## Chapter 301 – The Monarch of Monsters (3)
“Heeik…!!”
“You bastards…!! Ge… Get out of here…!!”
“Eheheh…!! Yo… You’ve arrived, Master……!!”
Vivian and her group also turned their heads back at the sound of that voice, and what came into their sight was a man with an impressive appearance.
Wearing thick leather clothes underneath and a leather coat that looked heavy at a glance, with a weighty, wide-brimmed fedora pressed down low, obscuring his face.
To top it off, he had clanging chains wrapped around his body, creating an extraordinary atmosphere reminiscent of a hunter.
“Get lost.”
“Ye… Yes…!! Of course!! Heehee!!
Alright!! What are you all looking at!!
Get back to your places!!”
The man, wearing heavy boots studded with nails, spoke with a heavy gait, and at his one word, the surrounding slave traders were startled and began to restore the situation to its original state.
The man whose testicles had burst was eventually removed somewhere, leaving only a few bloodstains soaked into the dirt in his place.
The fact that these savage humans trembled and disappeared at the mere appearance of this man caused Vivian’s eyes to fixate on him.
‘Deckard……? No…
They said no one knows his identity…
There’s no way these low-level merchants would know.
Then is he his subordinate……?’
“We’ve received help.
I’d like to express my gratitude.”
“……”
While others were busy running away, Vivian approached the man and tried to speak to him.
“Vivian-nim……?”
The man walked indifferently into the slave market, passing her by, and Vivian slowly began to follow his back.
Aurora followed closely behind, and Lanie, not knowing what was going on, also followed them, adding to the chaotic scene as they roamed through the slave market.
To be precise, Vivian and her group were chasing after the man, but eventually, the man arrived somewhere and lifted the flap of a tent, entering inside.
Vivian followed without hesitation, lifting the flap and entering the tent, causing Aurora, who always maintained a poker face with a smile, to widen her eyes in slight surprise.
“What are you doing? Hurry up and come in!!”
This time, Lanie was the first to follow Vivian inside.
– Gepetto –
Aurora looked at the nameplate placed next to the tent and took a deep breath. After exhaling deeply as if sighing, she entered the tent.
“Whew……”
Inside the tent, various forms of iron cages and pens were piled up everywhere.
Sometimes they were empty, but many were filled, displaying the respective beings within as they were placed here and there.
Perhaps all slave traders were like this, as the cages were piled up in a complex manner, making it difficult to find a place to step.
As they walked through our midst, they received piercing gazes filled with various emotions from within the cages, and they were walking inside.
“Sa… Save me……”
A slender hand, seemingly belonging to a human girl, reached out from an iron cage and grabbed the hem of her cloak.
Vivian, feeling its touch, glared at it as if annoyed, and soon the hand returned to the cage, never bothering her again.
“Why are you following me?”
“Because you’re a customer?
I want to buy a slave.”
“If that’s the case, look here.”
Eventually, after passing through the hallway made of cages, they followed the man inside and arrived at a cleared space.
Vivian, who had been talking to the man who stopped there and began to write something on a piece of paper placed on a cage piled up like a table, raised her eyebrows at the stiff and insincere answer she received.
“By the way… have we met before?
You seem familiar somehow?”
To be exact, she hadn’t seen his face, but there was something subtly familiar about his atmosphere, and despite Vivian’s question,
The man simply walked deeper into the tent, without saying a word.
And after a while, a voice was heard from where he had disappeared, and a middle-aged man with a cunning impression emerged from the inside.
“Oh my!! We have customers!!
Welcome to ‘Gepetto’!!
I wonder what kind of slave the customers are looking for?”
The middle-aged man who had popped out from the inside glanced at the memo written on the cage, nodded slightly, and began to greet Vivian and her group.
As Vivian approached him step by step and asked questions, the man tried to deflect the conversation, giving vague answers.
“Who was that man from earlier?”
“Ah, there’s no need to worry about him!!
More importantly, if you tell me your preferences, I can find a slave that suits you…”
“Why don’t you tell me?
I can’t stand being curious.”
“Hehe… Sometimes it’s better not to know, isn’t it?
If you know even roughly where this place is…
You must know what it means to snoop around…
You must know that, young lady.”
Despite his words, which contained a subtle threat, she didn’t flinch at all and smiled as if she had something to rely on.
Vivian pondered his words and chuckled, eventually sitting down on a chair in the place he offered and began to speak.
“Alright… fine then.
I guess that’s true.
I want to buy a slave for now.”
“As you can see here, we have combat slaves…
And some that are quite good for playing around with to your liking.
Why don’t you take a look around…”
The man, who was also sitting on the chair opposite her, gestured broadly with his hand towards the surrounding cages, and Vivian turned her head slightly, scanning the cages.
As if she didn’t even glance at the slaves she had passed by like a hallway, she only looked at the surrounding cages.
And after Vivian had finished scanning the last cage, a subtle smile appeared on her lips as she began to look at the middle-aged man again.
“I want to see something more proper?”
Vivian, who had only glanced around from her seat and then spoke, was stared at by the man with narrowed eyes as he listened to her voice.
Soon, the middle-aged man closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows, then slowly stood up from the chair opposite her.
“You have quite the discerning eye, customer…
Then will you follow me?”
Vivian and her group, who began to follow the middle-aged man, were led by him to the iron cage hallway opposite the one where the secretive man had gone, and they entered the inside of the tent.
Lanie was impressed by the tent, which seemed to be quite spacious inside, unlike what it looked like from the outside, and Aurora was restless, feeling an ominous premonition that she had felt instinctively since earlier.
Only Vivian, who kept her gaze fixed forward and followed the man, showed no reaction as if nothing was wrong.
“Well, this is where it starts.
Why don’t you take a look around?
Ask me if there’s anything you don’t know.”
Whether these were the real deal, the man proudly presented the ‘goods’.
As she walked forward and looked at them, Vivian’s eyes narrowed.
And behind her, Lanie, who was curious, and Aurora, who seemed unwilling to leave Vivian’s side, were also following.
“Wow…!! What is this!? And this…?”
“That is a beast called ‘Taigrenga’ that lives in the snowy mountains of northern Barmhausen.
If you tame it well, it can act as a hunting dog.
Of course, dangerous things can happen in the process of taming it… ahem…
That is a ‘Vindenfly’ brought from southern Groden.
As you can see, it looks like a bug, but it’s located somewhere between a monster and an animal.
It’s a creature that’s hard to see in nature, so it’s released for ornamental purposes.”
While Lanie was asking more questions than Vivian and looking at various things, Vivian was walking around indifferently, quietly looking at the cages.
As the man said, the contents of the cages, which contained quite decent ‘products’, were diverse.
From muscular, half-naked men who could be good laborers or nighttime companions, to naked women with beautiful appearances and figures but faces full of shadows, and rare exotic animals that Lanie was particularly interested in, were scattered everywhere.
To be honest, Vivian, who didn’t know the exact value of those things, was rolling her eyes around to try to discern the best one.
‘If I think normally, it would be a human woman.’
A human woman who understands words well and doesn’t resist would be the best choice to buy as a slave and make her work.
But humans, whose very existence is cunning and who might stab you in the back at any moment if you’re not careful, were not to her taste, as she was already sick of betrayal.
Moreover, the smarter they are, the higher the possibility of betrayal, and the higher the possibility of Enic’s secret being leaked.
Rather, an innocent being who knows nothing would be perfect for her.
‘It would be good to make them mix well with the Henias…
Would it be a beastman after all……?’
Vivian leaned against a cage, put her hand inside and gently lifted the chin of a woman, then took her hand away and lowered her waist again.
“I wonder which one will listen well……”
Her blue eyes, which were looking around while squatting slightly in place, soon fell on one cage and she stared at it intently.
“Hmm……”
Vivian, who had found the appearance of the ‘products’ huddled together in a cage that seemed a little wider compared to other cages, soon got up from her seat and went there, squatting down again.
Beastman children, each leaning against the cage, hugging each other or trembling.
The ages and genders were different, but there didn’t seem to be any children who could be called adults yet, and a slight smile appeared on Vivian’s lips.
‘I found it.’
In the meantime, Vivian, who felt a strange aura from them, checked the children who were subtly crowded towards the front bars, and began to look inside the bars on the opposite side from them.
Reflected in her eyes was a beastman girl with dark navy hair, seemingly a child with a small physique, with horns on her head.
‘Is she a lizard beastman?
Did lizards have horns?’
Compared to the other beastmen she had seen so far, if there was anything a little unique, it was that scales were slightly protruding from some parts of her body.
And whether she was injured or not, the rags covering her body and the dark red bloodstains all over her body made her suspect that she had been abused.
“What is that child?”
“Ye… Yes……?”
Vivian asked a question to another beastman child inside the cage about the girl who seemed to be sleeping soundly now.
“I mean, the one lying down over there.”
“I don’t… know……”
Even that child seemed not to know why she was reacting like this, and she just opened her trembling lips and gave an awkward answer.
It was a reaction befitting a young child who had not even been socialized, but was she instinctively avoiding that child?
“Interesting.”
Vivian, who got up from her seat as she was, opened her mouth towards the middle-aged man who was sweating profusely while answering Lanie’s barrage of questions.
“I’ve decided. All the children in this cage.”
The man, who seemed to be happy to be freed from Lanie, seemed to like the items she was trying to buy as well.
While the man, who was rubbing his hands together, was walking towards her to check the cage Vivian was talking about.
He seemed to have remembered something and made a troubled expression…
“Ohohot!! Are you talking about these beastman children?
Four boys and six girls, was it?
Ah… but…… there’s one thing you should know……”
“What is it?”
“That child you see in the back?
If you look, you’ll probably see a difference from the other beastmen.
That one… seems to be a rare species among beastmen?
Originally, beastman children aren’t that expensive…
But since she’s a rare species, if you include that child…
The price might be a little higher……”
However, Vivian snorted as if she had been expecting some great words to come out.
As soon as the man finished speaking, she cut him off and put an end to his doubts.
“I don’t care. And…”
And at her next words, the man bowed and began to move according to Vivian’s orders.
“The eighth cage from the entrance.
Bring out the girl who was there too.”
As Vivian watched the back of the man turning around, Lanie’s bright voice and Aurora’s bewildered voice, who were subtly approaching her, were getting closer.
“Vivian-nim!! Vivian-nim!! You know what!!
Can’t we raise just one of these kids…!? Huh huh!?”
“Lanie-nim, is that right……?
I feel like we’re doing something unnecessary…?”
At Lanie’s actions of holding a cat-like beast in her arms and trying to show it off.
Vivian smiled slightly and nodded as if she couldn’t help it.
“Do as you wish. Just take good care of them.”
