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Chapter 1: Starting Out by Buying a Catfolk Slave

Dyast Kingdom

Melod City

It rained this morning, leaving the air damp and chilly, and the filthy, muddy road was full of puddles.

A carriage rattled past the mouth of the alley and splattered muddy water all over a man.

Reiner lowered his head, looked at the mud on his cloak, cursed fluently in the carriage’s wake, and kept standing in the market corner, watching the various beast-eared girls queuing through the middle of the street.

At the moment he was in the city’s largest slave market.

The visitors were either deep-pocketed merchants, pampered nobles, brothel owners, or adventurers like Reiner who wanted to buy themselves a companion.

Just a few days ago, Reiner’s system had suddenly unlocked the abilities of Appraisal and Heart-Voice Listening.

He had planned to rely on Appraisal to buy a slave who was both cheap and decent, but after a long search he discovered that every inexpensive slave was either crooked or flawed, and that “good and cheap” simply did not exist.

In this world a peasant earned roughly 2 gold coins a year.

Reiner had been here for a year, eating, drinking, and swinging his hammer until it smoked, yet he had saved only 1 gold coin.

That meant he could afford only the poorest grade of demi-human slaves; even the slightly better ones cost 4 or 5 gold coins.

He sighed and kept appraising the chain of slaves filing past him.

[Appraisal complete, 28 slaves detected: 25 Inferior, 3 Common.]

Demi-human slaves ranked from low to high in five tiers: Inferior, Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary.

As expected, most of this line consisted of Inferior slaves.

They looked malnourished, so thin they were nothing but skin and bones.

Reiner wanted a slave for two purposes: a companion out in the field and a maid at home, and if she was pretty enough, a bed warmer as well.

These Inferior slaves who could barely walk straight were obviously out of the question.

Just when Reiner was about to leave in disappointment, he caught, out of the corner of his eye, a slave at the end of the line who took advantage of the trader’s distraction to dart into a side alley.

She was small and thin, moving so lightly and quickly that she seemed like a cat.

Reiner followed her into the alley.

He tracked her muddy footprints for a long while, but when he rounded a corner they suddenly vanished without a trace.

At that moment a voice sounded in Reiner’s mind.

(Stop coming closer… just let me go…)

Reiner looked toward a pile of junk from which the voice seemed to emanate.

The cat-girl was hiding inside it.

(Stay away!!)

Reiner had barely taken a step when a black blur burst from the clutter and lunged at him.

He instinctively kicked the pouncing cat-girl away.

A wooden spoon whose handle had been sharpened fell to the ground beside her.

The little thing had intended to use the spoon as a weapon to attack him.

Reiner squatted in front of her, picked up the spoon, and poked her cat ears with it.

“Are you okay?”

As he stared at the cat-girl slave before him, several small lines of text appeared in his field of vision.

[Appraisal complete, current slave quality: Epic.]

At Reiner’s mental command, the cat-girl’s full information unfolded.

[Name: Nora Hill

Age: 18

Sex: Female

Race: Cat-type Demi-human

Current status: Malnourished, Weak, Dizzy

Talent details…

Strength: D

Endurance: D

Agility: S

Perception: S

Spirit: D

Intelligence: B

Measurements: 62/45/70 (currently affected by malnutrition)]

Reiner’s eyes widened.

Her Agility and Perception talents were literally one in a million.

Her measurements also left room for development.

He really had struck gold.

Reiner prodded her again with the stick and called out in flawless Demi-human tongue, “Wake up, no sleeping here.”

A few seconds later Nora, lying on the ground, groggily opened her eyes.

The instant she saw Reiner, she shrank back on instinct and bared sharp fangs.

“Hss-hah!”

Her body trembled, and she looked terrified.

(Let me go! I beg you!)

Reiner slowly reached out his hand, forced what he thought was a friendly smile, and began sweet-talking her, “I’m not a bad guy, want to come with me? I can help you.”

Nora blinked, shook the mud off her body, yet kept a wary gaze and asked, “You speak Divant?”

Divant, also called Demi-human tongue.

When Reiner first transmigrated, the system had granted him a language module, so he could speak Elvish, Demonic, Beastkin, and everything else.

In theory he was fluent in every language of this world.

“A little,” Reiner nodded and continued, “So, want to come home with me? I can help you.”

Nora fixed her eyes on Reiner; she said nothing, but her mind was racing nonstop.

(He can’t possibly be helping me for nothing… but I have no other choice…)

Reiner thought to himself, That’s obvious; there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

He must be eyeing her talents; after all, S-grade stats were rare, and even slaves worth several gold coins might not have them.

Reiner slowly stood up and added, “There aren’t that many good people in the world; if you stay alone in a human city you’ll have no escape, and before long you’ll be caught and sold again if you don’t come with me…”

He had not finished speaking when footsteps sounded behind him.

The slave trader had returned with a guard, both carrying whips.

So much for getting her for free.

Nora saw the whips and instinctively covered her head.

(Don’t hit me, don’t hit me…)

The guard raised his hand to lash her, shouting, “You beast, still trying to run? A beating will teach you!”

Reiner hurriedly reached out to block him, pointed at Nora, and tossed over a pouch of coins, “I’m buying this slave.”

The trader sized Reiner up, glanced into the pouch, did a quick count, and then grinned slyly, “Not enough.”

“How much do you need?”

“Cat-type demi-humans are natural beauties and very popular among nobles, and she’s a virgin to boot, so the price is at least 1 Dyast gold coin plus 3 silver; the pouch you gave me is worth at best 1 gold.”

Hearing that, Reiner took another cloth bag from his belt and tossed it over, “That’s filled with slime cores; the Adventurers’ Guild will pay 2 silver for them.”

Seeing the trader hesitate, Reiner added, “Given that she’s as skinny as a monkey and nearly attacked me, sell her to me. I’ll surely buy more slaves from you in the future, so think of it as making a friend.”

“Deal.” The trader put away the goods, turned, and said, “Follow me; this slave still needs to be branded with a pact mark.”

“A pact mark?”

“Demi-humans are sly and hard to tame; without a pact mark she might kill you when you least expect it,” the trader said without turning his head, then went on to explain the details to Reiner.

In short, it was a method used to control slaves.

Once branded, she would serve Reiner for life with almost no ability to resist, and if Reiner died suddenly she would also perish of heart failure.

They followed the trader to a damp, filthy basement.

Several slave maids suddenly pinned Nora down, making her struggle in fright, her eyes filled with terror.

Holding a stamp, the trader slowly approached the struggling Nora, then turned to Reiner and asked, “Where do you want it? Most people like it on the butt.”

“Put it on her arm.”

When the trader pressed the stamp onto her, Nora’s eyes flashed, she let out a few wails, and then passed out…

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