I Intend to Buy a Slave
I intended to buy a slave.
What stood before my eyes was the city's official slave market. I had come here to purchase one — a woman whose white hair and fur, twitching ears, sharp features, and crimson eyes left an impression you could not easily forget.
I wanted to buy her because I pitied her circumstances. Because I felt sorry for a woman who had been swept up in my affairs and now had no choice but to live as a slave.
The reason she had become a slave was that I had nearly died.
Let me be clear from the start: she had not tried to kill me.
The person she had introduced me to turned out to be a criminal, and the large inn where she worked had cited its regulations, dismissed her on the spot, and demanded an enormous sum in damages. She had been supporting her struggling family all on her own. Becoming a slave was the only option left to her.
And so I meant to spend the money I had — to buy her, and pull her out of that desperate situation.
If you asked why it had to be me: as someone directly involved in the incident, I sat at the top of the priority list of people permitted to purchase her. Her beauty was rather famous in the city, and more than a few people had their eyes on her. The Guard Captain, who had been an acquaintance of hers, had worried over her enough to explain the situation to me in exhaustive detail and ask that I be the one to buy her — going so far as to tip me off about the date of her sale.
I was not a hard enough man to hear all of that and simply walk away. Which was how I had ended up standing in front of this building.
The money I carried was not entirely my own.
I had it only because of the help I had received, in more ways than I could count, from the sheep beastkin who had taken me in when I first opened my eyes in this world. I had been a wreck back then — startled by the very existence of a beastkin I had never seen before, bewildered by the sight of fields so vividly green — but thanks to him I had been able to cover my naked body with cloth, and I had been given a place to stay.
Even the name I used now, Marcus, was one he had given me.
The man was called Paul. He put me to work and taught me all manner of things, and he set a frail body that had only just appeared in a new world to hard physical labor. I hauled heavy loads. I washed the livestock on the ranch he owned. It had been genuinely exhausting at the time, but looking back now, all I felt was gratitude.
It was not as though he had worked me for nothing. He even went out of his way to buy meat he himself never ate, just to keep me well-fed. He made sure I could rest properly when it was time to rest, and I thought of the snacks he would quietly press into my hands in the middle of work. Most of them were little carrots, but still.
I speak of him in the past tense for a simple reason.
He was dead.
One day, he stood against a band of raiders to defend the ranch. By the time I found him, he was already hurt beyond any hope of saving. He had no family left. And so, to a man he had known for barely a few months, he handed over every last coin he possessed — minus the cost of his own funeral.
When I disposed of the land he had owned and put his belongings up for auction, a truly considerable sum of money found its way into my hands.
Yes. This was the money he had spent to save me, was it not?
Then using it to save someone else was the right thing to do. Just as the sheep beastkin who had saved me had done — perhaps I, too, simply needed to spend this money on the person I wanted to save.
I turned over the words the Guard Captain had said to me.
"You're a good man. People who worry about a complete stranger in a city like this are rare. People who try to look kindly on someone connected, in any way at all, to the person who nearly got them killed — those are rarer still. That is why I am telling you this."
The truth was, I had planned to buy her and then immediately release her from slavery. The very concept of owning a slave sat poorly with me, and the idea that I would "possess" someone so beautiful felt deeply unnatural.
"A person dismissed from the largest inn in the city over an unsavory incident — one connected to a crime, no less. Put it that way, and most workplaces will refuse her. Even if she is Ely Michel of the Limmir Inn. Do you really think she will be able to earn a living by ordinary means, even if she avoids a life of slavery?"
But a brand had already been stamped on her, and she could no longer live the life she had before. I did not have the power to change that, either. I could say my assets were not small — but they were not large, either.
"Of course, she is a swift rabbit beastkin, so she could always try her hand as an adventurer. But would anyone want to work alongside her? Would people she could actually trust come anywhere near her?"
I could at least say of myself that I was a decent person. Or so it seemed to me, at least in the sense that I was approaching her out of sympathy.
But was this really the right decision? Was it right for someone who had only just set foot in this new world to take something like this on? Did I even truly understand how enormous a thing it was to take responsibility for another person — and was I still going to do it anyway?
"Ah, you've arrived. Please, come in. I've been expecting you."
But I had no time to reconsider. I was already inside the building. The neatly dressed man who stood before me introduced himself as Charles Locke and showed me into a room.
It was a modest space — two sofas facing each other across a single table, with only the sparsest of decorations. If there was anything notable about it at all, it was the pens, the ink pads, and the various implements of indeterminate purpose arranged on the table.
I sat on the sofa, drew my identification from inside my coat, and handed it to him.
"Identity confirmed, Mr. Marcus Ahn. As a party directly involved in the incident, you hold first-priority purchasing rights. Excellent."
"Before we begin, do you require a basic explanation regarding slaves?"
"What would that cover?"
"It seems you do not know. Understandable, in a way. I did hear about the situation in advance from Guard Captain Pyotr, so allow me to explain in somewhat more specific terms."
"A slave's treatment depends entirely upon the master. Likewise, all legal support for a slave is conducted through the master. For that reason, I do not recommend keeping a slave at any great distance from their owner's side — except in special cases. The decision, of course, rests with the master. I mention it only because... well. Given the circumstances."
"Compensation for labor is likewise entirely at the master's discretion. Entirely. You may pay a slave for their work, or you may not. Selling a slave, and punishing a slave for acts of disobedience, are also matters of the master's preference. In other words — every aspect of a slave's treatment rests with the master."
His words did not sit well with me. The idea that a person could be treated as nothing more than property.
"Then a slave cannot resist at all? No matter how unreasonable I am?"
"Oh, no. Officially, city law prohibits a master's baseless cruelty, as well as any punishment severe enough to cost a slave their life, and there are penalties in place for such offenses. Provided the party themselves files a report."
"The party themselves, you understand. A report from a third party is treated as having no legal standing. There have been crimes committed by people coveting another man's slave, you see. But a slave without a master receives no legal protection at all, so... I trust you take my meaning?"
"What do you mean—"
Then a slave truly could not resist. If the master was arrested, there would be no one left to take responsibility for the slave, and no one left to protect them. A slave would keep their mouth shut out of that fear alone.
Charles touched his chin lightly, as though he understood the look that had crossed my face, and went on.
"Please do not misunderstand. The reason I am telling you all of this is, in the end, a kind of warning — that you ought to approach a slave with a sense of responsibility."
"There is, of course, no enforcement. Whatever you choose to do, the city authorities will respect your freedom, and they legally guarantee your actions regarding your 'property.' Which means that a slave's treatment depends, in the end, entirely upon your conscience and your heart."
I ground my teeth. What kind of treatment would the other slaves receive, the ones sold off to other owners?
An ugly thought rose up, and I shook my head hard, forcing myself to think only of the present.
The best thing I could do to help her was, in the end, to become the best master I could be for her. If I treated her well, I could guarantee her a life no different from that of a free person.
I repeated the vow to myself again and again, soothing my uneasy conscience, and the tightness in my chest seemed to ease a little.
"Well then. I shall have you inspect the 'merchandise.'"
He gestured to a figure beyond the door, and the person I had been thinking of stepped quietly into the room.
White hair, long enough to spill past her shoulders, gathered and tied so that it fell neatly down her back. Long rabbit ears, folded halfway, fluttering softly. And those crimson eyes, set in a sharp and striking face.
"This is Ely Michel."
The woman I was going to be with stood before me, brought her slender hands together, and bowed her head with quiet, perfect courtesy.