The trader seemed quite surprised by my words.

"Wait, what? You'll buy her? You're not kidding are you? Because if you are, I could have you thrown out of here for that. No one here likes to waste time with people that aren't serious buyers."

I waved my hand at him, "We just finished a really big business deal upstairs and got a big payout, so yes, we can afford it. You're not going to tell us that she isn't for sale now, are you?"

He quickly shook his head, "No, no, no! Not at all! So… Err… Six million, right?"

He seemed to be a little unsure now which was something that I recognised as a sign that the price he set might not have been the right one.

Good, because that meant there was room for negotiation.

I gestured for him to follow me so that we could be out of earshot from the Alv before I started, "That's before I knew of her circumstances. You can't really expect me to just pay six million for an unbroken slave, can you?"

He pursed his lips, "Come on, miss… I'm actually making a loss by selling her to you when I could wait for her to be broken and there could be someone who would buy it for double the price!"

"And how long would that take? A day? A month? A year? Where she would be a constant drain on your resources for you to keep alive?"

"That… Is hardly that big of a drain, to be honest. I don't feed them that much."

"Uh-huh… I can see that. Just look at how thin she is. It looks like you've been mistreating her, haven't you? Now I have to take care of her and make sure she isn't too traumatised by you."

He grimaced, "Miss… They're slaves. You can't expect me to feed and cloth them well, can you?"

"Still doesn't change the fact that she wasn't treated well."

"I… Hmm… Since you seem to be a serious customer and this is our first deal… I'm willing to lower the price to five million, nine hundred thousand."

He's intentionally making it seem like he's not dropping the price because of the problems I see. Fine.

"Five point five million."

"Five million eight."

"Make it five million seven and throw in a couple of clothes for her and we have a deal."

He looked at the cage where the Alv was sitting in and I realised that she was now looking in our direction.

Ah… Don't tell me one of the Alv's traits is better hearing and she basically heard us bargaining for her? Or maybe she realised that I was trying to buy her?

I sincerely hope it was the latter since knowing that she was being bargained for might make her think that I believe she wasn't worth that much money and see it as an insult.

To be honest, if she had told me that she could help me with my hydroponics plan, I would have just paid the full price straight away. But since she wasn't even willing to talk, I was taking a risk by purchasing her and I'd like to minimise the loss I might get if it turns out she doesn't know about it.

What? You thought I was some paragon of virtue where I was purchasing her out of the kindness of my heart to free her?

Sorry, but I prioritise myself and the people I care about first over some stranger that I just met.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I'm buying her purely because of the possibility that she could help me with my project and nothing more.

And if it turns out that she's a bust… Well… There's other uses for her.

… Ok I was thinking along the lines of helping clean up after my cooking but I won't lie, she's not bad looking so I won't deny that I may have found the idea of getting her into bed with Amber and myself very tempting.

Putting aside my plans for her, I was quite careful to show that I didn't particularly need her so that the merchant in front of me might think that a customer like me could slip away at any moment.

The trader then turned back to me, "Fine, alright. We have a deal. I'll get some clothes out of storage but I'll let you know they are the ones meant for bedroom activities. If you want proper clothes, you're going to need to get them yourself."

I gestured at her, "I don't want her walking around the station in those rags. At least have her change to something decent first."

"I'll deal with that. Don't worry about it. Now here, we'll have to finalise the contract."

I went with him while Amber followed behind me, looking just a little bored.

The trader opened up the Alv's cage and gestured for her to come out but she remained seated inside, unmoving.

"You better move, you little bitch. Or would you rather that you stay in the cage for even longer and eat the shittiest food I can get you?" He threatened.

She remained unmoving for a moment more before she started crawling out of the cage as it was too small for her to stand up and walk out of.

Only after she was out of the cage did she stand up on her feet and I realised that she was actually taller than I was by about half a head.

Damn… Those legs of hers seem to go on forever. She just needs some meat on her bones.

The trader reached up and grabbed her by the collar and forced her to bend down before he brought his personal terminal close to it, most likely to connect to it wirelessly.

He tapped on it for a while before he pulled back and turned to me while gesturing at the collar.

I figured he wanted me to do the same as well so I went to her and connected my Codex to the collar.

All the while, the Alv was looking at me with an inscrutable expression. I don't even know whether she understood what was going on with how she looked.

I turned my attention to my Codex and realised that some app was installing itself on my Codex.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The app will register you as her owner and you can also control the collar through it. You'll be able to see the contract that she signed on it and any other slaves you have in the future will also be registered on it."

I tapped on the app and I realised that he was telling the truth and there were indeed quite a lot of things I could do with it.

I could shock her directly right now or even decide what actions she made would cause a shock from the collar as well. I could even remotely send it a command to tighten itself around her neck to choke her too, though I wonder what's the use of such a thing.

Just in case, I got my Codex to run an antivirus scan in case there was something that slipped in. You can't be too careful about these kinds of things.

The collar on her neck, which looked more like a black, featureless choker, let out a soft beep and the trader grinned at me.

"Congratulations, she's all yours."

I then tapped on my Codex as soon as the antivirus returned a negative result, meaning he actually didn't try to fuck me over. Navigating to my Credits, I transferred over the agreed five point seven million Credits over to him.

His grin got wider when he received the notification on his personal terminal and he saw what was the cause of it.

"Pleasure doing business with you. Now if you would just wait here for a moment, I'll go get her clothes for you."

He then left us there with our new acquisition alone.

I noticed that Amber was staring at the Alv with narrowed eyes while the Alv was pointedly ignoring both of us.

"So… You have a name?" I asked.

Her eyes shifted down to stare at me, "You are not qualified to know."

I wasn't going to push it but Amber suddenly stepped forward and grabbed her by holding her cheeks in between her hands before pulling her down to our eye level.

"Listen here, little princess. In case you haven't realised, you're not in your little castle anymore and if we want to hurt you, we can do it and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Do you understand?"

She stared at Amber defiantly and I don't know why Amber seemed to be so pissed at her even though she seemed fine a few moments ago.

I decided to step in because it really did look like Amber was planning on beating her at that moment.

"Ahem… It's alright, Amber. She's an illegal slave after all so let's just cut her some slack."

Amber turned to me, "Tera, give these people an inch and they will ask for a mile. Better to knock them down before they think they can walk all over you."

I was about to argue that this wouldn't help the relationship between all three of us when the trader returned with a small box.

"Alright, here you go--- Err… Did I miss something?" He asked, looking at Amber still holding the Alv in that position.

Ah… I guess we should just take her back to the ship first.