The girl on the platform trembled, her golden hair a tangled mess, her face streaked with tears. The filthy rags on her body barely covered her.
Veylin raised an eyebrow.
Wasn't she the maid who had run into him on his first day after transmigrating?
He had little interest in the woman who had indirectly brought about his transmigration, but a researcher's meticulous instincts made his gaze linger on her for another moment.
...Veylin raised an eyebrow.
He did not join the bidding. Instead, he silently threaded his way through the noisy crowd and walked straight up to the slave trader.
"Could you recommend a few slaves?"
The slave trader had been shouting enthusiastically and was annoyed at the interruption. He was about to lash out when he spotted the family crest embroidered in silver thread on Veylin's chest.
His anger vanished instantly, replaced by a fawning smile. He might not remember every crest, but he would not dare forget that of the Klein family, the city's rulers, even if he were reduced to ashes.
"Ah, a noble lord! How may I serve you?"
Veylin said nothing. He merely unfastened his coin purse and casually swung it before the man, letting him hear the heavy clink of metal.
The trader's breathing grew noticeably heavier.
He immediately shot a look at his men on the platform. Taking the hint, two burly men roughly dragged the still-trembling girl down and locked her back inside a wooden cage nearby.
Rubbing his hands, the trader led Veylin and Lilia toward the slave pens at the back.
"My lord, what sort are you looking for? We have strong laborers and skilled craftsmen. And, of course, some...special stock."
People with numb expressions were confined in rows of wooden cages and fenced pens.
Most were barely clothed and bore wounds. Despair hung in the air.
Veylin stopped before a pen holding several burly men and pointed at one with knotted muscles.
"How much for this one?"
The trader glanced over and immediately named his price.
"You have an excellent eye, my lord! He's a barbarian from the Eastern Grasslands, a prisoner of war. He can do the heavy work of three men! Just ten Gold Suns, and he's yours!"
Ten Gold Suns!
That was equivalent to 200 Silver Moons or 2,400 Copper Leaves. One Copper Leaf bought a pound of rye bread.
That meant if a purchased slave did nothing but farmwork, after accounting for food and clothing, he might not even recoup his cost in ten years.
Lilia could not help tugging on Veylin's sleeve and asking quietly, "Brother, why is he so expensive? I remember...a maid we hire earns less than two Gold Suns a year."
The slave trader overheard her. A strange look crossed his face, first surprise, then understanding.
He leaned closer and lowered his voice so only the three of them could hear.
"Miss, there's something you don't understand. To be honest, two years ago, you could have bought stock like this for five Gold Suns."
He glanced around, resentment seeping into his words.
"But two years ago, the empire suddenly raised the slave tax. The tax on every piece of 'stock' doubled! Our costs went up, so naturally our prices doubled too. Otherwise, we'd have no way to make a living."
The trader grinned, exposing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and his words took on a sinister chill.
"And...my lord, you're a respectable man. There are things I really shouldn't mention. But as a member of the Klein family, you must know."
"Some commoners might carry a tiny trace of diluted bloodline. With certain forbidden arts, you might be able to extract something from them...and even if you can't, it's common enough to use them for alchemical experiments, testing new potions and the like."
"You can't very well do those things to servants you've signed contracts with, can you? Sure, if they die, they die, but it's not exactly 'respectable,' is it? Unlike this 'stock.' Nobody cares whether they live or die."
Those words made Veylin abandon his plan to buy large numbers of slaves to populate his future domain.
The value for money was far too poor. Using slaves for low-end production would take far too long to pay off.
He would be better off recruiting displaced people as free farmers. All he would have to do was collect their taxes. They would handle their own food and lodging, and he would not have to provide for them.
He made another circuit of the market with Lilia, finally stopping in a corner where several old, weak, sick, and disabled slaves were held.
Veylin pointed at the blond girl who had been dragged off the platform earlier.
"What about her? She doesn't look capable of much heavy work."
The trader followed his finger and immediately gave him a knowing smile.
"Heh heh, my lord, this one's cheap. She's frail, but she has a pretty face and a fine figure. With a little training, she'll be quite a treat. If you like her, she's yours for five Gold Suns!"
When Veylin said nothing, he added, "Since you're serious about buying, I'll give you a discount. Four Gold Suns! That's rock bottom. I can't go any lower!"
"Deal!"
Veylin counted four Gold Suns from his purse and tossed them to the trader.
Inside the wooden cage, Xiao Lan huddled in a corner, cold all over.
When she realized that the young nobleman who had bought her was the very one she had knocked down a few days earlier, making him strike the back of his head against a table corner, her mind went blank with a buzz.
It was over.
He hadn't died.
He had come for revenge!
The horrifying stories the mercenaries had boasted about in the tavern flooded her mind. Supposedly, certain twisted nobles delighted in torturing people who displeased them. They would lock slaves up with lust-crazed goblins, or use red-hot iron pincers...
Xiao Lan dared not think any further.
Her nerves, stretched to their limit, finally snapped. Her eyes rolled back, and she toppled over in a dead faint.
Veylin watched her collapse inside the cage, his expression unchanged.
That saved some trouble.
He gestured to the guards behind him. "Bring her. We're leaving."
Xiao Lan had a fragmented dream.
In it, misfortune repeated endlessly.
Bird droppings fell from the sky and landed squarely on her bread. Paving stones suddenly collapsed beneath her feet as she walked. Later, the cleansing flames that swept through her hometown burned everything to the ground, and the iron boots of Inquisition knights trampled her parents' ashes. During her escape, the last of her savings was stolen. Finally...she crashed into that young nobleman and watched him fall onto his back.
Her life was a cruel joke written with malice.
"Ah!"
Xiao Lan jolted awake from her nightmare.
The cold cage and green-skinned monsters she had expected were nowhere to be seen.
Beneath her was a soft bed, and clean bedding covered her. Looking down, she discovered that someone had changed her into clean linen nightclothes. A brand-new blue-and-white maid's dress lay folded on the chair beside the bed.
Shame and bewilderment filled her mind.
Just then, the door creaked open.
Xiao Lan snapped her head up, her heart nearly leaping out of her chest.
Veylin stood quietly in the doorway. Backlit, his face was shrouded in shadow. Only a beaker of red liquid on the laboratory bench beside him cast two crimson glints into his eyes.
"Awake?"
Veylin's voice betrayed no emotion.
"Then get dressed and come with me. Our 'experiment' is about to begin."
System information streamed before Veylin's eyes.
[Name: Xiao Lan] [Level: Unleveled] [Bloodlines: Howling Troll (Bronze tier) 46%, Veil of Shadows (Mithril tier) 6%, mixed bloodlines 48%] [Ability: Doom's Embrace] [Overall assessment: Severe bloodline conflict, extremely high potential for cultivation, extremely difficult bloodline extraction] [Extraction potion: Main ingredient: 120 grams of standard primal blood crystal. Additional ingredients: 20 grams of powdered Newborn Mandrake rootlets, 1 Shadow Leopard heart, 5 grams of iris dew] [Preparation method:...]