"Mermaid slaves had practically vanished over the past few years. You've been working with me for several years too, right? Do you know the starting bid for a mermaid?"
"I remember. Male mermaids started at 1 million Beli, female mermaids started at 70 million Beli, and split-tailed mermaids started at 10 million Beli."
"That's right. Ordinary humans only started at 500,000 Beli. Even a Devil Fruit user might not fetch as much as a mermaid!"
"I heard every member of the Merfolk Race is stunningly beautiful. Plenty of rich people are willing to throw away fortunes for them."
"Seventy million Beli is already an old price. If there really is a mermaid now, the starting bid would probably have to be 100 million Beli..."
"Get the slaves ready. I'll go up front and stir up the customers first."
With that, Zeko walked through a small side door to the front of the stage. After he left, his assistant prepared to carry out his instructions.
From the cages around them, all sorts of gazes seemed to converge on him.
Sorrow, pleading, resentment, rage—every emotion was mixed together.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm just a merchant selling goods. I hope you unlucky bastards find good buyers. Maybe your lives will even turn out better than before."
He had just been about to take the auction items out of their cages when a strange force suddenly wrapped around his body, as though something had clamped him in place.
Then, that invisible force lifted him straight into the air. He opened his mouth to cry for help, but no sound came out.
That strange force had locked around his throat, and a powerful sense of suffocation washed over him.
"Don't be afraid. Feeling dizzy is normal. So is pain."
As a hybrid