The General Store Owner at the Slave Auction
"Nine silver and fifty copper!"
The hall was in an uproar. But the voices placing bids on the merchandise up on the stage carried clearly over the din, audible to every soul present. At each new price the crowd burst into admiring oohs — only for the sound to be swallowed whole by the next man's call right on its heels.
"Nine and ninety!"
"Hah, ten!"
"Ten? Ten? Yes! Congratulations! Sold to the farm owner from Stonefield seated in the front row, for ten silver coins!"
Thwack! Thwack!
As the auctioneer brought his gavel down, applause erupted from every corner of the room. The winning bidder was a wealthy farm owner with fat rolling in thick layers. The smell of booze. The harsh bite of cheap leaf tobacco. And beneath it all, the sour sweat of packed-together men — this was the slave auction house.
A young male slave, until moments ago draped in nothing but a single rag, stepped down from the platform.
Sold. Ten silver was a respectable price. I'd known you'd fetch about that much — you had some size to you, actual muscle on your frame, not skin and bones like the rest of them.
Now, as for the cost of living in this world: one copper coin would buy a small loaf of bread, enough to scrape through a single day's meal. One silver would get you a night in a passable inn room — fleas included, but it kept out the wind and rain. One gold would buy a wooden house on the outskirts of Greenhill, a backwater if there ever was one, or failing that, a fine stud horse worth riding.
The more seasoned the auctioneer, the more religiously they saved the best merchandise for last — which was why the healthiest, youngest of the male goods had gone up on the block at the very end.
"Hnnnngh..."
Relief and fear mingled in the eyes of the man being led away by the chain linked to the shackle at his throat. Relief that here in this strange land, the usefulness of his body had been acknowledged, and he had survived — for now. Fear of the days ahead, now that he would have to accept a new life as a slave.
Ssssssss!
"GAAAAAAAGH!"
Immediately after, a low scream came from behind the curtain — the sold merchandise, voicing his agony. I didn't need to look to know what was happening. They were doing the branding. And with that, there was no going back. From this moment until the day he died — no, even past death, down to the bones and flesh and blood his corpse left behind — every last piece of him belonged to that farmer.
Truly a sorry business. Yes — it wasn't right. He didn't look like he'd make a kind master. But I can't save you. With the limited funds I have, I'm forced to make choices. Still, you're young. Work hard in this place, and a road might open up for you someday — the highest-ranking slave in the household, perhaps, or a post as its steward. Of course, that would come only after your master had wrung your labor dry. So for now, please accept your fate with dignity. And if you must curse something, curse your own powerless homeland.
.....
.....
Hm. The stares are starting to sting. Somewhere along the way, the eyes fixed on me from every direction had been multiplying, one by one. The reason the bidders had suddenly begun taking notice of me was simple: for the past few months, I'd been a thorn in their side.
Expressionless, I burrowed into the silver coat of fox fur draped over my shoulders — beneath it, a silk tailcoat in that peculiarly medieval grotesque pattern, its buttons worked from gleaming polished shell. Less refined than ostentatious: the classic rig of a man who wanted to look rich, all flash and excess. Uncomfortable beyond words. Especially since this damn fox fur had been shedding little by little this whole time, tickling my nostrils — just bear it a little longer. Today was a day I had to put on a show.
Here, luxury was not a choice but a necessity. The people of this other world — the folk of this region above all — judged a person strictly by appearance and clothing. On an important day like this, you had to dress the part in front of them, or you'd be treated with contempt.
With an air of perfect indifference, I raised the silver cup on the silver tray beside me to my lips. It wasn't wine. Grape juice. I had brought the juice myself and ordered only an empty wine cup in advance. A man of my standing gets wine free at the auction house, but not once since I first set foot in this place have I let a drop pass my lips. When this slave auction ends, I have much to do and a long road ahead — wine is absolutely out of the question. But it had to look like wine. Bluster, bravado — I had to muster every ounce of it I possessed.
My seat was dead center of the VIP section, with the finest view of the auction platform — a plush chair with soft yearling-deer leather laid over goose-down cushions. The VIP box of VIP boxes, reserved for the top-spending customers. Before the auction began, I'd even been given a private lounge stocked with refreshments. A young attendant stood on permanent standby, refilling my "wine" (juice) in real time and relaying my remarks to the auctioneer. This was the finest treatment the auction house could offer. Winning a seat like this took a discreet two silver slipped to the auctioneer — though in truth, more decisive than any bribe was one's record. How many slaves had I won and purchased here? How much had I stuffed into these men's purses? By that measure, I was the VIP of VIPs.
And the reason I never once missed the slave auction held every month was simple: from this point on, I intended to sweep up every single female lot that stepped onto that stage.
"Now then! It's time for the female slaves you've all been waiting for!"
"UOOOOOOOO!"
"General store owner. Eyeing nothing but cunts again? Sit this one out, why don't you."
A raspy voice pickled in wine drifted over from behind me. I glanced sideways — Franco, the stable master. So this bastard shows up nearly every month too. He'd clearly gone to the trouble — bathed, doused himself in perfume, dressed up, the whole routine — all to smother that ever-present reek of horse shit. A man like that ought to be off tending his horses; why does he keep haunting a place like this? If he needs stock for his stables, buy strong male slaves. What use has he for females?
"Don't tell me the rumor's actually true? Word going around says the general store owner of Greenhill buys up nothing but female slaves, locks them away in some isolated house out in the sticks, builds himself a harem, and does all sorts of unspeakable things to their bodies."
"......"
I gave him not so much as a twitch of an eyebrow. A cheap provocation, meant to cut me down a size. He wanted me rattled before an important auction, my purchases botched.
Clink. Clink. While he was at it, the first female slave came out.
"Our first female slave of the day!"
"Not bad, that one."
"Feed her proper and put some meat on her bones, she'd be fit to show customers."
"Is she a virgin?"
"Won't know till we strip her, will we."
Female slaves, as it happened, were little different in marketability from the male slaves sold before them. Over the month-long voyage across the sea, they'd been locked in their spots in the hold like bales of cargo, unable to eat properly or move, and had wasted away to shadows. They couldn't even relieve themselves apart from where they lay, so filth bred disease, epidemics swept the hold, and most arrived in wretched condition. The women at least fared somewhat better, since they were bound for brothels, where their bodies had to be pressed against paying customers. Some masters kept them as maids doubling as receptacles for entertaining guests, so for the sake of the merchandise they were washed as thoroughly as possible and given a quick comb through the hair. Occasionally they were brought up with powder on their faces or bodies, but buyers complained it made the goods hard to judge, so lately the practice had been curbed. In any case, the hyenas swarming around me right now had no leisure to be picky. They all knew it was a fool's game, and still, every last one of them raised a hand and started bidding.
"Three silver!"
"Five!"
"Seven silver and thirty copper."
"Eight!"
"Eight and a half!"
"Now, hold on, gentlemen — you must hear the merchandise introduction before we begin!"
The price was climbing on its own before the auctioneer had even begun. Female goods really were popular. I'd poured my share of oil on that fire, but the heat was blazing from the very first lot.
"She is twenty-one this year, an unmarried virgin. They say that back in her homeland, she has never so much as held a man's hand! She does have a body the gentlemen quite favor — but it would be a waste to bury her in a brothel and use her as nothing more than a cum-receptacle. What do you say? Thin, yes, but in fine condition, wouldn't you agree?"
The top bid for the male slave earlier — ten silver — was blown clean past. Once bidding crossed ten silver, copper coins stopped appearing altogether. One of this auction house's unwritten rules.
"Twelve silver!"
"Thirteen!"
"We stand at thirteen silver! No more? No one for fourteen? Very well! Let me show you, then!"
When the bidding stalled at fourteen silver, the auctioneer — as if he had been waiting for exactly this — drew a dagger from his belt. The moment the cold blue blade touched her flesh, the slave panicked, thrashing, certain she was about to be cut.
Shriiik.
Naturally, the auctioneer had no intention of marring the skin of such valuable merchandise with his own hand. His dagger plunged into the rag the woman wore, and the moment the single scrap of cloth that had barely covered her was slit down the middle, her bronze nakedness was laid bare. Her ribs showed through her withered frame — but even so, the shape of a woman remained. The bidders went wide-eyed, craning their necks in unison for a closer look at the slave's swollen breasts and crotch. It was a revolting scene.
"Kyaaah!"
"Hands down. Show these gentlemen your breasts."
When the dagger pressed against her throat, the woman quickly lowered the hands covering her chest and groin. Now that the merchandise's bust, figure, and crotch were fully on display, the stalled bidding began to climb again. Fortunately? Her marketability as a female had been acknowledged.
"Fourteen silver!"
"Fifteen silver!"
"Very good! A well-proportioned figure — decent enough at this price, no? And she's never even held a man's hand back home? Oh my. Then I suppose I must show you."
As if that weren't enough, the auctioneer next pressed the dagger to the slave and ordered her through something far more shameful. Before the eyes of everyone present, she was to turn around, bend at the waist, thrust out her hips, and pull apart the cleft of her sex with her own fingers as wide as it would go — exposing the hidden depths of her womanhood, and thereby proving her maidenhead.
She had given up. That was precisely the look on the slave's face. Whether she had been briefed on the pose before ever taking the stage, from that point on she obediently assumed the humiliating position.
"YEEESSS!!"
This was the moment they had all been waiting for. While every gaze in the hall locked onto the hole between the slave's legs, I focused on other parts of her body — searching for wounds, checking whether she had been abused at some point. Fortunately, her marketability had been preserved: no visible injuries. Instead, exactly one thing caught my eye. On one cheek of the slave's buttocks was seared a glowing-red brand in the shape of an inverted triangle. That was the slave's 'brand' — proof, just as with cattle or horses, that goods delivered from across the sea had passed through the hands of the Stonefield auction house.
Each of the triangle's three points symbolized one of the slave's three owners: the King of Helion, this land's sovereign; the Stonefield slave auction; and the master — the final winning bidder who purchased her. The interior of the inverted triangle was left empty as a courtesy, so that the buyer could take a brand of his own making and stamp his personal mark into that blank space. You might say they'd left a blank field on human skin, ready for a name to be carved in. That way, Helion, the Stonefield auction house, and the master's insignia were all perfectly inscribed on the flesh. In any case, because of that mark, slaves were doomed to live as slaves for the rest of their days, so long as they could not leave this country. On this point, at least, female slaves had it somewhat easier. Since their lot was mainly to service male guests, their brands were placed where no one would see them until the underclothes came off — the buttocks, the lower belly, the inner thighs. Male slaves mostly bore them on the forearm or the nape of the neck, and for the ones who wouldn't obey, sometimes on the forehead or the cheek.
"Oh! There it is, proper and true! Sixteen!"
"Seventeen! I can't go a copper above that."
The fact of her virginity added two more silver — and that was the end of it.
"Seventeen silver! No further bids?!"
"Virgin or not, she's far too skinny!"
"For one thing, she's got no tits!"
"Hell, I'd believe you if you said she was a child!"
Vulgar words too foul to repeat flew back and forth across the hall, until at last the merchandise broke into tears — droplets thin as chicken droppings falling one by one onto the stage through her splayed legs. And what did that mean? It meant it was time for me to step in. Have these bastards forgotten me already?
"Haah, very well. Then, at seventeen silveeer—"
"Thirty."
!!
Cheers from the back of the hall; groans from the front. At the number I called, joy and sorrow split the room in an instant. The corner of the auctioneer's mouth curled upward, and he couldn't hide it. He had known full well I'd be entering the fray from here on — that was why he'd deliberately dragged out the tail of that "seventeen."
"Thirty silver! We have thirty! No more bids?! No, there are none! Sold, to the general store owner of Greenhill!"
Even if you were on friendly terms with the auctioneer, buyers were never called by their real names here. Their hometown and occupation, however, were duly announced. Since this served to flaunt the buyer's wealth and advertise whatever shop or enterprise he ran, everyone loved it, and it had hardened into custom.
.....
Thwack! Thwack!
The sale was concluded swiftly. My bid was the final price — no reason to drag things out.
"Then, straight on to the next lot! She is two years older than our first item, but..."
"That dog of a general store owner."
"What's the name of that brown-haired bastard?"
"Luciel. The general store owner of Greenhill."
"What does he need women for, in that hick town where they raise pigs instead of cattle?"
That's right. My apologies for the belated introduction. My name in this world is Luciel. Luciel Gathergold. My true name, back in Korea, is Kim Jin-soo. I tumbled into this other world by pure chance, scraped by like a dog for three years, and now I run a general store that deals in anything and everything that turns a profit. Buying slaves is merely an occasional hobby of mine — so please, don't mistake me for some perverted slave merchant.