“Fwah! I want this one! Mash, buy me this one!”

The streets of Gran Torte—the bustling grand capital of the world—are vibrant with swathes of lively people. The sounds and smells of festivities fill the air as people of all different kinds roam the paved paths along the outside edges of the stadium.

With no matches scheduled today, a short break in the tournament has allowed both slaves and their trainers a day of fun and rest. Although, the excitement of the tournament is still in full force. On this day of rest, many shops, stalls, and exhibitions have been set up around the outside of the stadium, with many excited stadium-goers seemingly eager to part with their money.

As I excitedly wander from stall to stall, I’m hoping I can convince Mash to be one of those overeager money-spenders too.

“We already have enough of these,” Mash replies, shaking his head. “We don’t need another. Plus, this one’s way too expensive...”

“Lame..." Disappointed, I move on to the next stall. "Fwah! This one's cute! How about this one?"

“Th-there’s a lot of different stalls here... Do you really have to pick something from these ones? Wouldn’t you rather food or a souvenir or something?”

“No! I want one of these!” I reply. “I want a slave too!”

Right now, I’m shopping for slaves with Mash. Or, at least, I’d like to be, but Mash insists that these slaves are too expensive for him and we should go buy something more normal like food or some kind of shirt or cap with the Queen’s face and the words ‘I ♥ Kokoro’ on it instead. I mean, those sound nice too, but I also really want a slave. Being a slave is fun, but owning one sounds just as great!

“Hey, gorilla, Mash, over here.” From nearby, Bran calls the two of us over to him, poking a finger over to something that seems to have caught his fancy. “I want this one.”

It’s another slave. A super cute elf with long, blonde hair and pretty, pointed ears.

“Why are the two of you so intent on buying slaves...?”

“Don’t put me on the same level as the gorilla,” Bran snaps back at Mash. “I want a slave so I can rescue her from the future of abuse she’d be fated to endure if some bad guy bought her instead. Of course, if she felt compelled to fall in love with me in return for treating her nicely, that’d just be a perfectly natural occurrence that couldn’t be helped! It would be a choice she’d be making of her own free will! A perfectly natural progression of events! Unlike the gorilla, who only wants a cute slave so she can put her tongue in their mouth without legal repercussion!”

“I want a cute slave so I can put my tongue in her mouth without legal repercussion!” I respond with a fervent nod.

With slaves being closer to ‘property’ than people, I don’t think the laws of sexual harassment really apply to them. It’d be like sticking my tongue in a mailbox. Mildly frowned upon, but perfectly legal!

“Keh! What are you idiots doing?” From nearby Mei-Mei draws our attention and waves the three of us over to her, nodding over to something that caught her interest. “I want this one.”

More slaves.

From in front of her, little green goblins thrash around a single cage, each one shackled by heavy chains. The cage is crammed to the brink with the dirty little creatures, but Mei-Mei seems to have her eye on one in particular...

“Can’t we buy something that isn’t a slave?” Mash complains. “And why a goblin of all things...?”

“It’s Cursed,” Mei-Mei replies. “I want to do research on it.”

“Cursed?”

“Yes.” Mei-Mei pokes a finger towards one of the goblins in the pack. “Look. That one’s female.”

Hm? A female goblin? Now that I get a closer look at it...

“Fwah! She’s right! It’s a girl goblin!”

Typically a male-only species of worthless, not-cute-at-all bags of meat whose only role in this world is to exist as barely-sentient slabs of jerky, goblin girls aren’t a thing and they don’t exist. But this one is definitely a girl! Its face and body are a lot more feminine, and it’s actually got hair! Like, actual head hair, instead of the usual disgusting tufts of patchy body hair you might typically find on one. Even my hardened glutes are twitching in excitement at the sight of the cute girl in front of me. This goblin is, without a doubt, a goblin girl!

I prod at the plump slaver and plead alongside the dead dwarf. “Mash! I want this one too! Let’s get this one too!”

"I—I really don't want to buy another slave..." he replies. "Not at full price anyway. My wife would kill me once she found out..."

"... Hah?" Bran suddenly freezes in his tracks, turning towards the sweaty man with cold disdain. "What do you mean ‘your wife’?”

“W-well, my wife and I have been saving up for a new place in the city, but— O-ow!”

Joining in with the prodding, Bran starts poking at the man too, albeit a little more forcefully than me and Mei-Mei.

“Why?!” Bran complains. “Why do you have a wife?! I’ve been tolerating the fact that I’m being forced to follow another guy’s orders because I thought we were in the same boat and our characters were kind of similar! But we’re not the same at all!”

“Hey.” I start prodding a little harder too. “Is your wife cute? If she is, can I kiss— can I meet her? I want to meet her.”

I notice Mei-Mei’s prodding start to speed up as well. “Hurry up and pull out your coin purse, greaseball. I’m buying this one.”

After another minute of prodding the sweaty slaver into submission, we finally manage to get him to agree to spending some money.

“Well, they aren’t exactly skilled labour, so I guess goblins aren’t that expensive,” he says, reluctantly handing over some coins to the one in charge of the monster stall. “As long as it’s just a single goblin though...”

Pointing out the goblin we want, the guy in charge of the stall nods and picks up one of the chains at his feet. Yanking it towards him, the girl goblin screeches as she's yanked across the cage and up against the bars.

“This the one you wanted?” he asks.

“Yes, thank you.” Mei-Mei nods.

“And would you like a collar and chain with your purchase?”

At the monster seller’s question, Mei-Mei looks up at Mash expectantly.

“W-well, I didn’t expect to buy another slave today, so I didn’t bring my own...”

“Alright, that’ll be extra then.”

With a defeated look, Mash hands over another coin as the monster seller opens the cage and brings the goblin out to us.

“Fwah! It’s cute!” I shout holding the tiny green girl up by the armpits and holding her out in front of me. “It’s a goblin but it’s cute!”

“Kiiikiikii!” it screeches back, attempting to violently tear its claws and teeth through the flesh on my arms. An entirely fruitless endeavour, of course. Serving only to tickle the hardened muscles making up my chiselled forearms.

“Here,” I say, passing her over to Bran. “I still have some shopping to do so you can take care of her for now.”

“Why?!” he complains as I set the goblin on the ground, placing the long chain trailing from her metal collar into his reluctant hands.“Why me?! Why not the other two?!”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“You can’t expect somebody smaller and weaker than the average goblin to do it, so Mei-Mei’s out of the question. And Mash still has to buy me stuff. So you gotta do it.”

“Just because the reasoning makes sense, doesn’t make it any less unreasonable!”

After some short squabbling, I manage to eventually coerce the whining man into taking control of the goblin’s chain and the five of us continue to wander around to the different stalls. Much to his annoyance, many among the crowd shoot Bran an accusing glance as the little goblin girl lurches at anyone who passes us by, attempting to claw, bite, and tear at their shins. Like an owner walking a particularly unruly dog, Bran is forced into a constant stream of apologies as he embarrassedly bows his head at all the disgruntled people while wrestling with the chain of the violent green girl.

Now, since Mei-Mei got to buy a cute slave...

I lick my lips as I browse the selection of slaves being sold across the different stalls.

“Fwah~! Which one should I—? Ah...”

Wandering past one of the cages in particular, I suddenly stop in my tracks...

Inside, two vaguely familiar figures rattle against the bars of their cage, loudly cursing at their captors while also arguing with one another for some reason.

“We’re not criminals! This is illegal confinement!” one of them calls out. “I told you, we weren’t prisoners, I daresay! We were guards!”

“That’s right!” the other adds. “I’m used to throwin’ others in cages, so it’s a bit awkward being in one myself! Haha—! Oof.”

“Stop joking around, I daresay! Why are you wolfmen always so boneheaded!”

“Speaking of awkward... You leave your sense of humour under all that rubble back at the Spire or are elves just born like that?”

Spending a minute watching the two men squabbling away, I eventually turn back to the companions at my back.

“Hey, do you think we should—?”

“Not these guys,” Bran interrupts, cutting me off.

Mei-Mei is the next to speak up. “We wouldn’t have to buy them or anything. We could easily clear up their situation for them, and in return, they could assist us in—"

“Not these guys,” Bran interrupts again.

It seems Bran’s still a little upset over a particular poop-related incident that happened back in the Curse Ward of Surstrom Spire...

Oh well.

Ignoring the two captive Spire guards, we continue along our way, until...

“Fwah! This one’s cute! I want this one!”

I come to a stop at a cute-looking slave, chained inside her cage. Despite her scaly green hands and long reptilian tail, the rest of her skin is smooth and pale, with two pointed ears sticking out from beneath a puffy white hat sitting atop her lime-coloured hair. She looks vaguely familiar somehow...

“... pudding, pudding, pudding...” she murmurs to herself, the chains from her restraints rattling against her metal collar as she whisks at some kind of bowl in her hands.

“Oh? Interested in this one?” The man in charge of the stall approaches me. He stops when he sees the collar around my neck, and turns towards Mash instead, looking at him expectantly.

“Eh? A-ah, no. Well...” Mash shoots a short glance my way, before turning his eyes to the floor in defeat. “Y-yeah, I guess I am...”

“Oh! Well, you’ve got a great eye there picking this one out!” The man gives the bars of the cage a little tap with the butt of his whip. “This one here’s a real chef! Freshly plucked from the collapse of the Spire, this one is always eager to whip up some pudding! Any time you’re hankering for some pudding, don’t worry, it’ll already have it ready and waiting for you! Hosting a dinner party and expecting a bunch of guests? Don’t worry! No matter how many you’ve got coming over, there’ll always be enough pudding! In fact, you’ll have so much pudding you won’t even know what to do with it all!”

“Okay... Does she make anything other than pudding?”

“W-well, no...” The slaver nervously shuffles his feet at Mash’s question. “To be honest, it only wants to make pudding.”

“And if I wanted her to make something else...?”

“Well, you can try to get her to, but...”

“But...?”

“It... becomes irate if it’s not constantly making pudding. In fact, the last three slavers that owned it mysteriously passed away in a saucepan-related incident because they either refused or forgot to resupply it with the means to make pudding...”

“What the hell is a ‘saucepan-related incident’?!” Bran interjects, still finding the opportunity to complain while forced into a game of tug-of-war against the screechy goblin girl. “That’s clearly not a ‘mystery’! She clearly beat those guys to death with a cooking implement for such a weirdly psychotic reason!”

She sounds like my kind of slave!

“We’ll take her!” I exclaim.

“No, we won’t!” Mash snaps back. “L-look, I’ll let you get one, just not one that might eventually get me mysteriously killed in a saucepan-related incident because I forgot to buy it ingredients...”

“Lame...”

Dejectedly moving on from the cute, pudding-obsessed half-elf, half-lizard slave, I continue my way down the stalls, until—

“Hm?”

An intense aura of bloodlust from nearby causes my back muscles to spasm in wild excitement. It’s the same feeling I felt when I first encountered Wrath and Lust back at the Spire.

Something strong is nearby.

Turning towards the direction of the feeling, I notice the people filling the streets have started to gather together, excitedly gossiping to one another about the new focus of their attention. Snippets of their conversation brush past my ears as I make my way over, pushing my way through the restless crowds.

“Is that Cinn-Thea? The Champion of Sin?”

“So I guess the rumours were true...”

“... But how? I thought the demons wiped them all out a thousand years ago...”

“I heard she found it frozen in ice at the top of Mount Kyuri-Cumber.”

“Those horns have gotta be fake, right? I mean, there’s no way that thing can be real!”

Pushing through the swelling crowds and their excitable chatter, I eventually force my way to the front, immediately stopping to stare out across the street at the spectacle that has everybody enraptured.

It’s a slave. A monster slave. Although, from what I can tell, it’s not just any monster...

Out of caution for their own safety, the crowds have given it a wide berth. Understandably so. If my back muscles are any kind of measurement to go by, I’m sure this thing could kill everybody here with a single swipe of its lengthy claws if it wasn’t in this unfortunate state.

Heavy chains bind the entirety of its body, wrapped thickly around almost every inch of its tall, hulking form. The multiple ends of the chains trail out in all directions, with many bulky-looking slaves gripping tightly to each end, pulling them taut as they strain under the resistance of the creature they're attempting to steer across the stone pavement. Barely visible through the many chains binding its body, I can make out the coal-black eyes, boiling with sheer bloodlust above its gagged mouth. Its hair is a striking blood-red, and above that—horns. Huge white horns curl up from atop its crimson head in an intimidating fashion.

I’ve never seen one before with my own eyes, but I can immediately tell what it is...

“Hm...? An oni, is it?” Mei-Mei asks, crawling beneath the legs of the crowds to stand by my side. “A friend of yours?”

I shake my head. “This is the first time I’ve seen one. I thought Mom killed them all.”

Oni. Like goblins, this gross male-only species used to go be a real pest back in the day. Except, unlike goblins, these guys were strong. Strong enough to rival demons. I've only heard stories about it from Mom, but the oni used to be a pretty big deal back then, being just as feared as us demons. That was until Mom killed the oni king—the first Wrath—and then hunted them all into extinction, of course. Well, at least that’s what we all thought. But with its black eyes, crimson hair, and the distinct, demon-like horns protruding from its head, this thing in front of me can’t be anything other than a real flesh and blood oni. I’m sure of it.

“Keh-heh! An oni and a demon on the streets of Gran Torte, huh?" Mei-Mei cackles to herself, her comments going unnoticed by the enraptured crowds. "I know you probably want to fight that thing, but we're not in the Spire any more. Try to hold it in, okay? I'd rather not go back to prison again if that's alright with you."

“...”

I don’t have anything to retort to that. Mei-Mei know me pretty well, it seems...

“Hm?” Directing the path of the restrained oni, I notice a familiarly erotic, blonde-haired woman clad in black leather, cracking her whip across the backs of all the bulky-looking dudes tugging at the chains.

“Get a move on! I haven’t got all day!” she shouts at them. “I want this oni moved into the stadium twenty minutes ago! Get to it!”

“Yes, Mistress...” the men reply in unison, straining under the resistance of the struggling oni.

Fwah! It’s Cinnamon! And it seems this oni belongs to her too! I don’t know how she got her hands on one when they’re supposed to be extinct, but I guess that’s why she’s such a big deal among slavers. Being the ‘Champion of Sin’ and one of the Elitist Four and all. I’ll have to ask her about it later. Hopefully during another date!

“Hey! Cinnamon!” I wave to the woman, attempting to draw her attention. “It’s me, Pepper! Hey!”

Her sharp grey eyes seem to soften for a moment as they glance my way, before falling back into a scowl as she turns her back towards me.

Ah, maybe she doesn’t wanna be bothered while she’s working, I guess...

Standing at the front of the still-chattering crowd, I watch as Cinnamon and her slaves slowly drag the bound oni past the stalls and towards the back of the stadium, eventually disappearing out of sight and into the walled-off area beyond.

...

An oni, huh...?

“Fwahahaha!” I laugh, startling the dispersing crowds as they make to resume their fun and festivities.

There’s only one reason why Cinnamon would be bringing something like that into the arena, and that’s to fight! And judging by the way things have been moving so far...

“Looks like I’ll be the one to finish what Mom started!” I slam an eager fist against the palm of my hand. “Pepper Black is a woman who will bring the oni race into extinction! Once and for all!”