Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1782: Absolute Tyranny

They entered Miri Town through its southern gate, and the settlement swallowed them whole.

Where New Whisperfield had been a human city with human rhythms, Miri Town hit the senses from every direction at once.

A dwarven smith’s forge sat beside an elven herbalist’s shop, the clang of hammer on steel mixing with the scent of dried lavender.

Trees grew through the upper floors of buildings where no human architect would have left the gap, and staircases descended into underground passages that glowed faintly with embedded quartz.

"I can’t believe my eyes..." Alexios whispered, struggling to process what he was seeing.

A dwarven woman carried crates alongside a human man, arguing about stacking order.

An elven girl sold woven bracelets from a stall while a beastkin boy swept the space beside her.

A human mother called her children in for dinner from a doorway, and two of the three kids who came running had pointed ears.

"Yes, mom!!"

As interracial breeding wasn’t a thing in Thalorind, it could only mean one thing: a human decided to adopt elves.

"Is this reality? Or am I dreaming...?" Myrasyn breathed in disbelief.

Quinlan walked with his hands in his pockets, Jasmine at his side, and he let the question sit for a few steps before answering.

"Take away the politics and people just want to live. They want to eat, build a life they can be proud of, raise kids, and sleep without worrying about what’s coming through the door. On a fundamental level, I believe that every race wants the same things."

"The hatred is inherited, not innate, hmm?" Alexios muttered.

"Certain races tend to have stronger friction with one another, no doubt," Quinlan mused, looking at Myrasyn who, for once, did not seem too intent on looking back at him as he added, "But no one is born with racial hatred. It comes from circumstance, from politics, from what papa and mama tells their young children. Those kids back there proved it."

He paused at a corner where a dwarven craftsman sat on a crate with his arms crossed, watching a human boy struggle with a chisel.

The boy’s grip was wrong, his angle was worse, and the dwarf’s expression said he’d seen better work from a blind goat.

"I don’t think you can impress me," the dwarf said flatly. "But if you do, I might take you under my wing. Gotta embrace the new way of life or I’ll be left behind."

The boy’s jaw set. He adjusted his grip, squared his shoulders, and attacked the stone with desperate focus. "I’ll prove it!"

"Hmph. We’ll see about that, lad." The dwarf didn’t smile, but he didn’t leave either.

A few steps further, an elven woman sat on a bench beside a dogkin boy of ten, guiding his fingers through the stems of a flower wreath. The boy fumbled a petal loose.

"Gently," the elf said. "If you rush it, the stems break. This will surely impress Little Ruby if you do it right."

The boy’s tail wagged once, shy and quick, and he bent back over the wreath, more careful this time.

Quinlan watched both scenes pass, then admitted:

"But I’d be lying if I told you it’s that simple."

Myrasyn looked at him.

"All of this only works because I’m an absolute tyrant," Quinlan admitted without missing a beat. "I don’t negotiate. I don’t hold votes. I set the rules and everyone follows them, because the alternative is punishment."

"The moment you die, it all falls apart," Alexios said.

Jasmine, Felicity, Isveth, and Myrasyn turned to look at him in unison, and the combined fury in their eyes could have set the street on fire.

Alexios shrugged. "What? It’s true."

Quinlan chuckled. "He’s right. But I don’t plan on dying, old man."

"No one does," Alexios said.

"Of course." Quinlan grinned, hands in his pockets. "Death is a real risk. But unlike others, I’m an unaging primordial. The only way I can die is by being killed."

A strong glint sharpened behind his eyes, ominous. "And after Ragnar so kindly gave me a wake up call, I’ve been taking strong measures to avoid just that."

"..."

The group went quiet.

The street opened into a small square where a former slave, an elven woman with faded scars on her throat, was arguing with her human neighbor about a fence that leaned two inches into her yard. The argument was loud, petty, and completely mundane.

Alexios watched them, and the realization settled into place instantly.

It wasn’t just the tyranny. Any ruler with enough power could be a tyrant.

It wasn’t just his power either. While anomalous and overwhelming, that wouldn’t be enough on its own.

Instead, the real difference maker was that Quinlan had no side.

He looked human but he wasn’t, and that single fact changed everything.

If Alexios tried this, his human subjects would call it betrayal the moment he favored an elf over one of their own. If Myrasyn tried it, her elves would fracture before the first dwarven family unpacked their belongings. At the same time, subjects of other races would be resisting their rule with every fiber of their being, aware that their racial disposition makes them naturally favor their own people over them.

Every ruler on the continent carried their race like a chain around their neck, and every decision they made was weighed against it.

Quinlan carried nothing.

He was the only person alive who could sit between every race and be trusted by all of them, because he belonged to none of them.

Absolute tyranny was the method.

Immense power and wealth were the tools.

True, one-of-a-kind racial neutrality was the miracle.

"...What about funding?" Alexios grunted. Such an undertaking required immense starting capital.

"I’ve been robbing your cities blind for a reason." The casual tone returned to Quinlan as if the most honest political statement of the century had been a passing thought. "But I’m always open for charitable donations."

"..." Alexios’s fists clenched.

"That said, if you want me to feel even slightly moved by the gesture you should hurry up, old friend..." Quinlan mused, voice proud. "After all, soon..." He gestured at the square and let it speak for itself.

Alexios’s eyes followed the gesture, and he didn’t need to be lectured for the economics to click.

Dwarven craftsmen who would have spent their lives forging the same regulation blades in the same regulation foundries were here, free to innovate, teaching human apprentices techniques no human smith had ever seen.

Elven artisans who only traded among themselves due to politics, and even that at a low volume, were now selling handmade wares at stalls, their finishing work so precise it turned basic tools into luxury goods.

Beastkin with stamina no laborer could match were hauling supply crates up streets that would have broken a human crew’s backs by noon.

Every race brought something the others lacked, and someone had put them all in one place and told them to get along.

The economic potential was staggering.

And it had been built with his stolen treasury.

And the arrogant fucker dared to say he’s open to more donations.

And that he should hurry up if he wanted it to mean something?!?!

Jasmine confirmed what the king’s eyes already told him. "The first exports left Miri Town only a few days ago, actually. We smuggled them into Greenvale cities using my connections."

She grinned, openly proud at the achievement of their subjects like her lover. "The margins were absurd."

They walked deeper.

An underground entrance gaped beside a staircase that spiraled up into the canopy, the two paths diverging from the same street corner.

A dwarf went down. An elf went up. A human woman went straight.

"The infrastructure adapts to whoever lives in it," Jasmine explained, reading the guests’ faces. "Dwarves get underground workshops and living quarters. Elves get canopy walkways and gardens. Beastkin get open training grounds. Humans get the standard layout they’re used to. Well, it’s not that we prohibit others from living elsewhere."

"And the former slaves?" Elisabeth asked. Her voice was careful. "How can an elf abused by humans for generations of owners be expected to integrate properly?"

"They aren’t expected to do anything," Jasmine replied. "First, not many slave owners are present in Miri Town. The only ones here are those who were spoken for by their own former slaves. Those who weren’t spoken for but were deemed to not have abused their powers in an unforgivable way were relocated to New Whisperfield, a few of them awaiting trial. And those who were deemed to have been overly cruel and abusive were sentenced to death or enslaved and given to the slaves they abused to do with as they please."

"...An absolute tyrant..." Elisabeth mulled on those words as Jasmine added,

"Second, nobody is forced to mingle with another race. If they don’t want to, they don’t need to be neighbors with one another. An abused sex slave can live in her own little group until she feels ready to move on. We’ll provide the best support for them to do so, but we refuse to force the issue. We just expect them to behave, and believe the rest will come with time."

The group walked in silence for a while after that, and the city spoke for itself.

Then Quinlan clapped his hands.

"I hope you enjoyed this little tour," he mused, turning to face his guests with a grin that signaled the sightseeing was over. "But I’m afraid it’s time for us to move on. While a ferociously pouting Black Fang glaring at me cutely because I took too long to return home is an extremely inviting image I long to see with all my being, I fear she might elect to react rather differently."

"..." No one had a response to that.

He flicked two fingers.

Space tore open, and the shimmering surface of a [Warp Gate] bloomed in the middle of the street.

It was time to welcome his guests in his home and unearth the great mysteries of the Iskaris continent.