Yet, so many people were still so wary and scared of them.
The slaves were more scared of the punishment they would receive from their masters than of Valeria.
Because they were raised that way since they were young. Some had been slaves before they could even think for themselves. And so they grew up without ever deciding anything for themselves.
They had been groomed to think the way they do and always put their masters' words first and believed that their masters were the most powerful, akin to gods who lord over them and decide everything for them and believe that it's for the best or they simply could not go against it.
And most of the people in Crux also think this way and believe it's normal for slaves to simply obey and that they should, that they do have the rights that normal citizens do. They were simply another form of property that were bought and sold to do whatever they were told to do.
This was how deep the culture of slavery was in Crux.
