It wasn't long before the old man came back up front and made good on his promise of payment, in the form of thirty platinum ren, with each worth the equivalent value as a hundred golden ren. Like this, even Tabitha could carry and hide the wealth, so it worked out very well for us.
After the old man had displayed his trustworthiness, I finally decided to sit down and do some trading with him as well, only to come to the realization that we both ended up thinking each other was utterly insane!
The things that I thought someone from this world might find valuable, he discarded as worthless trash. No use for a cigarette lighter – it could be duplicated with a mana stone and a spark formation, apparently. No use for a German engineered super-polymer hacky-hack hatchet. I figured we had to have better smithing and metalworking skills than some medieval world, right? Apparently not, as he only graded it a four point five on some odd rating scale he used.
My cotton boxers were utterly worthless, according to us both – up until he noticed the awe-inspiring godliness of the elastic waistband. I swear, I think the old freak is about half a step away from deifying my underwear!!
As if that wasn't crazy enough, my plain white undershirt was even more miraculous in the old kook's eyes. He oohed and he aahed like it was the holy grail, trying to figure out what type of cloth it was made out of. And when I told him what the label said – cotton, polyester, and rayon tri-blend – he went even stupider over it. Apparently this guy's field of study is alchemy, and the synthetic junk we use so casually was right up his alley.
My small bottle of Viagra that I'd snuck and stashed away to sell to older gentlemen at a high markup, he laughed at and called, "Assassination Jackassery!" Apparently slaves are stiffened to show the lack the basic shame and dignity of a human being any more, so no respectable free man would ever use something like Viagra and no slave would ever need it.
The only use for something like Viagra in the old man's eyes, would be to slip it to some male rival and watch them die from social embarrassment at some fancy event, when the effects kicked in. Apparently, in this world, limp noodles are the expected social etiquette, and raging boners are reserved for the most intimate and private of places. Only slaves and beasts can't control themselves and are liable to be found just humping away anywhere they can!
The old man finds Viagra to be stupidly evil, whereas I find the practice of altering slaves to make them permanently stiff and as horny as a pack of jackrabbits in heat, and then blaming them for that, to be stupidly evil! How the hell can you look down on them for having an overactive libido which you gave them by overdosing them on permanent drugs??
Dumb ass old man, and a dumb ass society to boot!
A mechanical pen down in my pack was *astounding* to the old man, but "not his field of study". My boots were garbage, but the crimpy pieces at the end of the laces were priceless. What I called junk, he called treasure – and the more we argued over what was what, the more we each became convinced the other was an idiot.
The final crown de triumph of all my crap, was a simple pump bottle of hand sanitizer. Believe it or not, the crazy old coot was willing to trade me his granddaughter if I'd give it to him! What type of person is willing to trade their family for soap??
So, of course, I had to let the old geezer know exactly how crazy he was! The dude's probably seventy. Since medieval folks marry and pop out children at a young age, his child is probably older than fifty, and his grandchild around their mid-thirties. Do I *really* look like I'd be interested in enslaving someone who could possibly be old enough to be my mother?!!
But, when he corrected himself and offered me his granddaughter's daughter, I broke down and took him up on the offer. After all, it's just a damn bottle of hand sanitizer, which you can buy anywhere in the world for less than five dollars a bottle!
Crazy old bastard!
Honestly, I was going to turn him down, but once he started extolling her virtues, I couldn't. Supposedly beautiful, virtuous, brilliant, trained in both court and alchemy. The girl is supposed to be able to read and write, do calculations, know alchemy, and should be of a good bloodline for breeding. Taught for most of her life in some prestigious all-girl school, she's supposedly innocent of men and has just recently returned home to learn the family art of alchemy.
She sounds brilliant and being able to take her home and keep her without anyone missing her, sounds like a perfect way to get to freely question someone knowledgeable about more of this world. Honestly, I've never seen the chick, so I don't know if she's the least bit cute or not. I'm not trading for her, just so I can bounce her – I want to take her home and pick her brain clean about this world!
Of course, the old man couldn't just give her to me then and there. He had to fetch her first and make proper preparations—whatever those are – so we all ended up leaving his shop, with Tabitha leading the way towards the smithy I was supposed to visit.
Honestly, if Tabitha's money sense wasn't completely skewed – and I had no real reason to imagine it was – I was now a rather wealthy bastard myself after leaving his shop. The price the old crazy coot payed for my underwear, a full bottle of Gatoraid, one of my undershirts, and a pair of shoe strings was utterly ridiculous. Of course, just looking at the list of crap he bought is just utterly ridiculous itself!
I won't bother you guys with all the details of our trip to the smithy, as they're basically nothing important. We went in, spoke to some burly old dude. I passed him the note written by the guards, and pointed out Vicky's copper shackles. We took them off, I passed him a few platnium ren, and an ornate silver set was fastened on her as a replacement. Short, simple, and all business.
I figure I can go browsing and do some shopping at another time. We've already been gone for quite some time, and I don't want Maria to have to worry about us. Besides… I already have to figure out how the hell I'm going to explain I purchased a slave girl to her! I don't need any more issues by staying out so long I make her worry about us!
After all, we were *only* going to gather a few water and forest samples on this trip…
Since worrying about it wouldn't make anything better, I asked Tabitha to lead us to one final stop for the afternoon, before going back to the old bastard's shop – a decent magic shop! Of course, it took a while to sort out the differences in language – she had no idea what magic was as the word apparently doesn't exist is this world – but eventually she decided I was talking about a "Relic Shop".
Going into the relic shop, I have to say, my first impression wasn't anything special. The damn place looked like an old general store to me, with lots of junk and antique looking stuff all packed neatly on the shelves. It wasn't until the young looking pointy-eared saleswoman started describing the function of the items I was looking at, that I really got interested.
My absolute first purchase was half a dozen simple silver bracelets for two hundred ren each. Enchanted with a resistance to heat, I found them essential for this world and donned one as soon as I purchased it. Sure enough, the temperature of the room seemed to drop by about twenty degrees instantly, and I no longer found myself sweating like a stuck pig anymore.
Vicky truly didn't seem to need one, and I wasn't certain if a shinta could even legally wear one, so I stuck the other five in my pack for later.
For a thousand ren, I purchased a set of earrings that are supposed to translate languages. They don't allow one to *speak* a different language, but they should allow one to *hear* and understand it. I would've purchased several more of those, but the store didn't have any extra in stock, so I was stuck with just getting one this time around.
For ten thousand ren each, I traded for three rings of shielding. According to the saleswoman, they offered as much protection as a full suit of chain armor, without the weight or unbearable searing heat that the metal links could produce in this world's sun.
And with that, I basically went from rich bastard to broke bum with just one stop in the shop! Finished for the day, I thanked the – I guess elf? -- woman, and we headed out and back to the crazy old alchemist's place.
Getting back in the shop, I was astounded to find some otherworldly beauty sitting and squirming erotically in the middle of the shop floor, while the old man hummed contentedly and sat behind the narrow counter, carefully studying my old bottle of hand sanitizer. "That's her," and, "you can take her anytime you want now," was the only thing the old man said, as he never even lifted his gaze up from the bottle he was playing with.
"Umm… Stand up," I ordered softly, unable to believe that I'd purchased and was now the shameless owner of another human being. Sure, I owned Vicky, but that wasn't my fault! She was an unfortunate side effect of unknowable magical forces and teenage masturbation fantasies. This girl was free until I came along, and I was the one who knowingly changed her life to take away for freedom to suit my whimsey. Sure, the old man might have been the one to actually sell her, but he couldn't have did that if I wouldn't have been the one to *buy* her!
I'm now officially an Other World slaver!
Maria is going to murder me. Then she's going to neuter me. Then she's going to get angry!!
Oh shit. Shit. Shitty shit! As I was starting to regret my decision, my mind blanked out as the girl slowly eased up and turned to face me. Naked and hairless from the neck down, the gorgeous was a goddess! I mean this goddess was absolutely gorgeous! No signs of the malnutrition which was so obvious with the rest of the vast majority of this world, this girl was absolutely perfect.
Maria is a top class beauty, in her own way. Vicky indubiously is as well. Back home, I'd rate them both high tens on a scale of one to ten, but this… heavenly creature is all I can think to call her, as *girl* or *beauty* is simply inadequate for her divine appearance… This heavenly creature would have to be a ten out of ten, and Vicky and Maria are now sevens at best! Her appearance completely rewrites the values of the numbers on the scale of earthy beauty – she's truthfully that stunning!
Perfect round breasts, full of heft and bounce, stood majestically center-stage of her torso. Well-tanned, her skin was a vibrant golden bronze, with her nipples standing proudly erect and oddly highlighted by their naturally paler shade of almost crème color. The womanly lips that gently encased the entrance of her womanly entrance between her legs, were the same tanless crème color as the mountainous peaks of her breasts.
Hair long, full of life and bounce, it curled naturally down her back, reaching right to the edge of her buttocks, as if it was trying desperately to conceal her bottom, but unfortunately fell short just at the end. Pure white, her hair looked like something one would associate with Santa Clause or some old person, but it was obviously healthy and well groomed, showing no sign of wear, falling out, brittleness, or breaking, like the elderly's does. It was one of the most majestic manes of hair I've ever seen in my life, and oddly enough it was pure white.
The features of her face were aligned in The Golden Ratio, and her saddened eyes were the palest sky blue that I've ever seen on a human being. From tip top to barefoot bottom, this woman was inhumanly shaped, curved, and molded perfectly. In fact, my brain was buzzing at me, screaming that it was too perfect! This old man must've worked his alchemy to alter her body to shape it into such utter perfection.
The only thing I couldn't figure out was *why*?
To impress me and show off his talents so I'd be certain to come back and do more business with him in the future? To make his precious great-granddaughter so dazzling that I could never be able to bear to harm her? Was it just some harsh way to reshape her, to not so subtly let her know that she was no longer his family? Was no longer even human anymore? After all, these people consider slaves to be beasts -- they lose their humanity when they get enslaved. Was he trying to give her one last grandfatherly lesson, teaching her that she now only exists to be shaped and used according to another's will?
I honestly don't know, and I'm too much of a coward to ask. "Snow," I quickly named her, "hurry and keep up. We're leaving."
Turning and heading out the door, I motioned for Tabitha to lead us back to the entrance of the Travel Zone without saying anything else. Refusing to look back, part of me was desperately hoping that Snow would run away and hide before we made it to our destination, but she never did. She was still there, looking completely heartbroken and uncomfortable when we bid our goodbyes to Tabitha and the three of us – Vicky, Snow, and I – worked our way through the forest and back towards the trees which we'd used to traverse to and from my room in our Original World.