Nice change of settings! And an original happenstance for the stuck ending.
The problem with Fest, though, is that he know how to make interesting situation leading to a character willingly taking the place of one of these livestock/slaves, but it rarely make sense when they keep doing it, way before they're stuck.
Same as the one where they play volleyball, in this one there's absolutely no reason for the noble redhead to keep being a slave once in the city, when in the barn, and when making that last pause. Make no sense she would protest only *after* being asked to crawl in a table position and plates placed on her. ^^'
@hihihahahoho You underestimate peer pressure. If anything, this is possibly the most plausible situation I've seen fest write, with no weird "livestock always says it's human so ignore it" society logic or "suddenly raped by a stranger but keeps tolerating the situation" slightly awkward characterization.
You're correct that the city is where the redhead had a chance to truly reverse things, because there was no clear justification for keeping her with the slaves, and she had no obligation to go along with that. But by that time, her will had been worn down and she was feeling insecure from her own weakness. She would have needed to be really proactive, because as you can see, they stepped a ways away from her before arranging from the slaves to be escorted elsewhere.
She probably didn't understand what was going on and just thought "There's no point in me standing with these slaves now that I'm in a city, but I can't exactly change clothes out in the open and making a scene like 'Hey, give me my clothes back' will just embarrass me since it draws attention to how I'm a noble dressed as a slave. So I'll wait for them bring that slave over to exchange clothes with me in a private area." Then before she knew it, they had already 'decided' what to do with the slaves before letting her change clothes, at which point her vulnerable psychological state prevented her from forcefully resisting being brought away to the cages.
My only complaint is that page 7->8 was too sudden a transition, I would liked if there was some kind of slow transition that she tried to fight, but instead she's just instantly a perfectly obedient slave. I mean, the fact she has a permanent slave mark applied immediately is fine, it's just that the slave mark being able to command her so perfectly right away kills my hopes for a sequel. Oh, and also I'm a fan of femdom so I would've liked if the blue-haired girl dommd her a bit more.
Edit - @uanime5 Good observations. It's true that the city would've been more interesting if more subtle humiliating things had happened there to make it worthwhile, instead of just a single panel of her in the cage. Its role was probably to build up to how the party members weren't seeing her as worth treating as a human anymore. As for the slave mark, yeah, the lore could've used a slightly better introduced in general. I do think that the idea of her activating her magic to attack, yet that magic being passed into the branding tool because she held onto it reflexively, is brilliant, though.
@hihihahahoho Very true. Fest often writes stories where the character has to keep being a slave but often forgets to include things that prevent them from escaping. He also never has the family of these girls wonder why their daughter has suddenly disappeared after visiting the slave farm, especially if they don't own a slave that looks identical to them.
If it was possible to remove the slave mark they could have a sequel. In this case they wouldn't be able to do it immediately because they didn't have enough money.
@myoxy The story would have worked better without the city, especially since they're only there for one page and the whole point of her having to be with the slaves is that they need the slave to fight monsters while they're travelling in the wilderness. You could even have the city section be used after she's branded since she could be forced to sleep with the slaves.
It's also weird that none of the other slaves had this mark. The story may have worked better if the guy was trying to enslave her and he needed her to use magic so he could use the staff on her.