It was a new day and I had just woken up. Feeling refreshed from the good night of sleep, I went over what I had to do today: there would be the heroes’ revealing ceremony where they discover their powers. I also still need a slave as an attendant, so I would need to go to the slave auction or one of the slave stores to purchase one (preferably a cheap one).

After slowly forcing myself out of bed, I headed off towards the commercial district to purchase a slave. I started to get chills when I thought about how costly slaves could be. What I needed was a cheap and functional one. It doesn’t have to be pretty, I don’t even care if it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, as long as it’s got a low price. Some slavers are too lazy to heal their stock when ill or injured, so I could get a cripple for a decent price and just use recovery magic on it. Demi-humans make up the majority of slaves and the rarer, the more expensive, so one of the more common species would be in my buying range.

I was walking down the cobbled streets, scanning the area surroundings for a slave store, as auctions tended to be a bit pricier. I’d never been out to buy a slave before, so I was somewhat unfamiliar with the process and was looking forward to the new experience. I quickly spotted a sign above the doorway to a store, indicating the place to be what I was looking for. It was a rather old building, some of the mortar between grey stone bricks starting to crumble away. I wonder if it’s even structurally sound.

Entering the premises, I went up to the simple counter of dark wood set up in the entry room and waited patiently for someone to arrive.

Before too long, a greasy, skeletal, humanoid creature came out of the door in the back. It had murky brown hair slicked back and a gaunt face, similar to the depictions of ghouls in what I’d read and was dressed in patched up formal attire showing the signs of age. I put my guard up, but lowered it once again when the creature spoke.

“Ahhh! A customer. So how can I be of help today?” asked the creature.

It was the shopkeeper… If he had been a moment late with his introduction, I would have ended up running him through with my blade. The fellow can hardly be called human.

“I’d like to buy a slave today. It needs to be relatively strong to carry luggage and I’d prefer it come at an affordable cost. In fact I don’t even really care if it’s injured or ill, so if I could just browse your wares that would be fantastic.”

“Hmm? A man who knows what he wants! Seems like I won’t be needed. Just go through the back door and choose one. You can come to pay upfront and then we can transfer ownership.” said the creature.

I gave him a nod, my smile unfazed by his peculiar appearance. I then walked to the back door and headed down a set of stairs into a darkly lit corridor, about 2m wide. On either side at regular intervals were metal doors with viewing slots large enough stick your head through, and a price, as well as some basic information, crudely scrawled on the front with charcoal. The place smelled of cheap perfume, probably to override the smell the slaves gave off. I saw down the corridor another customer was already peering through one of the viewing spots, with a lecherous look in his eyes. He was an old man, probably in his late 60s, bald and rather portly. He was so focused on whatever slave was in that room that he didn’t even notice me enter… how rude.

I decide to in turn ignore the rude man and started to browse.

50 silver; Mouse demi-human, age 7, female. Nope.

75 silver; Cat demi-human, age 14, male. Too scrawny.

1 gold; Wood elf demi-human, age unknown, male. Missing a leg.

10 gold; Demon variant demi-human, age 16, female. Too expensive.

…

After another hour or so of browsing I had come to a conclusion.

None of them. None of them were suitable. I could maybe make do with the demon variant, since they tend to hold a lot of physical strength, but she was just too expensive! I also got creeped out by her vacant expression. She was quite the beauty, possessing pale, flawless skin and platinum hair. The only difference from a human being the silver horns… so she was probably raped in captivity. Damn that’s troublesome. She looks completely out of it… but if her virginity were still intact she would’ve cost over 100 gold, so maybe this is a good deal.

As I struggled over whether to buy her or not, I heard a ruckus coming from the room the rude man was viewing.

“Please! Anyone else! If anyone else is there please buy me! Don’t let this guy buy me please!” shouted a voice out of the room.

The voice sounded female and quite distraught, probably upset that she’d be ravaged by that rude fellow in due time. I could hear sobs coming down the hall way. She was probably not fit for my purpose, but I might as well check it out.

I made my way over to the rude man and the only room I hadn’t checked. I peeked around the practically drooling old man. Hmm? Mixed race variant demi-human, age 15, female and at the price of 5 gold. I looked into the cell to see an extremely peculiar demi-human.

It was crouched down in the corner trying to hide itself from the gaze of the lecherous old man. She was female and held quite the strange appearance. Blood-red hair cascaded down her shoulders, forming delicate locks, covering what appeared to be slightly pointed ears. Her eyes were a dark yellow, with slit pupils and at that moment were filled with tears. Her skin looked like that of the typical human resident of Sol city until you saw the minute details: she had a barely visible scale pattern running down the back of her arms and legs, her entire back, hips and the scaly skin also came up onto her cheeks. The skin with the scaly pattern appeared a shade redder than the rest, as though it had been lightly burned. She also had a thin, long tail, similar to that of a lizard’s wrapped around her. The scaly patterns were far more visible on the tail and were also a more evident red colour.

All these feature pointed towards a lizard variant demi-human, but there were still more features which didn’t allow this conclusion. Along her spine and tail, as well as the back of its arms up to the elbow ran line of dark red fur, similar in colour to dried blood. She was in all respects a completely bizarre product. Her price was surprisingly low, probably due to the fact it’s mixed-blood; people tended not to buy them due to their peculiar appearances, even if they are rare.

Her eyes brightened up when they saw me peeking over the man’s shoulder to have a look inside, and she immediately began to beg.

“Please buy me! Please! I’ll do anything you want! Anything! E-even if you want my virginity you can take it! Just don’t let this disgusting old man buy me!” she wailed.

She once again began to sob uncontrollably, garbled words coming out about how he said he was going to make her do this and that, beat her, treat her like a pet and the list goes on … I guess the rude guy is a bit of a sadist, and looking at the product in question, has some very peculiar sexual preferences. He noticed my presence after she began to beg and glared angrily at me, probably upset that I’d interrupted him threatening the product with sexual violence.

“Oi! You should get out of here! Don’t even think about buying this one, she’s mine!” spat the rude fellow.

Some of his saliva hit my jacket… I felt a flash of rage and next thing I know there’s a burnt corpse lying on the floor… tapped him with my foot to see if there was any chance of him still being alive… nope; his body crumbled to a pile of ash after I prodded it. My emotions have been running rampant of late. I think the technical term for this condition is ‘mentally unstable’, but that’s just a label. I’ll have to do better in the future for Serenity’s sake.

It’s easy enough to just say he was a heretic or something. Since I’m one of the heroes’ companions now, no one will properly investigate. I turned back to the room in which the product looked at me with eyes full of hope.

“How much can you carry?” I asked.

She displayed a confused expression at my extremely easy and reasonable question. Is she trying to get on my nerves?

“W-what do you mean?” she asked.

She is trying to get on my nerves. She would probably have been more considerate of me if she’d seen the other fellow burnt to ashes, but unfortunately she was unaware of the events that had just transpired.

“Do you have the capability to carry my luggage for me and act as my attendant on a trip for an extended period of time?” I asked in a clearer way.

“Y-yes?” she responded.

I kept my smile but felt my eye twitch in irritation. Calm down and smile. One of her parents must have been a lizard demi-human, who are well-known for strength, as a rather militaristic community in their homeland, so she’ll probably have the strength and stamina needed. She was also cheaper than the broken demon variant demi-human.

I went back upstairs without a word, leaving the product crying out towards me to not leave her there. When I reached the counter I informed the shopkeeper of the great deed I had done by sending a filthy heretic to Sol, in his establishment. He looked rather displeased but didn’t voice a word of complaint, but instead took my 5 gold and gave me a slave collar, which we’d just bound to me using my blood. I was told to go and put it on the slave myself, and was given the keys for the room. Isn’t this fellow being too lazy here? Well, since he didn’t complain about the death of the other customer, I won’t complain about this. I am fair after all.

I went back to the room and opened the door, giving the product a huge fright, but after seeing that it was yours truly she burst into tears of joy.

“Thank you, Thank you, Thank you….!” She continuously said, getting snot on my trousers as she clung to my leg as though it was her last hope.

I was unhappy that she’d soiled my clothing, but the dark colours made it barely noticeable, this was the second time I’d gotten someone else’s fluids on my person… disgusting. I tried to shake her off, but the harder I tried to shake her off, the harder she clung on. Dammit, get off!

I clipped on the slave collar and my brand new slave flinched as it glowed, officially making her my property. Once I’d reached the end of my patience with the clinging, I activated the slave collar’s pain stimulator. This was the main function of all slave collars, allowing the owner of the slave to make their slave experience pain, in order to punish their wrongdoings.

The inscribed patterns on the collar started to glow a light blue, indicating the pain stimulation function had activated. The slave in question however, only flinched before continuing to cling with even greater strength than before. What in Sol’s name is going on!? She should be writhing on the floor in pain after that. That stupid store owner gave me a defective collar!

I immediately made my way back to the counter to complain, the slave still clinging to my leg, much to my annoyance. She was surprisingly strong, and had stuck like glue. Forcefully removing her might cause damage, which would be a pain considering how much I just bought her for. I could just heal her afterwards, but considering that I would probably need to break her arms in order to pry her off, that would require more effort than walking to the counter with her attached to my leg. Healing broken bones isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially since I wasn’t specialised in that area.

When I eventually reached the counter, the shopkeeper saw my problem and let out a snort of laughter. This guy is really starting to irk me.

“Excuse me, as you can see there’s a bit of a problem with the collar you gave me, I was wondering if I could get it replaced.” I inquired politely.

This was a good opportunity to work on my emotional control. The shop keeper smirked when he heard my inquiry.

“Sorry, the collar isn’t defective, it’s the slave. The reason that one was so cheap was because of her ridiculously high pain tolerance.”

… Doesn’t that mean I don’t really have any control over her? My smile tightened as I thought about the implications; I’d need to buy a more advanced collar to force her to follow my orders instead of just experience pain when she doesn’t. Those things cost at least 125 gold… No.

“Would it be possible to get a refund?” I asked.