If you asked Zhang Guiyu on Earth what was the worst thing possible that could ever happen to her, I would have answered, 'getting pregnant', without even hesitating. It was the type of nightmare scenario that could make my stomach churn at the mere thought of it, and it was part of the reason why I had such a visceral reaction when the American conservatives went and banned abortion.

  I don't even live in the United States.

  However, if I were to imagine myself holding a positive pregnancy test with no way out, the mental imagery was enough to take me to the verge of a panic attack — it was almost a phobia. A comparable analogy would be taking someone was deathly afraid of spiders (arachnophobia), and telling them that they'd be forcibly locked inside a dark vat full of spiders crawling around their face for 9 months.

  It's horrible to even think about.

  My older brother went to college in America, and my parents kept trying to convince me to follow in simir footsteps... except I would get a severe stomachache whenever I thought about applying to universities in the United States. My grades weren't as good as my older brother's, and I wasn't confident at all that I could gain admission to a fancy liberal university in a deep blue state. Several of my cousins, for example, ended up in Okhoma, Abama, and Utah for graduate school because their applications weren't competitive enough. That being said, the job market in Mainnd China was not very good for domestic university graduates either, and it was hard to have any confidence about the future when a majority of the highest paying jobs went to individuals who obtained international degrees overseas.

  ...Not that any of that mattered anymore after my entire css drove off of a cliff.

  + + +

  My hands felt numb and my lips were totally dry.

  This had to be illegal.

  I couldn't think of any universe where it was justifiable for a government to oopsie-daisy we took away your rights as an individual while you were asleep and we've ignored all pre-existing ws and rights in order to accomplish this.

  The disbelief quickly turned into anger, and then disgust.

  "What the hell." I excimed. "This is illegal. I'm a private citizen. You can't do this!"

  There was a stoic expression on the Archbishop's face.

  Some of the other ministers seemed to overhear the commotion that was happening behind the curtains, and a government official who I didn't recognize peaked in to take a look. This resulted in a chain of murmuring whispers which ultimately led to a different royal official to push his way all the way to front.

  + + +

  "Miss Hanamarie," the newly arrived minister said. "I'm grateful to see that you've awoken from your injuries. While it's regrettable that you were unconscious during the prior discussions, the King has granted a special emergency injunction to the regur procedure and as a result, the Otherworlder of the Emerald Room has been designated as the de jure owner of your flesh. You need not worry about fair compensation — your state-appointed wyer has negotiated that your family will be paid a lump sum of fifteen thousand gold coins for the sale of your body, as it has been pointed out by multiple third-party observers that you habitually remit a majority of your monthly sary to your retives anyway, so it was presumed that you would have asked for those terms if you were hypothetically able to participate in the transaction."

  It was a whole lot of jibberish to say that they had sold me into svery for 15,000 gold coins.

  15,000 gold coins — in other words, the amount I would have earned from sixty years of my current sary.

  "This is completely absurd. I never agreed to a wyer. It's fraud!"

  "I am afraid the agreement has already been settled," the Archbishop said, rubbing his forehead with a sigh. "The paperwork has already been verified and notarized, and the magical contract has already been applied to your body. Moreover, you must realize that all of the legal procedures were validated and personally approved by the King."

  "I reject this! This can't be legal! I'll file a compint against all of you in court."

  "...You would challenge the King's decree?" The Archbishop reacted incredulously.

  In the Kingdom of Galuterica, there was theoretically a separation between the judicial and executive branches of government, although it was difficult to say if it truly functioned independently in practice. For that matter, the King had the power to disband the court and reappoint justices at any time. Therefore in practice, the judicial branch merely functioned to rubber-stamp the will of the King. In either case, the current court had previously ruled that the King was legally immune in all respects, so it wasn't possible to sue the head-of-state or charge him with any crimes.

  The Archbishop's disbelief seemed to stem mostly from the sheer naivety of my position.

  From his perspective, making more enemies was only going to make my circumstances even worse.

  ...Which wasn't wrong.

  I was still in denial... and incredibly upset.

  + + +

  Kang Jiesu simply stared kind of bnkly, clearly out-of-the-loop with respect to the complex nguage that was flying around the room. He seemed capable of inferring that I wasn't at all happy, and that this was probably reted to the strange mark that had appeared on my stomach. Perhaps the thick-headed idiot had finally managed to piece together the context clues that his actions were the root cause for this entire mess.

  "Um... Reverse?" Kang tried to speak up, failing to find the correct words in Galuterican. "Undo?"

  It was a valiant effort, but frankly totally useless.

  He clearly didn't understand exactly how this kind of magic worked.

  I shot an angry gre at my childhood friend.

  The Obedience Crest was a curse that was occasionally cast on sves in Galuterica, but it was neither necessary nor sufficient for their legal status. If anything, it was a supplementary spell that was fully optional, in the sense that it was more of a luxury 'upgrade' that only wealthy sve owners could afford since it involved a very complicated soul-binding ritual. The entire point of the spell was to make svery irreversible — it couldn't be removed through ordinary measures, and there was no way for the subject to run away or escape their master.

  It had a number of other disgusting effects too, but I wasn't in any mood to talk about it.

  The Archbishop appeared frustrated.

  "Lazarus, smooth the rest of this out," he told the other official. "I don't have time to waste on complete nonsense."

  Frankly, the spectacle that had unfolded right here was hardly the only episode of drama happening in the infirmary at this current moment. It was equally chaotic outside of the curtains. The Prince of Xandu was still dying, Hong Baiye was still making unreasonable demands about receiving compensation, and most of the infirmary was still unable to do any work. A lot of people were looking for the Archbishop to mediate the crisis, and he certainly didn't have an enviable job.

  "I will do my best, sir," the minister replied.

  + + +

  After the Archbishop left, there was an apologetic look on the royal official's face.

  He seemed to empathize with the utter unfairness of my plight.

  "If it would make you feel better, I can help you file an appeal in court to see if the legal status can be reversed. It will take some time, I can't guarantee anything, and it wouldn't change the mark you received, but I can help you submit an appeal. While it may seem like the Kingdom has turned against you, I want you to understand that the King recognizes that this is a heroic sacrifice — and we would want you to be rewarded and fairly compensated — as bringing the Otherworlders to our side is an upmost priority critical for national security. We want you to be rewarded for your service to the Kingdom, and we want to make it clear that we'll do everything to support your new assignment."

  He was clearly in customer service mode, trying to temper an extremely upset client.

  "Please, I would like that," I said.

  "For the time being though, your current status is what it is... so... at least until your case is seen by the court, can you just bear with it for now? I'm afraid there's nothing else we can do about your current situation until it is assessed by a judge, but I can offer an additional 500 gold as immediate compensation while we wait for a progress update."

  ......

  Wasn't this essentially a bribe for my cooperation?

  Moreover, why was the government even designed like this? The courts were always as slow as a snail, yet when the executive branch fgrantly vioted the written w, there wasn't a single entity that could quickly put a stop to it. What good was it if the courts ruled two years ter that something was unconstitutional? An unbelievable amount of harm could be inflicted in a retively short period of time.

  The criminal justice system had a simir problem. Like many regressive countries in the world, it was possible be incarcerated for over a year while a defendant awaited trial. Without a rge bankroll of cash to pay for bail, the entire legal process could take three to five years, and that was time spent in prison before the defendant received a verdict from the judge.

  It was essentially hell caused by slow bureaucracy.

  + + +

  The minister continued with his attempts to change my resentful sentiments.

  "Besides, think about it a different way. If the Emerald Prince does not treat you like a sve, how bad could it be?" The official ventured, astutely deducing at this point that Kang Jiesu did not intentionally request a personal sve, so it was less likely (albeit not all guaranteed) that I would be horribly mistreated. In the best case scenario, I could even live my life like a pampered house cat and never need to worry about food, shelter, or work.

  Meanwhile, the official did not admit that there had been a mistake.

  He continued to try spinning this terrible situation as optimistically as possible.

  "The magical crest may be a little inconvenient, but I don't see any reason why you can't live your life any differently. If anything, I'm sure we can arrange things so that you continue to work in the royal pace exactly as you did before."

  He smiled like a car salesperson at Kang Jiesu.

  "...as long as your owner doesn't object to your freedom of movement, right?"

  My cssmate blinked.

  "If you cooperate and keep the Otherworlder happy and satisfied, I can promise that the Kingdom will continue to compensate you from a financial perspective. Your family will never need to live in poverty ever again. We can even give your younger siblings a few schorships to some reputable academies in the Royal Capital. That isn't so terrible after all, is it?"

  ?