middle-class without needing to worry about money, [Wizards] after all were welcome no matter where they went, most [Wizards] worked under powerful nobles or in some big organizations, the place with the most magic users in Redria was in fact the Ivory Ring Tower where all the [Wizards] and similar magic users gathered to further their studies of magic, most countries had similar institutions as [Wizards] were known scholars who pursued knowledge voraciously, it’s for these reasons that [Wizards] rarely ever if at all would choose to become Mercenaries or Adventurers when they had so many better options that weren’t life threatening.

This was actually one of the reasons why the famous party Silver Fang in Alimdal was so famous, not only because all 4 of its members were rank 2’s but also because one of them was a rank 2 [Wizard] making them especially notable as [Wizards] who were already known as powerful could only become monsters when they were of higher rank.

While they were out shopping, Avian had gathered more information just like when he did with Maria the seamstress, from a resident blacksmith he heard that on the previous monster horde that very same [Wizard] cast a huge firestorm and obliterated 1/3 of the monster horde by himself, of course he couldn’t repeat the same move twice in that battle as it seemed like the firestorm was one of his most powerful spells that couldn’t be cast repeatedly, but it still shocked everyone who witnessed it as they saw a tornado made out of flames right outside their town ravaging and roasting those monster’s alive.

Avian already had gathered a lot of information at this point which lead him to the decision he made, right now they needed to just prepare a few things for the monster horde.

-Hello, what’s your name? My name is Deborah.

The first to call out to the rabbit girl was Deborah, having the most soothing voice in the party, the rabbit girl immediately felt less apprehensive the moment she heard her and also felt her presence with her own magical abilities.

She stayed quiet at first not knowing exactly how to respond to her question, but the gentle nudging of Avian, quickly made her act as she responded.

-Ah…my…name? Sorry…I…don’t…have…a…name…

-…

That quiet and surprising response was met with a lot of wide eyes as they hadn’t expecting it, looking at her over all appearance, most notably her eyes which were blind and her rabbit ears one of which was completely ripped off from the root and the sole remaining one half damaged drooping down to the side as if it was already dead, it was already very clear that this girl was very horribly abused to the point of mutilation, her body which was fully covered in some casual wear instead of the rags she previously wore only exposed her arms and hands which were already scarred and burned frighteningly as if an explosion occurred in the past that she somehow survived miraculously, though in this case it may have been better to have died then experience what she may have gone through.

And judging by those scars everyone could imagine how she looked like underneath those clothes she wore right now, it was not a pretty imagine to think about, but half of the people on the table knew how terrible the world was and weren’t too surprised by what they saw, Gabriella especially was experienced in this sort of cruelty which is why she simply felt that the girl was lucky to have ended up in the hands of their master.

The only saving grace about her scarred body was the fact that her face relatively didn’t sustain any injury other than her eyes, she actually looked fairly adorable, no one yet not knew how old she was, but since she already had her blessing it was clear she was already over 15 years old even though she looked like a 10-year-old, this was largely because the rabbit girl was forced to starve and hadn’t gotten enough food to accommodate her growth causing her to stay largely the same when she was very young.

-Why do you not have a name?

Cornelia asked, without any tact, intentionally so as she was still slightly irritated from earlier, Avian gave her a look, but Cornelia decided to play innocent since she already asked the question.

-Ehm…I…wasn’t…given…one…

She said, putting an even more downer feeling to their feast which should have originally been happy, fortunately there was still one person who was completely enjoying the feast as Ogra didn’t get influenced by the bleak atmosphere and instead said after swallowing an entire bowl of chicken salad.

-What matter? No name? Then give name! Sad rabbit no sad if has name no?

Such simple answer, garnered some impressed looks from the girls as they looked at Ogra who could say some surprising profound things without thinking.

Avian agreed with that though as he thought that if the rabbit girl didn’t have a name, it was just a question of giving her a name, everyone else joined along as they also wanted to give the rabbit girl a good name transforming the air as it became more joyful.

The rabbit girl didn’t really understand, but she felt the kindness within everyone present, it wasn’t only the man behind her who was extremely nice and warm, the others too made her feel warm inside making her open up more as she no longer felt scared.

-Hmm…Alice? Anna? Mary?

-Hmph, those names are simply too common, can’t you think of something more unique!

-I don’t think it’s bad to have a common name, in fact I think I would feel strange if I had a grandiose name and stick out unnecessarily though Deborah is actually not that common of a name I think…

-Oh! Oh! Ogra know! Drumstick! Pork! Beef!

-Ogra those are just food names…

And with that a wild back and forth came along as everyone started to chime in about what a good name for the rabbit girl would be, only Avian didn’t participate as he just left it up to them, but really as the rabbit girl listened quietly, she momentarily shifted her head towards Avian while rubbing her fingers and legs against each other expectantly.

As the girls engaged in the debate, Cornelia noticed the rabbit girl acting such way, quickly realizing what she may be thinking, she reminded again what Avian asked of her, making her sigh momentarily as she felt that same pang in her chest before speaking.

-I think; I think she wants Luka’s to decide her name.

-Huh?

-is that so?

-This drumstick is delicious!

All sorts of replies flew as the girls looked at the rabbit girl inquiringly, Avian too looked at her to want to know her opinion, but as he looked down he saw her holding his arm in a endearing manner before nodding.

-Yes…

And with that everything was basically clear as the girls didn’t need to come up with a name after all, they felt a bit robbed of their opportunity, but at the same time couldn’t help but understand seeing how attached she was to Avian.

Having unexpectedly gotten the responsibility he didn’t want to shoulder, Avian couldn’t refuse with how expecting she looked which is why he gave in as he looked at the rabbit girl while thinking.

Avian wasn’t that good at naming things which is why he didn’t name his crows or the Earth Lizard since he saw them as largely expendable making putting thought into a name difficult as he tried to think about a unique trait of the rabbit girl to make into her name.

The first thing that popped into his mind was the white fur on her rabbit ear and tail, or at least what was left of it as most of it had fallen off revealing fleshy outlines that were more grotesque then adorable.

Avian at first thought about white things such as flowers and thought of Lily as it was actually also the name of a white flower in this world, but when he saw the damage on her body and everything else she must have experienced, Avian couldn’t exactly give her such name and thought of a different flower as he spoke.

-How about Dahlia?

The rabbit girl’s head momentarily twitched in a cute manner the moment Avian spoke the name, the girl’s also responded as they found the name to be pleasant and somewhat fitting in a sense.

Seeing their response Avian looked back at the rabbit girl before asking again.

-So is Dahlia fine?

-Yes…

The rabbit girl or rather Dahlia said, and even though she didn’t look like it as she hid her face inside Avian’s chest, her beat intensely and her face flushed as she felt incredibly happy for some reason.

Again it was an emotion she didn’t know all that well, but she knew it was happiness that she felt as she finally had a name to herself that she was robbed of from her birth to be denied.

If she had eyes, Dahlia would have cried happiness, but she couldn’t which she found sad even though she felt extreme happiness.

Avian didn’t see it, but girls noticed it as the too smiled glad for this unfortunate girl who finally gotten a good place, from now on they would all need to stay together tightly just like this, for the sake of their goals and for the sake of each other.

-Alright! How about we up this feast with a bit of alcohol! I remember master buying a few bottles of wine!

Getting a bit carried away by the atmosphere, Gabriella suddenly proposed to drink, Avian got 2 bottles of wine out from underneath the table which really came from his space-ring that he put on the table, but he also warned them while doing so.

-No one gets more than 2 glasses of wine, tomorrow we still have things to do and if I turn up drunk I will make sure that you won’t ever be drunk again…

A bit of a chill rose through everyone’s back when Avian said so, they didn’t really want to know what he would do to them if they really got drunk, but they kept moderation in mind as they graciously took the 2 bottles of wine which was originally used for cooking under their possession.

Deborah was the only one who wasn’t really used to drinking, while Avian only drunk alcohol in social occasions related to business which this clearly wasn’t.

Dahlia was forbidden from drinking alcohol since she was small, though really Avian had no idea how old she actually was, but Avian still hoped she would grow if she ate well and avoided harmful substances.

Dahlia herself wasn’t particularly interested in the wine luckily, and simply ate whatever Avian fed her, she had never eaten something as delicious as what she was eating right now, of course she had nothing to really compare to other then the stale and hard scarps she was fed in her tribe and the dry rations in the slave tent which barely was considered food.

The amount she ate surprised Avian as she almost seemed to eat just as much as Ogra as he fed her carrot salad, fruit salad and tons of beans which she seemed to prefer the most though she didn’t avoid eating meat even though she was a half-rabbitman who were all herbivores from what Avian had heard.

Eating so much food without stop and being fed by the person she really liked.

Dahlia smiled brightly at Avian as her chest grew warmer every second.

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