Chapter 14

Cityscape

“If it were not for the fear for my family, I would have stood and said all that I am saying here anywhere else; but my head would fly, and my family would be dead. I can’t afford that.”

Mind of the Heretic, Vol. XIII

Noah was currently sliding down the slightly slanted streets of the city, escorted by none other but Vorvil. Both men wore draped robes of the Dacent, typified through the Royal Insignia woven onto their chest. That small detail, however, made a world of difference, Noah realized; while other Dacent had to scramble and engage in the tugging war to walk down the crowded streets, the same lanes flooded open in front of Noah and Vorvil, earning them more than a few respectful nods.

The more of the city Noah saw the more impressed he became; the streets were stretched out in a more European style, with winding curves rather than clear segregation into blocks as found in the U.S., with buildings oftentimes rising at the curved angles as to not overshadow the streets themselves. On occasion, buildings were connected via sky-bridges crossing those streets, a marveling sight, with Noah only reasoning it through attributing the feat to some property of the Light.

As the entire city was built on a slanted plateau, there were frequent dips, some sharper than others, though, overall, it was extremely flattened all around. Whoever had designed this city was nothing short of a genius, Noah noted. He would have to look it up one day, as it might have been another one like himself – an Outlander. Perhaps not from the Earth, but from another advanced civilization.

Vorvil looked none-too-pleased to be today's guide, barely bothering to hide his displeasure from his expressions. Noah said nothing, merely following a few steps behind the man as they made their way to what was officially called 'Isle of the Assisted Help'; with a faint chuckle upon first hearing it, he noted that the people of Lumina Kingdom weren't strangers to empty euphemisms either. Everyone, however, knew exactly what it was – a slave market. Merely, nobody wanted to discuss it as such.

It was located halfway down the plateau, toward the rightmost end, almost bordering the wall itself. Rather than a single building, it was a specifically cleaved part, fenced off from the rest of the city, disallowing those outside to peer into the inside. The entrance, an arched, wooden gate, was guarded by a couple of guards, while the street leading into it cleaved into three parts – the back one, from where the two arrived, and two roads on the side curving out and back onto the main road.

The fence itself was also wooden, but tightly-knit, nearly three meters tall, though with the clear signs of rot already present. The two guards didn’t ask for their credentials, merely having glanced at their crests and nodded respectfully before moving to the side. Both were clad in mail-like armor, Noah noted, with open helmets, wielding lengthy spears.

Noah nodded back while Vorvil ignored the two guards completely, entering an open compound. It was a whole lot like any other market – that was Noah’s first impression. Stalls upon stalls stretched in lines and curves and circles, though there were surprisingly few buyers to be found. The slavers themselves glanced at the two with fiery expression but for a moment, just until their eyes landed on the crests. These things really come in handy… he sighed inwardly, the fire in their eyes having withdrawn as quickly as it surfaced.

“… you don’t need my help henceforth, no?” Vorvil grumbled, glancing at him.

“I need four,” Noah said emptily. “You find two.”

“But—”

“I need four –” he repeated, glancing at Vorvil coldly. “You find two.”

“… fine.” The old man relented angrily, flipping his robes as he darted off. Noah stared at his back for a moment before sighing and diving into the market himself.

To him, it didn’t really matter who they picked – so long as they were relatively healthy. They wouldn’t be doing any physically-tasking jobs anyway, but the reason he gave Vorvil two to pick is that he had to start molding the old man’s ideology – his case was similar to Olivia and her dream. Both had idealized certain aspects of reality, and he had to break them before those same aspects came back to bite them in the ass.

Idealists, indeed, start the revolutions; but they’re also usually the martyrs, the last, necessary push for the masses to prevail. And he certainly didn’t want them to become the figureheads of an empty movement. At least not just yet.

He didn’t go too deep, stopping by the fifth ‘stall’ right down the center. It was a wide, crescent space covered with a plain-looking awning, hiding away eight man-sized cages to the sides, with a lavishly-dressed man sitting beneath a parasol in the center, sipping some strange-looking, cyan liquid. Despite seeing Noah stop, he didn’t get up or greet him. Similarly, Noah didn’t even glance at the man, just looking over the people in the cages.

There were six men and two women; one woman seemed to be half a step away from dying, while the other seemed to be in her late thirties. She was missing her left arm, though, at a first glance, otherwise appeared healthy enough. That’s one… women were effectively indispensable for any operation that requires getting people to buy into an idea – that’s something Noah learned very early on in his life. They are far more trusting than men, regardless of their appearance.

He also quickly settled on the other one, a young, teenage boy from the looks of it. He was a bit on the scrawny side, though, unlike most others, he didn’t seem to be broken entirely. Just angry. Very, very angry. And it was far, far easier to work with anger than it was with someone who doesn’t care about life anymore.

“Him and her,” Noah said emptily, pointing at the woman and the teenage boy. “I’ll give you two for the woman, and six for the boy.”

“… you want a woman that can still give birth to children for two crowns? And a healthy boy for six?” the slaver glanced at him and said lowly. “Good luck.”

“…” Noah met the glance and shrugged, turning around, ready to walk away. There was no need to haggle; it didn’t matter to him where he bought or who he bought.

“W-wait, fine, fine,” the slaver, entirely shocked that the strange Dacent didn’t even bother to banter, quickly shot up from his chair and stopped Noah from walking away. “Can you at least round it to ten?” he asked, smiling bitterly.

“… why?” Noah tilted his head and asked.

“…”

“Throw in that parasol,” he said while the slaver stood shocked. “And you can have ten.”

“… consider it my loss, then,” the slaver smiled bitterly and extended his arm. “I am Q’sal. May I know the humble one’s name?”

“… Ryvor,” Noah made up a name randomly, starting to practice what will, eventually, become a second-nature habit. “Here,” he handed the man ten Crowns. “I can’t say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but it wasn’t torturous either. Middle ground.”

“So, perfect then?” Q’sal grinned; he was a relatively young man, at least Noah thought so, somewhere in his late thirties. His flamboyant clothes came second only to his light-purple dyed hair and sparkly blue, elongated mustache. Were it not for those choices, he might have even been considered handsome.

Q’sal walked over to the two cages and unlocked them, ushering the woman and the boy out and toward Noah, while also digging out two parchments, handing them over. Noah glanced quickly and saw they were contracts – apparently, they were partly Light-bound, meaning that if slaves breached the contract, they would be stricken by the God of Light himself within a month. Bull, he rolled his eyes inwardly, hardly caring for much else besides their names: Sylvester and Myrell.

“Everything in order?” Q’sal asked, maintaining a somewhat pleasant, yet also somewhat disturbing, smile.

"Besides your appearance, yes," Noah said, finally smiling back, though somewhat hollowly. "I'll come and find you in a couple of months. Procure one that can fight, one that can run, and one that can fuck. Ten crowns for the first two, five for the last. No negotiations; find whatever fits within those costs. Until then."

“…” Q’sal stared in silence for a long while at the fading back of the strange man. He had never dealt with a Dacent – nay, with another person – that direct. Usually, he’d have to claim his slaves were grabbed from heavens to sell them to someone, and most of the people who came here came simply to observe rather than to purchase. “Who the hell’s that guy?” though he had a Royal Insignia, it was the first time Q’sal saw him. While not strange, as there were roughly two hundred Dacents with Royal Insignias in the Kingdom, someone like that certainly shouldn’t be entirely unknown.

Noah, on the other hand, withdrew back to the gates with two new souls aboard following sheepishly after him. The woman kept stealthily glancing at him, fear prevalent in her eyes, while the boy's gaze remained undetermined.

“I’ll pay you each one Crown a month,” he decided he may as well settle things with them while waiting for Vorvil. "More if you earn it. You won't be tasked with fighting or warming beds of others, but selling something. As to what, you'll learn later. You'll be provided two meals a day and a roof to sleep under. Can either of you read or write?"

“…” the woman raised her somewhat shaky arm, quickly avoiding Noah’s eyes.

“You’ll also help me with the records, then,” he said so more to himself than her, turning his gaze back onto the boy who didn’t look away. “What can you do?”

“… fight.” The boy said.

“No you can’t,” Noah replied immediately. “Besides, I don’t need you to fight. You look like you can sneak around. And, if you can’t, I’ll teach you.”

"—I—I can fight!!" the boy's shallow façade cracked for a moment as the woman beside him shuddered in fear.

"… alright," Noah grinned emptily. "Once we get back, I'll pin you against one of the new recruits to the army. If you can defeat them, I'll let you do whatever you want. However, I'll tell the soldier not to hold back; if either of you dies, it'll be the dice of fate."

“…”

“False bravado has its time and place,” Noah chuckled, shaking his head as he suddenly patted the shocked boy’s head. “And I’ll teach you when and how. However, with me, both of you will have to be absolutely honest. If I catch you lying once, I’ll cut off one of your fingers. Then two. Then three. All the way until you have none. Then toes. And then limbs. So think carefully about whether it’s worth it to lie to me before you do, alright?” he smiled, though as for how that smile was perceived by the two shocked souls, only a single glance at their horrified expressions was enough to know.