After that, the unimaginable happened. I woke up. I suppose this is the afterlife, but if it is, it’s pretty shitty. My first thought was that I must be in a hospital, but, staring up at the rough wooden ceiling, and cobblestone walls, I decided it couldn’t be.

There’s a man and two women here in the room, and the man is pretty handsome, I guess. Definitely my type, but for some reason, I don’t feel any lust when I look at him. He’s got a chiseled jawline, and short, light brown hair, with piercing blue eyes, and just a bit of scruff on his face. If I had to guess, he’s around my age, but definitely much more fit than I am. His clothes are weird, I’ve seen rough leather pants like the type he’s wearing only in movies, and his sleeveless off white shirt looks pretty threadbare. Still, it gives a clear picture of his chest muscles, and those biceps are just to die for. He could be a model, and if he’s hung well, a porn star. I’d definitely have let him have his way with me, assuming he’s into skinny little twinks like me. Still, not even the slightest hint of a boner when I look at those muscles that would normally be enough to get me rock hard and salivating.

The women aren’t bad looking either, if you’re into that sort of thing. The first I noticed, in a long plain white dress, has long, light blonde hair, eyes the same piercing blue as the man’s, and a slender frame. The other, behind me, on what I now realize is a bed, has medium length hair, raven black, and the most beautiful green eyes you’ve ever seen. I just realized, that while there’s a blanket covering her legs, she’s completely naked from the waist down. I can also smell blood and shit.

Again, something unimaginable is happening, I’ve been picked up by the woman in the white dress, and she’s holding me to her chest with one hand. This shouldn’t be possible. Despite how skinny I am, I’m still a fully grown man, five foot, eleven inches tall, and weighing about 125 lbs. A small woman like her shouldn’t be able to pick me up, and something about the scale feels wrong too. As she speaks to the man in a calm gentle tone, in a language I don’t understand, I’m struck by how pretty her voice is.

She wipes my forehead with a warm, wet rag, and I see it come away bloody. Oh right, I was just stabbed, I guess. But, as I look down, I realize my arms are short and fat. I’m completely naked, too. She pats my butt, and I cough up just a bit of blood and water, and immediately start bawling and screaming, despite my best efforts not to. Finally, it dawns on me. I was reincarnated, but what country am I in? Better yet, what time period? Was I somehow transported into the past? Why do I still have my memories?

Then, as I’m pondering all of this, still screaming and crying, I notice something else impossible. The blonde woman brushes her hair out of her face, and behind her ear. Her long, pointed ear. She looked like an elf. Have I been transported to some kind of fantasy world? No, it couldn’t be. I bet she just had body modification surgery. That’s gotta be it.

SIX MONTHS LATER

I’ve been in this strange new world for six months now, and I’ve come to realize that it’s not the Earth I came to know and tolerate in my past life. I’m starting to learn the language, and I’ve realized that my name is Johan Numeto. The woman with the raven black hair is my new mother, Rachelle Numeto, and the sexy, muscular man is my father, Carlisle Numeto. The elf woman, and despite my initial thoughts of body modification, she is an elf, is our family's slave, Sarya.

That’s right, the slave trade is alive and well in this world, disgusting as it is. Still, she doesn’t seem to be treated too badly as far as I can tell. She joins my family at the table for dinner every night, after she’s prepared it, and she’s definitely been smiling at my parents as she helps to look after me.

I haven’t been able to leave the house much, but sometimes when there’s shopping to do, Rachelle will carry me in a sling as she and Sarya go through the market.

I haven’t seen it yet, but in these market trips, I can smell the familiar scent of the ocean, so I suppose the city we’re in, Robellierre, must be a port city.

The market is just outside our front door, as we’re a merchant family, and our home is attached to our shop in the mercantile district. Unlike my former life as a lawless drug dealer, Carlisle’s business appears to be the entirely legitimate kind. He sells clothing and jewelry, in quite a nice shop, on the wealthier end of the mercantile district. From what I can see, we cater mostly to other wealthy merchants, and the nobility.

The storefront takes up a sizable area at the front of our house, with the counter along the left side wall, wrapping around to the back, where there’s a simple gate for going behind the counter, and a side door that leads out into an alley, used as an entrance for Carlisle's two apprentices, Evan and Kline. Along the right wall, there are several stalls set up for privacy, so our customers can try on our wares. Behind the counter in the center of the back wall, there’s a single door that leads to a hallway with a generously sized storeroom on the left, Carlisle's office on the right, and a stairwell at the back that leads up to the second and third floors, where we make our home.

Sarya's room is directly above the storeroom, and above Carlisle's office is the kitchen. Then, above the back counter, there’s a balcony that has a nice railing, with the left section currently blocked off by a simple wooden child gate to allow my parents to be able to quickly look up and keep an eye on me while tending the shop from the left side counter.

The third floor has no balcony over the shop, and is therefore much larger than the second, covering the whole building. Next to the chimney running up from the stove in the kitchen is a dumbwaiter, which Sarya uses to send our meals up to the dining area when she’s done cooking them. While I’m not quite on solid food yet, the steaks and fish my parents eat always smell delicious, leaving my mouth watering. They’ve started giving me porridge during dinner at this point, and after dinner, Rachelle will breast feed me. I’m sure some guys my age would love that, but women, and particularly breasts, never did anything for me.

The rest of the third floor is occupied by a living area with a fireplace above Sarya's room, then a hall with 4 rooms above the shop. The first is an unused bedroom only slightly bigger than Sarya’s, that will no doubt be my room when I’m a bit more grown. Across from that is my nursery, slightly smaller than Sarya’s room. Next to the nursery is our bathroom, which has surprisingly modern plumbing, considering the otherwise medieval technology level in this world. It’s enough to make me wonder if there are others like me, here from Earth in modern times, and one of them brought this innovation. Finally, at the end of the hall is my parents’ room, the largest in the building, save for the main floor of the shop down below.

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There’s no basement, which I found odd at first, since it could be a bigger storeroom, but I noticed on one of my market trips with Sarya and Rachelle that the soil around the road was silty and soft, and I seem to remember hearing that conditions like that, especially in areas where flooding is a concern, like a port city, make basements a bad idea.

The walls are a simple grey cobblestone on the outside, and thick oak wood on the inside, with the floors, ceilings, and roof being a slightly darker oak, perhaps stained.

I’ve seen humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, and demons come through the shop, crawling around in my playpen on the second floor above the counter. The humans, dwarves, elves, and gnomes all seem to be roughly equal in standing, though I’ve gotten the impression dwarves and elves don’t like each other. Still, I’ve seen customers of all 4 races, in the shop, and all of them have been brought in as servants or slaves. The exception is demons, which is used as a more general term for various non-human races, some of which have traits you’d expect from a demon in a Hollywood movie, with red skin, black horns, and impish tails, while others look like anthropomorphic beasts, tiger-men, lion-men, horse-men, and the like. I’ve seen a girl with white hair, red snakelike eyes, a forked tongue, and white scales along her neck, chest and arms, as well as a man who had feathers for hair, and bird claws for feet. All of these individuals are referred to as demons, and all of them, without exception, are slaves.

Unlike how my family treats Sarya, I’ve never seen a master of a demon treat them well in our shop. Nor have I ever seen one of them look happy. They get yelled at, dragged along, or shown cold indifference at best. It sickens me. It’s racism, plain and simple.

Today, I’m in my playpen above the shop, watching as an elvish man enters, demon slave in tow. I’ve seen this man, and his slave, the snake girl with white hair and scales before, but I can’t recall either of their names.

He’s dragging her along by the wrist and even from up here, I can see the pained expression on her face. She stumbles at the door to the shop, and the man jerks her forward, shouting, “Come along you wretch!”

She nearly falls at the sudden tug, her face slamming into his shoulder. He stumbles slightly, lets go of her wrist, then turns around and slaps her hard in the face. “Such insolence! How dare you!?”

What a fucking tool. I wish my little baby mouth could form words, but I still haven’t gotten the hang of it yet. So, I do the next best thing. I start crying, loudly, pressing myself up against the railing, and pointing down at the man and his slave.

Hearing this, Carlisle looks up from behind the counter, sees me crying, vaults over the counter, and approaches the arrogant prick.

“Hey now, you’re upsetting my kid with all this yelling and violence. If you can’t keep calm in my shop, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Besides that, the way I see it, the lady stumbled when you pulled her arm, and it’s not right to punish her for your actions.”

“The lady!? What is wrong with you, sir merchant? I’m simply putting this arrogant, useless demon in her place. She’s been nothing but trouble since the day I bought her. And you’ll ask me to leave? Don’t you have any idea who I am?”

“I have every idea. You’re Viscount Emeraldo, a noble of some status in the Elven Kingdom to the southwest, but it appears you don’t know who I am. I am Carlisle Numeto, sixth son of His Excellency, the Archduke Johannes Numeto, the liege of these lands. I recognize you’ve been here on business with some of my father’s subordinates for some months. If you continue to cause trouble in my shop, I can make that business quite difficult for you.”

Wait, hold up, did he just say Archduke? We’re nobility? And, from the sound of it, pretty high ranking nobility? Since when?

“The son of an Archduke, a simple shopkeep? I doubt it. Though, I wonder where you get your information.”

“Well, as I said, I’m the sixth son. Between my brothers as heirs, and his existing subordinates, my father had not land nor title for me. Still, had I attended the high courts, and sought an audience with His Majesty the King, I imagine, based on his relationship with my father, and my personal friendship with the crown prince, I could’ve secured a title of Duke for myself. Unfortunately, the life of the aristocracy holds little interest for me, so after I found a wife I loved of common birth, I went against my father’s wishes, retired from knighthood and nobility, opened this simple shop, and settled down to raise my family. While my relationship with father is strained, I am still close with my brother Marquis Greven Numeto, mayor of this fair city, and I doubt he would be happy to hear you made his nephew, Johan, named for our father, the Archduke Johannes Numeto, cry. Shall we go see him to discuss the matter together?”

Ok, Carlisle, first of all, longwinded much? Secondly, you just said you had no title, should you really be making threats like that to some foreign noble? And what the hell is a Marquis anyway? You said that guy’s a Viscount, but is that higher or lower? I don’t understand this at all! Plus, doesn’t it complicate things that he’s foreign? And since when was I named after an Archduke? What is going on here?

Apparently, I needn’t have been so worried. After all of those thoughts raced through my head, I noticed the elf, Viscount Emeraldo, had gone as white as a sheet, and broken out in a cold sweat.

“Th-Th-That won’t… be… necessary. I… certainly wouldn’t want… to trouble… Marquis Numeto with something… like this. I am… quite… sorry. Please, just tell me what I need to do to make this right. I beg of you!”

Ok, what the fuck just happened? Just how terrifying is Uncle Greven? I do know the man. He’s Carlisle’s brother, and just as he said, they’re quite close. He frequently comes by the shop to buy clothes with his wife, and often stays for dinner after. He’s a couple inches taller than Carlisle, who’s not a short man by any means. I’d put Carlisle at six foot, three inches, and Greven at six foot six. Plus, he’s built like a brick shithouse. Carlisle is well built and toned like a model or bodybuilder, where Greven has that kind of fat-strong build you see at strongman competitions. He also has a giant scar running down his face and neck, from his right temple to his collarbone, splitting his beard and mustache off by a quarter on one side. The man looks less like a noble and more like a thug.

Frankly, I pissed myself the first time I saw him. But, I’m still a baby in this life. Pissing myself is what I do. Aside from that, nobles aren’t usually scared by brute strength. They can hire that. If Greven scares him, I guess he must have more political power, and probably a temper.

“Tell you what, you said that slave was useless, but based on his reaction, it seems my son has taken a bit of a liking to her. I’d be happy to take her off your hands for you. For quite a discount, of course, since she’s so useless and all.”

“WHAT!?”

Seems it’s my turn to chime in again, “WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!”

“Hey, didn’t I tell you to keep it down in my shop? You’re upsetting my son, and my other customers. So, as I see it, this will play out one of two ways. Either you step back into my office with me, and we work out a contract for the purchase of that demon, or the two of us can go visit my brother, where I’ll tell him all about this scene you caused in my shop, and how much it upset poor little Johan.”

Reluctantly, Viscount Emeraldo followed along. They talked in there for about an hour and a half I’d say, before he left in a huff. Without his slave.

And that’s how our family got a new member, the demon snake Albirea. Another slave. How repulsive. At least here she’ll probably be treated better than by that vile man