Entering the back-end area of the merchant tent, Avian looked around the shady space following Hilton.

Cornelia had quickly caught up and inched close to Avian with fear evident on her face, but Avian wasn’t bothered by that and simply observing his surroundings as he quickly realized that this must have been a storage area for the slaves that weren’t on display.

Dozens, hundreds of metal cages too small to stand on lined the shady corridor, each cage had 1 slave in it, they were all different majority of them being human but also a lot of other races mixed in, some young some old, but one thing was the same, they all looked extremely scared any time Hilton came close to their cage.

This place could be described as a sort of hell and Hilton was its devil, but then again Avian knew that there were worse ways to live, the fact that the slaves didn’t particularly look abused, too malnourished or broken showed that Hilton did actually take some care for them, though again Avian knew that this wasn’t because Hilton was kind or anything.

After all what kind of person would want to buy a broken product?

-So, sir Lukas’ is there anything you would like? A preference? I assure you that we are in a private space, ah maybe we should have started with negotiating the price? How unprofessional of me, I apology for that.

-It’s alright, as for the slaves…I want 3, all of them need to have a unranked combat blessing, 2 vanguards, 1 who can take a lot of damage and 1 who can deal it, and 1 rearguard, a ranged one, they can’t be too old by which I mean they can’t be someone who is over 30 if they are not from a race who has longevity, I do not care for their origin, appearance or personality as long as it’s not too problematic to deal with, you know what I mean, and also I forgot to mention, they have to be women, I am willing to pay 3 to 5 small gold pieces for each one.

-Hehh?!

Cornelia almost shouted in surprise, the reason she was so surprised could be attributed to everything Avian had just said as his requests were pretty detailed, but what she was the most surprised about was his second requirement, the fact that they all needed to be women, the earlier thought she had about Avian and how he wouldn’t buy a sex slave immediately crossed her mind as she started to think that maybe Avian wasn’t really that different from other men after all, what he was intending on doing with these women put a lot of thoughts into her mind, she even started to think that maybe Avian would one day even drag her to bed.

The mental imagine alone put a deep crimson tint onto her fair and spotless face, Avian noticed this through his [Blood Sense] as he couldn’t understand what the idiot behind him was thinking, but he wasn’t about to explain himself as he didn’t care what she really thought about him as he had more important things in mind.

The reason Avian wanted all his slaves to be women was actually pretty simple and not a perverted one at all, to him dealing with women was far simpler then dealing with men, in his opinion women were more obedient and followed orders better than men while also being less rebellious, that is not to say he wanted some mindless drones that did only what he said, he simply preferred people who would listen to him, though honestly this wasn’t something he needed to be worried about considering the existence of the [Slave Mark].

In this world the biology of humans between males and females was also very balanced and even, males weren’t naturally stronger than females and vice-versa so he wasn’t losing out on anything in particular when he chose females.

Hilton simply listened to Avian’s requirements with a smile on his face, after finishing he momentarily thought before asking a question.

-And how about the [Slave Mark]?

-The highest-level one if you could, I am aware of the price so don’t worry about it.

Hilton smiled, for one being happy to have met and wealthy customer and for two which was the most important one the customer being of extremely excellent quality as well, even though his back was facing Avian the entire time as they walked, Hilton still was able to observe Avian’s expression as he looked at the slaves around him inspecting each one with his cold calculating eyes.

Hilton felt a mysterious thrill every time Avian did that as if he found a fellow comrade which he rarely did, he wanted to ask Avian what he thought about his slaves and whether or not he had some opinions regarding his slave care.

Alas they were currently doing business, as a merchant Hilton thoroughly understood the concept of keeping personal and professional life apart, even though Hilton wanted to recommend Avian some of the better slaves with those requirements as a show of favor and friendship, but he couldn’t do so as that would violate his principles as a merchant.

Avian on the other hand felt a slight sting as he was actually spending more money on the [Slave Mark] then on the slaves themselves, having done his research, Avian knew that the highest-level [Slave Mark] cost 10 small gold pieces, he was buying 3 slaves who each cost between 3 to 5 gold which was sort of low but still average in terms of quality as he was buying unranked slaves who didn’t have a lot of actual strength which equated to 0, meaning what he really was buying was their bodies and their potential strength in their blessing.

Originally Avian planned on only buying 2 slaves both of which were vanguards, but after he encountered the bandit raid and looted Marco’s corpse while also gaining the deed to the general store, Avian quickly modified his plan to the current state, the [Slave Mark] was also in the plan as he originally planned for a low-level one and planned to upgrade it later when he had amassed enough funds.

-Ehm…I am sorry for interrupting…but what is a [Slave Mark]?

-Huh?

-Heh?

Both Avian and Hilton momentarily stopped as they couldn’t help but look at Cornelia with a bit of confusion, the reason Avian was confused was because he couldn’t understand how Cornelia couldn’t know something like this when she was already a native of this world, while Hilton was surprised because he already had an idea of the identity of this women who accompanied Avian as she exhibited common noble behavior that most commoners lacked which only elevated Avian’s status in his eyes, the fact that a noble didn’t know something as basic as a [Slave Mark] was astounding to Hilton as he never met a noble like that before.

-Uhh…

Being stared at weirdly by the other two, Cornelia felt a bit strange as she felt as if she was the weird one here when in reality she should have been the normal one in an incredibly messed up situation.

Cornelia obviously knew about slaves as a noble as her house did employ slaves, but other than knowing slaves and their existence, she had never encountered one or ever deeply tried to understand them as she was more concerned about other things in her life as she was a fairly sheltered young women because of her father who never let her leave the house ever since her blessing ceremony.

Avian too swiftly connected the points and thought that he should explain even if he felt a bit weird.

-A [Slave Mark] is the ability a mid-ranked [Merchant]’s blessing gets, the ability itself isn’t a actually called [Slave Mark], it’s just an variant use of the ability as it has many other uses which [Merchant]’s use most commonly which is the [Contract] ability which I am not going to explain, what the [Slave Mark] specifically does is drawing a mark onto the slave in combination with certain ingredients and the owners own blood, the slave that is marked by a [Merchant] as such will have to listen to the owner whose blood was used with the ink, the quality of the mark is low, middle and high with each giving the slave a different level of restriction, this doesn’t mean total mind-control or anything as the slave can still do anything they want, but the owner can preemptively put in as many orders and commands to stop them, such as not to go against the owners orders or not harming the owner himself, if the slave tries to go against these orders the [Slave Mark] immediately activates and causes extreme pain that can at the minimum cause them to fall down and or fall unconscious or at the maximum even cause death, but the [Slave Mark] is still not omnipotent, it is only effective to those who are at rank 3 anything above that and the [Slave Mark] has absolutely no effect furthermore some unique blessings and those that have unnaturally high attributes can to certain extend resist or undone the [Slave Mark], there do you understand?

-Ah…yes!

-Splendid explanation sir Lukas almost as if it came from a [Merchant] themselves!

Hilton clapped, making Cornelia hesitantly join in the clapping as she didn’t know what to do or say while ruminating about the new and maybe useful information she had just acquired.

Avian at this point stopped bothering with Cornelia and turned to Hilton, he wondered if he had already figured out the things he wanted, Hilton looked to have done that very thing, but there was still something else he wanted to offer to Avian.

-You said you needed 2 vanguards and 1 rearguard with specific specializations, but I didn’t hear about you say anything about magic users?

Those words were a bit of a surprise to Avian as he honestly didn’t think about buying a magic user slave because for 1. They were rare and for 2. They were expensive and mostly bought by very rich and influential individuals such as wealthy merchants and nobles.

Magic users also had the risk of being able to cancel or undo the [Slave Mark] once they got experienced enough which is why they were considered a certain risk when being bought which still didn’t really dissuade a lot of people as those that bought them generally had enough might to protect themselves from it.

The fact that Hilton was saying something like this meant he indeed had a magic user slave to offer, the problem was…

-How much?

Hilton smiled, his smile being a toothy long smile as he suddenly pulled off a big cloth from a cage that was being hidden.

Turning his eyes towards the cage, Avian and Cornelia immediately a small thin girl wearing rags that barely hid her body huddled up near the corner of the cage while shaking and quivering in fear.

Instantly something caught Avian’s eyes as he realized that this girl wasn’t a human.

On her head there was a pair of dirty rabbit ears, actually not a pair as one of them had clearly been ripped off from the root exposing a grizzly mark while the other was also partially damaged having only half of it left looking as if it was cut by something and cleanly at that too, near her butt there was a rabbit tail sticking out which was the unique tail most rabbits had in a form of a fluff ball but it too suffered quite a bit of damage as the hair that should have covered it was partially not there exposing the skin and not looking like it was going to grow back anytime soon.

This wasn’t the only two things either, this girl was clearly and brutally abused and mutilated beyond recognition, her body that was covered by a rag that barely hid anything showed her entire body being seared by scars, burn marks and many other scars that seemed to have cut deep, but still she seemed to be alive hanging on stubbornly even if faintly through the eyes of Avian who was using his [Blood Sense] on her.

There were many conclusions Avian made just by looking at this girl, but one thing was clear.

This girl was a Demi-human.

Avian recognized, as it was pretty easy to guess since she mostly looked human with only a few animal features, these things are attributed to beings known as demi-humans which is the result of copulation between humans and beastman.

Their race is considered a very controversial thing since none of the two races ever really accepted them into their own kind for having the blood of their enemies, because of these demi-humans are exposed to a lot of discrimination and mistreatment by both sides even if they aren’t treated badly by the law as they are official accepted by both sides.

Avian honestly didn’t care about that and was only focused on her identity as a magic user, but as he examined her he quickly figured out something very unique about her which was likely the reason Hilton offered her to him in the first place, not just because she was a scarred demi-human as they were actually pretty popular on the slave market.

-She is blind.

Avian said, pointing at the filthy strip of cloth that covered her eyes as the girl quivered even more when she heard Avian say this as if she was being whipped by his words, strangely even though her body was so mutilated her face seemed to be completely fine not counting her blindness that is making it spotless just like Cornelia’s.

The girl herself was pretty small, just like a small child, seeing her you would doubt that she was of age yet to even possess a blessing, but considering that Hilton showed her to Avian was proof enough to know that she was old enough even if she was small.

Hilton didn’t change his smile when Avian pointed out the obvious, as a merchant one needed to be calm at any situation, when doing business one could never lose composure lest they would be the side on the disadvantage and lose the terms of the deal.

-You are right, but she is a genuine magic user, a [Shaman] in fact, she also a native from the frontier recovered from a small tribe which purely consisted of rabbit beastman, this tribe as one of the indigenous people of this unexplored new land, and since they were indigenous they had no connection to the beastman kingdom making them fair game by alliance rule to be caught and used as slaves, unfortunately before we could get to them to reap a harvest, a previous monster horde had gotten them first, barely anyone survived those that did were caught and sold for a pretty penny if I am say so, we recovered this particular girl within the deepest parts of their tribe locked up inside a underground room within what we assume was the town hall in a metal cell, trust me when we found her she was much worse then what she currently looked like, about to die really as she had been left to starve for a long time which seemed to have been a common occurrence because of her age and her body not correlating which must be because she didn’t get enough food to grow her body stunting her growth to when she was a child. My men originally didn’t want to take this girl as they thought it wasn’t worth it since she was going to die any second, but I thought differently as I saw her potential as a product, I gave her medicine, healing her wounds and enough food to cure her malnourishment until she was finally ready to be inspected, and as I was proven right she indeed was a good product even if slightly damaged as she turned out to be a magic user, now I won’t pretend to know a whole lot about [Shamans] as they are rare and considered weaker than the atypical magic users such as [Wizards] and [Sorcerers], but she is a genuine magic user and I hoped she would fetch a good price, unfortunately no one in this town seemed to be interested in buying someone like her which is why she is here until this day.

-And you are hoping to sell her to me since no one wants to buy a mutilated demi-human, who looks she is close dying anytime soon and has a third-rate magic user blessing?

Hiltons expression momentarily changed as he couldn’t help but twitch from the comment that pierced true, for as much as Hilton wanted to down play her current condition anyone with a brain could understand within a glance that this girl didn’t look good at all, who was dumb enough to buy a slave that could literally die the next week, she blind on top of that too making her even more useless to boot.

Cornelia too understood that even if she didn’t know anything about business which was sort of weird considering her father was a merchant, the way she looked at the rabbit girl was with a lot of pity, but also with a slight reproach as she didn’t particularly have a good opinion of demi-humans either considering the place she grew up in where blood origin and purity was king.

Feeling like the situation was getting worse for him Hilton quickly tried to calm his mind before speaking while brushing the sweat off his brows.

-I admit, she may look bad, but trust me, I am willing to stake my reputation and say that other than her blindness her body is completely fine, we used a lot of rare types of medicine to patch her back up internally, unfortunately we failed to cure her scars and eyesight as that would require powers above rank 4 and [Priests] or similar blessings to do the job which our company unfortunately cannot afford, since I believe you to be an excellent customer I am sure you can understand the value of this deal!

Hilton said, but Avian was still quiet, simply looking at the girl with his cold eyes, the rabbit girl hadn’t stopped shivering once the moment Avian had laid his eyes upon her, she felt through her supernatural powers the deep coldness within this person who was gazing at her, even though she was blind her magical abilities still existed plus because she had been blind almost her entire life her other senses were far more developed which included her 6th sense.

Avian thought deeply while looking at her before finally opening his mouth and saying.

-Again, how much?

Hilton immediately smiled in relief, as he thought he at last succeeded, but as time went and Hilton started to negotiate with Avian regarding the deal, he only then realized what kind of devil of a businessman he truly got involved in.

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