In a Dark Underground Auction Hall
The audience, cloaked in shadows, gazes intently from behind pressed-down masks, hiding their identities or shame.
Their collective focus rests on a single place—the one spot illuminated in the damp, musty venue.
On the stage, a jester in a clown mask dramatically raises his arms.
“At last, the wait is over!”
Is he the main attraction?
No.
Next to the jester stands a massive iron cage, large enough to hold a man.
Despite being under the spotlight, it is hidden beneath a dark, heavy cloth. Every eye and every greedy desire fixates upon it.
“Infamous as his name implies! The Red-Footed Slayer! Kin-Slaughterer! The Iron Beast!”
With each proclamation, the tension grows, a feverish energy filling the room.
From behind masks, eyes burn with desire, their flames stoked higher by the jester’s words.
“Allow me to present…”
At the height of suspense, he rips the cloth away.
The fabric falls away cleanly, revealing the figure within the cage.
It is a man.
The crowd, which had been brimming with excitement, falters for a moment.
He is no imposing figure, nothing to explain the frenzied anticipation.
A shabby, ragged man wrapped in grimy, tattered clothes.
His appearance is plain. No one would mistake him for handsome even if he were bathed and well-dressed.
His hair, a common chestnut brown, frames a muscular but scar-covered body, more grotesque than noble.
He is too small to be a battle slave.
And he is human. Why would anyone want a male human slave?
But the air changes the moment he opens his mouth.
“…I’ll kill you.”
A voice like grinding, rusted steel—a rough, ominous sound.
Low and soft, but it consumes the entire room.
The atmosphere, boiling with excitement, is instantly chilled as if doused with icy water.
His presence alone makes it impossible to dismiss him as just another human.
The grandiose introduction was no exaggeration.
A suffocating aura of hatred and vengeful bloodlust seeps into the air.
“All of you… I’ll tear you apart…”
The man growls, his scarred body hunched like a wounded animal.
His wild eyes glare at the masked spectators.
“Enough of that!”
The jester hurriedly pulls the cloth back over the cage, his hand trembling despite his masked composure.
“And there you have it! Genuine, fierce, and full of fire even after being weakened!”
Murmurs and whispers flood the hall as the man’s ferocity disappears behind the curtain.
“How did the Velese Trade Guild manage this? Even the Imperial Guard couldn’t capture him!”
“He could be tamed—a rare prize for social gatherings!”
“You all better step back—he murdered my brothers!”
The underground auction caters only to the elite.
Hidden behind masks, noblemen and women, the powerful and wealthy, show their rawest, most revolting desires.
They strip themselves of pretense, baring their grotesque, unfiltered faces beneath the guise of anonymity.
Isn’t it ironic? Only behind a mask can they reveal their true selves.
“Let the bidding begin!”
Despite the new emperor’s ban on slavery, desire cannot be bridled by laws.
Repression twists and warps it, driving it into darker, more monstrous forms.
The man in the cage, Hans, blinked slowly.
The Red-Footed Slayer.
Kin-Slaughterer.
Iron-Toothed Beast.
These blood-soaked titles clung to him, but to himself, he was always just Hans.
The third son of a farmer.
A simple, dim-witted boy.
Hardworking but useless.
A man too simple to write his own name.
Even after wielding a sword so long that cutting men became more familiar than harvesting grain—even then, he was always Hans.
Why had a farmer’s son taken up a sword? He could no longer remember.
But one memory remained.
It had been an ordinary mercenary job—a guard detail for a merchant caravan. He hadn’t even paid attention to the contract’s details, only the payment.
But there had been an ambush, and Hans killed his attackers. One of them, dying, whispered a final word:
“My… sister…”
Beneath the mask, the dying man had animal-like ears—rabbit ears.
In the wagons, Hans had found caged children. Beastfolk. Small, trembling, branded like livestock.
One brand stood out.
“Food.”
The same brand that had marked the pigs he had once slaughtered.
He had killed the other mercenaries and the merchants without hesitation, freeing the children.
From that moment, his life became one of blood, rebellion, and constant flight.
He became a liberator of slaves, a hero to the beastfolk, a wanted criminal to the Empire.
But now, Hans was in chains.
“Ha…”
He chuckled bitterly, body curled in defeat.
Liberator or not, he was a slave.
Unlike the many he had saved, no one would come to save him.