The General Store Owner at the Slave Auction House
The auctions that followed moved along at a brisk clip.
"Now then, now then—this female here was working as a whore back in her homeland! 'So sell her cheap,' you say? Absolutely not! A female whose one skill is making men spend fast? That's a first-rate technique, and skilled labor costs extra! ...That was a joke, of course. Here at the auction house, the price is whatever you fine gentlemen decide!"
"Sold to the general store owner of Greenhill for twenty silver!"
"Now, this next item's selling point is her skin elasticity. Look at these breasts, gentlemen! Firm as can be, wouldn't you say? Her skin's on the fairer side, too. A waste to put her to work in some common brothel—this female is perfect for entertaining your most valued guests! What's that? Speak up, I can't hear you. Ah—you'd like her to show you whether her cunt is just as clean, would you?"
"This item goes to the general store owner of Greenhill for forty silver!"
"Eyes on this item, gentlemen, because this one comes with a truly remarkable feature... she produces milk! Yes, you heard me right—this female is with child! Six months along now, so she'll drop the brat in another four or five months. Buy the female, and the offspring comes free of charge! And as a bonus, fresh-squeezed milk you can enjoy any time you please! Now this is an item you cannot afford to miss!"
"Sold for fifty silver! Greenhill! The general store owner again!"
One after another, I bought out all five of the female slaves that came up next. Among them was a widow who looked a little past thirty, a girl who'd only just come of age with a face that seemed oddly aged for her years, and a pregnant woman with her belly already swollen. The journey had worn them all gaunt and hollow-cheeked, but there wasn't a single old woman among them.
That figured. Any woman past thirty had no market value—just dead weight taking up space in the wagon—so the slavers would never have bothered shipping her here in the first place.
By this point, everyone's faces were flushed red. The fever had really gotten to them. Some buyers were deliberately driving the bids higher, hoping to drain my purse dry, but even they couldn't keep pace once the price climbed past thirty silver.
Because you're all cowards.
If I happened to stop bidding on purpose, they'd be stuck paying for a slave they never wanted—so there wasn't a man in this room willing to shoulder that risk alone just to mess with me. Rather than pay two or three times a slave's real worth, it made far more sense to simply give up on female slaves at this month's market.
And frankly, with me sitting right here, half of them had already conceded defeat. Anyone who actually needed a female slave had probably moved on to another city long ago and was spending his money there. Though the quality there would be nowhere near this place. In this kingdom, the Stonefield slave market was the best there was—well, the best among markets for commoners, anyway.
One thing was certain: for the past few months, I had been throwing this town's slave merchants' market completely out of balance. Thanks to me, the supply of female slaves had withered to nothing.
"This is really pissing me off."
Murmured grumbling drifted back from behind me. Strange, how amid all that din, the insults aimed at me always came through crystal clear.
"That crazy general store owner's been buying up female slaves like a man possessed."
"You're telling me. When the male slaves were up, he just sat there quiet as a dead mouse."
"I heard he's buying them all up to build himself a harem."
"A harem? You sure he's not opening a brothel?"
"They say he's thirty and never been married. Which means one woman will never be enough for him. Mark my words, he's stashing them away in some quiet little house out in the middle of nowhere to work all sorts of perverted tricks on them."
"Well, backwater towns like Greenhill do have plenty of places like that."
Haha. Now there's a flattering thought. Honestly, as a man, I couldn't say I'd never entertained the idea—but they had it all wrong.
I didn't receive a single special power when I came to this other world, you know. I'm just an ordinary guy. Three rounds and I'm running dry—trust me on that. I'd bought roughly eighty female slaves by now. Did they really think I could cover all of them myself?
My dick would be worn down to a nub...
And besides, fine—I'll grant that they know I live in Greenhill, but how the hell did they get my age and marital status? Hey, auctioneer, does this place have any concept of personal privacy at all?
Just then, another man behind me, apparently amused, cut into the conversation.
"How naive. That fellow buys them up and resells them abroad. I've seen it with my own eyes—the moment the market ends, he loads them onto wagons and heads for the port."
"Really? That explains it... Well, I suppose screwing that many females all by himself would be a bit of a stretch."
"He's a merchant too—there's profit in it somewhere, that's why he's pulling this stunt. No way he needs that many just to play with."
I never went to any port! Forget the sea—I turned straight off the road and into the forest!
So this was how rumors spread, huh? They just made up whatever sounded good to them? Not that I could say it was entirely undeserved—after all, once I finished buying, I made sure no one could follow me home. And I'd never explained what I planned to do with these slaves in the first place, so the speculation was only natural. Rumors, each one rationalizing why a man would sweep up female slaves on this scale.
These venomous whispers came not only from the slave merchants with money to burn, but from the ordinary townsfolk spectators seated in the back as well. The reason: thanks to me, an auction they'd planned to savor was over in a flash—and with the pace so fast, the auctioneer no longer needed to tear the merchandise's clothes off for inspection, which meant all the eye candy had vanished.
The hall had turned this ugly, but as always, I pretended not to hear a word and answered it all with indifference. The auctioneer was no different. As long as the hammer price kept climbing, that man would do anything, no matter what was going on around him.
"Sold—thirty silver, once again to the general store owner!"
"Twenty silver to the general store owner!"
"Sixty silver! The general store owner!"
Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Thud-thud-thud, thud!
From the moment a slave stepped onto the wooden platform to the moment she was sold and led away, it took less than three minutes. Perhaps sensing that I'd be buying every last one again, the auctioneer ran through only the barest details—origin, age, weight, whether the merchandise was intact—and pushed the sales through, mechanical and fast.
Everyone had expected this turn of events, so nobody lunged at me or hurled anything my way. Besides, I had private bodyguards on retainer at eighty copper a day. Those burly bastards would do anything for money. If anyone so much as touched a single hair on my head, a fist would come flying—depending on the situation, they might even draw the blades at their hips. Thanks to them, I was having a perfectly pleasant, comfortable time.
There was, however, one moment when the auction threatened to turn competitive. The sixth slave up was a woman in the final month of pregnancy, her belly fully ripe. A pregnant female slave actually sold for more than a virgin one—by their logic, when the slave gave birth, the offspring became the owner's property too, and raise the child well and you'd gain yourself another slave for free. Maybe that was why, when I won the pregnant women—twice, no less—the glares aimed my way burned hotter than at any other point in the day. Eyes that said, How the hell do you still have money left?
And so my total haul of female slaves came to exactly ten. On an ordinary day, that would have been where I closed out my trip to the market.
Just then, the wine-pickled, bloated face of Franco the stable master shoved rudely in over my left shoulder. I'd been seeing a lot of him around here lately. Setting aside his genuine talent for breeding fine stallions in Stonefield, he was a thoroughly low-grade piece of work—the kind of human trash who treated not just female slaves but the entire female sex as objects, as livestock. Unless you had business renting or buying a decent horse, you were better off having nothing to do with him.
"Now that's got me curious, I'll admit. Just how many coins you got left in that purse of yours, friend?"
"......"
He'd apparently given up on buying female slaves from the start and had done nothing but pour drink down his throat, and his tongue had gone good and loose. But in this place, money was power. Drunk or not, he wouldn't dare openly humiliate me. He knew perfectly well that if he acted out in his drunkenness, the auction house guards would drag him off, plant him face-down in the mud outside, and put him on the blacklist—banned from so much as watching a slave auction through a window ever again.
"Say, you hear anything from the auctioneer? Word is the last item today's gonna be somethin' real special."
At last, some actual information worth responding to trickled out of this old man's mouth.
"I heard. Something about a non-human going on the block."
"Course, odds are it's just exaggerated advertising. Might even be somethin' the auction house made up to get people talkin'. But listen—bogus listing or not, one thing's certain: that final item's worth a small fortune. So here's hopin' there's still some spare coin left in that purse of yours."
I'd heard the rumors plenty. News that a special item of a race other than human would appear had probably reached my ears before anyone else's in this room—it was the reason the market was so unusually packed today, too. So far, the ten female slaves had cost me about three gold and fifty silver. I had coins left, of course. The problem was that every man seated in this room would pounce on the next item. It wouldn't be easy. Unlike my purse, drained thin from buying ten slaves in a row, my rivals' purses had been forcibly protected—by me. There was a chance I couldn't afford her at all.
If I lost her, so be it.
"Now then, we'll take a short break, and after that—the highlight of today, our final item!"
As if they'd been waiting for the cue, young servants darted out to refill the buyers' empty wine cups and replenish the dwindling plates of food. At the same time, mops worked over the platform, cleaning away the filth on the floor—the tears and sweat of the slaves, and fluids of unknown origin. Today, a pair of torches had been added to the platform as well, presumably to brighten the hall so that everyone could get a better look at the top item.
The auctioneer took a sip of water and, wearing a beaming smile, began to wind up the crowd.
"Alright, gentlemen—you've all heard the rumors! We put quite a bit of effort into the advertising, after all. Today's highlight item: the female slave elf!"
Female.Slave.Elf.
Three words that should never, ever be combined. The mere mention of that race set everyone abuzz with excitement. In this other world, elves were said to actually exist, but their numbers were few; where they lived was, naturally, unknown; and the only people claiming to have seen one were a handful of adventurers—so most people, who had never once left this country, had never laid eyes on an elf. Myself included, of course.
"We went through hell to get her! Her age is unknown! Unfortunately, she doesn't speak the human tongue. Elves age far more slowly than humans—the minimum average lifespan is said to be two hundred years. To my eye she looks a little past twenty, but I guarantee you, she will outlive every single person in this hall. And what does that mean, gentlemen? Buy her once, and you'll be milking her value for a lifetime!"
Nobody was listening to a word of the auctioneer's pitch. Whether this elf lived two hundred years or two thousand, not a soul in that hall gave a damn.
"I'm sure many of you are wondering how we captured such a rare elf. I'm afraid I can't say much—let's just call her a grateful gift from the war! There was some resistance when we took her, so she does carry a few marks on her body, but—"
"Shut up and show her already!"
"Is it true?! A real elf?!"
As the auctioneer dragged things out, the hall erupted, men stomping their feet and shouting until the noise was deafening. It felt less like an auction house and more like a theater where a great film had frozen mid-screening.
"Alright, alright! Bring her out!"
Thud. Rattle. Thud. Rattle.
Rattle. Thud. Rattle. Thud.
...
A moment later, led by the hands by two guards, a woman draped in rough sackcloth came up onto the platform. Like all the other slaves, she wore nothing but a single filthy rag thrown over her naked body—but her garment, uniquely, came with a hood. Her face had been covered specially, for the crowd's amusement. From the height and figure that bulged beneath the cloth, you could tell she had a damn fine female body, but with the hood on and her head bowed deep, there was no way yet to confirm she was really an elf.
Once the rowdy hall had been brought somewhat back under control, the auctioneer took hold of the hem of the hood covering the elf's face.
"And now—!"
Swish!
Without any further explanation, the auctioneer yanked the hood straight off, baring her face.
"Ooooh!!!!"
Gasps of awe burst from the seats. Flawless, snow-white skin you'd never find on a human woman, hair so bright a yellow it seemed to burn, a high straight nose, blue eyes—a beautiful face that looked like the best of Western and Eastern features combined into one. And decisively, a pair of fox-sharp pointed ears rising from either side of her head proved that she was an elf.
So this was an elf! My first in three years since coming to this other world. It was fascinating—who'd have thought I'd see this with my own eyes, not in a film or a manga but in real life? And yet, oddly, she felt less elvish than the classic elves I'd seen on screen. She looked... closer to human, somehow? How should I put it—the real elf looked like a person cosplaying as an elf? Cover those ears, and most people would swear she was human. She had less of the mystical aura I'd expected from an elf—but maybe because of that, she struck me as even more beautiful. Because she looked so much like a human.
Could she speak the human tongue? Ah, right—the auctioneer had said she couldn't.
Thrust before the crowd, the elf woman's face twisted into an expression of utter misery and helplessness. She'd clearly sensed her fate, but she hadn't expected the crowd that had come to see her—the men especially—to be this ravenous; the blue of her large eyes kept darting this way and that, finding nowhere to rest.
But still... was she really an elf? I was just as stunned as anyone, but once I steadied my excitement a little and studied the elf woman more closely, a faint doubt began to creep in. Compared to what I'd heard and learned about elves here, something was a little... off. Should I say she looked closer to a human woman?
I'd once gotten my hands on a book about this race, written by adventurers, at our village library. It mostly covered monsters, but elves were in there too. The elf illustrated in considerable detail in that book had looked very different from the one standing on the platform now. For one thing, male or female, they'd been far taller and skinnier, with ears creepily longer by a good handspan—and above all...
Above all...
"Strip her! Strip her!"
"Strip her! Strip her!"
"Strip her! Strip her!"
The moment when every heart in the room beat as one. And even I was powerless here—the bidding hadn't started yet, after all.
The auctioneer's dagger, sheathed at his hip, made its return.
Riiiiiip.
!!!
It was like peeling the wrapping off a finely crafted product. The thin sackcloth tore away, and the elf's milk-white naked body was revealed to everyone. Truly, from where I sat, I could make out even the faint blue veins showing through the elf's skin.
Yes. The biggest difference of all was right there. Those voluptuous, swaying breasts. Large, pale-pink areolae, proportioned to match the size of her breasts—and nipples to match. The breasts bared on the elf slave's naked body were enormous and luscious. Had they swollen from pregnancy? A glance at her belly said no.
The elf hung her head, her face set in resignation. Like the other slave women, she made no attempt to cover herself, so the short blond hair between her legs and her tightly shut mound were there for all to see.
And—
They branded her there?
Unusually, instead of her hip, her thigh, or her lower back, the slave market's inverted-triangle brand had been burned into her lower belly—right over her womb. Perhaps because of it, the elf's mound just below drew the eye all the more. Done like that, it was practically an arrow pointing down, screaming Right here! Whether intentional or not, it was more than enough to set the crowd ablaze.
It was truly a clean, pure body, but from my seat up close I could see quite a few scratches on her wrists, her legs, and scattered here and there across her skin. Her eyes were swollen red, the tears completely dried up. She must have put up quite a fight on the way here from the ship.
"Her maidenhead! Show us she's a virgin, quick!"
"Yeah! Prove she's untouched!"
The men in this room weren't done wanting, but for some reason, the auctioneer drew a firm line at that particular verification.
"I don't believe we need to go quite that far in displaying the merchandise."
"What the hell kind of talk is that?!"
"There are limits to how much you can tease a man!"
"There are two ways to piss a man off at an auction house! The first is refusing to show him the slave's maidenhead—!"
The furious crowd's fierce protests went on for a good while, but the auction house had apparently made up its mind on this one—there was no surprise follow-up event where the auctioneer pretended to relent and turned the elf's ass toward the crowd.
My thoughts exactly. The elf's naked body was enough. Spreading a slave open to prove her virginity was something you did with ordinary human female merchandise. There was no need to prove anything beyond that—an elf woman's genitals might differ from a human woman's, after all, and that could become a footnote that dragged down her value. The merchandise's worth was already proven. Showing more skin wouldn't add a single coin to the price, so there was no reason to bother.
"If that's how you feel, gentlemen, then simply win the auction about to begin. You can take her home and examine every inch of her in private, to your heart's content!"
Outmatched by the auctioneer's glib tongue, the spectators, with no comeback of their own, all shut their mouths. Rubbing his hands together, the auctioneer declared:
"Then let the auction begin! We'll open light, at fifty silver!"
