The Slave Market (2)

The leader of the mercenary was tongue tied.

He could feel the cold metal tip of the blade touching the skin of his neck, he had already been in situations similar in the past and survived, but this time an oppressive aura was weighing down on his heart.

After hearing Stigma's comment, he slowly felt the knife move to the back of his head, leaving behind a large cut.

The feeling of his blood flowing down was making his heart rate increase at an alarming pace, giving him some chest pains.

If he made a wrong move, his head would be stabbed so all he had to do was grit his teeth and wait it out, since Stigma won't listen to him anymore he can only trust the guard leader.

"Young Lord, have mercy, this man is still employed here so please let us handle him for causing your inconvenience!"

The leader guard was agitated, the mercenary band was not part of his group, but was still hired from his employer, so he was held responsible for disciplining them all.

It was a fact that Stigma had followed the procedure without causing a scene, since they saw him go down the mountain only in a matter of minutes, the guards were already alarmed about his ability.

But the other group was not as disciplined, so they thought of trying to intimidate or trick any newcomer that passed by.

If it escalated the wrong direction, they would try to find common ground and give him some special rights with the excuse that they had only hired them not long ago so they will cover the toll fee issue.

But he never had expected him to be cultivator who would be obedient in following the rules.

The cultivators he had meet so far were arrogant and come from clans with more powerful experts backing them, so they had to bow their head to show respect to them, even to bend some rules.

He occasionally heard that not all cultivators have no space ring, so it was difficult to identify if they are just warriors or the later.

When he wasn't around his own men had tried to take advantage of them, only to have seven of them killed and about a dozen more with broken bones.

Not long ago there was someone with a bag filled with cores of different sizes, signifying his ability in killing Heavenly Beast by quantity.

They would have employed cultivators to be guards here, but they were all expensive, using a regular guard would need about 20 gold coin as their annual salary, cultivators in comparison would require them about a hundred or a thousand gold coins based on their Tier and ability.

The lowest, Zero Tier, can go up to a 150 gold coins at most to have them employed for at least a month.

He was only aware that this place was selling non cultivator slaves, so no other cultivator would come here except for the food, booze, women and entertainment.

But the are still cautious to bandits, thieves and stray Heavenly Beast and the slaves they have are for making profit, not as cannon fodders.

Currently, four of the top merchants now have cultivators employed as their bodyguards; a total of ten cultivators, two 1st Tiers, three 2nd Tiers, and the rest were from the Zero Tier.

It goes without saying that the ones that have a 2nd Tier have connections and merchandise that sells in high profit, he even saw someone bring a small army just to guard goods.

Yet, the ones who have the cultivators were not willing to defend the entrance using them, unless they get some form of payment from the other three.

And the other merchants only had enough to guard them for their trip.

So the job of guarding was left to the guards of the four top merchants with their captains in charge on key locations.

Now one of them accumulated losses and had the lowest number which in turn insulted their master.

To make up for the lost numbers in short notice, they were left with no choice as to hire the mercenary group that had visited here.

There were a handful of cultivators within the market, so he wasn't surprised to see another one take interest.

He however, didn't expect that they had offended another one, so he was trying to minimize the damage.

"Oh, how are you going to pay me back."

With the knife still in hand, Stigma looked at the captain, he was aware on the development taking place, so he was trying to squeeze out any profit from them.

The leader then thought about his options.

The last time things went wrong, their boss then held him responsible for the loss of personnel and hired mercenaries to make up for the numbers with his future wages.

So if he lost them again, it will be his blunder and might be demoted along with him shouldering a huge debt.

"He didn't know you were an esteem cultivator, so please let us handle him and provide you a promissory note that lets you have a pass in the payment of leaving."

"So your saying, you lot would to this to me if you didn't know I was a cultivator..."

Stigma's tone started to sound threatening and his eyes drifted around to each one standing.

'Shit! That is not what I meant! It was his idea I had nothing to do about it!'

While he was trying to find someway to appease him, Stigma spoke with his proposal and lifted his finger at the leader with his free hand.

"How about this, since you don't know what to do, I'll tell you then."

He then made his terms to remove any intentions of having them get revenge in the future, he may be strong, but he would rather avoid unnecessary killings as possible.

"Since we have a market that deals with slaves, sell this idiot and hold on to the money along with the contract with a signature and the total amount of his price, on it are the agreed terms: That I Lord Stigma, will forgive the guards incompetence, by selling the offender and receiving the money earned as compensation."

As he said his final terms, he leaned forward and pulled the knives one by one after each sentence, leaving behind two hole on the wooden table.

"In two days, I will return to get the money and the contract."

*Crack!*

"If payment is not met, don't expect me to be merciful."

*Crack!*

The leader was not afraid of him nor his threat, the danger for him was his employer finding out.

'That would be a preferred outcome leading to no further conflict, since the perpetrator was already singled out he just needed to be removed.'

The leader can only follow Stigma's demands as he collected his belongings, he then gave a final warning mixed with truth and lies.

"I have an expert waiting for me inside, be thankful I didn't include him..."

Their back started to sweat, there was another one inside waiting for him, hopefully the expert wasn't in the 1st Tier and won't hunt them down afterwards.

Having felt the sense of freedom, the mercenary leader started planning his escape and revenge, but got cold feet when he heard Stigma's fading word.

"By the way, he is a 2nd Tier, be seeing you in two days."

Immediately, they lost all intentions in getting involved with him, while the other leader was being chased from his escape.

His cry for denial was ignored as he was bound and dragged to a cart.

After strolling for a while Stigma found an empty bench and looked around to plan his next move.

"Master! You should have killed him, he was insulting you by taking your hard earned fortune!"

Hilda's sudden outburst caught the attention of some people, but shortly walked away since all of them were looking around finding nothing.

"Keep you voice down Hilda, it's nothing to cause alarm."

"But, Master..."

"Look Hilda, we can't go around killing anyone, I have a bottom line. Plus someone like that is not worth being killed by you or by me, understand."

"Uhh~As you wish!"

From hearing the voice, he again imagined a girl puffing her cheeks and pouting at him, discontented by the decision.

From his surrounding he can see some people with high quality robes, the reason why he though they are high quality was due to the robes still having their vibrant color.

While other wore robes with faded colors of different patterns with some hooded figure following behind them.

Looking around he found some stalls reminding of a festival he once attended selling commodities he was familiar with, but their advertisements were making him remember he was not in his world anymore.

"Come one come all, we have samples of red horned viper's blood liquor, a drink of this will revitalize you for over an hour, we had used special medicine to ferment it to add its effect. We sell them by the jugs over 50 silver pieces will the prices."

"Ladies, come take a look of our scented oils, each of these are made from a desert lotus formed by a 100 years, a rare treasure in the south. Once you apply this to your skin you will look younger by ten years, we only have a limited stock so the price of 60 gold pieces for one bottle, if you buy five we will add in a lotion of volcano chrysanthemum, effective for removing pores and dry skin."

"Those who want products of the North look no further, we have fine accessories made from the talented hands of jewelers who have fire talents, but if you want more we also have weapons and armor made of rare ores mined from the frozen mountains.

"Everyone come and try out our signature barbeque, made from scaled rabbits glazed with honey and lemon and carefully cooked by our talented chefs. The quality is a guaranteed by many, try it out by paying 30 copper pieces."

"We have a special offer, those who buy a full course of seafood cuisine will be allowed to pay half of the original price; we have dishes made from thunder eel, seven colored scale carp, fire snappers and sky sharks delicacies."

...

The more he heard it the more he got curious about the products, especially the food.

His stomach suddenly grumbled from the aroma in each stall, he had some dried rations but those were not enough to satisfy him and all his meat from the beast was left with Kirin since he can't go back and forth.

He kept the 2nd Tier since he wanted to experiment on them some more so they were not for consumption for now.

He soon noticed that there not only tents but caravans being pulled, either by horses or men.

Looking closely he can see a tattoo in some of their bodies, some on the neck, on the arm even on the legs.

"What do you want to do first Master?"

He assumed that the tattoo was some form of identification so he lost interest and followed his primary goal.

"...For now let's get something to eat and look around, if there is anything else we need we'll just buy it, then sell anything if we don't have enough."

Turning his head for a moment he looked at the flags billowing in the wind, he stood up and patted himself down and grabbed a few copper pieces.

"We're here to restock anyway and buying a slave is but an option, and if possible, stay for the auction taking place, I'm quite curious in what their selling."

"As you wish Master."

"Dusk!"

From the far side of the stalls a shady figure was walking out of the shadow towards him, yet none of the others were responding to it, if they did they would stop on their tracks and feel their scalps go numb just by seeing it.

After bumping into a few people, it stopped about three steps away from were Stigma was standing, waiting for his next command.

"...It's a shame that you can't respond, if you did then in the future you would be good for reconnaissance missions and giving me a detailed report after you scouted ahead."

...

'Still no response up till now, well can't have everything.'

His first target was to try every stalls selling food, he first wanted to try the barbeque made from rabbits until he heard a loud voice.

"Ladies and gentleman, newcomers lend me your ears!"

All the surrounding people turned to see a tall pudgy man with short brown hair wearing a purple toga standing on a pedestal, he was holding a red feather fan and hid behind his other hand, as he made his announcement Stigma thought he was a rejected dancer than a messenger.

Behind him was white robed attendant two guards and a caravan, the scroll large enough that needed both hands to carry it.

Since his fight with Wade he tried to make a habit in looking around his surroundings.

He then noticed there were a total of five guards, he saw the two beside him and others were on top of separate caravans that looked like archers with bows in the ready, but he paid attention to the man.

"The top merchants have an announcement, as you may know due to the storm continuing for five days, the activities planned have been delayed."

Pausing for a moment he motioned his hand and the attendant holding the scroll stepped forward and unrolled the scroll then hammered it to the caravan wall for all to see and stepped back behind.

From where Stigma was standing, he can make out most of the contents but he still paid attention.

"As such they have decided to bring down the prices to all product being sold and extending the deadline before departure, including today we have a total of eight days."

"If you want to know more please read the notice on the wall, the listed shops have agreed to lessen their prices for three days, along with the events taking place, please enjoy!"

He then walked away along with his entourage, Stigma then saw the archers leave as well.

A few moments later, groups of people started swarming the post.

Since there were less people crowding in the stall, he made his way and brough the remaining seven sticks of barbeque.

"Why so many Master?"

"Gotta leave some for Kirin. By the way do you want something?"

"...It's not the matter of wanting something but do I need it, I am a sword so what do I need right now?"

"Knowing desire and necessity is a good thing but I have to reward you in some way."

"Mmm, let look at the events and see what is going on, then I'll tell you."

"Alright, so today the necessities, then tomorrow enjoyment."

"Yay~"

***

Outside the market, on top of the same mountain three luxurious caravan are seen being pulled by beast similar to komodo dragons, each one was the size of a horse, beside four or so men are walking beside each one without carrying weapons.

Including the three coach men and excluding the ones inside, the total number was 19.

After seeing the market from far distant, the front caravan signaled the ones behind him by raising a clenched fist and circling it in the air.

One of the men saw the sign then nodded, moving towards the farthest one and knocked on the caravan door.

"Young master, were here!"