*ding**ding*

Rang a bell that was on the door of the store ruth and his slaves entered , the store was very close to the 2nd wall meaning it was for very rich commoners .

Ruth being ruth was not short on money and wanted the best as for now , he could have gone to noble district but that's hassle when he got to know that there will be checkings and a few more things will be required to enter the noble district he decided against it for now.

Ruth entered the store and saw old man standing on the reception , the old man was wearing clothes like a butler would but considering he was alone ruth thought him to be the manager .

“What can we help you with esteemed customer” said the old man while his tone was sweet and calm his face was showing clear disgust to aria while also looking at ruth with suspicious gaze wondering if such a poor man could afford the clothes in this store all because of the cheap and worn out clothes ruth was currently wearing.

“Well I need a few basic clothes for me and maybe 2 suits for now . I would have gotten more but these should suffice for now as I would be getting more from the noble district later considering they have better clothes anyways” ruth answered the man ,

ruth had no need to announce the later part about him visiting the noble district to the man but still did so just to show that he is rich enough to buy clothes that nobles buy and hence should be treated as such.

“I apologize esteemed customer though we can’t compare to clothing sold in noble district , I can assure you that there is no store in commoner district can compare to the clothes we sell here.”

“Good then , do some work will you ?” ruth said in a sneering tone , ruth had no respect for anyone who acted like such a goodie in two shoes and especially those weaker than him.

When ruth entered the store the first thing he did was to use [observe] on the old man and he was a few levels weaker than ruth , ruth knew very well that if they were to fight one on one he will lose because he had not much fighting experience , but ruth had gin and aria with him .

However weak the latter is she will turn the match in ruth’s favor if the fight ever happened.

“Ye- yes immediately ” the man bowed his had a little and went back to his table to get some measuring tapes as he soon came back and measured ruth’s body .

After the measurement was done , the butler asked ruth about the type of clothes he would be needing and ruth’s answer was ‘decently made simple pants maybe 4 , also 4 shirts and 2 suits that are the best he has in the store ’

The butler nodded and with a slight bow he left the party near the changing room and soon the butler came back with lots of clothes with him.

Ruth tried a lot of them and rejected almost all and after like 2 hours of continuous trials and rejections they were done.

Ruth bought 6 pant and shirt pairs along with 2 suits , he also bought few shoes and socks along with a few handkerchiefs . He can’t live in these clothes forever but ruth was sure he will come back to the capital in a week to check the noble district and when that happens he will definitely get the better clothes he can ‘afford’.

Though ruth was rich he doubted he could compare to the nobles that extorted the commoners and had amassed their wealth for generations.

Ruth had changed his clothes from his old clothes , that were originally gin’s , into the new pant and shirt he bought.

Ruth’s new outfit was simple but elegant black pant with a embroidered white shirt . With that he wore black socks along with black shoes.

The outfit would have looked great with white shoes but since white is a hard color to keep clean for commoners especially in shoes and hence they weren’t even sold in this shop and was told that he would have to visit some very expensive shop in noble district to even get one.

Even then ruth was happy with the outfit , he looked in the mirror for a few moments checking how he looked , and for him he looked like a good ..cough… narcissism… cough .

The price of all the outfits came out to be 2 gold , the price shocked both gin and aria , that was more than their annual pay and in case for aria she was also sold for only 4x this price , meaning her worth is as much as a few dresses rich people wore.

For ruth though it seemed cheap because he had no sense of money all because of all he earned so much money daily not doing anything so might as well use it than keep in the inventory.

But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to get a discount , he used [hypnosis] and just like luna the hypnosis only worked partially.

After negotiating for only a minute the price was brought down to only 50 silver and made ruth happy.

He was in no need for money neither is 1 gold discount going to affect him , he just felt good because the guy would have to pay the discount he gave to ruth from his own salary which might just cause him lose his job and that was a sweet and simple revenge from ruth for the old man to disrespect him.

The party got out and followed by ruth they all started to walk towards the wagon place , all the wagons from the city are parked there .

But why are there so many wagons in the city when they aren’t allowed to enter ? They are allowed to enter the city but its just the guest in the wagon should be a very known or powerful guy and some other things but ruth didn't knew of them .

If maybe the owner from the clothing store would have come he would have been able to use wagon in the city but if ruth did so he might be charged with fine or in worse cases even imprisonment for a few weeks.

“Master !” leo said in respect as he bowed his head to an almost 90 degrees . Everyone who was there saw leo do the bow but no one though it in weird way , they all thought that the wagon driver , leo in this case made some mistake and is apologizing to the customers.

Ruth nodded his head and headed inside the wagon , this time he wasn’t only with gin but was also accompanied by aria .

“Hmm , so thats how you climb the stairs with your tail..tail right ?”

“Ye- yes master its called tail” aria answered a bit flustered knowing that her master was actually observing her . She got fully inside and sat on the floor .

The wagon was large and aria’s tail while being large wasn’t huge or anything , it was just a bit bigger than a normal human’s lowerbody , their legs and hips.

“You know what somehow every monster or other race I have slaved except these fucking humans have modesty and respect for me , somehow everytime I meet my other race slaves it makes me angrier towards the humans ” ruth said a bit angry as his gaze landed on gin who was sitting across him on the wagon seat.

Gin was scared shitless , the last time this happened to his master , he made every villager cut their arm just as punishment and now he looks even more angry , he didn’t even want to think what punishment his master might give them.

*creak**creak*

The wagon started moving and in a few moments they were already at the city gate , the soldiers didn’t do any checking and just let them go.

soon the wagon was on its way to meltia village and the wagon was filled with silence and the only sounds that could be heard were the tire noises and breathing sounds.

“Aria , lets cut the chase and let me ask you directly , do you swear your loyalty to me ?” ruth broke the silence as he asked aria a question.

Aria was shocked , she had no idea what her master meant by loyalty , wasn’t she already her slave or did he mean something else but how could she decide she hadn’t seen how ruth will treat her .

Just because ruth said those lines to her in the morning doesn’t mean she completely believes ruth will treat her good , he might even sell her after he finds that she has no talent in potion making.

While aria was thinking about what her master meant and could she even trust him , ruth spoke ,

“By loyalty I mean become my absolute slave , yes you are already marked to be my slave but how trustful am I to the slave seal ? Not a lot , if a small artifact and few drops of blood can transfer the owner than it can possibly be done without even the owner if used by a strong magician.

“And hence become my absolute slave that no one will be able to steal you from me , and as for whether I am trustful for not ? I have nothing to say but do remember that gin is useless and he still gets to be with me, eat with me and most importantly he is ALIVE . ”

Gin who heard his master was again scared about how he ended the sentence , at this point gin couldn’t help but be scared of his master in everything he did.

Aria on the other hand wasn’t even focusing on the ‘alive’ part but was focusing on the ‘be with me’ and ‘eat with me’ part , somehow that made her feel better.

She was no fool to be entranced by some simple lines but it didn’t mean they didn’t influence her a little bit , she somehow had an insurance that if she is found useless atleast she won’t be thrown away or sold .

And the part about permanent enslaving or slave seal was heard but she was already a slave and at the end of the day it didn’t even matter if she wished or not because her master could just force her to do what he wanted.

“Y-yes master , I sweat my absolute loyalty to master” aria said as she bowed while still on the floor with her head on the same height as her master’s waist.

“Alright then” ruth said as he got something out of his inventory and said,

“Eat this”

# aria's illustrations are available in my patreon and discord   [ nsfw is not free in patreon but free in discord : ) ]

#free character illustrations at patreon.com/sanssyyy            [ no free nsfw because it gets flagged ]
#the same is available at discord : discord.gg/HsakQhYzPf    [has free nsfw]