Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem-Chapter 675: Opportunity

"It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty, Your Highness. Please call me Caramel," Lucille spoke up first. We decided we would keep things simple and have the girls introduce themselves with an alias named after their hair color.

After some mental struggles, each lady successfully introduced themselves.

Aurora was Platinum, Blossom Gold, and Ayame Black. "Miss Black? Are you the head wife?!" Felicity squealed, excited to meet so many new people. "I thought it would be the brown-haired woman with whom you came to the auction."

"She's not here now, but no, there's no head wife in my court. I love each of them equally, I couldn't put one above the others."

"How noble…" Felicity was still as impressionable as I remembered, evidenced by her dreamy exclamation. "How many wives do you have, Lord Black?"

This chapter is updated by freēwēbnovel.com.

"Seven. Miss Brown you'd already met, then there's Miss White… She's a bit busy right now," I said wryly, glancing at Kitsara's euphoric, hazy eyes and rhythmic head bobbing.

"Hmm, I see. But that's only six ladies, Lord Black! I might struggle with math, but even I can tell one is missing…"

"My little angel, you're not stupid at all. We're all a bit different… Some of us excel at math, while others at magic, politics, arts… Don't think yourself to be lacking," Alexios spoke up supportively.

Felicity was having none of it, evidenced by her high-pitched outburst. "You say that, but then Mother threatens me with severe punishment upon failure! She said she'll confiscate my communication artifact should I fail, and that I'll be grounded until I pass!"

"She did what?" Alexios sounded to be greatly surprised. "I'll talk with her."

"We both know nothing will come of that conversation, besides you becoming sad for a few weeks."

A truly dejected sigh welcomed the feisty princess' words, after which a brief lull washed over the conversation.

<What a surreal experience this call is…> Lucille mused inwardly.

Alexios was an ancient legend, known by all as a mighty warrior king. He had numerous feats of unbelievable achievements decorating his long and exemplary resume, and he was a rather secretive man. He reportedly rarely conversed even with his direct vassals, often leaving such tasks to his ministers or the Aegis Vanguard. Getting to learn such intimate details about this widely unknown and mysterious character felt truly surreal.

But then, the lull was forcibly evaporated by the young princess, as she asked in a demanding tone, "So who's the last lady, Lord Black?"

After chuckling a bit at her adorable antics, I grinned at Seraphiel. It was time to be opportunistic.

Alexios was known for many things, one of which was his hatred of slavery. Reportedly, he didn't allow anyone to bring their slaves to his palace, as seeing collared people angered him greatly.

This information truly brought his capabilities into question, in my opinion. Alexios succeeded his father over 800 years ago, he had nearly a whole millennium to shape the Varven Kingdom into his perfect image.

But… Not only was the slave trade in its absolute golden age, being one of the most lucrative business ventures a prospective entrepreneur could choose as his field, but the country was outright falling apart.

The loyalty of the five duke families could easily be brought into question, while the major syndicates were ready to leave the shadows, having become so strong entering the limelight felt more than possible. The Covenant of Eternity was ready to hand the Ravenshade Dutchy over to Elvardia, while the Vesper Consortium was about to declare war on Greenvale, allying themselves with the Beastman Confederation.

I didn't know what was going on in the dutchy of Silverwind exactly, but based on what we've learned, it was quite likely that the Phantom League had something to do with Ayame's downfall, perhaps even having control over Kaede Fujimori, her sister and current ruler of the dutchy.

Alexios was indeed a genius of a combatant, but... I guessed he would fail any political majors should he go to university.

As for how could a man aged 999 be arguably the strongest man alive? How come he isn't a fragile old man, a miserable version of his peak years?

Aging worked curiously in Thalorind. When one passed their Rank-Up Mission, their life expectancy would increase. The aging of combatants had incredibly favorable mechanics to it.

Before slowing the body's aging down, its age would be checked. If a child managed to reach level 10, such as Vex thanks to Black Fang throwing her into a forest teeming with monsters, she would still age until reaching her physical peak form, which usually happened between ages 18-22 for most humans. Slowing her body's aging down when she wasn't even a teenager would've been restrictive on her combat prospects.

Old age was very kind to combatants as well. There was a reason why Skarn shuddered when thinking of a 900-year-old version of me. That was the age widely accepted as a top-tier combatant's peak years because they would not appear as senile old fools but middle-aged men in their top form.

Instead, once the limit was reached, a rapid aging process would begin, usually between ages 950 and 970 for the highest-leveled people. The age-slowing mechanic would be lifted, and they would age just like a level 1 human would.

For some reason, this process hadn't begun for Alexios despite his 999 years of age, making the Consortium's upper management believe he had discovered a way to elongate his life.

Anyhow.

Knowing he spited slavery with all his being, I thought I had a way to earn myself his good graces.

"Princess Felicity, I have an admission to make," I said with a heavy tone as if I were to confess to being a wanted criminal.

"Yes?" she asked, her tone was very curious.

"I don't like slavery. Seeing people chained makes my heart bleed with sorrow."

<Kekeke!> It seemed Seraphiel's villainous laughter made a triumphant comeback after hearing my statement.

<The Primordial Subjugator can't stand slavery… This has got to be one of your most hypocritical statements thus far… And that's saying something, Mister Certified Gentleman, hehe!> Ayame giggled together with the elven healer. Most of my ladies joined her. Only Blossom remained my stalwart ally.

"You don't like slavery? But I've seen you with Miss Elf and another elven pleasure slave, Lord Black…" Felicity replied with a lot of doubt in her voice. She sounded like someone who didn't want to call me out on my BS but also couldn't quite believe me.

"Truth be told, both of those awesome elves you saw were my lovers. They wanted to see the Central Region with their own eyes, however, we knew that outside my home, they would get attacked by the soldiers if they noticed my ladies weren't collared because it's illegal for elves to be free in our kingdom…

Considering I've never been to the Central Region before undertaking the journey where the two of us have met, we didn't dare set out on an adventure of that magnitude without safety measures…"

"W-wait!" Felicity cried with utmost shock. "That's illegal, don't admit to it in front of Father!"

How sweet, she's worried for me. However…