7. A Change of Trade
Whitey's ears pricked up as she fixed her attention on the sound. From the open door came the shuffle of rough, weary footsteps.
"Everyone doing okay?"
The slave merchant walked in with both arms piled high with goods.
The moment Whitey saw him, a wave of relief welled up from somewhere deep in her chest. Every muscle in her body, from her shoulders down to her fingertips, went slack all at once.
But then she got so caught up trying to decide what on earth to say to him first that she never managed to answer his greeting at all.
Yellowie and Blackie were no different. The slave merchant looked at the three of them, frozen stiff, and shook his head.
"Well, I suppose it hasn't been long enough for that, has it."
He murmured it to himself in a tired voice as he set down his load. Yellowie was the first to step forward, and she gave a small, formal bow.
"Welcome back."
The slave merchant, busy sorting through his things, looked faintly surprised. Yellowie explained without much fuss.
"I learned it before."
He let out a short chuckle.
"Mm. Good to be back."
Coming home to find someone waiting for him — honestly, it didn't feel bad. The air had a certain warmth to it now.
Still, that instinctive prickle of unease along his spine refused to fade. As long as he was with these children, it was like walking a tightrope. One slip, and he was a dead man.
Yellowie seemed to have let her guard down somewhat, but Whitey and Blackie still kept their distance.
"You haven't eaten?"
All three shook their heads. They'd apparently prepared something, just never thought to take it out. Since adventurer rations — hard bread and jerky to tear at — weren't exactly appetizing, he threw together a light meal. As it happened, he had fresh ingredients he'd bought from the shopping district.
"What are you doing?"
Curious, Blackie lifted her head and began watching him chop the vegetables.
"Cooking. Come to think of it, I heard elves mostly eat things raw, or at most char them over a fire."
"Yeah. And there are so many kinds of seasonings."
So it wasn't cooking experience she had — just experience watching food be prepared. Well, might as well put her to work.
"Want to try one? Wash that cabbage over there and tear it into pieces about this size."
"Uh... me?"
"Faster we prep, faster we eat."
"Okay. I'll try."
Blackie tore the vegetables into bite-sized pieces exactly as instructed. For a first attempt, her hands were surprisingly deft.
"Hm... this is kind of fun, actually."
While Blackie hummed to herself over the cabbage, he finished a beef stew. His Cooking skill, honed through a handful of practice runs, came together without a hitch.
The children devoured everything in the blink of an eye. Bit by bit, a healthy sheen was returning to their skin.
"I've got good news. I found a way to learn the contract-release skill without any slave trading. It'll take a while, though."
At his words, Blackie and Whitey flinched.
"I know you don't like it, but there's no other way, so just bear with me. I have to raise my job level to 3."
For the time being, he'd have to work as a merchant rather than an adventurer. That was the only road to setting them free.
He had no capital to open a shop, so a deliveryman buying goods directly seemed like the best fit — and with the children at home, he couldn't travel far anyway.
"...It's not that I hate the idea."
Blackie mumbled something under her breath. Whitey, too, clearly had something she wanted to say but couldn't bring herself to. On the table before her, the Hot Spring Stone sat untouched and forlorn.
"You haven't even had a bath. Was it hard to figure out?"
"We went outside."
"You didn't go far, did you? It's dangerous, so be careful."
"I'm confident,"
Yellowie said, her eyes sparkling.
"We couldn't figure it out. So... you wash us."
It was Blackie who brought it up.
"A bath?"
"Yeah. Drawing the water is hard too, and... everyone's tired."
All three of them were filthy enough that a good scrubbing wouldn't hurt, and they were still young children — it seemed fine.
"Sure, why not."
After the meal, he filled the tub. It really was a bit of an awkward contraption for children to handle. He tossed in the Hot Spring Stone, and the water warmed in moments, steam curling up in soft wisps.
"...It's amazing."
Whitey had slipped in at some point, ears twitching as she studied the tub.
He poured in the bath salts he'd bought that day as an extra, and bubbles came fizzing up in cheerful mounds. Yellowie squealed with delight, stripped off her clothes in a flash, and shot into the bubble-filled tub like an arrow.
"I'm melting..."
Watching Yellowie melt into the water with a blissful expression, Whitey's hesitation crumbled, and she climbed in soon after.
"Hah... aahh... I've never felt anything like this."
Blackie followed last, a towel wrapped around herself. A precocious child, that one.
"What are you looking at?"
"Just get in already. You can't see anything through the bubbles anyway. Here, I'll wash your hair."
Blackie glared at him from the edge of the tub in a silent standoff, but eventually gave up, squeezed in between Whitey and Yellowie, and let the warm water take her. Her knitted brow smoothed out almost instantly.
One by one, he washed their faces and hair with warm water he'd set aside in a separate basin. It turned grimy so quickly that he had to keep replenishing it.
At last, as he was rinsing the suds from Whitey's hair, she spoke up, careful and hesitant.
"U-um... um, about that..."
"Call me whatever you like."
"...M-master."
"Anything but that."
"B-but I'm... I'm still a slave, technically..."
"Noisy. Pick something else."
Whitey deliberated for a long, long moment before finally settling on one.
"...Orabeoni."
It had been a long time since he'd heard that word. It wasn't a bad way to be called.
"Today, I... um..."
Whatever it was she wanted to say, Whitey fidgeted over it for ages before finally mumbling it out in a voice small enough to crawl into the water and drown.
"...I'm... I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"...Everything."
Is there anything she could possibly be hiding from me?
Whitey was a timid child. Maybe, he thought, this was her roundabout way of pointing out something he had done wrong.
He had no idea what it might be, so he decided his best move was to answer vaguely.
"Did you enjoy the bath?"
"A-ah, yes.... I liked it."
"Then that's all that matters."
"Is... that so."
"Yeah. I'll handle the rest, so don't worry about the small stuff."
He'd deflect, then. Smoothly enough.
"...Why does Orabeoni always do that?"
Whitey started to say something in response, then just bowed her head deep into the water.
The children loved the bath so much that he let them soak a while longer. In the meantime, he laid out what he'd bought earlier in front of the tub — towels and a change of clothes.
Before long, the children emerged into the main room, their new clothes still fluttering damply around them.
"These... are for us?"
Blackie asked with a suspicious look.
"What, would I wear them? They suit you."
"The pants are comfy."
Yellowie bounded around the room in excitement.
"But the money..."
"Things went well today. You don't need to worry for a while yet. I bought nightclothes too, so change into them for bed. You all look like different people after a bath. Wash up morning and night from now on. Understood?"
All three nodded. Clean and fluffy, they were a pleasure to look at. They were tired out, so they decided to turn in early.
"...My skin is so soft."
"It doesn't itch at all."
"Yeah. The nightclothes are light. Feels nice."
Night had fallen. The three of them lay tucked into the bed, pressed close together, murmuring softly to one another.
Clean bodies. Comfortable clothes. Full bellies and a warm blanket.
And above all — peace of mind.
How long had it been since any of them had slept like this?
No — never. Not once in any of their lives.
"...Orabeoni is a good person, isn't he?"
"The mister? Yeah. He was from the start."
"Mm, I think so too. I still can't quite believe a slave merchant like him exists in this world. Right?"
Except he wasn't a slave merchant, was he? Blackie let out a small snort of laughter.
"The bath was nice."
"Learning the sword is fun too."
"Yuri and Luca both liked him, huh. That guy."
"I like him."
Yellowie answered without a shred of hesitation. Whitey, whose wariness of the slave merchant trade ran deepest, couldn't bring herself to reply right away.
"...Once Orabeoni learns the release skill... we'll have to part ways, won't we."
"I guess so. I heard adventurers are always busy. Apparently it's not a job where you stay in one place like this."
"Then because of us... we'd be a burden, wouldn't we..."
Whitey's face fell into gloom.
"Good chance, then. I'll learn even more swordsmanship in the meantime."
"Luca, you're such an optimist."
"Tia. Orabeoni's name was Wicker, right?"
"It was Mr. Wicker."
"Mr. Wicker."
"Wicker Orabeoni..."
Each of them turned the name of the slave merchant — Wicker — over in her own way, tasting it.
It wasn't an unpleasant sound.
"I'm heading out. Look after the house."
"Come back soon, mister!"
"Come home safe."
"H-have a good trip, Orabeoni."
With the children seeing him off, he set his steps toward Elend. Having a send-off when you leave the house — honestly, it didn't feel bad at all.
A month had already slipped by since he'd met the children. They all seemed well settled into life at the mill by now.
And he had found an efficient way to grind out merchant levels.
The answer: the dungeon peddler.
In the mornings, he'd buy up potions, bandages, equipment maintenance kits, and cheap stopgap weapons from the shopping district, then head into a dungeon. There, he'd sell to adventurer parties whose supplies had run dry mid-delve — at a healthy premium.
As luck would have it, Elend had a five-floor dungeon nearby that was still under active exploration, making it a merchant's gold mine.
At the same time, he'd pick up a dungeon quest or two from the guild and knock them out in his spare moments, which brought in a tidy side income.
Certain adventurers balked at dealing with a slave merchant, of course — but in a dungeon where the difference between life and death could come down to a single potion or one arrowhead, you'd want to borrow even a dog's paw to help you out.
The result: roaring business.
Experience for his merchant level piled up steadily, and his adventurer rank climbed to C as well. Thanks to a ten percent bonus on sales, his savings were growing along with it.
"Whew! You saved our skins, Wicker. Here's thirty silver — the extra three's my thanks, always is, so pocket it."
"Happy to help anytime."
His trade with Healer Frank concluded, he was shouldering his bag when a voice rang out behind him.
"Do we really have to use goods from a slave merchant? We could've just stocked up properly beforehand."
"You don't have Item Box magic, so there's a limit, isn't there? Haul too much and your mobility drops; hire a porter and the overhead eats you alive. Frankly, having Wicker around is a blessing."
"Ugh, I'm sick of this. I don't even want to talk to him."
A woman wearing the nametag Swordsman Lippy came stomping toward him, working herself into a full-blown tantrum.
"You. We've traded a few times, that doesn't make us friends, so stop acting chummy out here. I wouldn't share a breath of air with trash like a slave merchant!"
She never got tired of it, apparently. It was the same old pattern, every time.
He took a step forward and planted himself in front of the woman. For an instant she was overwhelmed by his presence and her body flinched — and in that opening, his arms moved faster than the eye could follow.
"Ugh—?! Did you just touch me?! Look at this! You pervert! I knew you were this kind of creep!"
"You won't be needing the goods the slave merchant sold you, right? Then I'll refund them."
In his hands were the spare sword and shield the woman had been wearing on her back. His other hand extended toward her, holding out silver and copper coins.
The woman stood there, mouth hanging open stupidly, unable to grasp what had just happened.
"Whoa, whoa! Sorry about her, Wicker. We're on the second floor here. If our vanguard loses her weapon and shield, none of us are getting out of this dungeon!"
Frank, the party leader, hurried to intercede. When the vanguard collapses, the whole party collapses with it — and in a dungeon with nowhere to run, that usually meant death for every last member.
"When did he even strip my gear off me...? I didn't see a thing...?"
"Lippy, just apologize. Wicker, bear with her — she got beaten down by another party at the tavern yesterday and she's been in a foul mood ever since."
Frank gripped his arm and pleaded. As party leader, he had sharp instincts for a situation. But the swordswoman still had plenty of pointless pride left in her.
"Oh, so now you're taking the slave merchant's side too? Am I the only sane one here?"
"Wicker's different from other slave merchants. How many times do we have to tell you? He's an adventurer, same as us."
"Word around town is that Wicker doesn't own any slaves and has never made a single trade. And Lippy — you only hate slave merchants because one swindled you out of your money once, don't you?"
Another adventurer who'd run out of patience chimed in. That happened to strike the woman's most tender nerve, and she went into a fresh fury.
"Since when does a slave merchant exist without slaves?! You're all being played by this slimy creep! Whatever — do what you like, I'm out!"
The woman twisted on her heel and vanished into the gloom of the dungeon in an instant.
"Hey, Lippy! Are you insane? A vanguard abandoning her party — where does she think she's going? Unbelievable."
Healer Frank smacked his forehead, aghast.
He'd been planning to toss in a few extra words, milk the refund and a re-trade for a bit more merchant experience — but it had blown up far bigger than he'd expected.
The woman could rot in the dark for all he cared now, but Frank was a good customer. Abandoning him here would cost him all the business still to come.
So he dangled the line.
"Frank. Looks like you're short a vanguard."
"Tell me about it. No matter how desperate we were, we shouldn't have taken that harpy into the party. Ugh... will we even make it out of this dungeon alive today? You know, Wicker, it keeps hitting me how impressive you are. You're not even running with a party, and you clear this place alone, over and ov—"
And there it was. The solution finally dawned on him.
"Wicker! Do you happen to work as a mercenary?"
He gave a casual shrug.
"If it's a trade, sure."
A bright smile spread across Frank's face.