Hilton promptly finished the preparations with Avian’s newly purchased slaves and brought them with him to the exit where Avian was waiting.

The 3 slaves, namely Ogra, the unnamed rabbit girl and Deborah looked far more cleaner and tidier before, they also changed clothes as they didn’t wear the rags anymore and instead wore some casual linen clothes which consisted of trousers, leather shoes and sleeved shirts making them uniform.

The only way who was still dressed in rags was Gabriella, she herself didn’t seem to mind as she stood near Avian like a trained bodyguard, but Avian minded as he figured they would need to immediately go to a clothing store and many other stores to buy some necessities for these women to look presentable in public, it was good that he still had a lot of money on his body.

Looking back at Hilton and seeing all 3 of them approach, there was only 1 thing to do now, but first he needed to pay.

-Here are the 35 small gold pieces.

-It as a pleasure to make business with you, sir Lukas, if you would I’d like to have your blood to finish the [Slave Mark].

Not one to dilly dally, Avian took the needle that was offered by Hilton and stabbed his thumb to let a single blood of blood drop into a cup of ink that Hilton presented as well.

The [Slave Mark] then was drawn here and then as Hilton work fast and skillfully combining the ink and the blood in a mesmerizing manner before drawing the [Slave Mark] directly onto everyone’s chest.

Avian already suspected that Hilton was most likely a mid-level [Merchant] since usually only [Merchats] themselves would open and lead slavery as a business since they were the only ones who could draw the [Slave Mark], which is why Avian was very interested in the process as this was the first time he saw a [Merchant] use their abilities.

He turned on his [Blood Sense] to see If he could understand more and as he did, Avian immediately noticed faintly a blue aura momentarily concentrating on the [Slave Mark] Hilton was drawing on their chest, the blue aura was so faint that Avian wouldn’t have caught it if he didn’t concentrate enough, it was also far different compared to the usual aura he saw which was more perpetual.

Thinking about BP was actually green in color, so what was the blue aura? Another form of aura? It would make sense since Hilton obviously was someone on rank 3, but at the same time Avian couldn’t help but this this was wrong.

Lately his [Blood Sense] seemed to be also improving as well, through his constant use of it, things he never seen before started to become visible to him, maybe it’s because of the improvement of his [Blood Sense] that he could see the blue aura now, unfortunately he had no idea what this really meant other than to try decipher it later.

The process of drawing the [Slave Mark] onto the slave was mostly painless, but it did look uncomfortable as the people being subjected to it looked as if they were being restrained by something through their expression, fortunately their expression eased when it finished and the first to finish was Ogra as she immediately jumped to Avian which prompted Gabriella to stand in front of him as she perceived it as a hostile action raising her dark golden shield and sword in response.

-Halt! Slave! What do you think you’re doing!

-Hmm? New Master said, Ogra can eat lots of monster meat if Ogra kill lots of monster? Ogra wrong?

-You’re not wrong, but we are not killing monsters right now, if you are hungry we can go out and buy something to eat for now, but listen to me and follow me, don’t anything I didn’t tell you to either.

-But Ogra hungry now…

-Here you can eat this, but try to endure for a bit okay?

-Ahh! Yes! Ogra will endure! Thank you new master…no master!

-Call me Lukas, in fact everyone present do not call me master, but call me Lukas this is an order if you call me anything else you know what will happen understood?

-Yes!

-Aye!

-…

With Ogra eating the few dried rations Avian didn’t want to eat happily and without complaint, their business was finally done.

The only one who hadn’t spoken a word though this entire time was the abused rabbit girl whose name Avian still didn’t know, in fact she was still shivering looking she was going to get a heart attack from all the anxiety she seemed to be experiencing with meeting so many new people.

In that aspect she wasn’t that different from any ordinary rabbit it seemed.

Avian could imagine what was going through this girl’s mind, the only reason he really bought her was because she was a rare magic user, even if her blessing was a third rate magic blessing, magic was still a very powerful tool that could one day help them out in a pinch, Avian was ready to invest as much as possible into the girl if she could prove to be useful in that one moment.

Which is why Avian approached her.

Feeling that someone was coming for her and that being the none other than the scary man from earlier, the blind rabbit girl didn’t know where to run and simply crouched down holding her head while shivering intensely.

Everyone was looking at her and Avian as they wanted to know what Avian would do.

Only Cornelia looked on with a frown as she was experienced in being under the care of Avian for the past week, Cornelia could somewhat imagine what was going to happen now as Avian was merciless no matter if female or male, she in fact wanted to stop him from doing anything violent, but knowing that she had literally no ability to stop him she decided that she would simply look away and let it happen and think of this as a lesson for the poor rabbit girl.

Unexpectedly for her, nothing of the sort happened as Avian simply crouched down and hugged the rabbit girl who was scarred and mutilated in all kinds of places, he patted her back together with her head while gently caressing her damaged and sole ear while whispering gently into her ear.

-Its fine, its fine, calm down, no one is going to hurt you, I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise, so calm down.

For some reason the rabbit girl seemed to finally calm down after Avian’s gentle caress and kind whispers, it was unknown if she even understood Avian’s words as she came from an aboriginal tribe which likely didn’t have a lot of contact with the outside world, but she calmed down.

She was still very scared and seemed to be unable to walk, not that she physically couldn’t walk, as Hilton’s men had actually carried her here before placing her down so she could stand by herself.

Avian too decided to carry her, but first he took off his cloak and made her wear it instead, the cloak was obviously too big for her, but it did well in hiding her as she now looked completely hidden making her feel even safer as she felt warm and protected somehow.

Next Avian lightly raised her from the ground and held her in a princess carry while making her lean into his chest, the rabbit girl couldn’t understand what was happening or who this man was as she heard his heart beat and felt his warm chest, but for some reason she felt incredibly sleep and safe inside, because of her perpetual anxiety and fear all her life, she never once had ever experienced something called peaceful sleep, whenever she fell asleep she would always dream of nightmares before waking up and experiencing another nightmare which was real life.

Because of this the rabbit girl became unable to differentiate between dream and reality as both were horrible to her, if what she was currently experience was a dream, then she didn’t want to wake up no matter what and end up in her reality which was just another nightmare, the rabbit girl tried hard to stay awake, but the warmth and safety she was experiencing for the first time in her life and the gentle caressing from the man she thought of as scary was something she couldn’t fight against until eventually she peacefully fell asleep hugging his chest tight as she did so.

Gabriella smiled proudly seeing this, while thinking “as expect of my master”, while everyone else had “so-so” expression not really getting what was going on.

Only Cornelia looked totally floored as she couldn’t believe what she was seeing Avian do right now, but then again she reasoned that even Avian would be so inhumane that he would hit a abused little girl like her, but still for some reason Cornelia had misgivings about Avian treated this newcomer so gently when he always either hit or slapped her whenever she did the slightest wrong, though she kept that to herself.

It was now time to leave.

Ogra was still eating the rations Avian had given her, one of those rations would normally be enough to feed a person an entire day, but Ogra quickly ate through 3 of them within the past 20 minutes, seeing a beautiful woman like her eat so much food so fast was not a beautiful picture at all especially since what she was eating was extremely salty and dry rations everyone present tried not to look at her even if she was looking happy while eating those dried slabs of meat and berries.

-Alright I think we are finished, thank you again for your patronage sir Lukas, you can come at any time if you may need new slaves! Of course I don’t think you will be able to come any time soon as we will be moving tomorrow away from Alimdal.

-The monster horde I am guessing?

-I knew you would understand! Do you perhaps want something else?

-Actually, I was thinking about buying a pack beast and a carriage to go around for personal transportation, I see that you are selling exactly those kinds of monsters around here, since I still have a bit of gold in my pockets, I wouldn’t mind getting something before leaving.

Hilton’s eyes shone with a excited luster as he was happy to hear that especially from Avian, while he loved the slave part of his store more than the monster part, he still didn’t refuse this as he could use to sell anything he could and spend a little bit more time with Avian his excellent customer, he only wished that Delton his brother was here to meet Avian as well since they both would likely share the same opinion, unfortunate Delton was still busy with the auction at the front of their store making this quite impossible as he would miss Avian which was a shame.

Either way Hilton lead the way forward telling asked Avian what kind of beast he may be looking for while Avian came along holding the rabbit girl while telling Gabriella and Cornelia that they shouldn’t wait for him and instead go out wait for him inside his store.

He gave the key to the shutter to Cornelia which was unremarkable action really, but one that miffed Gabriella as she expected to get the key instead of the young lass, in the end Gabriella could blame herself to think that Avian would actually give her something as important as this when they had just met and not even formed a proper trusting bond, this only proved to solidify Cornelia as his rival more as she looked at her with burning eyes while Cornelia felt panicked not knowing why Gabriella was staring at her like this and feeling as if life was only going to get harder from here on out.

Ogra ate her rations in the meanwhile, having gone to the 5^th one while still having 3 left.

Deborah watched Ogra with slight amazement and a bit of disgust, she too had not said or spoken much with Avian when she was bought, she just honestly didn’t know what to say and before she knew it things were already finished and plans were made, luckily she wasn’t a complete stranger in this group as she was somewhat acquainted with Gabriella the [Knight] even if she didn’t know her name before.

They all ended up splitting up, Gabriella was honestly reluctant to leave Avian’s side as that was not something a [Knight] would do, but Avian told her explicitly to go and wait for him and to protect his slaves and Cornelia while he kept the rabbit girl and bought the pack monster with the carriage.

Gabriella felt delight for getting some important responsibilities by Avian to build trust and decided to follow his orders as they split up.

With Gabriella at the front followed by Cornelia, Ogra and Deborah last, Deborah looked at Avian who was still carrying the sleeping rabbit girl before realizing something important that she thought of before but forgot to mention.

-Ah! I didn’t tell sir Lukas my blessing!

She felt the urge to go back and tell him, but after quick thinking and realizing that was likely a pain and something she could tell later, she followed Gabriella and the others as the 4 left the slave tent and went back to the small general store.

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