A few days later a trade caravan did indeed come through the village. Of course, with the village being what it was, small and mostly destitute, the caravan was not too impressive. Most likely here to buy low instead of sell things these people could barely afford. Except for adventurers that was. Monsters did not become more scarce in dry bad land regions like this, just water and soil nutrients.

Consequently, the slave selection was not very good.

Right now, I was being shown the ‘products’ by a fat bastard wearing a bright orange wrap around his head, signifying he hailed from some other country.

“What are we looking for today? An assistant? Perhaps some muscle for pack work? I even have a rare specimen with the mind pool for an alchemist such as yourself.”

I waved the man off. “What's the cheapest you’ve got?” I just needed a body.

The man waved me to another section of his tent.

“This is the cheapest I can offer. Only 50 copper!”

Wow. That was cheap! And he looked cheap. Laying on the ground, weighed down with heavy chains, was a boy who looked around the same age as me. Flies buzzed around him, obviously smelling blood in the water like sharks. His one leg looked broken and infected, a weird bump rising under the skin of a peculiar colour.

“What’d he do?” I asked.

The man simply shrugged his shoulders. “Something.”

Let it be known that I was not a complete monster. “What’s your cheapest slave who has committed a crime? Preferably a grievous one.”

I was shown a different slave, this time a thin young man with an ugly face. Arrested for rape. Perfect. “I’ll take this one.”

“Very well. That will be 4 silver and 60 copper.”

I handed the man his money. Then, I was given a contract in which I had to spill a drop of blood on it combined with a drop of the slave's blood. With that done, the chains around the slave's neck were unlocked, and the man immediately bolted.

“Stop!”

The man's legs stopped moving beneath him and he fell forward. “Damn you! When I get free, I’ll rip that ugly red mop off your head!”

Red? I thought my hair looked more brown than red. It kind of had that red clay colour. Combine that with my vibrant green eyes and freckles across my nose, I would call myself pretty cute.

“Shut your mouth you filthy mongrel!” I kicked the downed man in the side of the head with my boot, causing a rivulet of blood to stain the side of his face. “I’ll also take the boy.” I pointed at his small half-dead form on the ground.

…

I had bought a few other things from the caravan, chief among them, camping supplies. I set up a temporary camp outside of the village, but close enough to walk back and resupply if I needed to. I didn’t want any prying eyes.

The first thing I did was take the boy's slave contract and have Citru burn it. I didn’t want a slave. Slavery is wrong. Then I began to tend to the boys' wounds. Good thing I brought some spare potions, but my stock was limited. I couldn't make more, at least for now.

With the boy stabilized, I moved my attention over to the criminal slave. “Lay down and open your mouth.” The man did it, but in his eyes, you could tell he was unwilling, fighting against the compulsion for as long as he could before he finally gave in.

“Swallow.” I poured the new drowsy potion down the man's throat. Then I stepped back and took out a leather-bound notebook and an enchanted feather pen Gladgleer had given me.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The man actually fell asleep! But then his skin began to turn pale, and sweat flowed from his pores. I waited and noted down my observations. After an hour, he woke up breathing heavily.

“Water!” The man croaked through chapped lips.

I handed the man a water skin, that he sucked back like an elephant. After that, his body returned to normal.

It seemed that this drowsy potion was useless! Looked like it caused a person to sweat, causing dehydration while asleep. It could kill someone if it kept them asleep, but the sleep effect didn’t appear to be very strong.

“Well. I’ve got what I need. Time to set you free.” After all. Slavery is wrong.

I rummaged around in my new camp backpack until I found my new knife. Or perhaps it would be better classified as a dagger. It was thin, pointed, and long, with a 34cm blade. Seemed like overkill to me, but the merchant swore that it was great for monsters, and I reluctantly agreed. Monsters could get very large, necessitating larger weapons to hit anything vital.

The dagger ran through the man's eye and into his brain as he screamed bloody murder. I moved the dagger up and down, making sure to slice as many neurons as I could, and he collapsed with a final shudder. I wiped the dagger off with a rag, which I then through into the fire. I then bound the man's hands together with rope, and used that rope to drag him into the forest before his shit could leak through his pants and make my camp stinky.

It took a lot of grunting and heaving to move the man. Even though he was thin, he was still a grown man. I thought about burning him, but I really didn’t like the smell of burning meat and hair. Blegh! Plus the burning meat would attract monsters. The wolves would take care of the body for me.

When I returned back to camp, I got a small trowel and dug up the earth where small splashes of blood had fallen, carrying the clumps away into the forest near the body.

When all was done, I went back and checked on my temporary patient, only to find him gone. My second backpack was opened and all the stuff was strewn across the ground, with only a few missing items. Those items being bread, cheese, and other foodstuffs.

“Mother fucker!”

There went my plan to turn the kid into a packhorse! Whatever happened to payback? The good kind, of course. Such as paying me back for saving his life. These fucking Saial humans!

I took a deep breath and released it, a portion of the anger leaving with the air from my lungs.

It looked like I would have to buy a horse. But my funds were running pretty low, I’m not sure if I could afford one.

*Thunk*

An arrow landed between my feet, although calling it an arrow was a bit of a stretch. More like a short sharpened stick with a notch in the end.

I whirled around only to be met with another, thicker stick meeting my face.

My head whipped back from the force of the blow as my hands madly fumbled with my dagger sheath, trying to draw the stupid thing. Finally succeeding, I ducked another swing and stabbed forward with the dagger sliding between the ribs of the green-skinned offender, a now screaming goblin. I heard another impact as an arrow sprouted from the goblin's back, causing its already screaming maw to scream even louder, this time with a tinge of anger.

I tugged back my dagger and thrust it into the belly of the goblin, then tugged upwards, hard. The belly opened, causing the goblin to hunch over and hold its stomach in an attempt to keep all its organs inside.

Shoving the goblin aside, I scanned the surroundings.

There!

A goblin head peaked up from a dip in the ground, an arrow following soon after. I turned to the side as the arrow wizzed past me, and then charged the remaining goblin.

It was just knocking another arrow when I dove at it from above and tackled it to the ground. We wrestled back and forth for a bit until I wrangled it beneath me, legs straddling it. Then I stabbed down with the dagger, over and over until it was dead, turning its chest from green to red.

I was just wiping some blood from my eye when I was bowled over from behind, my head hitting the dead goblin beneath me. There was a sharp pain in my shoulder as I felt a multitude of toothy pinpricks pierce my skin. I quickly pushed myself up and over, slamming the bugger on my shoulder to the ground, causing its jaw to loosen enough for me to wrench my shoulder free.

It was the first goblin, its guts now hanging out. I quickly stabbed down through the goblin's throat, finally ending the thing's life.

“You fucking green bastard! Ugh.” I reached up and clutched at my shoulder in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Standing up, I hobbled over to my box backpack and took out a healing potion. I popped the cap and sucked back the bitter red liquid.

The potion slowly went to work, spreading through my body. Deciding to experiment a bit, I activated my flesh cauldron skill. I could feel the health potion in my body, spreading from my stomach outwards. Focusing on it, I directed the potion towards my shoulder and face, and it worked. The potion quickly made its way halfway towards my shoulder before I lost control, no doubt my vitality running out.

Why did goblins suddenly show up? I made sure to dispose of the body far from my camp. And I didn’t cook any meat, unless… The blood-soaked rag that I threw in the fire.

“Fuck me!”