“I… I have to go inform your mistress that you’re here.” Karlo stepped away slowly, “I don’t know what she plans, but please be careful, and again… I’m very… very sorry.” He bowed very deeply at the waist, then snapped his back straight again and retreated hastily.

Kaiji let her back fall against the cage with a bang, and slid down to the base where she wrapped her arms around her knees after pulling them to her chest.

Zero spoke quietly after a moment, “Did you… know him?” She asked with a kind of pity, “Was he, a lover or…?”

Kaiji managed a small laugh and put her thumb and forefinger at her forehead and spread them out to touch the base of her horns where they emerged from the side of her head. “I… well he knows me, but I have no idea who he is.”

“Oh.” Zero said and lowered her face back to her knees, her pity and curiosity snuffed out, while Kaiji watched the door like a hawk, a terrified hawk who could not keep from shaking.

She did not shake alone, nor did the two of them wait for long, she saw the mistress address the young man, but lost in her own panic, she caught not a word.

Behind the blue eyed elf stood a woman who looked quite human, though also of blue eyes and blonde hair, Kaiji felt goosebumps on her flesh, ‘That one… that one is evil beyond words… what kind of mistress can have ‘that’ as a servant? She must be exceptionally skilled at concealing her nature if I can’t feel more from her than I do…’

Her thoughts moved a mile per minute when the two entered the room and closed the door behind them. The two cages sat in the middle of the room, and the whole place reeked of money, against her will, Kaiji remembered a story she heard once. ‘The wealthy of some houses grow bored with idle pleasures, and some turn to great cruelty for pleasure, they twist their slaves and torment their minds or bodies, leaving them husks of fear before discarding them. That is why the Prince of a city must be of the highest moral character… and also why he rarely is.’

Kaiji cursed her wise mentor for the story, and when the more buxom human passed by indifferently, save for a licking of her lips that left Kaiji with a shudder, the elven woman who bought her life stood front and center of the two cages.

“Stand up.” Nua said sharply, her ice blue eyes roving over them.

She waited and suppressed the urge to swallow as the human girl and the demon-elf rose to their feet. “You were bathed, that is clear, were you fed?” Nua asked as she folded her hands behind her back.

“We were, mistress.” Kaiji answered softly for the both of them. “Simple gruel, hot, with yesterday’s bread.”

“Please… please don’t hurt me…” A tiny voice whimpered out from beside Kaiji as Zero held on to the front of her cage. “Please…” Her brown eyes quivered like her lower lip, “Please… I’ll do anything… just don’t hurt me mistress… not like this...”

...And then Nua’s mind was elsewhere… ‘

...Nua wanted to run, she wanted to hide, she wanted to fight, she wanted to do absolutely anything, but she did only one thing, and that was to stand there unable to move as his bloody hands came closer as he slowly walked over.

"Nua, Nua stop, it isn't what you think." Raymond said in an even, reasonable tone of voice.

She managed to move herself back, away from him, but in her hysterical, panicked state, she wasn't backing toward the door, she'd moved to the wall.

"Please... please don't kill me, I didn't see anything, I promise, I promise I won't say anything to anyone..." She said as tears of fear ran down her flushed face and she shook her head back and forth, her hands shook as she tried to find some purchase to keep her from collapsing.

"Nobody cares if you kill one of us, you don't have to cover it up by killing me... I'll be good, I promise, I don't want to die... I don't... I'll make you feel good, really good, just give me a chance..." She said rapidly, speaking over his gentle words that were ardently trying to get her to listen to him.

She slid her way along the wall, keeping away from him as best she could, his steps were slow, she felt stalked, trapped as he followed her movement.

"Nua, you need to stop and listen to me." He said again…’

“Mistress…?” Kaiji lowered her head and asked, “Are you alright?”

Nua snapped back to the present, ‘No words of his could convince me, none of mine will convince them. Screw it, I’ll play the part to the hilt.’ She blinked a few times and cleared her throat.

“Of course I’m alright. Now, I did not buy you as whores, I didn’t buy you to get rid of you, I didn’t buy you for your skill with instruments or for your skill at telling jokes. I did not buy you as companions to enjoy your company. I bought you because I have a use for you two. Now, what are your names? You do have those, I trust?” Nua asked, pretending to have forgotten Kaiji’s already.

“I am, was… Kaiji Najin. Of Komestra, before it fell.” She said shame faced.

“Right.” Nua said as if she suddenly remembered the trivial detail, she tapped her pale cheek thoughtfully and turned her head away.

“You failed your last master, didn’t you?” Nua asked her, and she bit her lip. “Did he die?”

Kaiji’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know, mistress. I fought to keep them out of the palace, told him to run, that was the last piece of advice I ever gave him.” The solid red eyes quivered a bit, and she took a slow breath.

“But,” she added, “He never listened to me much, so I don’t know if he took that advice or not. After I ran out of mana… things happened, and now here I am, mistress.”

“I see, so was he an idiot or were you just not very persuasive?” Nua asked as she looked through narrowed eyes at the demon-elf.

“I… mistress I loved him… I loved him like a nephew, I don’t want to…” Kaiji began only to flinch away when her mistress’s left hand slammed out and grabbed the cage, rattling it loudly and rocking it back.

“I didn’t ask what you want, slave. I asked you a question expecting an answer.” Nua squeezed tight, then withdrew her hand from the bar, and Kaiji shook with horror as she saw the bar had compressed into indentations of her owner’s fingers.

“I… well, he wasn’t an idiot, but he was headstrong, stubborn, always had his own ideas about what he wanted to do. Some of them were even good ones! But he… he was a great warrior, so good that he couldn’t imagine dying or being defeated. Things like casualties, supplies, troop morale, betrayal, none of them mattered. So of course… neither did diplomacy. He was blind, so blind and I couldn’t make him see. I tried, I really did, but mistress… have you ever known someone who was blind to their own strengths and weaknesses?”

Nua’s face became neutral and she nodded, “Unwise then, if not foolish. Well, then let’s have your first piece of advice, slave. Should I keep you as an advisor? Or sell you off? A hundred people at least, are going to die in your place already, since you are no longer going to be sent as an offering to the Tlalmok Empire. Are you worth a hundred dead, and the coin I spent on you? How’s it feel to know more of your people are going to die because of your absence?”

Kaiji lowered her face away from her new owner, and her voice took on a choked quality. “I… I don’t know. Mistress, you saved my life by buying me, I don’t know what you want with me, but I met the Tlalmok ambassador once, he delighted in telling me how my race is considered a delicacy, and the various recipes used to prepare us. I feel bad about the hundred or more who will die because I’m not going west. But is it so wrong that I just want to live? That I’m grateful for my life?” She grabbed the bars and shook them lightly, her breasts shook with the anxious gesture.

“I…” Kaiji swallowed and took a long, deep breath.

“No, no it’s not.” Nua replied bluntly. “You want to live because you have your life, slave. Even a slave wants to just see another day, pathetic, naked, bruised, whatever it is. You just want to see another day, because at least then, you have that much. When you’re dead, you’ve really lost everything. So no, slave, you’re not wrong for wanting to live, even though a hundred are dead because of it. I’ve killed a lot more than that.” Nua answered smoothly, “But that doesn’t answer the most important question.”

Nua brought her face to the bars of Kaiji’s cage, so that her cheeks were between them, her blue eyes went gold and the intensity of every word pounded all the harder into the demon-elf. “Are you worth my money as an advisor? Or did everybody around you, including the people going west in your place, die for nothing?”

Kaiji felt her heart pounding, her solid red eyes couldn’t look away, she couldn’t shrink back from her mistress, “I will make myself so, mistress. As I swore in the place you found me. I will be a loyal slave to you, there’s no other place for me now, anyway. I can’t run anywhere, and… if you need an advisor and not…” She looked behind her to the bed, then yanked her face away. “I think I can be of value. If I’m not, you can probably sell me for a lot.” She replied with resignation, but then whispered desperately close to Nua’s lips. “But I meant it, I will be loyal to you, I give my word as a demon-elf, I give my word on my magic, I give my word as a slave, I… can I swear on anything that will let you believe me?”

Nua gave a slow nod, “Yes, swear on the one God, His Sorcerous Majesty, father of the Dark Savior, Ainz Ooal Gown. Terrible things happen to those, who swear in his name, and then forswear what they have sworn.”

“I…” Kaiji began, only to feel the finger of Nua’s left hand beneath the glove, press to her lips.

Nua stared at her, “Kneel. His name should never be spoken aloud when on one’s feet, unless he is being praised or promoted, if you’re going to give an oath to my God, then kneel to him.”

Kaiji sank slowly to both knees. “I, Kaiji Najin, slave of… of…” She stammered and looked up.

“Captain Nua Calen Aiwenor.” Nua answered with a hint of amusement and a tugging of her mouth into a little half smile.

“...slave of Captain Nua Calen Aiwenor, swear my fealty and submission and loyalty, to her. In gratitude of saving my life, my body, my soul is hers. In the name of her god, the god, His Sorcerous Majesty Ainz Ooal Gown, I so swear.” Kaiji finished strong and a feeling of relief began to come over her as she felt the tension drain out of the elf in front of her whose eyes faded back to their native blue.

“You live to serve me, do not forget that.” Nua said, and extended her right hand with the palm up.

Kaiji took it in hers, and pressed her dark lips to the center of her mistress’s hand. “I will not, mistress.”

“Now wait there.” Nua said with a little laugh at the grim jest at the caged demon-elf as she withdrew her hand and approached, then crouched in front of the broken doll in the form of a human woman. She’d barely moved at all since begging not to die. ‘Likely assumed it wasn’t going to work.’ Nua concluded, and reached into the cage and tilted the face of the girl up.

“What’s your name?” Nua ‘demanded’ more than she asked.

“I don’t… I don’t know. I guess, Zero, mistress.” The girl replied weakly.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Nua pressed as she pursed her lips. “Everybody has names, even slaves and dogs and horses.”

“Mistress, I am whatever name you give me. I may have had a name of my own a long time ago but… but I don’t remember what it was.” The girl called ‘Zero’ replied, lowering her eyes despite not being able to lower her face.

“I see, weren’t you a free citizen of Komestra?” Nua inquired with a curious raising of her blonde left eyebrow.

“No… I was a slave there. Before that I was in… well it doesn’t matter. I remember chains from my earliest years, but I don’t remember any name. I’ve been a slave longer than I understood what the word meant. Just give me a name, mistress, and I will answer whenever you call me… just please… please don’t hurt me, I won’t talk back, I won’t fight. I’ll be good.”

Nua looked down at the broken thing in the cage who was trying to make herself smaller under the eyes of her owner and ignored the plea. “Were you trained with any special skills, can you read, write, make potions?”

“Mistress…Zero learned a little bit how to read and write, a judge in another city owned me before it was burned. He had me work in his office. Also, she was owned by a blacksmith, so I learned a little about tending the forge, before that I was owned by a mage, I learned a first tier healing spell. I was also a brothel girl, I know… how to make you feel good, and…” Nua listened patiently as the girl ran down a litany of various owners, and some of the small skills she learned along the way at each one.

Finally, the girl whispered, “That-that’s all mistress.”

“And… what was it I paid for you again?” Nua asked, cocking her head to one side.

“Mistress, you paid nothing, I was the signing bonus, I was worth nothing.” She swallowed hard and lowered herself to her knees and choked sobs began to come out, “Nothing… I’m not worth a damn thing…” She spat it out as the bile like words were wrenched from her tongue.

Nua felt her heart ache within her breast and looked away, seeing Solution evidently bored by the whole thing, had chosen to take a nap, she knelt down where the collapsed girl half sobbed and half begged for her life to not have fresh pain brought to it, the elven woman reached into the cage and stroked the now clean, soft brown hair until the girl managed to look up.

“I’ve got a name for you, now.” Nua whispered, and gave her a gentle look as she pressed her face closer to the cage.

“Mistress?” Zero whimpered out.

Nua’s hand trembled as she touched the collared creature that whimpered out one of the perversions of the flesh trade which the Black Justice priestess hated most. ‘That twisted sense of value coming from what it cost for others to buy and own your body. That worst kind of pride to be the highest of the lowest, and that desperate sense of security that ‘it cost too much to buy me, to hurt me’ what a disgusting thing…’ She reflected as she thought about the sick pride she’d once felt when being sold as a skilled alchemist and netting a number of gold coins, which had once guaranteed her good treatment.

She couldn’t fully contain it, a tiny tremble in her own lips and the light consideration, and hesitation of her touch on Zero in her cage. These tiny differences were sufficient that it had Zero’s eyes focused for a moment, their soft brown unsure and doubtful, but wide and unbreaking of her gaze.

Nua said it slowly, her eyes went gold as her whispered words for Zero alone, sailed home into the girl’s ears. “You were bought for nothing, you had no price at all. Therefore, I name you… Priceless.”