Chapter 19: The Collar
Seeing Leander glance over at him again and again, Qiong Xing let out a sigh.
He could not say that he did not feel a bad feeling about it, but after thinking it over, he decided that nothing would happen just from putting it on.
With that thought, he put it around Leander’s neck while Leander had his back turned.
Without noticing that Leander was grinning the moment he faced forward again.
After walking for several more hours, they safely arrived at the town.
It felt almost ridiculous, as if all the time he had spent lost and wandering before had been a lie.
Leander had said that beastmen were hated, so Qiong Xing thought this was where they would part ways, but.. .
"Is that beastman behind you yours? If he causes any trouble, we’ll kick him out immediately, so keep that in mind."
"Huh?"
Compared to China, the inspection was so simple that Qiong Xing had been wondering whether it even served a purpose, so his reaction was slow.
Before he could ask the guard at the gate what that meant, the wave of people waiting in line pushed him forward and he passed through the gate.
"...What does that mean?"
When he turned around, Leander was standing there with a wide smug grin.
"So you really didn’t know what that meant after all."
"?"
What Leander pointed at was the silver necklace Qiong Xing had put on him earlier.
It seemed that the bad feeling he had back then had been right.
"You didn’t know, Qiong Xing, but this is a slave collar."
"A slave... collar?"
Apparently, it was something put on beastmen, enslaved humans, or criminals.
Once it was worn, the wearer could not go against the owner of the collar.
They could not run away, could not remove it themselves and if they tried to resist, the collar would tighten.
It was a very dangerous object.
"What kind of thing did you make me put on you?! Take it off right now. I don’t want this kind of thing!"
"No."
Realizing that he might be holding someone’s life in his hands, Qiong Xing panicked and urgently told him to take it off.
But Leander only laughed and made no move to remove it.
"What do you mean, ’no’? Don’t be selfish like a little kid, hurry up and take it off! How do you remove it?!"
"I won’t tell you."
"!!!"
Up until now, Qiong Xing had found Leander extremely annoying and had wanted him to keep his distance.
But it was not that he disliked him.
Leander had helped act as a bridge between him and the snake, and he had guided him all the way to the town.
Yet, since coming to this world, Qiong Xing had been wandering alone through the forest and the loneliness had weighed heavily on him.