Chapter 12 - 5.12

I sat on the sofa and drank the herbal tea that was brought to me by a female servant who was not Roxanne.

「Please enjoy your drink, dear customer.」

When she left, the Slave Merchant urged me to drink. So I placed the cup at my mouth and pretended to drink the tea. If he wanted to take me out and take my money, the fastest way to do so would be to slip some poison into my drink, so in order to prevent that I'm just not going to drink any of it. I took the backpack off my back and removed the drawstring bag from it. I removed all of my silver coins from it first. All 228 of them.

「I hope you don't mind so many silver coins?」

「Of course not. Such an amount was well within my range of expectations.」

Then I also took out the 40 gold coins.

「This should be enough, right?」

That is all the money that I so desperately collected. I don't know what I'll do if it still ends up not being enough.

「Most certainly, that's all the money we agreed upon. Dear Roxanne will be here in just a moment, so please wait patiently for her, alright?」

After diligently checking the number of coins, the Slave Merchant placed them all on a table in neatly arranged piles and had another servant take them away. I'm actually impressed that he managed to count all of them up so fast and that he remained so calm and collected, because what I did was essentially pulling an equivalent of paying a multi-yen bill with 5-yen coins. Worst case scenario, you could even get sued for harassment. While we waited for Roxanne to arrive, I continued to fake-drink my herbal tea.

And then she finally came.

We heard a quiet knocking on the door, so Alan the Slave Merchant stood up to open them for her. She was wearing a simple yellow tunic and the pants of a matching color. She entered the room and timidly hid behind the Slave Merchant. Aww, that' s so cute, but it's alright. I'm not going to do anything to you, so there's no need for you to hide. Then she stretched her neck and looked at me shyly from behind Alan-san's back. Ahh, her face is still beautiful. She is a beautiful girl through and through! I was afraid that the last time I saw her I might have beautified her in my mind due to how horny I was, but thankfully that was not the case at all! If anything, the real thing was even more beautiful than I remembered!

「I'm sorry for making you wait. Thank you for purchasing me. I will be in your care from now on.」

Roxanne looks at me, but when our eyes met, she immediately averted them back. Her dog ears also shook due to the motion she did with her head. Those ears are so uber cute! I want to touch them! I want to pet them! She could be a little less shy, but I guess there will come a time for us to work on that. I also don't think I did anything she should be thanking me for, but then again, that might be just common courtesy, so it would be best to respond to her in kind.

「Likewise. I hope we will get along together just fine. I'll be looking forward to it.」

「I am looking forward to it as well, but first, allow me to express my heartfelt apologies to you!」

And she bowed her head down low. Why is she doing that? Could it be that she's apologizing to me for the Slave Merchant who wanted to screw me over by not giving her to me and running away with the money?

「Can you… explain?」

I gently asked her.

「Master, even though I told you I would wait those five days for you, to come buy me, I doubted if you will be able to get all the money needed for that! I thought you will be incapable of doing that, and that you would not come back for me! I beg you to forgive me for my lack of faith in you, and I will understand if you will no longer be willing to have me as your slave!」

Sweet rock'n rolling Jesus on a fish stick girl! If I could, I would have changed your name to Moexanne without a second thought!

「Roxanne my dear, this is all so very touching, but I think our customer is dead-set on going through with the purchase. To that end, let us finalize the deal by signing an official contract. Michio-sama, your Intelligence Card, if you would?」

「Ah, okay.」

「Roxanne, you as well.」

「Y-Yes.」

I walked up to the Slave Merchant and placed my left hand in front of him, and Roxanne did the same after a bit of initial hesitation. So apparently, she doubted if I will ever come back to actually buy her, and that's why she felt the need to apologize to me. Honestly, after hearing how much the Slave Merchant wanted for her, I had every right to do just that: forget about buying her, turn my back on her and never come back to this shop. But how could I have done something as cruel as that after witnessing how beautiful she was?

Slave Merchant placed his own hand in front of ours and casted as spell, after which our Intelligence Cards emerged from our wrists. So not only authority figures, knights and innkeepers can manifest it, but merchants are capable of doing so as well. Then he murmured something that I did not understand.

「And that concludes your contract. Please check your Intelligence Cards to see if everything is in order.」

「Understood.」

Roxanne showed her own Card to me.

Roxanne: Female, 16 years old, Beast Warrior.

Owned by: Kaga Michio

「I see. And with that, the master-slave pack between you has been officially made.」

Roxanne's Intelligence Card now lists me as her owner. So I guess the Slave Merchant wasn't a scammer after all. But I don't regret being distrustful of him. One cannot be too cautious when it comes to the well being of his money after all.

Anyway, since all the formalities have now been completed, I made the best smile I could muster and showed her my own Card.

「Uhm, are you really sure about that?」

Roxanne's beautiful eyes peeked at me when she asked me if I was fine with her inspecting my Intelligence Card.

「If it's you, then I have no problems with it being seen.」

「!!! …. Yes!」

And she took it in her small, gentle hands. When I l glanced at it as she did so, I noticed that it has been rewritten indeed. The contents were now as follows:

Kaga Michio: Male, 17 years old

Job: Explorer, Free Citizen

Owner of: Roxanne

The Job that was displayed as my first one was still the Explorer. But now, it also listed that I am Roxanne's owner.

I can't wait to see what life in this new strange world is going to have in store for us from now on.

〈To be continued in 『A Harem in the Fantasy World Dungeon Volume 2』 〉