Magic Eyes & Bullets – Chapter 6

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Morning.

 

Once breakfast was over, Gill guided Athal to the slave dealer.

Although slavery was common practice, it wasn’t good for a child’s education to bring them to a place full of slaves, so Ashna was assigned to house-sitting duty. Although she was being selfish at the start, Gill leaned over and whispered something into her ear which made her instantly turn pale and return to her room.

 

「Athal-dono, we’ve arrived. This is the slave dealers shop.」

The exterior was neat with an easy to understand sign adorning the front indicating that it was a slave dealership. The fact that passersby didn’t show any disgust towards the building lent credence to Gill’s explanation the night before.

「Thanks. Then I’ll be off on my own. Send Glaine and Ashna my thanks.」

「Acknowledged. Let us meet again If the opportunity arises.」

Having finished his duty, Gill bowed deeply to emphasize his words before returning to the lord’s mansion.

 

「Alright, I hope there’s a good slave…… It feels kinda weird to say ‘good slave’」

Athal watched Gill’s back leaving for a moment before muttering to himself and going inside the store.

「Hmm? Ohh, a customer. Welcome, I’m Buzz, the shopkeeper at this store. Here we handle slaves of many races, men and women of all ages, all used for a multitude of purposes!」

 

A short chubby man with a round belly wiped the sweat from his forehead as he called out to Athal. From his subservient rambling speech, it seemed that the shopkeeper was quite experienced in his work.

「Yeah, this is my first time coming to a store like this, so could you run me through the process? 」

The man who called himself Buzz evaluated Athal as he spoke. Based on his eyes he guessed that Athal was someone who could move a lot of money around.

 

「Of course. First I’ll have you tell me what you are looking for. Things like appearance, species, age, and what you intend to use them for. Then using your specified criteria, I’ll present you with various slaves I believe to match your request. Slaves are separated into rooms based on their differences, so you can look at them there, and if you find one that suits your fancy you can ask about their price and condition, then if you are satisfied with them and wish to purchase them, they will be bound to you via a slave contract.」

 

Buzz explained smoothly having clearly repeated those words countless times.

「I see…… It’s better if their appearance is good, and as for race I don’t know what there is but something other than human might be interesting. As for age, I’m 20 so around that…… but younger is probably better. I’m looking for a companion for my travels. And to add one last thing, I want someone who can keep a secret.」

Buzz jotted down Athal’s requirements and gave it a single look over. He seemed to already have some candidates in mind.

 

「……Understood. Well then, I’ll guide you over right away.」

As explained, Athal was led into the first room full of female slaves, all in pretty clothing with good appearances. The women inside the cages sat in chairs as they smiled at Athal. Most were humans, but mixed among them seemed to be animal-eared beastmen as well. From a cursory glance, they seemed quite different from Athal’s perception of slaves.

 

「These girls are fallen noble daughters, so their appearances are good. Though they’re nobles, they’ve been trained to take care of themselves so don’t worry about that.」

Ignoring Buzz’s words, Athal looked through them one by one, but none of the girls looking to curry his favour stood out to him.

 

「Hmm, do you have others?」

「Oya, do none of them suit your fancy? In that case, let’s go to the next room.」

Seeing as Athal was a young man, Buzz expected him to pick one of the pretty girls, but when that didn’t seem to be the case, he showed a surprised face before leading him to the next room.

 

「Here we have the warrior type slaves. To the right, we have the woman, and to the left, the men. Over there, among the men, we have a rare dragon beastman.」

Standing among the bulky male slaves with sharp eyes, there were soldier slaves who seemed to have had long stints in the military, as well as slaves with bandit-like faces. The female slaves varied from large to small, but they all looked good and muscular.

 

Among them, the dragon beastman was obviously a powerful warrior from just a glance. Athal seemed accustomed to the sight, as he didn’t bat an eye.

「Fuun, they’re not bad, but……」

It seemed nothing there really stood out to Athal. He thought a warrior wouldn’t really mix well with his particular way of fighting. Having any disagreements about that sort of thing on a battlefield concerned his life, so he wanted to avoid that.

 

「If you don’t like anything here we can move onto the next room…… but I don’t really have anything I recommend there.」

The next room Athal was led to had a different atmosphere from the previous two. Not because it was incredibly filthy, though it was still a bit dirty, the main difference was rather that it was full of limp, feeble people staring vacantly.

「Here we have slaves that had things like incurable injuries, or curses placed on them when they were brought here. Of course, we feed them just the same as the others, but……. Honestly, we have them mostly out of charity.」

Besides working to get certification from the country, they took in that sort of people as well to help improve their reputation. Since they were more of a thankless business, Buzz seemed to have little interest in them.

 

「Is that so…….」

Although he heard Buzz’s explanation, Athal still went to look at the lineup of people in the cages. It was unusual for a young man like Athal to come all the way there to look, so it seemed that there was a bit of resistance Athal looking at them.

 

「……And that girl?」

Athal asked, pointing to the beastman furthest inside. It seemed that mentioning her had caused her to feel frightened.

 

「Aah, it seems that she’s a beastman child who was abandoned here. She must have come from a harsh and painful environment. She has a burn scarring her face, hearing loss, and I don’t know what kind of beastman she is…… Yes, she might not have very much longer.」

Athal instinctively felt he ought to pick that beastman. The eye power he had received from God was telling him to ask for that girl.

 

「How much?」

「Huh?」

Buzz let a dumb sound out of his mouth at Athal’s sudden question. As he never would have thought Athal would pick that beastman child, he was taken by surprise.

「I want to buy that girl, so how much?」

Buzz finally understood the situation when Athal asked his question the second time.

 

「You- you wish to buy her? Her price may be low, but her ears and eyes are damaged, and the tendon in their right arm is cut making her unable to use it……」

「Okay, so how much?」

No matter how many ailments of hers were listed, since he trusted in the power of his eyes, his intentions wouldn’t change.

 

「In- in that case, Including the clothing fee the total comes to 1 gold coin.」

A single gold coin was the minimum cost a slave could be, so it wasn’t an exaggeration to say the clothing made up the majority of the cost.

「That’s cheap! Deal! Are we good?」

Since the entire reward he’d received from the lord was in gold coins and he intended to pay whatever it took from the start, Athal immediately took out a gold coin.

 

「Ye- yes, no, that’s fine for payment, but it would be better to go through with the legal procedures in the office. Hey, prepare that girl.」

Buzz called out to an employee who appeared nearby unnoticed, who then unlocked the cell and retrieved the beat-up beast girl. But as stated previously, she had trouble moving and walked with an unsteady gait. 

The chosen beast girl stared at Athal with an uneasy expression, unsure as to why she had been chosen, as she was taken along.

 

「Until preparations are finished, let’s go to the office so I can go over the process and give you the conditions. Now, this way please.」

Buzz still seemed a bit bewildered by the situation, but he was glad to be able to sell one of the slaves he was worried about, so in line with his nature he went back to prepare the contract.

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If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁