Chapter 11 : Chapter 11
Chapter 11. The Golden Legend of the Slave Market
The next day, in the shabby inn room he had rented in Thorne City for the time being,
Eli sat cross-legged on the hard plank bed, sank his consciousness into his mind, and skillfully activated the precious once-per-day draw.
The instant the thought fell, the pale blue system screen before his eyes was swallowed by an unprecedented burst of brilliant golden light—so dazzling it was almost blinding!
【Gold-Tier Intelligence Acquired!】
The four large words seemed to sear themselves into Eli’s retinas like branding irons, stopping his breath cold!
【Princess Lynn Aurora of the Kingdom is currently disguising her identity with the ancient alchemical item “Thousand Faces.”
After suffering an injury to the head, she has partially lost her memory. Under the alias “Ella,” she is currently hiding in the slave market of East Market in Thorne City.】
Lynn Aurora?!
The kingdom’s princess who had mysteriously vanished after the Queen’s assassination?!
Eli felt his scalp go numb.
A princess of the kingdom!
A living, breathing princess who held crucial clues to the bloody case in the royal capital.
This was no mere intelligence.
This was a staggering stroke of fortune crashing down on his head.
No—it was a supreme bargaining chip powerful enough to shake the entire kingdom.
“Estor! Bol! Aika! Bring men and come with me! Now! Immediately! At once!”
Eli could no longer stay calm. He sprang off the bed in one motion.
With a single kick, he blasted open the creaking door and charged out.
At that moment, Thorne City’s East Market resembled a gigantic, chaotic hive.
The issuance of the Frontier Edict had been like hurling a boulder into a dried-up pond, instantly stirring dormant opportunities into life.
The air was thick with the rank stink of livestock, the sharp reek of cheap spices, the sour staleness of sweat, and the merchants’ hoarse cries of sale.
Caravans from all across the kingdom—and even from neighboring city-states—had gathered here.
Crude stalls lined both sides of the narrow, muddy streets, piled high with every kind of goods imaginable.
Rust-speckled farm tools, coarse hemp tents, dried salted meat aged far too long—
Bundles of inferior spears, and even a few cages of wilted, dispirited chickens and ducks.
“Young master, your honor! Take a look at the refined steel hoes from our Kano Merchant Guild!
A necessity for reclaiming wasteland! Buy ten and get one free!”
“Top-quality linen! Waterproof and windproof! Good for tents or clothing!
Only five silver coins a bolt!”
“Newly arrived hardwood wheels from the northern frontier! Strong and durable!
Don’t miss them, young master!”
With Brandon, Bol, Aika, and several elite knights in tow, Eli violently shoved aside the crowds and the piles of goods blocking his way.
He ignored the enthusiastic peddlers who tried to force merchandise into his hands.
His gaze was sharp, fixed only on the coordinates marked on the system screen.
The deeper they went, the filthier the surroundings became, and the denser the air of despair grew.
At the far end of East Market stood an open lot surrounded by tall walls.
There was no lively shouting here—only dead silence, numbness, and stifled sobbing.
Dozens of wooden cages were arranged like livestock pens.
Inside them were crammed slaves in ragged clothes, their eyes either vacant or filled with fear.
Men, women, old people, and children were all there. Most were sallow and emaciated, their bodies marked with whip scars or the traces of hard labor.
Whether they were frontier lords or smugglers, everyone knew what was most lacking here—manpower.
Eli’s heart pounded wildly as his gaze swept over the row of cages against the far wall.
He found her.
Curled up in the corner of a cage packed with seven or eight young female slaves was a single figure.
She wore the same filthy, tattered coarse clothing as the others. Her hair was a dry, undernourished grayish white.
Her face was smeared with dirt, making her features impossible to see clearly.
It was her.
The white hair distinctive to the Orlando royal family.
Ella. Or rather—Lynn Aurora.
A fat merchant in a greasy leather apron, reeking of alcohol,
caught sight of Eli like a hyena scenting blood and immediately waddled out of a ramshackle shed beside him.
His mung-bean-like eyes darted once, and when he saw the hardened knights behind Eli,
he instantly plastered on the most obsequious smile imaginable and hurried over, rubbing his hands.
“Oh my! Heh, heh, heh! My honored lord! Your eye is truly excellent!”
Following Eli’s gaze, the fat merchant immediately landed on the white-haired girl.
A lewd expression of “I understand” spread across his face as he lowered his voice.
“You fancy this one, do you? Heh, this is rare merchandise indeed!
She may look a little thin, but the foundation of that face is absolutely top-class!
Train her up a bit and I guarantee you’ll be satisfied! And she’s still untouched too—clean, guaranteed!
If you like her, the price is negotiable. Five gold coins! No—take her for four!”
Suppressing the urge to kick the greasy slob flying, Eli did not spare the man so much as a glance.
His eyes remained fixed on the white-haired girl in the cage.
Perhaps sensing that intense stare, the girl shrank back almost imperceptibly and lowered her head even further.
“Enough nonsense,” Eli said evenly.
He pointed directly at the entire area around them. “Everything here. All of your slaves. I want them all. Name your price.”
“A-All of them?!” The fat merchant’s vulgar grin froze instantly.
His mouth dropped so wide an egg could have fit inside, and even his breathing seemed to stop for a moment.
A surge of overwhelming ecstasy hit him like a bolt of lightning, making his plump body tremble with excitement.
He hurriedly pinched the spot beneath his nose, afraid he might faint from sheer joy!
He had been in the slave business for years, but he had never met such an extravagant customer.
“M-My lord! Y-Your generosity truly reaches the heavens!”
The fat merchant was so excited he could barely speak, waving his hands wildly.
“I have three hundred and eighty in total! All able-bodied laborers and young women—absolutely no old, weak, sick, or crippled burdens to drag you down!
Bundled together! Bundled together for just... just two hundred and twenty gold coins! What do you think? A perfectly fair price!”
Eli’s face remained expressionless. “One hundred and eighty.”
“Oh, my lord, that cut is far too ruthless!” The fat merchant immediately switched to a mournful face, beating his chest and stamping his feet.
“My costs are real, every last bit of them! Just look at how much grain these slaves eat every day—”
“Two hundred,” Eli cut him off. “One more copper coin than that, and I walk away. There are plenty of people outside who want to sell.”
The fat merchant’s wailing stopped on the spot.
His little eyes spun rapidly as he calculated his gains and losses.
Two hundred gold coins! It hurt a little, but he would still make an enormous killing.
And clearing out all his stock in one go... this deal was absolutely worth it!
“Done! Your lordship is decisive, and I won’t waste time either! Two hundred gold coins! These slaves are all yours now!”
The fat merchant changed his face faster than turning a page and instantly broke into a broad grin, bowing and scraping.
He quickly pulled out a thick stack of slave contracts from the pocket of his greasy apron and presented them with both hands.
Without even looking, Eli signaled for Brandon to step forward and inspect and take possession of them.
He himself walked straight to the cage holding the white-haired girl.
At a glance from the fat merchant, the burly guard hurriedly unlocked the cage door.
“You,” Eli said, deliberately softening his voice a little.
“From today onward, you are my personal secretary. You will be responsible for handling documents and attending to my personal affairs. Understood?”
The girl, Ella, suddenly lifted her head. Beneath the gray-white strands of hair, her eyes—filled with caution and bewilderment—were brimming with disbelief.
A secretary? Personal affairs? He was not buying her to...?
For a moment, she could not react at all. She could only stare blankly at Eli.
“Bol, find them some clean clothes and get them something to eat.
Then take a few of the brothers and bring these slaves to our encampment.”
Without waiting for her reply, Eli gave the order directly to the bald, burly man behind him.
Bol nodded in acknowledgment, then took three of the men with him to handle the handover with the fat merchant.
Eli turned at once, his eyes sweeping toward the area where the other traders were gathered.
“Brandon, Aika, Estor! Keep buying people. Our target is five hundred in total. Focus on able-bodied men and women!”
The following half day turned into a small-scale storm in the slave quarter of East Market.
“My lord! I still have twenty strong laborers here! Fresh off the mines—guaranteed to have strength! Only fifteen gold!”
“Fifteen? Ten. Sell or don’t.”
“Twelve! My lord, twelve gold! I truly can’t go any lower!”
“Done!”
“My lord! Look at these female slaves! They can wash clothes and cook! Eight gold for the lot!”
“Five. Not one copper more!”
“S-Six... six, my lord. Please show mercy...”
“I’ll take them!”
In the end, Eli finally gathered a full five hundred slaves.
To do that, he paid an additional seventy glittering gold coins.
That left him with 250 gold.
Eli rubbed his brow. “Sigh... money really flows away like water. I still miss the days in the royal domain when buying things didn’t cost me anything.”
On the second day, the pain of spending money continued.
With Estor and Brandon in tow, Eli plunged once more into Thorne City’s still-chaotic but relatively well-stocked frontier market.
Seeds, grain, medicine, iron nails, rope, coarse hemp cloth... every essential supply needed in the early stage of establishing a frontier base became the target of his sweep.
“Fifty sacks of wheat seed! One hundred sacks of black bread flour! Fifty barrels of salted dried meat!”
“Twenty pounds each of styptic herb powder, insect-repelling powder, and bitterroot powder for treating diarrhea!”
“Pig iron, nails, hoes, axes...”
Brandon was holding the list and checking each item one by one with Estor.
By the time the last item had been loaded onto the wagon, only a lonely sixty gold coins remained in the money pouch.
Eli felt as though his heart were bleeding.
He pulled out a little over ten gold coins and casually tossed them to Bol, Aika, and the other ten knights who had followed him the whole way.
“You’ve worked hard, brothers. One gold coin each. Go relax tonight, but return on time tomorrow morning!”
“And buy some meat for Wolfgang and the others while you’re at it.”
“Oh! Long live the lord!” Catching the gold coins, the knights instantly broke into delighted smiles and answered in unison.
The comfort brought by gold was always the most tangible of all.
After that, Eli stopped Brandon, who had been about to follow the others, and took him along to receive his soldiers and craftsmen from the new recruit camp and the craftsmen’s camp outside the city.
“What’s an old man like you doing trying to join the fun?”
“My lord, you mustn’t underestimate me.”
“Keep up.”
“Yes, my lord.”
At this moment, Wolfgang had been left by Eli to watch over the slaves.
On the morning of the third day, outside the west gate of Thorne City,
a large and motley force had already assembled.
Eli cast one final glance back at Thorne City’s black silhouette, faintly visible through the morning mist, and drew a deep breath of dusty air.
He suddenly pulled the sword from his waist. Beneath the morning sun, its blade traced a bright arc as he pointed it toward the land that would be his.
“Move out!”