That's where Tryst comes into play. They don't give a rat's ass if the Human can speak Sylvan. He'll act as a translator.
How could they get Tryst to play along? It's worth a king's ransom by Vul's own admission, which should be more than enough to buy two random commoners.
The clothes were a gift freely given and the village chief would be happy to have two problems removed from his village with a solid excuse.
Thus the protagonist gets the hell away from these extortionist slaving psychopaths and gets a rabbit friend who is deeply grateful, so he'll probably actually have a place to crash still.
Side note: Am I the only one who kinda ships the MC X Verissa? Like I know it's a crack ship, but they're kinda cute together. Also, the triad would be pretty darn cute.
So, I feel like there's a rather obvious hack that's been missed here.
Just give the stupid expensive tunic as payment for your medical care and peace out! You'll probably get eaten by wildlife, but in my opinion that is way better than being a slave.
I understand that others might not have the same opinion, but I've done enough forced labor in my life while under the control of psychopaths to choose liberty over death 100% of the time.
Here's the thing. I don't object to world including slavery, but making the slave the butt of the joke is potentially very nasty. That rabbit might have gotten forced into a lot harsher work to make room for the protagonist. And it's not like he's got the option to find a better boss.
Now, if the protagonist is okay with slavery and so is everyone else, the progression would make sense... But it would mean all the characters are really fecal.
I will admit the whole "it's not like he is missing anything essential and his people might be getting something well worth the cost of being servants" thing has nasty shades of "We're just civilizing and protecting them!" so it's kind of a massive red flag.
Granted, the MC really doesn't seem interested in reading up on the world and asking lots of questions at the moment... which is somewhere between "freaking out at the moment" and "too stupid to live" on the protagonist decision scale, but I admit I am an unabashed nerd who would be looking for a way to communicate with the others that wouldn't get me killed as fast as possible.
This also leads to the question of if the bunnies can speak Wolven due to some sort of treaty or if everyone can speak bunny and that could be a safe language for the MC to communicate in.
Can we talk about how messed up the casual slavery of the Sylvans is? Even if it's just outsourcing, I have a lot of questions.
It's actually totally possible that if Tryst had been given a measure of trust and brought in on the situation he could have been a staunch ally... But that ship has sailed real hard.
