Chapter 27
Chapter 27
As the auction progressed, I became dumbfounded.
'Heaven,' my foot. This is hell.
'Slave auctions are illegal. So why are so many people in the auction house?'
"The next item is a Runsha Clan brother and sister. White hair, white eyes, and even eyelashes as white as snow, a rare find. The girl can read the Imperial language."
The siblings, dragged onto the stage, were shackled at their hands and ankles.
Pitifully, they seemed to have been through a lot, their bodies covered in terrible wounds.
"What do you think?"
At Isaac's words, Henri, propping his chin, said lightly.
"The boy looks too weak. If we're buying, only the girl. We can have her read fairy tales."
The next slave was a tall man.
With shaggy hair completely covering his face, the man screamed, roaring like a beast.
He wore a collar with sharp iron barbs like thorns around his neck, and was tightly bound with countless ropes.
He was in even worse shape than the siblings from the previous round.
Isaac's eyes sparkled.
"With that guy, I could ride him piggyback and tour the castle all day."
"He's too violent. What if LeBlaine gets hurt?"
Henri turned to me and asked.
"Was there a toy you liked?"
"……."
"LeBlaine?"
"No shiro……. (I don't like slaves…….)"
At my words, Isaac tilted his head.
"Why?"
"They're pitiful."
"No, the ancestors said that being weak is bad."
Those damn ancestors.
I gritted my teeth.
What did they teach these kids? I felt like shaking them by the collar if they ever came back alive.
It was then.
"Kuaaa!"
A rough scream echoed with a thud! on the stage. And from the source of the noise, a tremendous gust of wind swept through the audience.
In that instant, the man's ropes snapped.
He quickly kicked off the ground and leaped towards our second-floor VIP seats.
Bang!
With a dull thud, the man landed on the railing.
He quickly scanned his surroundings. He seemed to be looking for an escape route.
But there was nowhere to run. He gritted his teeth and looked at me.
'Don't tell me he's trying to take me hostage?'
The thought flashed through my mind, and the man reached out to me.
'I'm going to get caught……!'
Without realizing it, I squeezed my eyes shut.
But no matter how much time passed, nothing touched me.
I cautiously opened my eyes, and what I saw was.
"Looks like this bastard's a magician."
"Interesting."
The man's hand was blocked by Isaac's sword, and a bright red aura, starting from Henri's hand, surrounded me.
Isaac quickly tripped the man's leg. As the man lost his balance and tried to fall into the audience, he stepped on the railing and jumped up. Then, with the pommel of his sword aimed at the man's chest, he fell, and a thud! echoed.
I quickly grabbed the railing and looked down at the first floor.
The ground was deeply pitted, as if a meteorite had fallen.
Isaac's Seal was shining blue on the man's chest, and his whole body was bound by lines extending from the Seal.
The venue was completely frozen.
The faces of the audience, who had witnessed the power of the Gongzhanmi before their eyes, were filled with fear.
It was only natural. Even I, who had experienced the prowess of the Temple knights, felt my heart pounding.
Isaac waved at me.
"Hey, this is super strong. It'll be fun to play with!"
Then, the man in the half-mask, who had been frozen, chimed in, thinking it was a good idea.
"That is a truly special item. It is said to be a demihuman born from the mating of a beast and a human. Moreover, it is younger than it looks. You will be able to play with it for a long time."
'What is he saying, the crazy bastard.'
I glared at the half-masked man, who was spouting nothing but garbage.
I'd rather regress once more than buy a slave in a place like this.
But the Gongzhanmi were too scary to refuse. If Isaac hit me once, I really might regress.
How could I refuse without offending those young monsters?
I pondered for a while, then sighed inwardly.
'Ah, I wasn't going to do this in front of so many people.'
I put on a very surprised expression and shouted, "Wow!"
"Isaac, Henri are awesome!"
Then Isaac's eyes lit up. Henri also looked at me with slightly widened eyes.
"LeBlaine doesn't need toys. LeBlaine likes playing with Henri and Isaac more. Because you two are super, su-per cool."
Then, when I hugged Henri tightly around the waist, he froze for a moment, surprised. I thought it was a failure, but the corners of Henri's lips twitched.
"Then…… should we not buy a toy?"
"Yes!"
Okay, let's go back.
I'll go back quickly and report this garbage dump to the Temple or the Imperial family.
Isaac said with a beaming face.
"Ah, well, if that's what you really think, let's just go. But……."
"Yes?"
"……How good is it to play with us?"
His voice was slightly shy.
I smirked inwardly.
'What do you take the survival skills of my fourth life for?'
I can flatter in my sleep.
I smiled brightly and said.
"The best in the world!"
Confirming that Henri and Isaac's faces had brightened, I turned my head with a satisfied expression.
But a very, very familiar figure came into view.
"Gongzhanmi?"
The Duke's face, who had somehow entered Heaven, was frozen. He looked as if the sky had fallen.
And somehow, the Gongzhanmi's expressions became very arrogant.
A few hours earlier.
The Duke frowned when he heard that Henri and Isaac had taken LeBlaine to the shopping district.
'How despicable.'
They must have made a preemptive strike because they thought they would lose out on the gift.
Originally, whatever you received first was what you remembered.
If the order was pushed back like this, the gifts from his sons would be more memorable than his own.
The Duke immediately grabbed his jacket and stood up.
Noth and the administrators begged him to look at just one more document, but he didn't even listen.
He was very unhappy with the current situation.
When he was alone with LeBlaine, his life was very relaxed and fulfilling.
She had sat on his lap all day, and she had always whined about being with him.
After the formal adoption, the time they spent together decreased due to various incidents, but she was still in the top two of his interests.
But the situation changed after his sons came down.
Whenever he had some free time and thought about going to see LeBlaine-
[She has gone after Henri.]
Or,
[She is with Isaac.]
Was what he heard.
Life without LeBlaine was boring.
If the him from a few months ago had seen the current him, he would have thought he was possessed and snapped his own neck.
At first, she was just a nuisance.
A fearless kid who dared to follow him around all the time.
He would get annoyed and scold her, and she would be sulky only for that day, but the next day she would follow him again.
When did he start to feel awkward without her behind him?
LeBlaine had gradually seeped in.
He didn't know exactly when or why.
However, her pale face and the way she rubbed her hands together, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," weighed on his heart.
He got angry when she was sick.
He liked hearing her call, "Gongzhanmi!"
And, "Please be my Abadi," her earnest words were painful.
As he quietly closed his eyes in the carriage, he heard a whinny-! The horse cried, and a voice came from the driver's seat.
"We have arrived."
The Duke, who got out of the carriage in the shopping district, asked Noth, who followed him.
"Where are LeBlaine and those guys?"
"Heaven."
The Duke narrowed his brow.
Heaven was a recent headache for Viscount Dubois.
It was a place where mainly ethnic minorities or prisoners of war were auctioned off.
Slave auctions themselves were illegal, but the trade of prisoners of war was usually overlooked, so it was difficult to crack down on them.
Moreover, so many powerful people participated that trying to crack down on it would turn it into a wasteland.
"Is LeBlaine's gift a slave?"
"It seems so."
The Duke coldly raised the corner of his lips.
"They're doing useless things."
A few slaves. Even if you offered twenty, they wouldn't be as good as his gift.
That's what he thought, but…….
"……How good is it to play with us?"
"The best in the world!"
An absurd situation unfolded.
The Duke looked back and forth between the bewildered LeBlaine and his grinning sons with a frozen face.
And he said to Noth.
"Blow it up."
"Yes?"
It was when Noth swallowed hard with an uneasy face.
The Duke declared with a murderous face.
"Blow up this damn place."
I stared blankly at the burning building.
'Is it because it's a garbage dump? It burns really well.'
For some reason, the Duke blew up Heaven.
Without even hearing the reason.
As soon as the Duke said something, the four black robes next to him rushed out in unison and drew Magical Seals in the air.
The Duke calmly approached, scooped me up under his arm, and left the building.
And in the blink of an eye, the building went boom, and it exploded.
The good thing is that there were no casualties.
It was thanks to Noth, who desperately shouted, "Those who want to live, run away!"
'The slaves all got out too.'
I saw the half-masked man counting the number of slaves a little while ago and saying, "All the merchandise is here. All of it." with relief.
'That guy should have exploded with the building.'
I looked at the half-masked man with a very disappointed expression.
"Why? Do you like that after all?"
I almost frowned at Isaac's words. There's no way I'd like such trash.
But Isaac's gaze wasn't on the half-masked man. It was on the tall man crouching behind him.
That slave who attacked us earlier.
"Shall we buy him? It's better to buy him now. The building collapsed, so there won't be an auction for a while."
"……."
"Even if we buy him, we can still play with you. Because we're the coolest in the world!"
I don't know why that's connected, but anyway, I really didn't want to have a slave or anything like that.
'If the carrot doesn't work, use the stick.'
I looked at Isaac, sighed, "Huuuu……." and said.
"No, I don't want to play with you."
"Huh? Why?"
"Come to think of it, Isaac doesn't seem very cool."
"Why?! No, I'm cool!"
Isaac shouted in great embarrassment.
