“Seriously, is it worth more than I can offer?” I took a step forward angrily.

The girl turned back to me and raised an eyebrow. “Just about anything?”

I blinked. “You need food and water to live!”

“We have food and water to live. Your food and water may have a great taste and sell well, but it is merely a luxury.” She explained calmly.

“A-a luxury?”

“You forget one of the biggest rules of merchants, Daniel,” Jacques spoke up, casually leaning against a chair. “People spend money on what they need. You may be able to convince the normal peons to drop a week’s salary for a tasty meal, but when you’re dealing with someone like a merchant group or a slave trader, you need to see the whole picture.”

“What whole picture?”

“There is only so much food needed. Only so many mouths to feed. As a slave trader, I don’t struggle to obtain food. As is, we have coffers that will feed my entire people for over a year. Nutrient mush isn’t the most satisfying meal, but there are many things more important to use than fresh food.”

“By offering them a billion dollars of food, you’ve created a paradox,” Jacques spoke up. “It’s simple supply and demand. The more food they buy, the more they will be supplied. The more supply, the less demand. The cost of food would plummet. In a way, it’s impossible to sell a billion dollars worth of food, because long before you reached that amount the value of that food would have plummeted to worthlessness. Once everyone has food, no one will want it.”

I lowered my head bitterly. I was only at the end of my high school career. I had heard about supply and demand, but I never truly considered it. I had heard how much I could get a meal for, and I had assumed that such a rate would lead to infinite profits. I had thought I was sitting on an infinite gold mine. Yet, time and time again, I was reminded that this was merely a fancy of someone who didn’t understand money.

My food hadn’t been enough to get people to risk their factions traveling across the blockade, so why did I think it was so valuable here? I had even practiced it when I made the restaurant. People weren’t interested in the supply. They were interested in a warm meal that combined a lot of ingredients that was normally impossible for them.

“Daniel, don’t look so depressed.” Jacques scratched the back of his head. “You might have lost this time, but this was all fixed from the beginning. I gave her something that she couldn’t say no to.”

“What could that be?” I demanded.

Jacques glanced at the Sovereign Gunner, who shrugged. “Now that I have it, I don’t care if anyone knows that we lost it.”

“It’s not common knowledge. Information is power, Daniel. It’s the one thing you lack to become a successful merchant. You need to know where the money is. I recently paid an information broker for a particularly interesting piece of information. The Gunner Slavers had recently had an incident. They lost their slave codex, or rather, it was stolen from them.”

“Slave codex?” I asked.

Although I was a little curious about what they were telling me, the reason I kept encouraging them to talk was because of Hazel. As long as the conversation continued, their would-be opportunity. Once it came to an end, then I would lose her. Their words had given me something to think about, but that didn’t mean I had given up entirely.

“The slave collars are created at a few unique locations called slave guilds, and a slave codex is necessary to lock and unlock slave collars. The codex is not handed out freely, and most of them are generational, passed down from father to child. You cannot make a copy of a codex, as the code is one-directional. As soon as the codex is transferred, the data is destroyed.”

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“Like a blockchain?” I asked.

I had looked into bitcoin at one point as a means of making money. In the end, it had frightened me and I didn’t understand it enough, but her description of a codex sort of sounded like that.

She blinked. “I don’t know what that is, but if it functions in such a manner, then you can understand the danger in transferring the codex. A slaver that doesn’t have a codex cannot reassign slave collars or free slaves. They cannot reset old slave collars either. Essentially, they are locked out. This is why normal people require slave traders to do all interactions involving slaves. In exchange, the slavers are expected to maintain a certain level of etiquette. If someone with a codex doesn’t follow the rules, well, you saw what happened to those that didn’t follow our rules. The slave collar makers are mysterious and deadly.”

“So, you lost your codex?”

“When my father grew sick, I was supposed to inherit the codex from his Perco. However, my dastardly brother snuck in, murdered my father, and stole the codex.”

“Your brother!” I was genuinely shocked.

“He had left to join a raider group a few years before. He thought that by giving them access to the slaver codex, that he would rise in the ranks.”

“The only group that hasn’t been allowed here, The Burning Fist.”

“Krux…” I couldn’t help but shake.

He had been trying to get Kiera and her Perco when I had outbid him. Ascension had seemingly imprisoned me and kept her. He had ended up torturing me all night for his amusement. His desire to get the Perco must have had something to do with the codex. That’s why he had gotten so angry when I had cockblocked him. Such a memory had left a dark impression in my mind. Other than Marsh and the Cock and Balls, The Burning Fist was the other clan on my shit list.

“You’re aware of them?” She cocked an eyebrow.

“You could say that,” I responded darkly. “Krux has a debt he needs to settle with me.”

“Hmph… whom around Argos city hasn’t that guy pissed off.” She shrugged. “The point was that we started this to sell off our remaining stock. I planned to abandon Argos city and head to a guild. I wanted to beg the guild and provide them a tribute. I also hoped they’d go after Burning Fist and level them to the ground!”

“Unlikely,” Jacques spoke up. “They are very stingy with codex and have never given one back to someone who lost one. As for retribution, the Burning Fist hasn’t technically done anything yet with the codex. Unless they violate some code, they wouldn’t move.”

Sovereign Gunner made a face. “Yes, well, it’s not like we had a choice. Jacques here approached me last week promising me he could triple out profits as long as he got a percentage. Now that I think about it, he was playing me the entire time. Why would I have sold off my entire stock if I knew I’d have a new codex? You waited until after the auction before revealing it so you could get 10% of the profits!”

Jacques let out a laugh, throwing up his hands. “Madame, wouldn’t you have paid even more if you knew I had it? This is just good business, oui?”

She gave him a dark smile but then sighed. “You’re right. In the end, whether you sell people, goods, or services… it’s all just business. You’ve won this round, Jacques. I’ve already put her collar in your name. Just take her and the winnings and leave.”

Jacques stood up and walked over, grabbing a large pack of crystals. He looked to have a ton in there. I ran over to Sovereign Gunner and quickly dropped the payment for the Perco, snatching it. She could only blink as I turned to Jacques.

“You’re not planning on leaving with the entire cryo unit, right?” I asked. “Can I… say goodbye to her one last time?”

“She’ll be unconscious for a bit after you wake her,” Gunner Sovereign said.

“That’s fine! I just want to say goodbye!” I declared, perhaps a bit too quickly.

Jacques looked at me suspiciously, but after a moment he nodded. “If you insist.”

Sovereign Gunner stepped up and clicked a few buttons. “I was originally going to sell the cry unit with her because we didn’t need such a thing while traveling, but since things have changed, excuse me for being greedy.”

Jacques chuckled. “I’m a mercenary. What use do I have for such a thing?”

There was a beeping sound of alert, and then after a moment, the door popped open, sending out a stream of cold air. As soon as I saw Hazel lying there, her eyes closed, her perfect face motionless, I immediately reached out and grabbed her. I had already hidden the dongle in my hand. As I hugged her, I plugged it in.

“Master code, unlock!” I whispered to Cecelia.

The fog just cleared when there was a click of the collar coming undone. Without hesitation, I snapped the Perco on her wrist and plugged the dongle into that.

“Master code, assign her user, tele-!”

Before I could say the next part, a hand wrapped around my mouth, and another grabbed my hand, yanking out the dongle. Jacques had moved far more quickly than I could have imagined, jumping over the cryo chamber. I had been so close. Even Sovereign Gunner was staring at us with a stunned look.

“That won’t be necessary, Daniel.” Jacques declared, as his hand let go of my mouth only to bring a gun to my head. “That won’t be necessary at all.”