You took the words right out of my mouth. Even if people who are that strong are usually adventurers and whatnot, there could just as easily be a system in place for people who don't want to do that anymore to get work. I think it could be neat having a story with retired, disabled, etc. adventurers being used as security in place of slaves (especially in cases like this where the security is obviously handicapped and gets hired). Ryoma himself mentioned the place felt like a startup temp agency, they could have just done something with that instead I'm not a novel reader so the thought of this having slavery didn't even cross my mind. It just feels kinda icky to have slavery in a feel good story/isekai even when the slave system is seen as a "good" alternative for people down on their luck and the treatment of the slaves is good. Like you said, there's no ethical way to own people and it really annoys me seeing so many isekais with slavery basically try to make their slavery/slave system a GOOD thing. And the isekai's MC just accepts it and buys a person (or a few). There can be objectively good people who own slaves for "good" reasons but that still doesn't make it right to own a person. If the slave plotline doesn't contribute anything more to the story I wouldn't mind tbh I don't like slave systems in isekais but also, if it didn't contribute anything other than him hiring Ox lord then was it really required? I'm just so annoyed and tired of slavery in isekai especially when the MC actually buys a person (｡•︿•｡) I do get it from a world building standpoint and there are stories that I like with parts with slaves (and may mention other countries having slaves) but it's more like. The MC tries to abolish slavery or helps the slaves and they aren't actually buying people. I feel like I don't typically see that kind of action, it's usually just isekais using slavery as an excuse to have the MC buy a person
Wowee that's a wall of text lmao sorry I'm passionate about this
I'm so fucking tired of isekai stories insisting on having slavery. The story would have been completely fine without it, he has plenty of guards that AREN'T slaves so why not just hire another. And the slavery is always "not that bad in this world so it's fine" even though the ox-man was fully gonna accept becoming a human experiment which mean that IS something that you can LEGALLY do to slaves. Having a world with slavery means having a system that allows people to have their rights and bodly autonomy stripped away. It doesn't matter if they treat the slave well a slave is still property in the eyes of the law; and havingyourmain character buy a slave means they support that system.
There is NO ethical way to own a person, and I'm sick of stories pretending there is.