A couple of hours later, or a glass and a half as they called it, I found myself sitting in a carriage together with Linus and Hrothgar heading out to do some shopping at the Great Market. I had mentioned I wanted to see what was available and spend some of the marks that had been provided to me. The castles were placed in a circle around the Grand Cathedral, the place where I and all the others had been summoned. The Cathedral was built on a small mountain in the centre of the city.

The castles marked the beginning of the centre of Central City, and their walls were part of the inner city wall. There were a lot of high-end shops and establishments in the inner city. Next, you had another circle, the middle city, where most of the nobles had homes and almost all the magic schools had their main campus. Another city wall separated the middle city from the outer city, which also had a wall. The outer city was where the rich merchants and craftsmen lived.

That was the old city. Then you had the outskirts, where the more common freemen could be found. It was built behind walls as well, and inner and outer outskirts, but they had also started building down, meaning that the poorest people were living underground. The whole of Central City was large enough to house around two million people, meaning it would take the better part of a day to walk from one end to the other. A large portion of those two million people were serfs.

“So what is a mark worth?” I asked Hrothgar as the carriage passed through the gate of the castle.

“A gold mark is a hundred silver thalers, Milord. A silver thaler is worth hundred copper bits,” Hrothgar replied, holding up one of each as he said the name. The thalers were a bit smaller than the marks, while the bits were half the size. “A soldier earns a thaler every half-moon.”

“Okay, but how much is it worth?” I asked again. I had no reference to what things cost.

Linus quickly supplied the answer, “A solid meal with ale in a lowly tavern will cost you three bits, while staying the night might only cost two bits. You can get two loaves of bread for a single bit if you find the right baker.”

“Thanks,” I said and looked out the window. The only people I saw on the street were people in liveries running errands, or when a carriage stopped to let on or off passengers. “How much for a serf?”

“Milord, if you’re interested in serfs, we can take you to the Bazaar,” Hrothgar offered.

“I might be if I know what it’ll cost me.”

Linus produced a large disk, it almost looked like a hockey puck if doubled the size and made it out of gold. On it, there were some intricate carvings and the thirteen stars that were on the back of the marks. “Since you’ve no holding, you’ll need this permission from the High Hierophant. It’s a temporary binding stone, it’ll only last for a half-moon.”

“What the hell is a binding stone?”

“Milord, as you know every serf is equipped with a collar.”

I frowned at that. “Yeah, I’m aware that you use it to control your slaves.”

“Serfs, Milord,” Linus gently corrected me. “And yes, but the collars only work with controllers bound to a specific binding stone, and only homes can have a permanent binding stone. If a serf moves further away from the binding stone than allowed by the owner, they’re killed.”

“And how is this not slavery?” I asked bluntly.

“No person owns the serfs, they belong to the holding or home. Meaning the serfs have to obey and follow whoever owns the house.”

“I still don’t see the difference,” I grumbled.

Linus took a deep breath. “Milord, there’s a huge difference. The elves and dwarves had held humans as slaves for thousands of years. The entire human race was slaves at one point. We rose up, and have fought for an empire to call our own. We are not like them. We do not keep slaves.”

“Tell me how it’s different,” I challenged.

“Milord!” he almost snapped. Hrothgar looked a bit frightened. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to do that, but talking like that could get you killed.”

“Really?”

“The last time someone of power spoke like that, the Unifiers were sent to slaughter everyone connected to the Lord in any way,” Linus said.

“Was this some five hundred years ago?” I asked Hrothgar. He nodded. So it was not so much a rebellion they had put down, but a bunch of innocent people, because one lord did not agree with slavery, or serfdom as they prefered. “I see. I’ll mind my tongue.”

“Milord,” Linus bowed his head. I could hear a sigh of relief.

“Now, how much does a serf cost?” I asked again. I hoped I might be able to buy a whole bunch of them. “And can you set serfs free?”

“No Milord, you cannot,” Linus said with a frown. “It’s another dangerous thing to talk about. The only way for a serf to become free, is if a man is discovered to have access to magic.”

“But not so for women?” I asked. When I received the answer I had expected, I rolled my eyes. “Of course it only counts for men.”

“But prices vary, Milord. A single serf with no skills might go for as little as a thaler, depending on the condition, age, and so on.”

“What about people with magic?”

Linus looked thoughtful for a moment. “It would help if I knew what you were looking for.”

“Let’s say a healer, one who can control fire or heat and one that can summon water,” I said, thinking about my lousy bath earlier. “Oh, and what do you do about dental hygiene? Answer that first.”

“Healers can remove aches. Some of the wealthy have their healers regrow their teeth when they get too ugly, Milord,” Linus said hesitantly. “Do you have a toothache?”

“No. But what about plants, remedies or something like that to clean your teeth? Or more importantly, remove stinky breath?”

“Milord, such things sound like what the elves practice,” Hrothgar protested. “To use such things would almost carry the same stigma as being tainted.”

“Let me get this straight, I think I know what tainted means, but correct me if I’m wrong,” I said slowly. “Tainted is if someone stands out from the norm, like blonde hair, being left-handed and so on?”

“Yes, Milord,” Hrothgar nodded eagerly. “Those are some of the minor traits of the tainted. Shows that their ancestors counted one of the Impure races amongst them.”

“Elves and dwarves?” I asked for clarification.

“Or any of the other sentient races,” Linus answered.

“How many other sentient races are there?”

“Eight races in total, but humans were the Creator’s favourites, which was why the elves enslaved our people, Milord,” Linus explained.

‘Sounds like bullshit to me,’ I thought, but decided religious matters could come later. Instead, I returned to my earlier question. “How much does a serf with magic cost?”

“Depending on who the serf is, it might vary. However, a good rule of thumb is five marks per power rating for a curomancer or ignimancer. An aquamancer would probably be around three marks,” Linus answered. “Shall we head to the Great Bazaar?”

“Sure, if that’s where I can buy serfs,” I said. “What’s the difference between the Great Market and Great Bazaar?”

“The Great Market is for finished products, Milord,” Hrothgar answered. “The Great Bazaar is for resources and livestock.”

“And serfs are considered livestock,” I darkly stated, having caught on.

“Yes, Milord,” Hrothgar said with a nod. He tapped the roof and shouted for the driver to take us to the Great Bazaar. I wondered what I should do. Treating people like livestock was wrong, but here I was going someplace to buy some just like I would a chicken. My initial idea had been to buy them and then set them free, however that idea had been nixed.

Staring at the building as they passed, without really seeing anything, I wondered, ‘Should I still buy them? Perhaps I can offer them a better existence than what they would get otherwise. And then work towards freedom?’

Sure, I had been acting tough with the soldiers, talking about changing things. However, that was only for a small group of people under my direct command. What I wanted to do with the serfs had led to thousands and thousands of people being killed the last time someone tried, because it was a challenge to the power structure. I was torn. However, if I wanted to try and do it, I would need people I could trust or control, and I could control the serfs.

‘Ironic, here you think about the need to control the serfs in order to set them free. But is this a situation where the end justifies the means?’ I thought with a snort. ‘And is it even my place to say what’s right for them?’

When we rolled to a stop thirty minutes later, I had still not figured out an answer to all the thoughts flying through my head. One thing I was sure about though was that I wanted to upgrade my bathing experience and for that, I would need help.

The Great Bazaar reminded me at first glance of a colosseum from the outside, but I saw it had a domed roof. It was made from mostly dark grey rock, but there were used a lighter colour to form the door arches and windows. If I had to estimate the height of the enormous building, I would say around fifty meters or so. An eleven or twelve-story tall building. There were platforms functioning almost like elevators taking people up or down every ten meters or so.

The carriage had stopped in front of one of the smaller platforms. Hrothgar led the way to the platform and stepped onto it. Linus and I followed and as soon as we were aboard, Hrothgar pulled four times on a robe.

“The first floor is for large livestock, the second floor for smaller livestock,” Linus explained. “Third floor is for untrained serfs, the holding pens are for mass purchases. Fourth, fifth and sixth floor are more of a mix. It’s where the more reputable dealers can be found, and where sellers for the magic schools sell their serfs.”

“Only six? It looks bigger,” I commented.

“The seventh floor is for prisoners of war, not something those of high standing should deal with, Milord,” Hrothgar said. To Linus, he said, “I still don’t understand why the High Hierophant would allow such a thing. Impure as serfs. Should kill the lot.”

“It’s best not to speculate about such, dear friend,” Linus said. With a low voice, he added, “Especially not in public.”

I considered how to do an attitude adjustment in Hrothgar, but nothing sprang to mind. Instead, I watched the sprawl of the city as we were hoisted into the air on the platform. From above I could hear grunts of men, making me believe that some poor serfs on top of the building were hauling people up and down. We stopped in front of a large door opening, which had no door but was covered by a piece of hide. Hrothgar stepped off the platform and into the door opening. It led into a small room with a door. The only thing besides the door was a rope dangling from a hole in the ceiling.

Hrothgar must have caught me looking at it, because he answered my unasked question, “It’s for summoning the platform, or signalling that everyone is off it.”

I nodded and stepped off the platform. Moments later we were all there, Hrothgar had pulled on the rope, and we were opening the door. Which had to be a pretty sturdy door to block all the noise that hit us when it opened. It was a cacophony of people hawking their wares and people arguing about prices. It seemed the entire floor was one big room, except for the platform rooms.

It had to be four or five meters to the ceiling, which was supported by lots of arches and columns. The room was mostly lit up by the sun streaming in from the windows, and catching on mirrors strategically placed around. The mirrors then transferred the sun into an enormous piece of crystal with lots of facets in the middle of the ceiling. The crystal lit up most of the huge room, with only torches along the wall to supplement it. I did notice some merchants having a lantern or something so they could better show off their wares if they were in an unlucky spot of shadow.

There were a lot of merchants. Most had platforms or cages built to really show off their wares. Some of them had them perform magic, to show off and attract attention, and there were hawkers all around. All of them shouting loudly what their employers were selling.

Then there was the stink. It stank of unwashed bodies and stale sweat. This was a horrible place. I looked at Linus. “How the fuck do you find anything specific here?”

“By hiring a guide, Milord,” Linus said and stepped forward. He reached an arm up, with his index finger pointing into the air. He then waved it around in a circle for five seconds. Immediately I saw several people heading in our direction. I had noticed many of those people because they had been staring at us when we stepped out of the room. Linus preempted my question. “The guides are forbidden to approach unless you make a sign that you want one.”

Soon there were ten to fifteen people standing in front of us, most of them young teenagers. All except one of them were male and better dressed than the single girl. She also hovered in the back, as if afraid to really approach. I caught a couple of the boys shooting nasty stares at her when she drifted too close. She looked to be around ten or eleven years old, and she was dirty. Very dirty.

“You,” I said and pointed at her. “I need you to show me to someone selling aquamancers, can you do that?”

The girl nodded eagerly at first but then started to back away frightened when a couple of the boys gave her some hard stares. I cuffed the nearest one at the back of his head, sending him to the ground. I warned them, “Anyone giving her problems will have to deal with me, savvy?”

They looked me up and down, and I gave them my best prison yard stare. It was enough to make gang bangers reconsider their choice, so it was no surprise when the boys scattered and took off in a hurry. I asked the girl, “What’s your name?”

“Nina,” she mumbled. Before straightening and trying to put on an air of professionalism, “Are you looking for cheap or quality?”

“Female,” was my reply. Her face slipped into a frown of distaste for a moment, before nodding. I could guess what she thought, so I added, “Not for what you think. I prefer a female aquamancer for what I got in mind, I won’t require or order her to sleep with me.”

Nina looked me in the eyes as if to gauge whether I was telling the truth or not. She seemed to come to a conclusion and nodded determinedly. She led the way through the cacophony of people being sold like livestock. It left a bad taste in my mouth. She led us along the edge of the room, and up some stairs that I had not noticed.

On the fifth floor, she led me to one of the largest stalls in the middle of the room. It had several platforms, each with a sturdy wooden beam around two and a half meters above the platform. There was also a large tent behind them. On the platforms I found tens of naked females tied up, hung from the beams. Each of them was given just enough slack that they had to stand on tiptoes with their hands stretched far above their head.

The merchant, a fat waste of oxygen, waddled up to me. He frowned at my guide for a moment, before handing her a single bit and then tried to shoo her off. She looked reluctant. He said with a strained smile, “Excuse me, dear customer, while I deal with this pest.”

“Is this normal?” I asked Linus loudly, which made the merchant stop pushing Nina away.

Linus shook his head, “No, Milord.”

“Usually they wait to pay until a deal is struck, and then they pay one bit for every mark the deal is worth, Milord,” Hrothgar supplied.

“It’s just a girl, she has no place here,” the merchant said with a nervous laugh.

“You’ll treat her like you would any male guide, understood?” I growled.

“Of course, as the good customer wishes,” he said with a short bow. He then tried to take the copper bit from Nina. “Give it back, you stupid strumpet.”

“She keeps that,” I said.

“What?” the merchant squeaked.

“Consider it an asshole fine.”

“You can’t talk to me like that,” he protested.

“I can if you want to sell any of your wares,” I said and the last word left a very sour taste in my mouth. Then I looked at the girl. “Know any place else I could get an aquamancer?”

She nodded reluctantly and started walking away. As I took the first step to follow her, the merchant cried out, “No, wait. She can keep the bit, it’s okay.”

“You’re looking for an aquamancer, I got the finest here. You look like a man of discerning taste. I got a hundred percent pure human aquamancer right here, with a power rating of five,” he said and walked over to the platform in the centre, which was the one that most would notice first. He stepped up to one of the women and ran his hands over her breasts. “Nice tits on this one, and if you want she got the hips for breeding. Might be able to start your own bloodlines and breed some real mancers, the schools pay well for that. Only twenty-five marks, you won’t find better.”

She was a nice-looking woman, no doubt about it, but not what I wanted. “What’s the highest rated aquamancer you have?”

“This one, unless you want to dip into the tainted stock. Wouldn’t recommend it, not good for breeding, makes the Gods angry,” he said.

He was testing my patience. This place was awful. I was starting to lose my cool and getting angrier by the second I was here. I could very well end up hurting people, which would be bad. “I asked you a question, I want an answer.”

“Fine, I do have some lesser stock, got one with an eight rating, but she’s heavily tainted. One of the sandeaters probably fucked her mother,” the merchant said, giving the woman’s tit a last squeeze before he led us into the tent. I noticed Nina followed us inside.

The tent was even worse than outside. Here the women were forced into cages barely large enough for a dog. They cowered when he stepped into the tent. I counted seventeen cages with someone in it. I noticed that there were some African and Asian looking females amongst the seventeen. Confirming once again that the humans in the kingdoms were hardcore racists.

The merchant led me over to a cage with an Asian girl who looked to be in her early twenties. Her hair was short, and she had many welts on her back. The merchant tsk’ed. “This one tried to run away from the brothel several times. The owner got tired of her and sold her to me. It’s not like she would bring good money with the clientele. Who’d pay money to fuck something like her, am I right?”

I just gave him a flat stare, while I imagined several ways of killing him. Cutting his dick off and feeding it to him was on the top of the list. “How much?”

“You should really go with the prime stock.”

“How much?” I asked through gritted teeth. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Nina had snuck over to one of the cages, and was whispering something to the serfs.

“Normally an aquamancer with a rating of eight would bring forty marks—” he started.

Linus coughed loudly before saying, “Twenty-four.”

“Ah, yes my mistake,” the merchant quickly recovered from the frown he flashed Linus. “As I was saying, normally twenty-four marks, but since she’s tainted and clearly a lower stock. Let’s say twenty.”

I looked around at the cages, feeling the bile rising in my throat. This was wrong. I had to do something. “What’s the highest rating here?”

The sudden change of topic threw him from a loop. It took him a moment before saying, “Eight.”

“Fifteen marks,” I offered.

“I can’t take fifteen for an eight—”

“You misunderstand me. I’m going to pay fifteen marks for each of these women in here. The low rated ones will more than make up for the loss you take on the eight rated ones,” I said.

“Twenty,” he countered. I turned on my heels and started leaving.

“Fine," he called after me. "I’ll take fifteen.”

“And you pay for delivery by carriage, not in cages, to King Alfred’s castle, and the better be bathed and clothed.”

“That’ll ruin me,” he cried.

“Do it, or lose the deal. I’ll pay the guide,” I said and handed Linus my pouch. In a low voice, I ordered, “Make it happen. If there’s not a healer or ignimancer in the bunch, find someone in a similar situation. Rating is not important, tainted is fine, actually prefered. Go get some elves who know herbs.”

“Milord, it’s not—” he protested quietly.

“Do it,” I growled and walked towards the entrance. Hrothgar started to follow but I ordered him to stay with Linus. When I was at the opening to the tent I looked at Nina and called out, “Girl, get over here. Take me to the platform room where we met.”

“But my—” she started to protest.

“We’ll deal with that in a moment,” I said in a tone that brooked no argument. She nodded hesitantly and gave one last look at the cage she had sought out. She led the way through the den of misery, my temples dunked, and my vision swam, it was all I could do to just walk in a straight line. I was getting so pissed off at the situation. I might be a criminal, I might have hurt people, I had even killed someone who deserved it, but I had never treated anyone that badly. It was just wrong on every level. I needed to get some fresh air at once.

I was sitting at my desk staring out the windows. Someone had replaced the broken window from earlier. I was occasionally glancing at the papers in my hand. It was four bills of sales that listed me as the brand new owner of nineteen human beings and three elves. I had skimmed the lists, which listed their magic and rating or their profession, but I did not really take note of what was written.

I felt like throwing up remembering the Bazaar, if it had been one or two persons in that situation, I might have been able to stomach it. However, we were talking about thousands of people or something like that. And that was only who was there when I was there. There had to be millions of serfs out there. Would all of them be treated like that? Or were there kind owners out there? Was Milly ill-treated here?

Linus was sitting in one of the recliners, which he had turned around so he was facing my direction. He had been smart enough to pick up on my mood and had not said anything for the last half hour.

I broke the silence by issuing a new order to Linus, “Find a way to buy the two that altered the clothes for me.”

“Milord, it’s not that easy to just buy from the King,” Linus protested. “And you already have three linteomancers, each of them with a better rating than those two.”

“I said, find a way,” my voice held more than a tinge of the anger I felt bubbling up inside me. I would need to find a way to vent some of it, or I would end up hurting someone badly.

“Milord,” Linus said and we lapsed into silence again. After a few minutes, he ventured, “Milord, perhaps it’s time to talk about your magic. You’ve already found out how to use it, but maybe I could explain a bit of magic, and most importantly, teach you how to make manacrystals.”

I glanced once more at the bills of sales and put them away. I turned the chair around to look at Linus. “Well, lay it on me then. No, wait. You call people with magic for mancers of some kind. Does that mean I’m a linkomancer or something?”

“No, Milord. You’ve not been trained by the schools, so you’re not a mancer. A recognized user of magic,” Linus said with a frown. “It’s a bit tricky. A mancer cannot hold a title, but the Prophecy tells us that we shall raise the summoned heroes to be our Lords, and yet you’re given magic. It’s quite the conundrum.”

“That would explain why they didn’t use the mancer titles, but instead said the ability to manipulate fire and so on. Another thing, since it’s just the two of us, drop the constant Milord shit. I’m not some self-important prick that constantly needs his ego stroked.”

“I understand, Mi—” he said, but caught himself. “I will try.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It seemed to me that no one had heard of my type of magic before, what was that about?”

“I’ve never heard about it before, normally divining what power people have is done in private. I just know that there’s no school teaching that form of magic. At first, I thought you had the ability to control magic or gravity, but the gossip told me otherwise.”

“Okay, so unknown power. Is that good or bad?”

“Bad. There’s already rumours about you might be a tainted one, wielding a power granted by the false gods of the elves. It doesn’t help the way you fought. Armando, the healer, already spread how you fought without honour,” Linus said, looking a bit hesitant to deliver this piece of news.

“I knew I should’ve rearranged his face,” I mumbled darkly. Well if they wanted to gossip, fuck them. “Tell me how ratings work and what they mean.”

“Everyone has the same amount of mana, magical energy, available. We call that the mana pool,” he said. I reckoned he meant what I had called a reservoir.

“If everyone has the same amount, what does the rating signify? I thought it meant you had more energy available,” I asked, a bit confused.

“Rating determines how strong a connection you have with your mana. The higher the rating the less mana you use to perform an act of magic, and you also regenerate it faster. Right now though, you’re probably wasting a lot of mana, so your effective rating is most likely around three or four.”

I had to mull that over for a second and decided I needed an example of the difference. “So if an ignimancer was to create a flame in the palm of his hand. If he had a rating of one, how long could he hold it?”

“Probably around a span,” he answered. So two to three minutes.

“Rating two?”

“I would say almost three spans, and a half-glass at rating three.”

I really hated their timekeeping method. A rating two would be around eight minutes then, while a rating three would be able to do it for a bit more than half an hour. I had another question I wanted an answer to. “Can you raise your rating?”

“Yes, but it’s hard. Especially the lower your rating is. Scholars have tried to come up with an answer, but we only have hypotheses. The most popular one is that the more you regenerate your mana, the more likely you are to raise in rating. I started out as an eight, but I broke through to nine just a cycle ago,” he answered with a lot of pride in his voice.

I congratulated him before I asked my next question, “How many ratings are there?”

“There are thirteen ratings.”

“Of course, I should have guessed,” I said.

“But there are some that have exceeded the thirteenth rating,” he added.

“Oh?”

“Indeed. There’s only a little less than fifty of them alive. They’re called the Ascended and most of them have a rating of one. Only a handful has reached two, and only one in our history has ever reached a rating of Ascended Three.”

“So it starts over from one when you ascend?”

“Yes.”

I mulled that over for a second. “One last question. I heard that the higher your rating the slower you age, is that correct?”

“Indeed, you’re well informed. Each rating adds about ten cycles to your lifespan. If you ever reach Ascended, each rating will add another hundred cycles.” He sounded wistful whenever he mentioned Ascended.

“Thanks for the information, now what was that about manastones?” I said, shoving the realisation that I would not die of old age for another two hundred years, to the side. I had suspected it because of what Milly said, but getting it confirmed was a little heavy.

“Manacrystal,” he corrected me. “Manacrystal are containers we can create and pour our mana into. Anyone can absorb it and refill their mana pool, however, if I were to take a crystal made from an aquamancer, I would gain less mana than I would from another aeromancer. We theorize that the mana is different, and it consumes a lot of the mana to convert from one type to another.”

“So, we need some kind of crystal to pour the mana into?” I asked.

“No, we create that as well.” His face scrunched up in concentration, making me wonder for a moment if he was shitting his pants. A few seconds later, particles of lights started to swivel around in the palm of his hand. More and more lights gathered as they started to condense. Over the next five minutes, I watched as what looked like a small multifaceted diamond started growing out of nothing.

Linus had started panting, sweat poured down his face, and he looked drained. A bit like I had done earlier in the day after training with the soldiers, when I had almost depleted my energy—no mana pool.

The lights stopped forming and Linus let out a long sigh of relief, almost as if a large burden had been lifted. The diamond or crystal was the size of a thumbnail. He held it up, and weakly said, “This crystal will refill around a fifth of an aeromancer’s mana pool, but it almost depleted my entire pool to create it.”

“So if we got a bunch of aeromancers together we could create a very large crystal?”

He shook his head. “No only those who created can refill it. When it’s empty, it dissolves.”

“Interesting. Teach me how to do that,” I commanded eagerly. Anything to get my mind off the slaves—serfs I had just bought.

“Gladly, but could I get something to drink?” he asked hopefully.

“Of course,” I said and strode over to the door. Opening it, I stuck my head outside and found the freshly bathed Nina sitting on the stool. At first, I had wanted her to stay inside my room instead of sitting in the corridor, but that had been inappropriate according to my advisors. It was bad enough I had decided to use a girl to act as my page. I had decided not to rock the boat more than needed, until I had gotten my title and own land.

“Nina, could you fetch Linus some cold light ale?” I asked.

She shot to her feet and curtsied. “Yes, Milord. At once, Milord.”

I sighed at the overuse of Milord. She looked hesitant for a moment as if she wanted to ask me something.

“Go ahead, ask me anything.”

“I was wondering if I could see my sister, Milord?” she asked.

“Soon as I’m going to see them. They’re still settling in, and I got an important lesson. Might be a glass or two,” I said, figuring that it should not take more than a couple of hours or three to learn how to make manacrystals. At least I hoped not. If it did, I would have to continue the lesson another day, because I had made an agreement with Nina, and I was a man of my word.

“Thank you, Milord. You’ve been most kind,” she said with another curtsy before she hurried away. I smiled. At least I was employing one person correctly, instead of owning them.

I had decided to hire her after she had showed me back to the platform room we had arrived at. After a few probing questions, and some hard stares, I had found out that one of the people I had just bought was her sister, her only remaining family. She had hoped to convince me to buy her sister, because she had believed me when I said I would not force anyone to sleep with me. Since I would feel bad about tearing the siblings apart, I had taken Nina into my employ.

I did not do it for entirely selfless reasons though. Her sister was some kind of truth mage, who could tell if people were lying, somehow. I was not entirely sure how it worked, because Nina was very confused about that part herself. I would have to ask Linus or the sister for a more complete answer.

Anyway, such a mancer sounded useful and if she was happy, there was a higher chance of her being loyal, even without the collar. If I could treat these people better than they would expect, I could earn their gratitude and loyalty, meaning they would be more likely to do a good job and willingly help me.

I closed the door and mentally got ready to learn.