Chapter 21

‘What, what are those? What the hell are they ……’

I was startled by the scene in front of me.

Surrounding Ikris, who was still standing on the stage, several jackals were walking back and forth, slobber dripping from their mouths.

Ikris’ arms and legs were chained, which restricted most of his movements.

A small wooden sword was the only weapon he was given.

Other than that, the only thing he was wearing was the cloth that was used to cover his lower body, and that cloth didn’t even exist to protect him.

”It’s too much!”

My heart clucked and choked. They seemed intent on letting Ikris be fruitfully fed by the hungry-looking beasts.

‘What should I do?’

I began to ponder whether or not I should rush and shout for him before he was torn apart?

“Ow-a.”

At that moment, the largest of the jackals pounced on Ikris.

At the same time, Ikris lowered himself and rolled over towards the tip of the sword, stabbing the wooden sword into one of the eyes of that jackal with lightning speed.

He followed it up with a vicious kick that left the jackal dying of its wounds.

“Ow ow ow ow one!”

The jackal dog howled as it fell to the ground in a spread-eagled heap and fainted.

“Oooooooooh!”

The rest of the jackals followed, leaping violently at Ikris.

“Ah.”

I let out a short scream off the top of my head.

One by one, he should be able to defeat them as well; though I was sure it would be very tricky for him to face the jackals at the same time.

But it turned out that my fears were all for naught.

Though his movements were limited, Ikris was able to avoid the jackal’s claws and teeth, and knocked him to the ground with a single stroke of his wooden sword.

Within seconds, however, two more dogs fell, leaving only two jackals on the field.

One jackal took aim at Ikris’ back while he was busy grappling with the other.

At the same time, Ikris snapped the neck of the jackal that was fighting him head on and quickly turned to meet the other one.

“Woooichi!”

Then he stabbed the wooden sword, which was not even called sharp, straight into the jackal’s belly.

Pfft…

The last Jackal Dog fell to the ground, and the blood that slowly came out brought this vicious fight to an end.

“Hoha, hoha ……”

Blood dripped from Ikris’ fingertips as his shoulders rose and fell back and forth.

The scene was silent.

Then one by one, people started cheering.

“Thank you, honored guests!”

The auctioneer announced the end of the show.

“Uhhh!”

Ikris became exuberant after seeing the blood. Even though the battle had come to an end, the tip of his sword still shook more than once.

He swung his wooden sword dangerously towards those who approached in order to suppress him. However such as he was he suddenly fell down with a shudder.

Then he was dragged off the stage.

Later on they put some devices on Ikris in order to restrict the slave’s movement.

“Haha, he’s still a fairly energetic slave …… It’s difficult to restrain him with ordinary methods.”

The auctioneer laughed while calming the frightened audience.

“Next! Let’s happily and easily start our bidding with half a million gold coins, shall we?”

Ikris’s auction officially begins, and his starting bid is not even on the same scale compared to the other slaves.

I’m a bit nervous and uneasy concentrating on this auction.

“Six hundred thousand!”

“Nine hundred thousand!”

“One million! I see a million!”

Ikris’s price climbed rapidly. At this rate, I think the price will soon reach ten million.

“Two million! Four million over there!”

Thankfully, as time passed, the number of people who continued to follow through with bidding on Ikris slowly decreased.

Not many people were willing to buy a slave from a defeated country for five million gold coins, especially since he also seemed very difficult to train. He couldn’t be used as a companion or a nightly entertainer, and what’s more, he was dangerous.

Unless someone was really crazy to do so.

“Five million! Six million! Is there anything higher after six million?”

Having that much money could already buy a small villa.

There are only two people left who are still bidding.

I couldn’t see their faces because they were wearing masks. But I could tell that one was an old woman with wrinkles crawling up her neck, while the other was a fat man.

The eyes they showed through their masks were very sharp and even glittered with greed, and from that I could tell why they wanted Ikris.

“Nine million! Now nine million!”

The old woman raises the price by three million in one breath pushing the already staggering amount to another peak.

“Ten million dollars! Now ten million!”

And that fat man didn’t budge. The auctioneer was so frightened by the astronomical amount that he passed his head in the direction of its competitor, the old woman.

The old woman seemed to have given up as she threw away the sign in a fit of rage.

“Ten million dollars! Anyone else? Five! Four!”

The countdown began.

I looked around cautiously, in order to check if there were any other people who seemed to want to challenge that fat guy.

“Three! Two ……!”

After confirming that no one else was planning to bid higher, I finally raised my bidding card.

“One hundred million.”

The scene was as silent as death.

Those sights looking at me would definitely become very noisy if they were expressed in sound.

The auctioneer was once again stunned. He stuttered several times as if he didn’t believe what he heard, but then

he then shouted cheerfully.

“One hundred million! Someone has bid one hundred million! Anyone else?”

At first I had decided to shout ten times the final price.

After all, it was a matter of my life and death, even if it wasn’t one hundred million, but one billion.

“One hundred million, deal!”

I had also taken it out with a smile without hesitation.

“Please, please come over here.”

After the auction ended, the auctioneer personally escorted me.

He seemed to be not only just the auctioneer, but also the operator of this slave market.

I followed him to the place where all the slaves were being held.

Snapping – Not far from Ikris and standing many guards, each of them held whips and lashed them directly to Ikris’ skin.

These slaves are transported to someone’s mansion after they are sold, but before they are transported, they are transferred to the pickup place and confined there.

Ikris was also transported to the pick-up place in this manner.

Snap-

Another whip fell, and blood began to ooze out of the bare back where the whip was dropped.

“Geez.”

I cringe at the tragic scene.

In the game, the Duke brought Ikris back to the Dukedom only a few days after the festival started, and the festival was still going on that day.

The Duke sees him in transit after being auctioned off and buys him at a high price.

I chose to sneak out on the first day of the festival in order to get Ikris before the Duke acted.

Luckily, in the end, I was the only one who could get him.

“What way would you like to trade, honored guest.”

The auctioneer, no, this slave merchant group owner inquired in a slavish manner.

“This.”

“Oh!”

I pulled the check out of my pocket and threw it at him.

Seeing me fling the check, he let out a gasp. However, when he spoke again, he had already returned to his original pandering smile.

“Which noble family should I collect from?”

“The Duke Eckhardt family.”

When the Duke finds out that I spent 100 million on a slave, he should be extremely angry. But I had already come up with an excuse for that.

The merchant lord seemed shocked. He then quickly shifted his eyes and eyed me with suspicion.

“Uh uh …… please, please forgive my rudeness, could you please show me an item that can prove your identity?”

“Are you doubting me now?”

I immediately replied coldly, while the other party made a ‘no’ gesture.

“No, no! How could it be! But, but, you’re not a regular visitor of the Eckhardt family here, so ……”

I had no choice but to take something out of my pocket.

Then I huffed and threw it at the merchant lord.

“My, my! I didn’t notice it was such an honorable lord.”

After seeing Derrick’s gold cufflinks that were clearly engraved with the symbol of the Eckert family, the merchant group master bowed down deeply.

He then took out something and handed it to me.

“This, please take it.”

It was a ring embedded with a large ruby.

“What is this?”

“It is a proof of mastership for that slave.”

I took it.

I stared at the ring. Just as I wondered what it was for, the merchant lord pointed in a certain direction.

“Have you seen the leather collar around that slave’s neck?”

I looked in the direction of the merchant lord’s pointing finger, and there was a leather collar with yellow beads tied around Ikris’ neck.

After I nodded, the Merchant Master continued to explain.

“That collar is engraved with a spell. As soon as you press the ruby on the ring, that yellow bead on the collar will send out a shockwave to suppress a resisting slave.”

It seems that the reason for making Ikris powerless all of a sudden on the stage earlier was this.

“But it will melt the brain if used too many times, so please be careful.”

The merchant lord added the caveat and ended the conversation.

‘I can’t believe it says it will melt the brain ……”

This is too cruel. I tightened my brows and feigned arrogance as I examined the ring in my hand.

“But for someone as tender as you, guest, this guy is extremely dangerous. For your safety, please be sure to wear it at all times. Guest, put it on quickly.”

The slaver, who couldn’t see my frown because I was wearing a mask, urged me several times.

Unable to resist his urging, I had to put on the ring for show.

Just then.

“Aaaaah one!”

A scream came from ahead.

I raised my eyes in panic to see Ikris choking a guard with his thighs.

The shackles binding the legs had been broken.

“You, you see! Quickly, quickly suppress him!”

The merchant lord shouted with a pale face.

Snapping, snapping …… Even though the guard’s companion was about to die, the others didn’t dare to get close to this drawing of the crazed slave, and could only continue to whip Ikris with their whips.

“Heh ah, ah cough, cough ……”

The choked guard was slowly dying, and as each second went by, the more grueling the whip wounds suffered by Ikris’ skin became.

I couldn’t bear the thought of having someone dying in front of me and having to watch that from the sidelines.

After a moment’s hesitation, I pressed the ruby on my ring.

“Ah!”

Ikris instantly froze and stumbled to the ground shaking and paralyzed.

“Ahem! Hoo-ha, ha……”

The guards were eventually able to escape and rushed out of the place with pale faces.

Then, I took advantage of the fact that Ikris was still shaking on the ground and walked towards the prostrate man.

“Guest, guest!”

The merchant lord who tried to pull me back had a very tense and fearful look on his face. But that didn’t stop me from continuously approaching Ikris.

As I gradually got closer to Ikris and he stared at me with a deadly glare, it was evident that he was suffering from great pain.

As I got closer, the [Favorability 0%] glow on his head couldn’t help but shine.

After crouching down in front of him, I hooked his chin with my fingertips.

“Ikris.”