The Place Where I Was Sold as a Slave Was the Imperial Palace

＜ Slave ＞

* * *

I thought I knew that I was enslaved, but maybe it wasn’t.

The moment the moderator said that the bid had been won, I felt like I was falling into a deep hole.

It seems to be blocked on all sides by impassable narrow walls.

As if being eaten by the darkness, the surroundings were dyed in darkness in an instant.

It seemed that his body was shaking without realizing it. The upper body tilted forward.

Rudy managed to straighten himself right before falling to the floor. I hold my hands tightly and look at the floor of the podium.

‘You really became a slave.’

It seemed as if all the strength in her body was flowing out and seeping into the ground.

An auction house attendant approached the Imperial Merchant and handed him something.

It appears to be a flat wooden board.

After bowing deeply to the imperial merchant, the host went up to the podium where Rudy was.

Then, around the neck of each child, a necklace with a wooden board was hung.

The necklace also hung on Rudy’s neck.

The rope was too long for the children’s bodies, and the wooden board dangled near their belly button.

Simple pictures and numbers were written on the wooden board, and it seems that the buyer and the slave who won the bid got the wooden board with the same pattern.

On the back of the wooden board, there was a number written on what appeared to be the winning bid amount.

The Imperial Merchant was seen heading to the desk in the corner of the podium.

There sat a skinny man writing something with ink and pen.

It seems that the man wrote the letters on the wooden board.

Several wooden boards were placed on the desk.

As the Imperial Merchant approaches, a skinny man shows what is written on the paper.

The imperial merchant who confirmed the contents nodded and pressed the top of the ring he was wearing to the paper.

It seems to be a seal used instead of a signature.

The other successful bidders also went there, checked the documents, and pressed their seals.

While I was watching the scene blankly, an auction house attendant grabbed the children and dragged them away.

“You guys, come here!”

The host dragged the children down the podium.

Rudy follows.

It doesn’t look like it will be handed over to a new owner right away.

The facilitator led the children to the back of the auction house tent.

There were rows of iron cages similar to those seen from the front, but the aisles were very narrow.

It’s only wide enough for one or two people to pass through.

On the door of the iron cage hung a board with a pattern resembling a wooden board.

The host checked the necklace and put the children one by one in an iron cage with the same pattern.

Rudy entered the biggest cage.

There were slaves already wearing necklaces with the same pattern, and both men and women were equally beautiful.

Unlike other iron cages, it has plenty of space.

It was probably an iron cage where only expensively purchased slaves entered.

Right next to it, there was an iron cage with wooden boards with the same pattern, but that seemed to be an iron cage for cheap slaves.

Inside the wide iron cage were men and women who looked healthy even if they were not outstanding in appearance.

Unlike other buyers’ cages where there are more women, there are more men there. In addition, most of them were of the poor type.

The iron cage Rudy entered and the one next to it had one thing in common: there were only people who looked younger than twenty in both places.

Seeing Rudy, the slaves in the cage seemed a little startled.

I guess it’s because I’m too young

But no one talked to him.

Rudy looked around inside the cage and looked at the corner.

In the corner of the cage was a toilet bowl and some dirty looking cloths.

Is it because the product was purchased at a high price? It seems that the situation is a little better than the previous tent.

An hour or two later, the host who had brought Rudy here and the men he did not know arrived with a large wooden barrel.

It contained something I didn’t know was soup or stew.

Men went around the cage, scooping a ladle into wooden bowls and distributing them to the slaves.

The iron cage next to it also received the food in the wooden barrel.

It smelled like it had gone bad.

The food distributed to Rudy’s cage is in a different container.

It was a stew with some ingredients, but it also smelled a little strange, probably spoiled.

But when I ate it, I hardly felt bad. It was probably just about to get hurt.

Very little, but I felt lucky.

By the time we finished eating, it was dark everywhere.

The women in the same cage took out a piece of cloth in the corner and unfolded it.

Several people crouch down and cover themselves with a cloth.

A woman in her mid-teens beckoned to him.

As Rudy approaches, he lifts some of the cloth.

“thank you.”

When I bowed my head in greeting, the women widened their eyes as if slightly surprised.

“The pronunciation…”

“Are you the son of a noble family?”

the women ask

Shaking his head, the women didn’t ask anymore.

When the women settled down and lay down, the men gathered together at a distance.

The men also gather together and cover themselves with cloth.

People from the auction house occasionally patrolled the aisle outside the cage.

It seems that a fight broke out between slaves in an iron cage a little far from here.

I heard the men at the auction house knocking on the iron cage and shouting.

‘I should go to sleep.’

In this situation, a single cold can kill you.

Sleep as much as you can, eat whatever you can, and preserve your stamina.

I forced my eyes closed and tried to sleep, but one of the women I was sleeping with covered with a cloth began to cry silently.

Another person sniffs as if the sadness is contagious.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the cries, but I finally fell asleep at dawn.

The next day, around lunchtime, the same meal was served again.

But nothing was given to the other cages.

It was not until evening that meals were distributed to the other cages.

Another slave entered Rudy’s cage.

Two days later, there were two.

After about ten days, an imperial merchant came to take over the slave.

The Imperial Merchant had several subordinates.

One had an iron chain around his neck, but the other seemed to be a free man. There was nothing on the neck.

Next to the Imperial Merchant stood a man with a mustache holding a ledger.

It seems that the mustache is the highest except for the imperial merchants.

Every time the auctioneer brought out a slave, Mustache checked his ledger, necklace, and price.

It was Rudy’s turn.

As he went outside, the Imperial Merchant suddenly gestured to him to stop.

“Doesn’t your stomach hurt by any chance?”

the imperial merchant asks.

Rudy answered, holding his hands in front of him to look polite.

“It’s fine.”

At that moment, the mustache who had been staring at the manager raised his head and looked at him.

All eyes of the others were also directed at Rudy.

“…”

I was just answering a question, did I do something wrong? Maybe the slave shouldn’t answer directly to the master’s words.

Rudy hesitated, but he didn’t know what people were doing.

He narrowed his eyes while admiring the mustache.

“Master, you have made a very good purchase. It’s really amazing that you can speak the imperial language. Master, did you know?”

At the words of Mustache, the Imperial Merchant shook his boat happily and began to laugh.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! No, I didn’t know either. I thought it might be because this child’s Kanian is so natural. Because this child answered my question in the perfect language of the kingdom of Chania, not in my mother tongue. At first, I thought Kania had been captured by mistake.”

The Imperial Merchant rubbed his chin with his finger and said.

“But I couldn’t believe he could speak such perfect imperial language. It really exceeds expectations.”

It seems that the imperial merchant deliberately asked the question in the Putegrin imperial language.

I had no idea.

I thought the accent was slightly different from normal language, but it was a language from another world anyway.

To Rudy, both the local language and the imperial language sounded equally French.

Perhaps it was because he was educated as a ducal son from birth.

I don’t remember, but I may have used several languages in everyday life.

“The merchant who sold this child knew that he could speak the Kanian language, but he probably did not know the imperial language. If I had known, I would have charged more.”

The Imperial Merchant smirked, and the mustache nodded.

“If I can say this perfectly, I can sell it right away. I’ll get you a pretty good price.”

“yes. It was a really good shopping.”

The imperial merchant held out his boat as if in a good mood and looked toward the iron cage on the other side.

When Rudy looked away, the merchant who had competed with the imperial merchant until the end was standing there. He, too, seemed to have come to fetch his own slave.

‘Ah, why did I deliberately use the imperial language for a test at this timing…’

It seems that the Imperial Merchant wanted to tell this story to that man.

The man glared at the imperial merchant as if to kill him, then turned around and left.

He hasn’t taken over the slave yet, but he seems to have avoided his seat because he couldn’t win Boone.

“Keukkeukkeuk.”

As the Imperial Merchant laughed sinisterly, Mustache sighed.

“The owner also has a bad personality. Were you holding a grudge about the last time?”

“Can you stay still when you’re being snatched right in front of you?”

“ha.”

At the words of the Imperial Merchant, the mustache sighed heavily.

“Well, that guy always hijacked things we had set up beforehand, so it might be okay to take it at least once.”

Mustache shrugged and gestured to the men behind him.

The iron chains brought by the men are put on the necks of the slaves who have been checked.

The necklace was a little thinner than the one at the auction house, but it had a steel chain attached to it as well.

The end of the long chain was threaded into the loop of the other slave’s necklace.

It’s not like the lock is stuck.

However, in the overturned C-shaped loop of the necklace, the broken part was very small, so the wire did not come off easily.

In an instant, the collars of the slaves in front and behind were connected with a wire, which was then connected to the slave in the back.

Necklaces were also put on slaves who were in the same cage as Rudy.

But the color was different.

The other slaves are colorless iron necklaces, while those in the same place as Rudy’s were painted red.

Slaves wearing red necklaces were strangled with each other.

However, since Rudy was so small, even if he wore a necklace, he could not be connected to other people by a wire.

As the Imperial Merchant and Mustache moved, the slaves began walking down the aisle in single file.

As I walked, I saw that there were more empty iron cages than I thought.

At the end of the aisle, Mustache bent over the Imperial Merchant.

“Master, then I will leave.”

“Ah, yes, good job. Be especially careful not to die.”

The Imperial Merchant seems to remain on the Auction House.

Mustache answered with a grin.

“of course. Would you use it only after easily killing the long-awaited product?”

Mustache glanced at Rudy.

“There are still requests from a few places asking for a playmate for the boy, so I will be especially careful.”

Judging from the words of the mustache, it seems that there is no fear of dying for the time being.

Rudy was relieved internally, but at the same time a little sad.

As soon as we got out of the auction house, everything became quiet in an instant.

This is the exact opposite of where I was before.

The buying side seemed to be staying in a completely different area from the selling area.

First of all, unlike the time of the merchant, the mustache’s subordinates did not make a loud noise or get angry.

However, they manipulated the slaves by cleverly shaking or pulling on the leash to inflict pain.

On the contrary, it seems more painful to the victim.

At first, there were some slaves who stood out a bit, as if they were looking for an opportunity to escape, but by the time they reached the Imperial Merchant’s Slave Hall, everyone had calmed down.

＜slave＞ end