Country of Eruchea:-

A few more days passed and the day finally arrived.

Crop harvesting was done, the yield was great and now was payment time.

And payment time also meant that Harry had to conduct the ceremony he had planned for promoting slaves to free citizens.

Due to the general rise in income after Harry decided to use the money hoarded by the previous king to pay his citizens proper salaries, the overall condition around the country had improved.

There were a lot fewer broken houses, places were cleaner, there was less crime and people’s standard of living also somewhat improved.

Only the group of people who were the last slaves in the country were left out.

Their status as slaves prevented them from earning too much and only got a very marginal increase in pay.

Harry hadn’t immediately freed them from slavery since he wanted to reinforce the point that being lazy wasn’t tolerated.

If he had done that, many of the slaves and even other citizens might start thinking that working properly wasn’t all that necessary.

But now, after the slaves had successfully cultivated crops according to his plan, he had no reason to refuse them the freedom they deserved.

And to award them with this, Harry had prepared a fancy looking venue.

A stage had been prepared in front of the palace, along with large amounts of food and drinks for the people attending (the attendance was estimated to be large since today was also the day that the country would become completely free from slavery), and a large sum of money was also prepared as salary that had to be given to the newly free citizens and the other farmers for their work on the farms.

Harry and the others were going around the venue at 9 in the morning to do final checks.

The event was to start at 10 and the other servants had already triple-checked everything there.

But one couldn’t ever be perfectly sure about this stuff, and so, the “Royal Family” (Qing and Shin had been declared as Harry’s siblings) were out in the field an hour before the event starts.

At around 9:30, the citizens began gathering at the venue as well.

And finally, at about 10, after everyone finished gathering, the ceremony could start.

Harry walked up onto the stage and started his speech.

“My dear citizens, today we have gathered here for a very special event.

An event that probably has never happened on Etheldor before today.

I had already passed laws stating that no new people can be made into slaves.

This meant a ban on any further trading and trafficking of people.

Now, this was met with backlash from some people, but together we pushed through.

No more people have become slaves since then.

And today is the day when no more slaves continue to exist in this country!

Today is the day that all remaining slaves become free citizens!”

Harry could see the crowd cheering.

Many of them had family or friends who fell into slavery. 

They had kept quiet so far since they couldn’t do anything.

But today was the day that many people could meet with their children or grandchildren for the first time.

Many had been slaves for years and were taken away when their partners were pregnant with children.

They weren’t allowed to see each other and could never meet with their families.

Children grew up without parents and some even started their own families without seeing their fathers or mothers.

But today was the day that many would finally return to their families.

“Today, as each one of these slaves walks on to this stage, they will be given some basic things necessary for better lives, salaries for the work they did on the farms and when they walk off the stage, they will be free citizens, no longer slaves!”

And so, the processions began.

People came up alone or in groups.

They were given better clothes, food, were given information about the various jobs that they could now choose from and the money that Harry had promised them for their crops.

Many had a breakdown on stage since no one had ever been so kind to them.

Many even had their family members come to escort them off the stage.

It was a very touching sight as Harry saw tears of joy in people’s eyes as they saw their children and grandchildren for the first time.

Harry always used to wonder how people could cry when they are happy.

For him, tears were something that flowed when a person was sad.

But today, even he noticed a few of them leaking from his own eyes while he looked at the emotional reunions before him.

But along with this happiness, there was sorrow as well.

Many of the former slaves didn’t have any family left.

Some were orphans, others had their families leave town or pass away while they were stuck as slaves.

Harry could only shed a tear as he saw them walk down the stage with no one waiting to greet them.

But the crowd that had gathered felt their sorrow and tried their best to make even those people not feel left out.

The entire ceremony took hours to finish.

Around a thousand people had some family or friends who had come for them.

But a little less than 5000 people remained without anyone to stay with.

But not one person looked tired or worn out.

Everyone felt a sense of joy as they saw the slaves come on stage one by one and leave the stage a free person.

And once the promotion ceremony was finished, Harry once again started addressing the audience.

“Everyone gathered here has seen and felt the joys and sorrows of these people who have become free from slavery.

I’m sure that all of you will neither do nor tolerate any form of abuse against people who were or still are slaves. Be it this country or some other, I’m sure that after watching today’s proceedings, all of you will treat people with the respect they deserve.

And to mark this great day when slavery was finally abolished from our country, I hereby declare that the 31st  of July of every year, today included, shall be celebrated as Freedom Day! The day that our country got freedom from one of the greatest evils of society, slavery!”

Everyone gave a huge cheer on hearing Harry’s words.

From this, Harry knew that he had finally brought a change for good in his country and that at least most people would start treating others with more respect.

He then announced the plans for building the shelters for the remaining former slaves and also one for all the farmers who had worked on his instructions earlier.

Though no one seemed to understand anything about the modern facilities Harry spoke of, they did understand that better houses will be built and that there would be many new jobs available.

That was fine with Harry.

Once the winters passed, he planned on building schools for everyone.

After experiencing things for themselves and also receiving education, Harry was sure that most people would understand his words.

After that, Harry announced the start of the feast.

And since it was pretty much lunchtime, everyone jumped on the delicious-looking food that was being brought from the palace’s kitchen.

Today was declared as a national holiday anyway.

People could enjoy as much as they wanted to.

After a while of rest, even Harry and the others also joined in.

They had to eat lunch and there was food right in front of them.

And most people, though quite surprised at first, didn’t seem to mind them joining in too much.

Harry did see the group of the newly promoted citizens leave for a little while, only to return with newer clothes and cleaned up faces.

Even the military was given some time off.

Those soldiers couldn’t be given a holiday as it might affect the country if some issues arose in the future.

So, like essential services on Earth, it was already made into a law that military members could take leave on important holidays.

Everyone stayed in the area for about 2 hours more before dispersing.

The group of 5000 slaves that were left out also went back.

Their houses had substantially improved from their initial state and looked like somewhat proper houses.

So, they could remain in them until better ones were built for them.

There was a bit of a mess, but thankfully the plates and other things used by everyone was the disposable kind and dustbins were provided, allowing for a much easier than expected clean up process.

Harry and his group also volunteered to help but were shooed away by the servants.

It was declared that the royal family had done enough community services for the day and they were to leave the clean up to the servants.

But in exchange, Harry declared that all the palace servants would be getting the rest of the day off.

It wasn’t like this sort of thing never happened.

Back when the entire staff was down with muscle cramps and other injuries after their first trip to the barracks, Harry had to do a lot of their work himself.

And they were much stronger now.

But even so, half a day of rest without cleaning the palace wouldn’t kill anyone.

Harry had initially decided to continue his work over in his office but was dragged out by Jeanette and the siblings.

He had given almost everyone the rest of the day off.

So, how could the three of them let him work alone?

And so, Harry was forced to sit in his room with the three of them while the huge stack of papers sat on his office’s desk.

They decided to chat about Harry’s previous base in the Great Demon Law Forest again.

Qing and Shin recounted several instances from back then, like how crazy strong the demon beasts were and how stronger they became.

Those two talked about the good stuff while Harry kept interrupting in the middle in case they tried to hide anything embarrassing.

Like how the two tried to say that they fainted and woke up in the base while not mentioning leaking in their pants.

Harry had quickly interrupted and added that part in, resulting in a lot of complaining from the two and a lot of laughs from Jeanette.

But since they had already talked about most things from the forest over the months that they had stayed here, even that topic quickly ran out.

After sitting on the bed with blank expressions for a few minutes, Shin got annoyed by the silence and decided to go take a walk.

Having nothing else to do, the others also followed.

Even Harry was forced to come with them instead of going to his office.

As they walked through town, they saw many others doing the same.

No one seemed to have anything much to do now that they suddenly had time off from work.

‘Haah…

I miss video games and anime so much right now!!’

Harry could only curse his luck that he was nowhere close to even computers right now.

If he could, he would have hopped back to Earth and watched anime all day while behaving like a total shut-in.

He had worked a lot recently and the one time he did get a proper break, there was nothing to do.

But contrary to him, at least his citizens were happy.

He could see many people just enjoying the town.

Even they had nothing to do.

But even so, they were enjoying every moment of their lives.

‘These guys don’t know how good the internet feels yet.’

Harry could imagine that when he made computers, mothers would be having big arguments with their kids to push them out of the house, just like back on Earth.

Harry kept thinking about this stuff as they walked around the nearby areas.

The four of them kept roaming around for a few hours before returning to the palace.

As they passed the palace garden, they saw all the servants jogging or doing some other exercise.

Jeanette looked at Harry with a worried look.

Their exercise routine was already done in the morning and since it was evening now, that was already completed long back.

It seemed that not only did they become motivated to get stronger, but they also ended up becoming addicted to exercising.

They will need a thorough lecturing before they ended up looking buff like Jojo characters.

Once the four went inside, Harry somehow managed to break away from the other three and ran to his office.

It wasn’t because he was keen on slaving away on a holiday.

It was because he remembered a few important things while the four of them were roaming around town.

And when he entered the room, the “important” things were found happy sitting on his desk.

They were letters from the various places he had contacted a few days back.

He quickly ripped them open and started reading.

The letter from the alchemists said that the cement, plastics and many other things he requested had been made.

This meant that he could somewhat start with his construction plans.

The one from the blacksmiths said that one set of vehicle parts had been made according to the standards he needed.

Considering past performance, the parts should indeed be of good quality.

Now, once the alchemists were done with their chemistry projects, Harry could start assembling the trucks.

But he also needed to find some petroleum to extract fuel out of along with making rubber for tyres and stuff.

Rubber trees existed on Etheldor, but they were found in regions with better mana or qi concentrations.

And once the trucks and stuff were made and the construction workers were trained, he could begin full-fledged constructions.

It was all coming together now…