“It's sad to see someone so young perish.” I said stiffly.

The guard shrugged and spit. “She’s a slave.”

Of course, the guards and slavers valued life a bit differently. However, a strange girl’s life and death had nothing to do with me. Rather, I needed to be taken back into a large tent. As we walked in, we noticed a row of naked men.

“Ah!” Lydia blushed and turned away. “I forgot about these lineups. They were so embarrassing.”

There was a lineup of men, but there was a sheet hung up and the other side contained a lineup of women. In total, there were eight people placed out, five women and three men. Only one of them appeared to be of human origin.

“Hey… psst.” A voice sounded in my ear; I looked around, but I didn’t see anything.

Figuro beckoned me in, and I stood in front of the room, giving me a view of both the men and the women on either side of the sheet.

“Need they be naked?” I asked, fighting my eyes from wandering to the female side, especially when Lydia glowered at me.

“It is customary. We don’t want any surprises when you get home.” Figuro shrugged helplessly. “Let me introduce them first. All eight slaves are knowledgeable in reading.”

“Hey… psst… I can read too.” The words buzzed in my ear.

Looking around, I couldn’t see which slave had said those words. They must have some ability to throw their voice or something. The others didn’t even seem to be aware they talked.

“The human on the far right, is a necromancer…”

I let out a cough. “Pass…”

After fighting that necromancer and all those undead, I actually had enough of necromancers.

Figuro immediately went on to the next one. “This man is extremely loyal. Although dogkin are not known for fearlessness, they will obey their Masters. I wouldn’t say his spirit resistance is greater, but he will be willing to continue to obey even after receiving a great deal of spiritual damage.”

“I don’t really want to force someone to do something that will cause them great pain. I’m sorry, next.”

The slaves who were passed over didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. It seemed like the slaves here were treated well. At least, the ones outside were dressed better than Lydia was when I first met her, and they looked like they were fed well.

“This slave got into a lot of debt. He has a job as a Warlock, level 15. Three gold. He’s a bit cheap because Priests won’t change a Warlock job. It’s part of their forbidden list.”

“Oh? Aren’t they one of the ones that are good with ghosts?” I asked sheepishly.

“Warlock magic dwindles on the dark side.” Figuro patiently explained. “They definitely have an affinity with ghosts.” 

“I’ll consider him, but let’s go through the rest.”

We went through the women. Most had one or more issues with them until we reached the last woman. She was a very busty woman with long black hair and piercing eyes. She looked very sexy and voluptuous, and it took all my effort to not stare at her massive fun bags. She was about the same age as big sister, but had no rough edges. No, she was all curves. Furthermore, she appeared to be some kind of wolfkin species.

“She is an apprentice to a magician, level 10,” Figuro explained. “She’s a bit pricey. It’ll cost ten gold coins for her, but considering our previous deal, I’m willing to drop it to 7. All slaves fill out a sheet of wants and desires. Under willingness to sleep with their Master, she marked no restraint, that’s to say you can do whatever you want to her body and she won’t resist. Besides being beautiful, she is also well skilled in taking care of a home. Women typically go for more than men, particularly beauties like her and your tigerkin.”

“Why is she only ten coins, whereas Lydia was hundreds?” I had to ask.

“A few reasons. She’s a nearly twice the age of your tigerkin. Her species is black wolfkin, a very common breed. A magician apprentice is a somewhat standard job. Finally, she killed her last master.”

“Wait, she what?”

“Ahem…” Figuro suddenly looked awkward. “Her master was a Master Magician and was seventy… she… um… sexed him… into a heart attack. He was resurrected, of course, but the doctors said she was a bit too stimulating for his heart, and he had to give up training her. She perhaps would be farther along in her education if her Master hadn’t been too distracted with other things to properly train her.”

As Figuro spoke, the girl met my eyes and winked, a very seductive smile on her face. I quickly counted up the coins in my hand. If the Haggle ability worked, then it would drop down to a little over 5 gold coins. That was all the money I had. I wouldn’t even have any for food or clothing, but I could just scrape by and purchase her. She was a perfect beauty, strong against ghosts, and a witch had to be powerful with great potential to be more powerful. Just imagining myself with my head between those melons was causing me to lose my senses.

“I’ll take…”

“The warlock.” Lydia suddenly stepped forward, pointing at the more qualified man from before.

I looked down at Lydia. She was glaring at me with puffed out cheeks and a stubborn expression. It appeared I had been overruled. That was right, if it came to survival, it was more important to have someone of sufficient skill. I had let my hormones rule my common sense for a moment. I let out a nervous laugh, my senses returning to me.

“Ah… I guess. We’ll take the ma-”

“Hey… wouldn’t you rather have me?” A girl said in an obstinate voice.

Right in front of me was another naked girl who wasn’t in line with the rest. Her long dirty blonde, nearly white hair seemed to strategically cover up all her best places, which admittedly weren’t much, as her chest was barely an A and her body was small and scrawny, even compared to Lydia. Since I had been feeding Lydia, she filled out a bit and had a very average female body. This girl, on the other hand, looked like a runt, and no amount of food would fix that. She had a massive bushy tail, no, it was nine bushy tails all spread out from her back. Her skin was even paler than when I saw her outside. She had two long ears too. Fox ears. She was also… a bit see-through. You see, the foxgirl was hovering a couple of feet above the ground.