”Hey mister, what are these giant walls below us?” I muttered as I was leaning on the edge of the casket and admiring this wall illuminated by the sunset making the scenery more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before.
“It’s a wall built by humans over a thousand to keep ouwt beastmen when they still thought of demi-humans as disgusting creatures bred by combining humans and animals. Noadays demi-humans and humans think of each other as equals though elves are thought of as greater existences blessed by gods because of your long lifespan, good looks and natural affinity for magic. Many nobles would probably even avoid buying you since they are afraid of upsetting god for harming one of his children.”
“Hehe, then what about you mister, aren’t you afraid of helping the slavers and being cursed by god?”
“I am, that’s exactly why you are currently eating my fried potatoes while I’m munching rice… but money for my future generations is more important than my life so I will bring you to Ratia no matter what, even if I had to walk and carry you there myself!” Staring at the hayfields and lights radiating from small villages, I noticed a flock of falcons flying toward us!
“You better hold on that promise because there are some mean looking birds chasing us, mister!”
“Huh? Where? Show me quickly If you value your life, little miss!”
“Look there!” I pointed at the falcons flying at us at high speed and as mister finally saw the birds he took a deep breath and sighed in relief as his serious face slowly faded into a smile.
“Don’t worry little miss, those birds aren’t hostile, they’re probably coming to see if we can lend them some food, I’ll use analyze to confirm.”
Analyze
Analyze is a basic skill all beginner adventurers should learn first. It allows one to inspect monsters’, animals’ and equipments stats, skills and their value as well as their hostility rating against you, but only if your lever is higher than whatever it is you’re trying to inspect. Mister said earlier that you can learn all basic skills at the adventurer’s guilds houses all around the continent. Since mister is already level 150 which is considered to be good even with the Euria kingdom’s knights, he can use analyze on even the wyvern we are riding.
As I was thinking when I can learn skills too, the falcons caught up to us and sat in a line on the edge of our casket, tilting their heads while looking at the fried potatoes I’m holding on my right hand.
“Hey there birdies, are you hungry too? Don’t worry, I have food for every one of you cuties!”
At first I thought of them as scary but as they sat next to me while tilting their heads and making low “Kiii” sounds I couldn’t help but think of them as cute, although every one of them is bigger than mister and he is atleast 185 centimeters tall!
“Don’t get too close to them, little miss. They might get greedy and try to grab the potatoes you’re holding and accidentally grab your fingers too! And what do you mean we have plenty of food, you’ve already stuffed 80% of the food I gave you in your mouth! I don’t even get where all that fits…”
“Thank you for your warning mister, but we still have plenty of dry bread left don’t we? We can the bread to feed them, can’t we?
“Hah?! The bread is mine and I sure as hell am not giving it to some wild beas-!”
“I’ll only say this once, if you don’t give me your bread right this moment, I will make sure you and your future generations will be cursed with bad luck!”
“Kuk… you little… fine!”
Mister reached out to a locker and took out a poach with bread then threw it to my side, scattering the bread to the ground. The moment I saw that happen I was sure the casket would be chaotic for the next few minutes but the falcons only sat on the edge, not moving a muscle and knew not to eat anything if it wasn’t given by my hand. I couldn’t help but commend them for their self-control in my heart. I grabbed a slice of bread and fed it to the bird closest to me.
“Here, birdie! Say aaa…”
The bird took the bread out of my hand faster than I could even see and swallowed it in one gulp as I reached out to pet his neck. After satisfying my urges of petting it, I took the poach and one by one fed them all one slice of bread until only 5 pieces were left.
“That’s it birdies, we don’t have more to spare.”
“Kiiiii”
“Kiii”
The falcons had satisfied expressions as they thanked me in their own way by screeching and then departed, leaving me with mister who wore a miserable expression as the took poach only to see 5 slices remaining.
“I’m going to sleep now, goodnight mister.” I said teasingly and pulled out a pillow and a cover to keep me warm during the night.
“Goodnight, little miss” I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was contemplating whether to fulfill his mission or just throw me overboard and go to home and sleep.
3 days later.
It’s morning and sunlight is slowly coating the horizon with a tint of gold. Watching the huge city called Rutia surrounded by its tall and robust walls being painted gold was truly a mesmerizing sight. There were already farmers below us starting to harvest their hay- and cottonfields and deer-like animals were gathering near a lake to start their day with a drink.
Taking a closer look at the city we were approaching, I noticed it had two huge towers, one in the middle of the city, what I assumed to be the royal palace and the other building being a school dedicated to people with talent for magic and/or literature.
“Mister, wake up! We are arriving soon at Rutia!” I jumped on misters stomach as his snoring sounded like a mighty orc lord’s war cry.
“I get it, I get it so get off of me already you damn brat!”
“Hmph”
“Haa… what a pain” mister was rubbing his eyes and whining as I kicked him one more time before finally getting off him. How does he even sleep so comfortable in this trembling casket combined with the howling wind.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Put on the dress I gave you, we have to hurry since the auction is starting in 3 hours from now” Mister said as he glanced at his magic artifact on his wrist, similar to a wrist watch from earth. After I put on my dress, I then again leaned on the ledge and watched mister command the wyvern to descend slowly by putting his hand on the dragons neck.
“Mister, how are you able to tell the wyvern what to do? Is it magic?”
“Yes, when I was still an adventurer my class was called “tamer” and what we would do is brainwash monsters by weakening them until they collapse of exhaustion and then we force a soul contract on them, making them our minions. Under normal circumstances I couldn’t capture a wyvern, but me and my party were sent out on a rank A subjugation mission to defeat a wyvern causing harm to a small village, and after following it to its den, we killed it while it slept and looted an egg taller than 1 meter, which would soon be crack open and reveal a small green-scaled wyvern, about the size of a dog. Since it was still a baby I could easily tame it but maybe I shouldn’t have done that, it’s a little sad to see such a majestic beast be used for transporting mere slaves.”
“But how do you communicate with it when you command it?”
“Hmm… I don’t know but I heard an explanation before that your thoughts are transmitted to them when you touch them and they will understand from that but it hasn’t been confirmed. I do feel his life force and mana pool when I touch this wyvern so I believe that theory to be correct.”
I looked out of the casket and saw that we were only about one kilometer away from the city gates where a queue of hundreds of carriages was formed.
“Mister, how are we supposed to make it in time if there Is such a long wait before us?” Not that I care about it though, it’s only better for me if we don’t make it, I think…
“We don’t have to wait in the queue, little missy, I brought a permit with me so we can enter the city as we like if I show it to the guards.”
Kuk! Out of all the times, why do you have to be so reliable now?!
We landed near the gates, startling all the horses in process and got down with a ladder which mister threw out the casket. Two angry looking guards instantly approached us and started yelling angrily while threatening to arrest mister, but their tone turned into a respectful one instantly after mister took the permit out of his back pocket. As one of the guards finished reading it and confirming it was real he turned his back to us and told us to follow him. After walking for a hundred meters and reaching the main gate, we entered a building connected to the huge wall.
“Mister, wake up! We are arriving soon at Rutia!” I jumped on misters stomach as his snoring sounded like a mighty orc lord’s war cry.
“I get it, I get it so get off of me already you damn brat!”
“Hmph”
“Haa… what a pain” mister was rubbing his eyes and whining as I kicked him one more time before finally getting off him. How does he even sleep so comfortable in this trembling casket combined with the howling wind.
“Put on the dress I gave you, we have to hurry since the auction is starting in 3 hours from now” Mister said as he glanced at his magic artifact on his wrist, similar to a wrist watch from earth. After I put on my dress, I then again leaned on the ledge and watched mister command the wyvern to descend slowly by putting his hand on the dragons neck.
“Mister, how are you able to tell the wyvern what to do? Is it magic?”
“Yes, when I was still an adventurer my class was called “tamer” and what we would do is brainwash monsters by weakening them until they collapse of exhaustion and then we force a soul contract on them, making them our minions. Under normal circumstances I couldn’t capture a wyvern, but me and my party were sent out on a rank A subjugation mission to defeat a wyvern causing harm to a small village, and after following it to its den, we killed it while it slept and looted an egg taller than 1 meter, which would soon be crack open and reveal a small green-scaled wyvern, about the size of a dog. Since it was still a baby I could easily tame it but maybe I shouldn’t have done that, it’s a little sad to see such a majestic beast be used for transporting mere slaves.”
“But how do you communicate with it when you command it?”
“Hmm… I don’t know but I heard an explanation before that your thoughts are transmitted to them when you touch them and they will understand from that but it hasn’t been confirmed. I do feel his life force and mana pool when I touch this wyvern so I believe that theory to be correct.”
I looked out of the casket and saw that we were only about one kilometer away from the city gates where a queue of hundreds of carriages was formed.
“Mister, how are we supposed to make it in time if there Is such a long wait before us?” Not that I care about it though, it’s only better for me if we don’t make it, I think…
“We don’t have to wait in the queue, little missy, I brought a permit with me so we can enter the city as we like if I show it to the guards.”
Kuk! Out of all the times, why do you have to be so reliable now?!
We landed near the gates, startling all the horses in process and got down with a ladder which mister threw out the casket. Two angry looking guards instantly approached us and started yelling angrily while threatening to arrest mister, but their tone turned into a respectful one instantly after mister took the permit out of his back pocket. As one of the guards finished reading it and confirming it was real he turned his back to us and told us to follow him. After walking for a hundred meters and reaching the main gate, we entered a building connected to the huge wall.
“Welcome to Rutia, my name is Mika and I am an employee of the auction hall, sent to pick you up, we got a call that you would arrive soon.” As I walked into the building I was instantly greeted by a young man as he got up from his chair and flashed a smile at me. I took cover behind misters back as If trying to run away from reality as cold sweat ran down my spine.
“Hello, my name is Steve and this little miss’ name is luna, take good care of her.” As I waved my hand at Mika, mister turned to me and patted my head, then walked out the door after exchanging goodbyes. I only knew him for a week but I grew strangely close to him even though he was only selling me off.
“Now then, luna, we don’t have much time so let’s get going right away. On our way to the auction house I will teach you what to do on the stage and when to come in, alright?”
“O-okay...”
After we walked in trough the gate, I was instantly reminded of paintings of europes cities from 1400. It also brought up good memories of my favourite computer game I played on earth, I think it was something like the witcher… The buildings all looked like they were from the same universe of that game but instead of muddy ground and hookers crowding the streets, the ground instead consisted of a material similar to marble and shined as the sun covered it. There were also no peasants sitting on the ground begging for money nor prostitutes blowing kisses at men passing by. Only shops and apartments with impressive architecture were seen in the surroundings as people of all races including dwarves, beastkin and humans were flocking the streets going to their everyday work as merchants and blacksmiths.
As I was staring at a muscular dwarf who was only taller than me by approximately 10 centimeters, show off long, knotted orange hair and a beard thicker than wool of lambs, I felt an attractive, strong smell tickle my nose and I swifted my gaze to a nearby street stall selling dumplings.
Mika noticed me staring at the dumplings the owner of the street stall was handing out to people and gave me money to go buy one if I promised to be quick.
“Thank you mika, I already like you!” I shouted as I ran to the stall and stuffed my mouth after I got ahold of the dumpling.
After 40 minutes of walking
“Got it? I’ll say it once more, when the older sister with green hair tells you to climb on the stage, just walk up next to the crystal and wait for further instructions by the host. Simple, right?
“Yep, goodbye Mika, thank you for the dumpling once more!” We were already at the auction house and I sat next to the green haired older-sister who guided me to a waiting lobby after leaving Mika. I watched as others got up one by one and left the room as cold sweat ran down my spine and i trembled when i realised that depending on who buys me, i won't be able to see my family again! When only me and the older-sister were left in the room, we got up and stood behind the curtains of the stage and listened to people bid for the slave who was currently up.
“1 200 0000”
“1 800 0000”
"2 400 0000”
"..."
“2 400 000 going once, going twice… sold for 240 0000 gold coins to number 79!”
“Now, for the main dish of today, we present you an elf child captured from the beastkin continent!”
Older-sister assisted me in climbing up to the stage and I walked up to the crystal being supported by a pole with symbols like other magic artifacts.
“Now, please place your right hand on the crystal, miss.”
I pressed my palm against it and it flashed the same two colours as when I did the ritual with a priest, when I was still a baby. Everyone in the hall instantly saw the potential in me and anxiously waited until they could start bidding.
“Bids start from 1 000 000 gold coins and minimum bid must be atleast 1 000 000 gold coins!”
“15 000 000”
A wealthy looking man surrounded by 5 royal guards silenced the hall and many sighs could be heard.