What Happened at the Slave Market (1)
Hhhk...
I must have nodded off. I could have sworn I had heard something.
Hhhhhk...
Had I imagined it?
I opened my senses and pressed as close to the wall as I could, trying to make it out. But my body was still dull from sleep, and whatever lay beyond the wall refused to come clear. Being blind, perhaps, I did possess senses remarkably sharp for a girl of about ten. It was only that I kept comparing them to a Hero's.
And as for why I was so certain she was a girl of about ten—I had checked with those senses. She was a girl. Her height, too, was right around four foot seven, just as I had been told. Tall for ten, if she really was ten. She might have been a little older.
I was still taking stock of this body, turn after turn, when I heard it.
Thud. Thud.
Someone was coming. And from the rattling, they were hauling something like a cart. The footsteps stopped near the entrance of the next room, then came this way again. A creak from the cart, and the steps halted with it.
"So there really is one more up on the third floor?"
"Um... who are you?"
"Night shift for today. Well—I'm a slave too, if that counts. Here. Breakfast. The floor'll dirty it, so will you take it?"
At that I opened my senses and went up to the entrance. An ordinary man of about five foot seven was passing bread and milk through the iron door.
"Thank you."
"Didn't even open your eyes, and you still... Well. That's why you're premium stock, I suppose."
It would do no harm to learn what I could, so I decided to ask while I had the chance. Keeping my senses open made it hard to focus on a conversation, so I shut them first.
"Is there anyone else here besides me?"
"Yeah. One besides you. The third floor's the vault for premium goods—usually even one is a lot."
He was talking freely enough. If the slave house ran to several stories, the place was larger than I had hoped. With a sensory reach of little more than a yard, escape was out of the question after all.
"So there was someone else. It was so quiet I thought I was alone."
"There's one more in the next room. Unlike you, she's been sobbing her eyes out. About the same age, I'd guess, and the two of you couldn't be more different."
"What sort of person is in the next room?"
"Don't be shocked, all right? One of those rare beastkin! From the ears, I'd say a cat-type."
"Beastkin?"
How had they captured a beastkin from the Great Forest, so far away? Even I, who had crossed the whole continent as the Hero, had seen them only a handful of times.
"Ah, damn it. This isn't the time. Sorry, but I've got to go. If I'm late, they'll beat me again."
"Ah... I'm sorry for keeping you."
"Hm. Polite as you look. Did they kidnap some noble's child? Anyway, a tip—you'd better not sleep after you eat. The less swollen you are when you go, the better the place you'll be sold to. A shame, at your age. But since it's come to this, you ought to end up somewhere better, yeah? Do your best. Don't finish up working in a hole like this, the way I did."
The cart began to rattle away, the sound thinning with distance. I sat on the bed again and started on the bread and milk. The surprising thing was that it was more edible than I had expected. The milk was fresh, too. I had fought on the flesh of wild beasts and monsters. By that measure, this was excellent.
I was savoring the feeling of a meal—the first in a long while—when the crying reached me.
Mother...
So that was what had woken me. The sound from the next room. How on earth had a beastkin been captured? Pitiful. A child's sobbing was more than enough to stop my heart in my chest. I knew it was meaningless, but I wanted to be some comfort, so I pressed myself to the bars and spoke toward the next room.
"Hello. Are you all right?"
The crying cut off at once.
"Don't talk to me..."
A child's voice, but with a rough, growling wildness in it.
"You don't have to be so wary. I was captured, too."
"I know that. You are human, too. Don't talk."
Young as she was, a beastkin was still a beastkin. Her ears were sharp, just as I had thought.
"But you keep crying."
"...No. A warrior of the tiger-kin does not cry."
Not cat-kin, then. Tiger-kin. That made even less sense. The tiger-kin were the strongest of the beastkin. How had one of them...?
"If it isn't rude, could I ask how you came to be captured?"
"Don't want to. Don't talk."
"It must be hard. But once you set a worry down, it might feel a little lighter."
A small, hesitant growl answered me, as if she were wavering.
"Then... how were you caught."
"Well... I woke up, and I was already captured."
"Liar."
Even I found it an absurd answer. Still, I had no wish to lie about a thing like this. Deceiving someone was unbearably unpleasant.
"It's true."
"It is true. You are a stupid person."
I had heard that beastkin with keen senses could judge a lie. This child seemed to be one of them.
"Will you tell me now?"
She rumbled as if thinking it over, and then she spoke.
"A really strong human suddenly appeared in the tribe. Father went to fight. I ran with Mother. We met other humans. Mother fought. I ran alone, and they caught me."
A tiger-kin tribe, alone...? If I had still been the Hero, I could have done it. Put the other way, that meant a power nearly equal to a Hero's.
"Do you know who that strong human was?"
"Don't know. Clothes that hid everything. But a really strong mage."
A black mage. You again? But a black mage of that caliber—I should have dealt with nearly all of them. Had one survived? Or was it someone who had appeared in the eleven years since?
"You... don't you want to see your family?"
"I never had a family. Not from the day I was born. So I'm all right."
"Ah... sorry."
A small, cowed rumble, all the strength gone out of it.
"You don't have to be sorry. Because of that, I met a lot of good people, too."
The woodcutter who had raised me. The retired swordsman who had taught me the blade. The priest who had shown me the road. In place of parents, I had lived on the help of many. All of them were gone now. Even so, because of them, I had once been able to fight for the world.
"Good. You are a strong person. But I am weak. I want Mother."
A cry thick with grief. How wretched must a child feel, torn from her parents? But I was not the Hero. All I could give her was a light comfort.
"Please don't worry too much. I'm sure you'll be able to meet them someday."
"Really...?"
"Of course. So long as your body stays safe, then without fail."
Not a lie. A wish. I set that wish into the words and prayed they would meet again.
"You... good person."
"Thank you. You're a strong warrior, too."
While we were speaking, time must have come. A disorderly tread drew near. The child beyond the wall had surely heard it as well.
"I am Lene of the Horne tribe. Your name is what?"
Lene, asking my name. But I could not answer with the name I had now. The world thought me a traitor, and I had no intention of revealing myself until my revenge was finished. And besides—I had abandoned the Hero with my own hands. Did I still have any right to speak the name of the one who had been the Hero?
"Lene... that's a lovely name. But I don't have a name."
"Liar."
Right. She could see through a lie.
"The truth is, I threw my name away. So I don't have one."
She growled as if turning it over, and then, her mind made up, she spoke again.
"Then Rua. How is Rua?"
"Rua?"
"It was my friend's name."
"Would it be all right if I used a name like that?"
"Friend died. If a strong human uses it, she will be happy."
Rua... It sat close to Luines, the name that had once been mine. Then what about Ruanes? Similar enough that I was unlikely to confuse the two.
"Then, from today, my name is Ruanes."
"Ruanes...? Good name. I like it too."
The footsteps were much closer now. Lene made a trembling sound, as if some bad memory had surfaced. Then, as if she had set her resolve, the trembling stopped.
"You said I can meet Mother and Father again."
"Of course."
"Then, Ruanes... we can meet again too?"
At that question, wet with tears, I could not answer her—not even with a lie. I did not know how my revenge would end. And a lie was something a Hero must never tell.
"Someday. If we only stay alive, then someday we'll be able to meet."
"...?"
But I had decided to lie. I was no longer the Hero. I had chosen, now, to live not for the world, but for myself. So this was not a lie for someone else's sake. It was a lie to feed my own selfishness.
The approaching steps made us fall silent, and then the steps themselves stopped. After that came the sound of an iron door.
"Beast brat. Get out here. Quick."
"No...!"
A snarling growl of resistance—and then a scream.
"Kyaaaaaaah!!!!"
They must have triggered the brand. Who, exactly, was the real beast?
"Ha! Even a beast doesn't sound much different from a person when it cries!"
"Toolan, that's enough. Get going. We've a fair bit of time, but not so much you can dawdle."
"Tch. Fine. I'll go on ahead, then."
"Kehk... grrr...!"
The clink of chains, and footsteps dragged along the floor. Then a steady tread came all the way to me.
"I don't need to tell you, do I? You understand."
"Yes..."
I opened my senses and followed without resistance.
And in the place they took me, I was... an absolute mess... washed. And then, an absolute mess, decorated. They worked my hair with a magic tool that breathed a bizarre heat—perhaps something made with black magic. They put cosmetics on me, and scented oil, and dressed me in clothes that were, for a slave, clean and neat.
"Oh my, oh my~ A noble's child, are you? How is your skin this lovely~"
"Ueee..."
If I could have seen myself, I probably would have thought, This... is me? But everything leading up to that had hurt as much as a wyvern hunt, so I will not be describing it.
"Ueee... why are you doing this to me...?"
"Slaves who live by their looks, like you, fetch a higher price when they're properly done up. A premium piece like you, especially—worth this much of an investment."
So they said. After that I was bound again and loaded into a carriage. The other slaves were heaped onto carts, so this had to be rather special treatment. What had become of Lene...?
Time passed. When I stepped down from the carriage, a noisy clamor rose as if I had come to a marketplace. They had called it a slave market. It really was on the scale of one.
"A hardy warrior of the north, a man who beats bears with his bare hands!! One hundred million bel, right now!!"
"Anyone in need of a mage~? A two-circle mage, and only eighty-five million bel!!"
Hawkers shouting on every side, a racket.
"Isn't this much too expensive? Please, just a little off!"
"You're really selling this at that price? What kind of profit is left?"
The sound of haggling, too.
"A lizardman? Easy. No problem."
"You bought an elf as a slave? Are you in your right mind!?"
...In any case, it was far too loud, so I opened my senses and kept a careful distance from the slaver. With them open, I could make out only the sounds within their reach.
At the end of that walk we arrived at a tent. I had expected to be led inside like anyone else. There was a clank.
"This way. Sit there quietly and keep your eyes shut."
What I entered was not the tent, but an iron cage set in front of it. I sat modestly on the small backed chair inside and closed my senses. From the sound of people going into the tent again and again, it seemed I alone had been shut in here. Were they trying to sell me off quickly? I thought so—and then they did no hawking at all.
"Um... we aren't going to call out to customers, or anything like that?"
I asked out of puzzlement.
"A true jewel isn't found by the merchant chasing the customers. The customers come looking for the merchant. So the moment you sit there, the hawking is already done. Blindness is a flaw, I'll grant you... but it only matters if they notice. And there may even be people who like you better because you can't see."
So I was not a rush sale. I was the signboard. I did not know my own appearance, so I could hardly judge it. But just as he had said, I sat quietly and modestly, and a considerable crowd made itself felt, as if word had truly spread.
"Well, now... She really does look like a doll."
"Sell that hair alone—blue as silk—and you'd still make money."
Every kind of appraisal of me, counted out in coin. I could not see, and yet I knew exactly how sticky their eyes were as they looked at me.
"Even so, far too expensive."
"A billion bel? You could put up a small building in the capital for that."
"Raise the child well and sell her on. Wouldn't that be a decent investment?"
And the appraisals went on. A billion bel...? You really could raise a whole building with that. However rich the nobility might be, would they burn an entire building on a single slave? Did they not even mean to sell me? I was nearing the end of that thought when a murmur ran through the crowd, colored with shock and curiosity. The distinctive clink of armor joints sounded from several places at once—and then only a single set of footsteps came toward me.
"The appearance passes. Slaver. May I take a closer look?"
Blake... Elouis...?