Chapter 4: The Slave Market, Elf

“Young master, as per the lord’s instruction, the carriage is ready. Will you be leaving now?” The old steward’s voice appeared at the door following two light knocks, interrupting the young boy’s daydream.

“No need for the carriage. Just prepare some ordinary clothes…” Having finally obtained permission to go out for leisure, our protagonist naturally would not let such an opportunity slip. While touring the streets in a carriage might be relaxed and comfortable, much of the fun would be lost.

“Make it two sets. Please accompany me…” The boy added after a moment’s hesitation.

Constantine never overestimated his own abilities. Although he had received systematic training in physical strength and swordsmanship, combat methods without practical experience could hardly be considered real martial prowess. Moreover, a boy of only thirteen did not possess much ability to handle emergencies. He certainly did not expect this outing to attract several exceptionally capable followers—something like an imposing aura of dominance had absolutely nothing to do with him.

Responding to the old steward, Constantine took an exquisite steel object from a nearby chest. With a skilled pull and flip, the dark item fully opened with a scraping sound. The finely crafted steel springs were tightly joined by hinges. After loading three specially made, hairpin-like small bolts, the boy pretended to aim. With a not-very-loud click, a short, dark shadow appeared embedded in the wooden wall in the corner of the room!

The boy walked over, pulled out the dart which was only as long as a finger, and with effort turned a pulley on the mechanism, loading it back into the launcher. Satisfied, he fastened this small weapon to his forearm with two leather straps. Finally, he put on the shirt, using the long lace cuffs to conceal it—

This small spring-loaded sleeve crossbow was specially forged by the Governor’s Mansion’s exclusive Dwarven blacksmith and given to Constantine as a gift, in exchange for the detailed contents of the folding forging method he provided. The dwarf even included some other small components but still believed he had made a hugely profitable deal—ever since, a batch of high-quality blades had been equipped at the waists of high-ranking officers in the Western Frontier. And the dwarf’s forging techniques leaped to a master’s level.

Though small, utilizing technology unfamiliar in this world, the power generated by the steel wire spring gave it considerable penetration and firing speed. Even though it took significant time and effort to reload after the three bolts were fired, it remained a formidable weapon for self-defense.

…

Half an hourglass later, two strangers, one old and one young, were strolling leisurely on the streets of Hayton.

Constantine did not look conspicuous at the moment. Although the maroon velvet long-sleeved shirt and the black calfskin hunting attire vest still indicated his status was utterly different from the commoners, the coat without any family insignia at least prevented people from associating him with that marshal bigwig of the Western Frontier. At best, he appeared as some minor noble’s son wandering the streets with his old servant. And in Hayton, such a combination was hardly eye-catching.

As the capital of Phoenix, the character of Hayton City was rich and complex.

This ancient city, which started from a military fortress and continuously expanded to its current scale, was situated on the Calm Plain between the Loring River and the Gordon River. It could be considered a tranquil and fertile good place. And it had many spots for appreciation—the towering city walls and the fluttering military banners evoked a sense of endless severity and solemnity. But upon entering the city, the bustling and noisy scene formed by hundreds of thousands of people felt warm and pleasant, even making one feel as if the inside and outside were not the same city.

Turning past the quiet corner of the Duke’s Mansion, noisy human voices gradually filled his ears. Constantine slightly narrowed his eyes, directing his gaze to the other end of the street. People in various types of clothing gradually gathered here, forming a torrent—some wore robes, some wore short shirts and breeches, some wore formal lace-trimmed attire. It looked more like medieval Europe from his memory, and this place was obviously many times more prosperous than Mihaim, the capital of the Western Frontier.

This was the High Dragon Avenue, the gathering place of imperial power. The mottled stone patterns on the road could still vaguely see their former colors, which had borne the footprints of countless great figures. The empire’s history extended just like this grand avenue. Most buildings along both sides were masterpieces from the first royal reign of the Ralphe Dynasty. The tall buildings were solemn and dignified, with nearly every wall carved with statues. There were no buildings shorter than four stories here. Looking from afar, those thick columns and granite reliefs projected the capital’s grandeur, filling Constantine’s heart with endless emotion.

As a transmigrated art student, his ability to appreciate various forms of beauty was unmatched by most existences in this plane.

But why did he come to this world?

Amid his sighs, the boy’s thoughts couldn’t help but drift to some clichéd places—though even more than a decade later, Constantine had never seriously pondered this question—when reading novels in his past life, the first book had a quite sufficient and solid reason for why the protagonist found himself in such circumstances. The later books also had their own reasons, but by the end, reasons were no longer needed.

Recalling those stories in his head, Constantine’s smile at the corner of his mouth turned somewhat bitter. Getting a chance for rebirth was undoubtedly the greatest luck, but the luck of the protagonists in those remembered stories never seemed to run out on such things—they always obtained invincible power, strange martial arts, protection from parents with unparalleled abilities, and of course, the favor of beauties by the dozens… Yet in these twelve years, he had never received a shred of similar good fortune.

Once, a planar traveler gained the favor of one of that plane’s Main Deities upon arrival, receiving the so-called “weakest” ability to control souls. Merely by reading the thoughts of others, he learned several languages of that world in a very short time.

But clearly Constantine was much less fortunate… In fact, just learning to use the language for communication in this world was enough to give him a headache—a newborn learning a language from scratch wasn’t difficult because a child’s mind was like a blank slate, ready to be drawn upon. But as a planar traveler, Constantine’s language center was not a blank slate but a Kangxi Dictionary. How difficult it was to engrave completely different grammar in a place already occupied by information from various square-shaped characters!

And mainly, he always had a special aversion to foreign scripts. The English that was compulsory in his original world was similarly abandoned by him…

The earlier a child speaks, the smarter they are—this understanding was common to both worlds. And a child who could barely manage daily conversation after more than three years was naturally seen by everyone as not particularly intelligent… This was one reason why he wasn’t highly regarded.

When he finally arduously surmounted the steep slope of language, before he could even begin to display his modest talents, another mountain of things to learn pressed down on him—those protagonists in his memory always seemed to be supremely intelligent. Whether it was ancient martial arts manuals or magic books, anything that came before them could be mastered with ease after a little effort. But now, young Constantine finally understood those were just fairy tales.

It wasn’t that he had nothing to learn, but that there was too much to learn.

In the Empire, as a noble, whether he was a young talent with grand aspirations and great ideals, or a profligate who only wished to linger among wine and flowers, that systematic, tedious, and strict noble dogma—fencing, dancing, and even a whole series of subjects like drinking—were courses they had to learn. Perhaps a declining family might be in tattered clothes, but even if down-and-out to death, they still had to maintain an elegance that made them seem more like nobles than the flashy nouveau riche.

Thus, young Constantine, who had just begun to flexibly command his body, was immediately submerged in these lessons. Etiquette and dogmas that required memorization were manageable, but whether it was Yang Le from his past life or Constantine in this life, neither had any special athletic nerves. In swordsmanship and equestrian archery, what ordinary children could learn in a month often took him twice or even three times as long, not including recovery time from unfortunate accidental injuries. This performance made old steward Walter, who taught these courses, frequently shake his head.

And Constantine himself had no fondness for this force-feeding teaching method. He even thought this educational approach was why there were always more profligate sons than young talents in this world by a base number.

Childhood innocence suppressed excessively, when it erupted, mostly steered toward an evil direction. Cruelty in children might just be dismembering dragonflies and toads, but a young person with a family background probably only gained similar pleasure when tormenting commoners… And worse, stopping them then wasn’t something adults could solve with just a few scoldings…

Well, regardless, these things already occupied most of this child’s time. In the remaining little time, the young fellow also conducted some personal training sessions—moving his limbs in secluded places, doing some actions that seemed very strange to ordinary people—standing postures, push-ups, frog jumps.

In his previous life, his body wasn’t very good. Congenital mitral valve stenosis made it hard for him to have opportunities for exercise, so this could be considered a rebound. Moreover, strong males always attracted more female attention, and this seemed to be a universal truth in this plane as well.

Just frustratingly, although the boy’s rest schedule was fairly scientific, and the meals at the Governor’s Mansion could definitely be called nutritious, Constantine at thirteen still looked very thin and weak. The only thing that comforted him was that the muscles responsible for movement on his body were tightly tensed when used, possessing very strong explosive power. It seemed the basic physical quality of humans in this plane was quite good; even an ordinary person’s body was stronger than most Earthlings.

Another thing that satisfied him was the good development speed of this body’s nervous system, or perhaps the stimulation from the planar traveler’s complete mind. His nerve reactions gradually became different from ordinary people. Up until recently, when facing some fast movements, his reactions were always noticeably quicker than the average person in his memory.

Of course, besides these exercises, the boy also spent considerable time reading—after painstakingly grasping the writing system roughly, he began his assault on the not-so-small study in the residence. Over about five years, he read all the books in the study he could understand. It wasn’t that he was some genius, but as a professional homebody, reading ability was necessarily and inevitably one of the most powerful skills.

Moreover, this world didn’t have any mature papermaking technology. Those books made from lambskin, with a little over a hundred pages, often had the thickness of a brick. So although the Western Frontier Governor’s Mansion study wasn’t small, the amount of knowledge contained within actually wasn’t that extensive.

These books in the study might not be appreciated by the martial-arts-background Governor, but as decorative items for a noble’s facade, their contents were quite rich, including the continent’s geography, history, economic theories, and humanist ideological discussions. Constantine, who loved reading but didn’t seek deep understanding, mainly focused not on the meanings within this knowledge. For most things, having a rough idea was enough; there were actually very few things that truly required careful thought.

This life actually seemed rather dull, but the boy, a homebody in his past life, wasn’t very dissatisfied with all this…

If possible, he even wished to continue living like this—in the large mansion within that small city, with daily activities consisting of not-too-strict training. During leisure time, he could read books, chat about interesting tidbits with a few familiar servants, occasionally go to nearby streets to buy things. If he could freely wander to a tavern or the streets, that would be even better. Of course, the best would be to meet a few beautiful women… not too many, because he clearly understood human limits in this aspect.

But obviously, this was only an unrealistic fantasy… Just over ten days ago, three months after his thirteenth birthday, an order from his long-unseen father, Duke George, signaled that his originally fairly comfortable life had come to an end.

In fact, the impression that nominal father—the Empire’s Duke, the Western Frontier Governor—left on Constantine wasn’t even one-tenth as deep as old steward Walter, who had always taken care of him. In the ten years of this child’s growing up, the number of times the two met definitely did not exceed fifty, and the opportunities for conversation could be counted on fingers. Sometimes Constantine even doubted whether he was truly this Duke’s legitimate firstborn son in the real sense, or just an object used for display.

Even this sudden arrival in Hayton, the Duke didn’t return to Mihaim to prepare anything but joined the convoy midway. Constantine only received a notification, which was why even the number of servants in the huge residence he now lived in was sparse. Apart from a few low-level staff responsible for cleaning, and the chefs and old steward Walter brought by the Duke, there weren’t even any maidservants or the like.

Then came that emperor’s decree, which muddle-headedly made the boy that so-and-so princess’s relative by marriage… oh, the so-called fiancé, formally marking the end of the boy’s peaceful dreams, declaring them utterly finished!

Perhaps this was inevitable… In any world, the principle of equivalent exchange was probably a universal rule—since you were born a noble with no worries about food and clothing and possessing privileges, the freedom of commoners drifted far away from you.

“Is today some festival?” Constantine’s gaze lingered on the surrounding structures that could almost be called ancient monuments. His past life’s preferences made him enjoy it, but soon the boy noticed something strange—at least more than half of the people were moving in one direction. The noisy flow of people seemed to be surging toward a tall building.

The festivals in this world weren’t as varied as in his memory; there were only about twelve or thirteen a year. But the most recent one in the boy’s memory wasn’t celebrated like this… However, apart from festival reasons, the boy couldn’t think of anything else—regarding the basic form of this society, Constantine, who had spent his time in a small city residence, truly didn’t know much.

“Ahead is the Colosseum, the central arena in Hayton City, though it stopped its original function during the reign of His Majesty the Fourth Emperor. Now it serves as the slave market. And today there seems to be some special auction, hence the crowding…” Walter’s explanations were always timely and accurate, and clearly the old steward was in a good mood today: “Perhaps we can find a suitable guard for the young master, or a clever errand-runner?”

“Slave market?” The boy was slightly taken aback.

The civilization level of this plane hadn’t reached that point, so similar institutions could be said to be spread across the continent. Even Constantine, who seldom traveled, knew this well. The Western Frontier also had many slave markets, but in Constantine’s memory, those weren’t places worth such important figures flocking to.

Some images flashed through the boy’s mind… Orcs and Barbarians of various skin tones sitting or lying half-naked, even fully naked, each pair of eyes filled with something called despair. Their hands were bound with ropes, shivering in the cold wind. The air was filled with a nauseating stench that even the wind couldn’t disperse. The slaves were covered in filth; some unlucky ones even had wounds all over, festering. Even in winter, flies buzzed everywhere here, seeking delicacies freshly flowing from living bodies.

This was the scene he saw at a similar institution in the Hudering Province when he was seven.

Honestly, it was indeed the place closest to The Nine Hells on earth. If it weren’t Constantine with his past life exposure to dark footage, but another child of the same age, it probably would have left psychological scars.

…But when Constantine followed the old steward through the arched corridor and stepped onto the stone stands, this established impression was shattered.

The corridor supported by two rings of arched arcades at different heights, the topmost layer being a solid wall thirty feet high. The stands, receding layer by layer to form stepped slopes, still seemed to retain the emotions of spectators watching beast fights in the past. Only the circular center was now covered by a crude wooden high platform, but hanging on that platform were bright red cloths, with dyed linen forming a double-layered screen partition.

If not for the miserable expressions on those ‘models’ faces, Constantine might have doubted if he had returned to the era he was familiar with, watching some company’s opening show.

“The slave markets in the Western Frontier mostly sell Orcs and Barbarians. They are used as labor. But here, it’s not, or not just that… Many major criminals whose crimes aren’t punishable by death are also sent here. Besides, there are some Humanoid Creatures captured by Mercenary groups, etc.”

Seeming to notice the boy’s puzzlement, the old steward explained with a smile: “But today, it looks like these are the main attraction. My apologies, young master, I’m afraid there aren’t any suitable for use as attendants…”

Constantine wasn’t particularly concerned about having an attendant. In fact, as a planar traveler, he had long cultivated the habit of doing his own things. Although he had been in this world for a long time, he still wasn’t completely accustomed to being served by others.

Having no particular needs, the boy’s gaze began to drift randomly… His location was the nobles’ exclusive stands. Perhaps because it wasn’t a large-scale auction event, the stands weren’t arranged with separate boxes. However, nobles were usually very polite creatures. Although the number of people here wasn’t less than on the commoners’ stands below, they quietly formed several dozen distinctly separate areas.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” The clichéd greeting amplified by magic emanated from the center, announcing the start of this commercial activity.

A dozen beautiful dancing girls, three strong slaves who could serve as warriors, and even a high-ranking Orc warrior—clearly, the preparations for this auction were quite good, and all the merchandise generated considerable value… Soon the emotions of the several thousand spectators were pushed to a peak. At this moment, the merchants naturally seized the opportunity to present their most valuable merchandise to obtain the greatest value. Of course, they generally called it the grand finale.

“Next is the most valuable merchandise of this auction…”

The magically amplified voice sounded, and the crowd erupted into a tidal wave of commotion. A figure wrapped in a cloak was slowly led onto the central stone platform by two burly men. As the cloak was removed, the cheers in the crowd reached an astonishing level, drowning out the commentary with its magical amplification.

“How should this be described… A masterpiece?… Truly a masterpiece of nature.”

The boy pressed one eye to a small tube to observe. The combination of lenses made the Elf’s face much clearer. This was a simple telescope he made by grinding two pieces of Crystal he obtained by chance—glass had appeared in this world, but the manufacturing technology was far from the level in Constantine’s memory. Forget about being flattened into sheets, even that thick green tint couldn’t be removed. So apart from rough craft items like vases or bracelets, crystals usable for lenses still relied on these natural things. But large, transparent natural Crystals were too rare, so the poor Constantine’s little device still had limited viewing capability.

But it was enough for him to clearly see that priceless piece of merchandise.

Apart from the long, pointed ears, it was almost indistinguishable from a human girl—of course, that assumed there could be such a perfect face among humans. The skin’s fineness even surpassed fine porcelain, reminiscent of pudding or boiled egg surfaces. The emerald green eyes were hidden behind a few strands of hanging golden hair due to her bowed head, but that added to the mystery.

The straight and slender nose bridge and cherry-red lips sufficiently attested to that natural, fresh beauty. And the most special were those long, golden eyebrows, each almost two or three inches long.

The slender ends of the eyebrows slanted up toward the temples, complementing the splendid golden hair and pointed ears, making her appearance display an ethereal, transcendent, and otherworldly beauty. Even though the grass-green clothing on her body was almost covered in dirt, losing its original color, and though there were still some minor wounds on her body, none of this caused even the slightest damage to this beauty.

So that was an Elf? Truly worthy of being one of the most elegant creatures in legend… The boy habitually touched his nose, murmuring softly to himself.

This was a habit brought from his previous life. In his memory, a certain great knight with excellent lightness skills had the same habit… But as an ordinary person, he had nothing in common with that great knight, apart from this little issue with the nose—of course, this regrown body was very healthy, without any such problems, but a habit formed through nearly thirty years of experience wasn’t so easily changed.

Or perhaps, he was just habitually using this action to conceal his expression…