M had given us a gold Credit Chip that contained all fifteen million Credits inside it after we directed her to where we had kept it and her men confirmed receiving it.
We already moved the boxes nearby before we came here in case there was a sale.
Amber had insisted I keep all of the money as payment for helping her with the destruction of the military crate even though I was happy to just do it for her for free anyway.
She told me that part of the reason she wanted me to keep it was that these people can’t hack us to steal the money back or pick the Credit Chip from our pockets while we were still in the building. And since my Codex had proven to be unhackable… That was the perfect place to store the money.
The elevator dinged and we found ourselves on the first floor of the building where the club was located. Right now our destination was to check out the ‘special market’ of theirs since we were already here anyway.
The same girl that had guided us to the room was waiting in front of the lift.
She raised an eyebrow at us, “Heard you guys are going to the Rat Market?”
I’m going to assume that’s what they call that special market of theirs so I nodded.
She gestured for us to follow her and we fell in step behind her. Apparently they had another way to get to that market of theirs.
We moved through the club and no one paid any attention to us aside from some guys who openly checked us out.
At least they didn’t try anything since they must have recognised the girl in front as being one of the gang members and figured it wasn’t wise to interrupt whatever we were doing.
We went through a door that had the sign ‘staff only’ etched on it which led to the kitchens.
The place was relatively empty save for one or two people who seemed to be just tossing synthfood in the only machine in the room before placing them on a plate and they paid no attention to us anyway.
She then went through another door which led to a corridor and a group of their gang members were seated at a table playing cards near a set of stairs going down.
They took notice of us as soon as we walked through the door, though they relaxed slightly when they saw who was at the lead.
“Rat Market?” One of the guards asked.
The girl nodded, “New guests. Must have given the boss something good.”
One of them turned to us and his eyes glowed red before quickly turning green.
“They’re clear.”
The girl guiding us rolled her eyes, “Well duh, I’m here aren’t I?”
The guards ignored her and went back to playing their cards, letting her guide us down the stairs.
It was a short walk down and we found ourselves standing in the basement of the building where it looked like it was turned into some kind of bazaar.
I realised that this underground section definitely wasn’t limited to this building given the size and the fact that there were multiple staircases that lead up to different locations and each of them had some armed dude standing guard.
I’m guessing all of them led to another place controlled by this gang.
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The place wasn’t exactly bustling but it certainly wasn’t empty either. Still, I could see that there were indeed various different things being sold and there were a lot of stalls that we could purchase from.
The girl then gestured towards the market, “Welp, have fun I guess. Also, you can leave through whichever staircase you want so no need to come back to this specific one. If you need something delivered, just arrange it with the seller. Got it?”
She didn’t wait for us to answer her before turning around to walk back up the stairs.
Right… Guess we’re exploring this place on our own.
“Hehe~ This feels like that time we went to the black market, doesn’t it?”
I looked around, “Except this place doesn’t seem to have a terminal where you can browse for the goods being sold.”
“Mmm… Seems like it. I guess we’ll just have to explore by ourselves.”
“Well then, let’s go take a look around!”
I let Amber pull me into the market as we inspected each stall to see what they were selling.
I realised most of them seemed to be selling drugs which seemed to be their specialty here. There were a few that seemed to be selling weapons but none of them caught my eye.
The one that I was looking for was someone selling information and I wasn’t sure what an information dealer looked like.
And yes, I did ask Mara about this before and unfortunately even she doesn’t know about this topic, which is why I’m here.
I thought about just outright asking one of them whether they knew who I could find for information but I was fine with simply looking around for now. Especially when Amber seemed to be enjoying herself.
“Oh look Tera~ They’re selling stolen ships here! They have a catalogue!”
I looked over her shoulder as she tapped on the screen in front of a stall manned by a gruff looking man that had three arms with the third one popping out right under his left arm.
The ships on the screen were all A Class and B Class ships so I wasn’t really that interested. Though I could see that their prices seemed to be quite cheap.
I looked at the guy manning the stall, “I’m assuming these ships belong to people who came to this station but never managed to get out?”
He stared at me and chose not to say anything, which kind of told me what I needed to know.
Amber turned to me, “Doesn’t seem like they have anything good though. Oh! What’s that?”
I looked in the direction of where she was pointing and found that there was a stall with various different cages there.
Perhaps they were selling animals?
Oh, I sure hope they have chickens or something, then we can get eggs!
We went over to the stall and there was a bored looking man there whom I noticed had a lizard tail swishing back and forth behind him lazily.
At first I thought he was another alien but I remembered there were gene mods as well so I couldn’t exactly tell if he was simply just a modded human or not.
He nodded at us in greeting as we approached but did not say anything.
Alright, let’s see what you have in these cages!
…
…
Ah yeah… I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming…
Probably because I got swept away by the ‘bazaar’ feeling that I forgot that this place was technically a black market within a black market…
Within the cage was, of course, a person that had a collar around his neck.
Of course this was a slave shop… What else could it be?
I peeked to the side and I found Amber looking at the man inside the cage with furrowed brows.
Oh? I was half expecting her to look neutral, like as if seeing people in cages was something normal around here. I guess even in this universe, such a thing was--
“Why are they even putting up such low quality slaves for sale here? Feels like they should have brought this guy to the other shops above instead…” She muttered.
…
I take back what I said.
The stall owner heard her and grunted, “That guy's a former Merc. Silver rank. Got contracted by one of the Corps but got drunk on the job which ended up getting one of the bosses killed. Couldn't pay the penalty so ended up getting collared.”
Amber tilted her head, “Still doesn't change my question.”
The man grumbled, “He's a good enough bodyguard if he isn't drunk.”
“How much?” I asked, more curious about the price than anything.
He held up five fingers.
I narrowed my eyes at him, “What's that supposed to mean? Five Credits? Five hundred Credits? Five potatoes?”
“Five hundred thousand Credits, girl.”
That's… Pretty cheap…
No wait, you can buy an A Class ship with that money, that's quite a lot for a normal person I would say. It's just that we have a lot of money now.
Seems like my sense of value is a little bit skewed now.
Amber scoffed, “As I said, low quality goods.”
The ex-Merc didn't even react to Amber's words and just continued to look depressed in the cage.
The stall owner shrugged, “He's not the best, I have others too if you're interested.”
He gestured to the other cages at the back.
I guess we could… It's my first time seeing this anyway.
We went towards the back where the cages weren't even big enough for the occupants to stand in.
There were people of different sizes, some obviously modded while others still looked normal but all of them were dressed in the same type of rags that barely covered their bodies.
But then one of them caught my eye.
Long ears…
Is that an elf?