I thought about the Duchess’ reaction for a while before putting it at the back of my mind, I also needed to do some urgent work today and could not be bothered with worrying about her. Shaking my head, I left the library, still with a twinge of worry about the Duchess. No matter, I just started to walk home. A newspaper boy, barely 14 by the looks of it, wanted to sell a paper to me right outside of the campus. I was about to refuse, but an interesting piece of news was on it so I just paid the little copper needed for it. The little boy, barely up to my shoulders, seemed to be happy but I just disregarded him from my mind the moment I started to walk away.

The road beside the sidewalk I was on was filled with noise, but nothing I couldn’t filter out of my mind. Sitting besides a woman that looked to be 30 years of age, I started reading the big piece of news on the front, one about a series of murders that had been going on for half a year by now. The woman besides me was smiling towards my direction, but she didn’t seem to want to initiate a conversation and neither did I. I wasn’t surprised the murderer wasn’t caught, anyone with real magic would have better things to do than track down some small murderer, the only reason it was even in the news was because of the brutality of the murders. One lady was completely decapitated, with her other limbs being severed and strewn about in a weird formation.

The modus operandi of this killer was easy to see, with each kill either being a brothel worker, or glorified prostitutes that sell their body online. Regardless of that, the brutality of each of the killings was noteworthy. I started to skim through the rest of the paper, might as well. Some new bill made by the Emperor, only affecting the nobility from the light read-through I did. I would have to ask the Duchess about it, but I quickly disregarded it. The new bill would hardly affect me anyway, so there was no need to really go into the specifics. What did catch my eye was a small section about the rising tensions between Iabrun, and the other superpower in the neighboring continent named Solaria.

The extent of what I knew about the place was that the military, commerce and industrial power was about equal to Iabrun. But there was a major difference, Iabrun came up similar to any other large country after The Last War. Conquering the neighboring states until they became large enough to go uncontested in their small area, Solaria was different though. The Last War ravaged their continent much harder than it did ours, with the old powers genocidng each other and the land to near sterility. Solaria was the only one standing by the end of it, a new country formed only 2 decades before the end of The Last War, united by the religion of The Eternal Sun. The Emperor of Iabrun had now seemed to finally set his sights on the only country that could still put up a resistance, but I didn’t understand why he would in such a time as the passing of the title.

Interesting, I would have to keep this in mind. I would rather not be caught up in the middle of a near world-crushing war. Some of the other races, the ones who live far longer than normal humans, still hold scars from The Last War, I imagine they would try their damndest to stop it from happening. The strings of fate, however, work in strange ways near no-one can comprehend. The woman besides me had left by the time I skimmed through the rest of the stories, none catching the eye even a little, well for someone as poor as me. Many advertisements were plastered, but all are completely out of my price range.

I started to walk to my home again, it had only been half an hour since I stopped to read and I still had plenty of time to walk home. I bought myself some ingredients, discounted poultry and rice because it was all I could afford, but I was already used to the less than ideal circumstances I was in. My mind slightly wandered off to the Duchess, but I reigned in my imagination that was conjuring up some favorable circumstances between us. Quickly disregarding the scenes in my head while walking inside my apartment complex in the lower-middle class part of the capital. It was in a small state of disrepair, but I couldn’t really do anything about it.

I started to prepare one of the only dishes I have mastered in my 3 years, chicken with pan sauce and rice. It was a small dish just for myself, and I started to eat it while taking out my phone. A 4 year old model, but it was still plenty functional and I had no other choice. All my savings went into something else, or should I say someone else? I was meeting them in a bit so I quickly ate my fill, saved some for tomorrow morning and started to run out of my apartment, completely shutting off my phone, taking it along with a spare credit card tied to a burner phone.

The bank was no good, too much of a risk showing my face there with the actions I plan to do later. Luckily, ATM machines with little surveillance were near to me, about half a kilometer off. I reached there quite easily, and inserted this credit card that was only going to be used by me only once. Withdrawing 10 gold pounds, a large part of my savings, I sped off from the dimly-lit area, it already felt like I was being watched there. Shaking my head, I went to a shady alley where I started to change into some new clothes. The disguise was nothing much, but it was enough to change my overall look. I burned my old clothes, the homeless around here would burn plenty of things to stay afloat for another day, and no one would think this was any different. The new outfit I have right now was a brand new sweater and jeans, along with shoes that had paddings in order to get me to 6’0 ft, my face was covered with glasses and a mask.

Masks, while not exactly common here, would not be an accessory that people would bat an eye at. The slums here have much more toxic air compared to my own area, just a few kilometers off. Shaking my head, I began to walk to the designated point, another alley 3 kilometers away. Narrowing my eyes in the alley, I saw exactly what I was here for. A woman, smaller than me in both height and demeanor, was standing in the alley. The slave trade was meant to be eradicated long ago, but this blight on society would never truly leave the Empires and Kingdoms on this world. There may be a spell, but none that I know of would change a million, let alone the tens of millions present in the small cities of Solaria and Iabrun. I wasn’t one to fancy myself a slave, but the idea to get myself a person who could do work while I was in school, earning me some money.

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Dispelling the weirdness inside me for owning a fellow human being, I walked into the alley, and put 7 Gold Pounds on a half-broken table near her. She was only 5’6, smaller than me by quite a bit and her demeanor didn’t betray her appearance. I didn’t think one could get any shyer than her, but I shook my head and told her to follow me in a low voice. She nodded and went behind me, a tracking spell I had used a bit earlier allowing me to detect 3 people near the area, but only one had enough mana for me to sense even a bit clearly, they were definitely the seller. My curiosity nearly got the better of me, but I stamped it down and left with the shy girl in tow.

I still had a weird feeling inside me, knowing my own mother was once abused as a slave and now I was owning one. It felt wrong… in some way, but this new girl should help alleviate much of the financial pressure on me. She tried to make herself look as small as possible while she was following me, but I didn’t pay attention to her. A slight smile crept on my face, 3 people were following us and it looked like they were about to strike in 75 meters. I prepped some elementary magic, I highly doubt these petty slave owners knew much about magic and some pretty lights that hurt enough to dissuade them should be enough. Though, just in case, I did use a pen in my sweater to discreetly scratch my skin, enough to draw some blood, in a magic seal used for quick access. I flooded it with enough Earth Mana to completely level a city block, of course I knew no spells that could make use of this amount of mana in one burst, the burden on my body instantly became much heavier, walking became much harder and sweat started to form.

Once I was done with my preparation, I quickly decided to get the upper hand in the upcoming battle by using a miniscule amount of Fire Mana in order to create a little firework, launching at the person following me on the rooftop. I could see the surprise in his eyes when the small fire attack hit him in the stomach. The other two ran towards me, but I did the same thing to them as I did to the first guy, but both seemed to expect it, doding and then kept running towards me. I channeled some Water Mana into my left hand and shot it out of the point of my finger, making the water turn into a deadly pinpoint of mana. It hit one of the people running towards me in their leg, effectively crippling them.

The other two weren’t dissuaded in the slightest though, I wondered why for a split second before getting my mind back to the less than ideal situation. I started to channel some small Earth Mana in my left hand again, my right arm was already completely saturated by Earth Mana and wouldn’t be able to use any other spells. The pain in it was getting worse, and if I didn’t dispel it or use all of it completely, my right arm could very well become a useless limb. The Earth Mana in my left hand made a small boulder under the first person who recovered from the firework, launching at their leg, shattering their bone. My right arm nearly had no response left in it so I quickly used some of the Earth Mana to both trap all 3 in a cage, solidifying their traps to the hardness of regular steel before quickly releasing the trapped Mana in my right arm to the surroundings, I still had 30% left in it but that was planned. I grabbed the slave girl, who was even more quiet than before, if that was even possible and quickly started to mold the Earth around us, making it a makeshift escalator similar to the ones seen in the largest stores here in the capital. It enveloped our feet and legs, before quickly rocketing off in a direction not too close nor too far from home.

After completely expending all the Earth Mana still left inside me, I was tired and laid down to rest in an alley 5 kilometers away from my home. The slave girl had a weird look in her eye, but I wasn’t focused much on that. I was still vigilant, but after nobody popped in my tracking spell coming directly towards us, I loosened up my tightened nerves and relaxed a bit. Standing up, I looked towards the slave girl in front of me, asking “What’s your name?”, I would rather not keep referring to her as a slave, even if that's what she is. She nervously looked me in the eye and said “My-my name is Ava, Sir”, after which she looked down at the floor beneath her. I took a better look at her, she wasn’t a supermodel who would catch everyone's stares but she was pretty enough, allowing me to guess her previous occupation before she became my property. With short brown hair, and brown eyes, her features were common but looked surprisingly good on her.

Shaking my head, I told her “Good, just call me Dane.”, she nodded but I suspect I was in a similar situation between me and the Duchess, she would likely keep referring to me as Sir out of respect. I gave her a gold pound and said “Use this money to get yourself a place to sleep, I want you to earn me as much money as you can by this time next week. We meet here, in this exact place, then with you handing every drop besides the barest amount needed to sustain yourself. Do you understand?” She nodded nervously, shrinking herself back even more, but I was too tired to care much about catering to her so I nodded and said “Take off your top, I need to do something.” Her eyes spoke for the volume of fear she had, but she still did the order as intended and took off her top. I turned her around and removed the bra, taking out my pen in the process. It wasn’t a true spiritual knife but I quickly scratched down the symbol for “beacon” on her back, drawing blood just a bit. It had a miniscule amount of mana in it, no different than the surrounding air but it allowed me to always feel her general location. “Alright, put your clothes back on and leave. I trust you know the 3 things forbidden in the contract?” She was stupefied for a second before quickly nodding and dressing up fully. “Good, I trust you to get me some money.” I said before I walked off.

Sighing to myself, I went into an alley and completely burned off the clothes on me, putting on completely new shoes, leggings and shirt, walking off shortly after. It was impossible for her to tell anyone she was a slave, that she had me as her owner or that she had been a slave before. In the eyes of other people, she would just seem like a normal, hardworking girl. I didn’t like the blot that was slavery, but if it existed I would make use of it. Sighing again, I went off in the direction of my house, today was a long day and tomorrow was class anyway.