A Lord's Dream

A villa on the outskirts of Istanbul.

While I had a cleaning crew and a repair crew in to set the place to rights, I dragged the ones I had brought with me back across to Gaia.

Interrogating them was not difficult. More than anything else, it was the world itself that broke them—a world they knew nothing of, where not only the language but every ordinary assumption failed to hold.

A few, of course, clung to useless pride and held out. Those, thankfully, were flogged until the skin peeled from their backs, as an example to the rest. Once they had watched a single body reduced to rags, they began to pour out everything they knew.

"The contacts are in the phone. The one saved under Joseph is the next handler. He took the women off my hands and headed for the Syrian border."

"There's another base in western Istanbul. I've only been there once, but if I go again, I'll be able to find it."

"A high-ranking officer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠visits Istanbul several times a year. He always gets in touch with me when he comes. Send me back, and I'll lure him in and bring him to you."

"There are other bitches besides me. They sweet-talk men traveling in Europe and bring them in—I heard they're over in Antalya right now. Those sluts are worse than I am. I'll give them to you. Please. Please just send me back. I'm a victim too."

I sorted the information I had been handed and marked it on a map on the smart pad. Next time, I would strip those bastards clean as well. Who would have thought the world held this many people worth selling?

I also came into an unexpected piece of intelligence: a drug ring in Istanbul that took narcotics from IS and sold them on.

"How many are in the organization?"

"I don't know exactly. The rumor is more than two hundred. They sell drugs, but before that they had their hands in illegal entry, smuggling, prostitution—even human trafficking. You can take them for the worst of the worst in Istanbul."

Nothing said I was only allowed to sell IS. Scum of that caliber turn up all over the world. The ones who had run out of anything useful to say, I pounded just gently enough, then sold off at the slave market in Harpeon.

While I was away, Marco had kept the merchant group running well enough on his own, and the capital had leapt.

The number of slaves had fallen. Cash, in exchange, had swollen enormously. At the going price of gold, it came to 18.8 billion won. Not that I meant to spend all of it as cash.

Lately a new goal had taken shape.

If I can manage it. No—a little further, and I think I can.

I wanted a domain of my own in the other world. I wanted a harem that was mine alone, stocked with pretty maids and sex slaves I had bought myself. It would not be my kingdom. A small domain—surely that was possible. Food I had in plenty, so I would not need many people to fill it.

It began when I heard the concrete method from Marco.

"A domain? It's possible. There are two ways. Render service to a state and receive it as a grant. Or buy it with money."

"How much, you ask? Hard to say. It will differ from kingdom to kingdom. Inside the wealthy kingdoms of Europa, even a small domain would take thirty to forty thousand gold at the least. As you've seen for yourself, out on the fringes of the Zahed Empire it would be less—somewhere around ten thousand. The Drail Kingdom might come cheaper than that, though not by much. Below Drail, in the newborn states, I'd put it around fifteen to twenty thousand."

With three thousand gold on hand, the goal felt close. Even so, I could not sit comfortably on it. Bigger money always begins with a bigger investment. From that day I set selling aside for the time being and started making the rounds with Marco, looking at stock.

The targets were the same as before: slaves who were wounded, sick, or worn down in body; women, to take north into the kingdoms of Europa and sell; and last, the subraces captured on the grasslands and in the southern reaches of Lorenzo.

This round I had sold male slaves as the main line, but a fully cured catfolk woman, sold along with them, had thrown off a tremendous profit. The price was a staggering forty-seven gold. She had cost me all of one gold and eighty silver when I bought her—nearly twenty-six times my money.

Even that was only because of a scar down her back and looks that were poor for a catfolk. Get a proper piece of goods in hand, and fifty times, even a hundred, was hardly impossible.

A city of a million souls. Fallen it might be, but as befitted the capital of a vast empire, the stock on the slave market was overwhelming. I spent days walking it and pulling merchandise together.

Sick male slaves: one hundred eleven. Sick female slaves: sixty-seven. I had chosen, as far as appearances went, for those who still looked sound, and this was what that got me. Their looks were tidy enough that I paid roughly one to two gold apiece. Where the condition was decent, I went as high as three.

After that I bought daughters of fallen houses, serfs sold off for debt, sex slaves put on the block by ruined noble families—slaves with exceptional faces and figures. This time I also bought a fair number of handsome male slaves, and made them the focus.

"In a wealthy place, a handsome man fetches quite a sum—nearly as much as a pretty woman."

And so I acquired twelve decent-looking men and seven women. Their condition was far better than the sick slaves', and their prices were steep to match. The average cleared forty or fifty gold without effort. A few I took at auction; on the highest of them I laid out a hundred and forty-six gold. Nineteen people cost me a full thirteen hundred gold.

I brooded over whether it had been too much. Marco answered without a flicker of doubt.

"Please don't worry. If you want to make money, these are the ones you sell—even if you only sell one."

I also bought dogfolk slaves, the horse-faced kind they say are taken in numbers out on the grasslands.

"The dogfolk are famous for keen noses and deep loyalty. There's no shortage of demand for them as guards, rangers, hunters, and the like. Take them north, and they'll sell as fast as you can put them on the shelf."

Once the money had been put back to work, what remained was this.

The sharp drop in gold left a sting, but I decided to call it an investment in the future and let it pass. And since I was already this far in, I chose to be a little more open-handed.

"There's empty room in the truck. We can load more."

Marco voiced his doubts, but in the end I picked through the children begging in the city and bought them as slaves. Children, who are thought of as nothing but mouths to feed for the years until they grow, go cheaper than the sick. Fifty in all. Together with the fifty I already had, that made a hundred.

A sliver of pity went into the decision. What weighed more was a single remark from the Third Prince.

"Teaching them, I've noticed a few of the children have talent. Train them well, and knight-class is possible."

Knight-class. An aura user. I had already watched an aura user fight, through the Third Prince. They would not all reach that level. But if even one of them came out of my slaves—and if that slave stood at my side for the rest of my life—the money would not be wasted.

So I filled the hundred, and I meant to set Maximus to training them. I bought the things training would require, in bulk: wooden swords, wooden shields, and the like. Then I prepared to set out once more.

I stopped at the magic tower in Harpeon and purchased a magical item as well.

Of course, large-capacity did not mean anything like the Subspace Ring from the dungeon, a space big enough to swallow a city. This one was three meters wide, three meters high, and six meters long. Even that had cost a hundred gold coins.

Set against the expanded truck, the efficiency was worse. What mattered was that it was easy to carry—and that I could put a car inside it and take it with me. Travel had been awkward in a dozen small ways. This ought to ease most of them.

After buying the rest of what I needed, I did not head north. I went south instead, to cross the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sea at once.

"Board a ship at Harpeon's southern port, and in a fortnight you can sail straight into Gerona—capital of Geronia, the foremost of the wealthy nations in southern Europa."

Gerona sits roughly where Rome does in Italy. A prime location pays, whether on this side of the world or that.

I chartered an entire ship: a great sailing vessel that could carry several hundred with room to spare. The hire came to another two hundred gold.

While the merchant group traveled by sea, I decided to return to Earth. Better to settle my affairs there and move by plane than spend a fortnight pitching about on deck.

There was another reason behind that choice. Part of Gerona's coordinates was already registered with Aphago. Unlike the backwaters of Drail or Lorenzo, stretches of the coordinates for famous cities—Gerona, Harpeon—were already on file. I knew the coordinates of the world of Gaia. Flying from Earth straight to Rome would cause no trouble at all.

So I decided to part from the company, and left the merchant group in Marco's hands for the duration. Trusting him with all of it alone left me uneasy, but Argon would be at his side. Between them, they would handle any ordinary problem on their own.

I watched Marco make ready to board. Then I took Maximus—for whom the journey to Earth was growing familiar—along with IS Number One, IS Number Two, and the newly captured Istanbul IS Number One, and went back to Earth.