What? There's an easy way to deal with this terrible, worse than death scenario?
And we could resolve this in a single day?
Nah, bruv; let's have people keep suffering so we can do things in a roundabout, half-assed, brain-dead way!
I mean, iunno where the story is gonna go after this stupid sidetracked idiocy, but just kill the fucking "Crimson Douchecanoe" and release the slaves dude.
Allowing people to remain in slavery, when you can actually change that, is a moral failure of such magnitude that English fails for description.