Absolute Beast Dominion - Chapter 439: Farms - 3
A/N: Thank you very much ’MonsterGirlHarem’, for the super gift, Magic Castle!
I really appreciate the support, and it keeps me motivated!
[Bonus Chapters will be published soon after I get free from my tight schedule.]
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Chapter 439: Farms – 3
“You heard it right, I will buy them all,” Leo repeated.
“Wha—A-alright. I will make the preparations rightaway.” The priest immediately agreed. If it were possible to get rid of this gnome headache in one fell swoop, then why not?
But then Leo stopped him.
“And another thing, I want custom collars for them.” He glanced at Lily, and she understood, moving ahead to choose the collars.
As for Leo and Kaelion, they stayed behind with the gnomes.
When they turned to look at them once again, some of the gnomes stared at them weirdly, as if Leo had done the unthinkable. Some looked terrified, while others had no reaction at all, continuing to stare blankly or lie on the cold floor.
“As you can see,” Leo began, his voice echoing faintly in the dim room, reaching all of the gnomes and drawing their attention.
“I will take all 160 of you with me.” He randomly pointed at one gnome who looked a bit better than the others—someone who could be reasoned with.
“You, say what would be the reason?”
The particular gnome startled and took a step back, as if afraid.
“I-I donno,” he replied, his voice raspy.
“I know you don’t, but you can guess. Now, say it.”
“F-f-for sacrificing us in front of a big beast?” the gnome blurted out. Though his voice was low and tired, it carried a jittery edge usual to gnomes.
“Wrong. Guess more,” Leo said, not at all surprised. He knew using slaves as sacrificial lambs was common, or throwing them onto the front lines as fodder.
“F-for cutting us open and selling our blood and organs?” the gnome offered another absurd possibility.
“Wrong. Guess more. A hint—you will not be required to fight or get hurt if you are careful.” Leo added that last part because even farm work could cause injuries—what if someone drove a shovel into their leg?
“D-death game for you to watch and enjoy?”
Leo was taken aback.
“Death game? How will you not be hurt… oh, a survival game. No, not that.” Realising the gnome might keep spiraling into darker guesses, Leo decided to give the answer himself.
“You will work on farms in my territory. Of course, not all 160 of you will be busy there. I will assign many of you as construction helpers, smithy assistants, and even tech engineers. The ones with no talent will handle menial jobs like cleaning and odd tasks. There is no threat to your lives—my friends and I are strong enough to handle security.” He looked across the gnomes; now, more than 50% were focused on his words.
It was partly thanks to those grim guesses that so many had become attentive.
He also noticed that while some felt momentary relief, many were still tense—so tense it seemed they expected to work until their bones gave out.
But Leo didn’t plan to soothe them completely at once. After saying that much, he turned back to handle the paperwork with the priests.
Let them run their minds for a while and come up with worse and worse scenarios. When they realise it isn’t as bad as they thought, they will work more actively, Leo thought as he proceeded.
From the terrible guesses of that particular gnome—who still looked better than the others—Leo knew the rest would imagine even worse possibilities.
What if there were no death threats? There are worse situations a person can fall into.
Why believe some random words? For all we know, he’s escorting us straight into a dragon’s mouth for sacrifice.
The total cost of 160 gnomes came to 1.362 million AC. When Leo inquired about a bulk discount, he learned that the slaves were directly under the academy, and the priests were merely intermediaries, so they couldn’t officially provide any discount. Still, the priest in question had wanted to offer one, fearing Leo might leave some behind—but that concern became irrelevant when Leo bought all of them.
As for the slave collars, Lily chose specific designs: a double-ring silver loop joined by a colored round stone. The color of the stone varied depending on the expertise of the gnomes—lime for nature-oriented gnomes, totaling 54; blue for tech-oriented gnomes, 70; 22 for the smithing ones, black; and the remaining 14 white for the untalented ones.
Since the stones themselves weren’t of much value, each collar cost 1500 AC, bringing the total to 240,000 AC.
So, the overall cost came to 1.602 million AC, paid by Miho. Her reasoning was simple—as a Pseudo 3-star, she didn’t need 5 million AC for herself, so she might as well spend it on the territory. In the end, the money wasn’t even hers. The others didn’t object, as it helped her feel included.
While a few priests got busy fitting the collars onto the gnomes, Leo moved on to the next topic.
Farming crops.
He handed everyone a teleportation jade token and explained its uses. They immediately scanned it with their phones and registered the location on their maps.
“With this, you can directly teleport to the territory alongside the gnomes. Keep that jade token safe in case you ever find yourself outside the academy. Smartphone coordinates only work inside the academy, especially if the place you’re in doesn’t support digital currency.”
The others nodded and stored the jade tokens in their spatial rings.
“You three go ahead. I need to choose some crops that we will plant in the territory.”
Hearing that, Kaelion spoke up.
“Pick ones that can survive in a cold climate and don’t require sunlight. We haven’t seen the sun for almost 2 weeks now.”
Leo nodded, but upon hearing this, both Miho and Lily seemed to recall something.
“Brother K, can you take the gnomes by yourself? Sister Lily and I need to buy something too.”
“Uh? Okay…” Kaelion replied, unsure of what they were planning this time. Their shopping spree seemed never-ending.
With that, they parted and headed toward their respective destinations.
As Leo walked, his gaze moved on the many unread system panels that had appeared after he acquired so many gnome slaves under his name.
