Migration (Part 2)

Early the next morning, when the warships and merchant convoy set sail once more, the merchant ships had gained a group of young men. All were healthy males between fifteen and thirty. They looked somewhat restrained, knew one another, and mostly talked about their hopes for the future. The Royal Navy found it strange, and only after sending someone to ask did they learn that these men were all attendants of merchants from that Harbor Town.

Ever since they had lost their primary means of livelihood, the town's Free Citizens had begun considering going out to find work. These young and able-bodied people were relocating alongside several of the town's trading houses.

The merchants offered them decent treatment. Whether they did menial labor or apprenticed in a trade, they received three full meals a day. Additional wages depended on the rank of their position and how arduous it was. Before they left home, they had even been advanced three months' wages to give to their families, so they could work for the trading houses without worry.

These town merchants had originally favored the refugees. Weren't such people cheaper? Yet the men they sent to sound things out returned with their noses rubbed in the dirt.

The people aboard the naval warships sternly refused. They said that although there were many refugees aboard the warships, the navy was escorting them out of duty. They could neither possibly nor dare treat these refugees as slaves to be sold!

The townspeople then contacted those aboard the merchant ships, but their fellow merchants also refused without hesitation.

Only after being battered until their heads were bloodied did the merchants turn their eyes toward the labor force in these coastal towns. Fortunately, these workers had also come from the Demon Calamity coast. They seemed quite