Volume 2 Chapter 12 Slave Market
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Past the back alley, there was a small square.
Seven small roads cross, and in the middle of the square, there’s a round artificial pond with a fountain.
The fountain looks like it’s been broken for a long time.
When you look into the pond, all you see is murky, stagnant water at the bottom.
Large tents line around the pond, and humans, demi-humans, and even living monsters are sold here.
The smell of piss and shit mixes with sweet perfumes to cover it, creating a strange, decadent atmosphere that fills the whole area.
”Here, if you have enough money, you can get any race with a slavery skill.”
Mr. Laken points at something──a monster that looks like a dragon.
It’s probably over 3 meters long.
Looks reptilian, but not a crocodile or a lizard.
Looks a bit like an ankylosaurus I saw in a dinosaur book, but its teeth and claws are sharp and seem predatory.
So this is a dragon… It has small wing-like flaps on its back.
Covered in rugged brown scales, it looks incredibly powerful.
As I marvel at my first dragon in this world, Ms. Ant notices my mistake and explains via Mind Communication.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a real dragon but a basilisk, a sub-dragon.
Basilisks are familiar monsters from games.
Their designs vary a lot between games──from chicken-like to full dragon types──but they all have the common trait of being disliked because they can petrify.
Basilisks in this world have good skins that are valuable, so Ms. Ant often goes to catch them.
Does Ms. Ant think she can beat such a monster alone?
Even I could only hope to dodge their attack and barely survive.
No, that’s impossible──its eyes are protected by hard, clear scales.
”Can you really bring a basilisk here? Isn’t petrification a problem?”
If a basilisk with a petrification skill ran wild in town or street, the damage would be huge.
”I knew about basilisk well. If you embed the slavery skill, you can’t use other skills, so it’s no problem.”
Ms. Marsha said something like that too.
Thanks to Searching skill, I won’t get lost. But I’ll stick with Mr. Laken for now.
The slaves are cleaner than I thought.
They look spaced out, maybe because of the Slave skill.
If I believe Ms. Marsha, the second-rank priestess, Slave skill is like a virus. They use skill orbs to force slaves to get it.
This skill works first, even if the slave doesn’t want it. It cancels all other skills.
If they obey their master, they feel happy. If they disobey, they feel hellish pain.
If it cancels all other skills, slaves can’t use skills or magic.
So, they’re not good for work or fighting.
Well, there are lots of low-wage workers, and they can summon Heroes from another world if they need fighters.
So, slaves in this world are mostly for fun.
About half the slaves are humans. There are also monsters like Orcs and Goblins.
Some scholars say Orcs and Goblins are demi-humans because they can have kids with humans, but here they’re just monsters.
It seems many people buy grotesque monsters for fun.
Even a half-handed Antfolk is sold as a slave.
According to Ms. Ant, they’re a fierce race from the south. They have yellow shells, and look more ready to fight than Ms. Ant.
It’s dangerous just to go near their nest. It cost 3 million gold, but it sold right away.
The Basilisk I saw earlier was sold too.
Of course, I have no interest in buying a slave.
The shops that sell human slaves are all on one side of the pond, and this place feels very different.
There are shops with young boys and girls lined up, shops that only deal with handsome boys, and shops focused on older women.
Apparently, the shops here are doing legal business.
Most of the human slaves have hair growing inside their ears, and they have thick body hair on their backs.
They are called Wolfkins, hated and feared, and it’s said that if they aren’t controlled with their slavery skills, they turn into beasts.
The Wolfkin is often treated like monsters, and unless they become slaves, they can’t even register at the church.
Sometimes, children born between human couples are of the Wolfkin, and these babies are called “exchange babies,” sold immediately to slave traders after birth.
From my point of view, they just seem like normal humans with thick body hair.
If you think about Earth’s morality, buying and selling humans is all bad and shouldn’t be allowed.
Some heroes even oppose slave traders under the name “Slave Liberation Movement,” trying to stop them.
But I think it’s wrong to push Earth’s morals onto another world.
Just a few hundred years ago, there were people on Earth who were treated as slaves only because of their skin color.
It’s unfair just because they have thick hair, but I feel strange about some hero from Earth condemning slave trading here.
When you go to a place, it’s important to follow local customs.
Well, I really don’t want to be a slave myself, though.
* * *
After that, Mr. Laken walks into a stone building a little away from the tent.
It looks like an old mansion that was remodeled; the newly built stone dome is covering the ceiling, which is about to collapse like a parasitic wasp’s cocoon.
Inside the dome is dim but fairly spacious.
”Welcome.”
A small man who looks like a goblin greets him.
Maybe he’s actually a real goblin.
”Tell Gebault that Toyota Village’s Laken has come.”
It seems to be a shop known to Mr. Laken, and he is led to a back room right away.
VIP treatment──being treated politely once in a while feels pretty good.
”Well, well, Sir Laken. Thank you for coming.”
Mr. Gebault looked like just an ordinary old man, small and average.
The clothes are made of good cloth.
He looks rich, but he doesn’t look like a businessman.
He doesn’t look like a bad guy or a good guy, just a normal person.
He looks like a villager in a game.
But, I shouldn’t judge people by how they look.
This old man saw through Ms. Ant’s true identity at a glance.
”This is our best item.”
He came with a dark elf woman to a spider woman monster.
Her lower body is a giant spider, and her upper body is a beautiful woman.
She is supposed to be a fierce monster, but her eyes are dead because of the slave skill.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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