Such keen intuition~
But…unfortunately, you can’t see the soul form.
Ileya floated in midair, her crimson eyes inherited from their father looking down at her younger second sister, whose blue eyes were just like their mother’s.
This was probably the first time these two sisters ever met each other’s gaze since birth.
One above, one below.
One could see, the other saw nothing at all.
Strange…
Ruilier’s eyes instinctively narrowed.
Why had she been feeling so many odd sensations lately?
Whether it was the feeling of being watched, or…she slowly turned her head to look ahead at the tents of the Slave Caravan.
Was she just too tired?
Illusions and hallucinations were dangerous for a mercenary.
Maybe she should ask Father for a leave and rest for a few days?
Rubbing her temple once again, Ruilier shook her head slowly, pushing aside the lingering doubts in her mind and turned around to head back to the Hunter Blade Mercenary Group’s camp.
For now, a good sleep was the priority.
Watching Ruilier walk away, Ileya’s lips twitched slightly in midair…
Hmm…this one really is cold enough.
Even when alone, she didn’t mutter to herself…and there wasn’t the slightest flicker of emotion on her face or in her eyes.
There was no way to tell what she was thinking just by looking at her expression.
But…
Ileya turned her gaze to the tents of the Slave Caravan beside her.
Her cheap second sister must have been drawn here by something in this slave caravan.
And she herself had unconsciously floated here and met her.
Their meeting here might have been coincidence.
But the fact that they both came here was definitely no accident.
“Is there…something inside?”
Ileya raised a curious brow.
She glanced back once more at her second sister’s retreating figure.
For both of them, this first meeting was…relatively smooth, wasn’t it?
The young lady’s lips curved up slightly.
She saw the other person, and the other person was still alive.
Thinking so, she didn’t follow after her.
Instead, she planned to take a look inside this Slave Caravan~
“07…”
Clatter!
Clatter!
“OSOSAS…”
Beast-like growls, chains dragging, crying and whimpering…
The stench inside this massive tent was so foul that even cheap perfume couldn’t mask it.
All these signs indicated that inside these iron cages were hundreds of creatures of different kinds…
Of course, 80% of them were pure humans.
Some were homeless orphans, some were nameless people from remote towns, others were widows and children of fallen nobles…
But no matter who they were before, now they all shared one common degrading title —
【Slave】.
These lives, traded at will, were no different from cats or dogs, their lives and deaths controlled entirely by their owners.
“Damn it…shut the hell up!”
Crack!!
The crisp sound of a whip and a commanding shout silenced every noise inside the tent.
A short man wielding the Whip walked past the cages, his small eyes filled with not just anger, but deep fatigue.
Apparently, he had been woken up by the noise these slaves were making during the night.
These bastards just kept crying and yelling after dark, driving him crazy…
If he wasn’t still relying on them to make money, he’d have beaten one to death as an example and finally gotten some sleep!
Step, step, step…
“Wuuu wuuu wuuu wuuu…”
As the Slave Merchant passed by another cage, a low sobbing reached his ears again.
That soft whimper completely ignited the man’s anger!
“Damn it! I told you to be quiet! Can’t you hear?!”
Whoosh—!
A whip cracked through the air!
Crack!!
“Ah!!”
Inside the cage was a little girl, her frightened scream choked with sobs as the whip struck her.
“Cry all you want!”
Crack!
Crack!!
The Slave Merchant’s whip was steady and precise.
Each strike hit the girl’s not-so-fair skin through the cage bars, leaving long red welts…
The more panicked the girl became and screamed, the harder the whip fell!
Throughout the large tent, there were only the girls’ screams, the merchant’s curses, and the whip cracking through the air…
Whoosh—!
Crack…
But just as the whip was about to fall again, a thin hand suddenly grabbed it midair!
“Huh?”
This sudden turn of events stunned the Slave Merchant. He instinctively looked to the side.
The hand came from the cage next to them…
A bony, frail hand and arm, so thin it seemed like a slight twist would snap it.
The owner of the arm — an old man?
He was gaunt, with white hair and a frail frame.
It was hard to imagine such a man could grasp the whip moving so fast through the air.
“Hmm?”
The Slave Merchant stared dumbfounded at the old man in the cage.
He remembered that this old man wasn’t one of the captured, nor a criminal’s family member…
They had found him wandering in a forest days ago.
When they found him, he was already this emaciated, but didn’t appear sick and was still fairly strong.
He just wandered in the forest, and even if they brought him here, he’d have been eaten by beasts in the forest sooner or later.
Better to make use of him somehow — this old man was worthless, but could be given away as a gift alongside other goods to buyers.
A one-time use item — if he died, he died.
“Alright…if you keep hitting her, she’ll die, and you don’t want to lose money…”
The old man spoke slowly, his voice hoarse but not unpleasant.
“Hmph! Shut up all of you!”
The Slave Merchant took a deep breath and looked at the girl lying in the cage, her body covered in wounds and still twitching slightly.
He really didn’t want to kill the merchandise in a fit of rage.
But this meant he’d have to sell her at a discount.
He yanked the whip back from the old man’s hand and looked him over once more.
That old man…one more lash could probably kill him.
Since he was just a gift, better not risk it.
The Slave Merchant calmed down, convincing himself the old man probably caught the whip because he was too tired to swing hard that time.
“If you don’t want to get beaten, just stay quiet! Stop all the crying!”
After spitting out those harsh words, the Slave Merchant strode away from the area.
“Wuuu wuuu wuuu wuuu…”
The beaten girl covered her mouth, feeling the fiery pain all over her body, and sobbed quietly…
She was actually a Village Girl from a small village on the Kingdom’s border.
Every day, she helped her parents with farming and chopping wood…but she woke up one day to find herself locked in a cage.
She lost her freedom, and with it, all her rights as a human being…
She became a commodity anyone could pick and choose from.
The Village Girl didn’t understand.
Wasn’t this breaking the Kingdom’s laws?
Why did no one catch these bad people?
Why…was no one coming to save her…?