When the A-ranked celebrity hunter, Adrian Rusal, approached him in the bar with a talk about 'selling a beautiful G-ranked girl' the merchant thanked god without even thinking.
On top of being able to make friends with an A-ranked hunter, from the photo that he was shown, that girl that would be sold to him was very beautiful, as well as an awakened as well; there's no doubt that he could sell her for an outrageously high price and finally show his father how superior he was from all his other siblings and was more worthy of taking over the family business.
Thinking as such the merchant cautiously hastened the transaction.
If he displeased Adrian even a little bit then it would be a problem, he avoided any behaviour like investigating to the possible limit and behaved modestly.
Adrian also hinted at him to 'not investigate too much'.
——If one thought about it, a merchant should have grown suspicious at some point.
Towards Adrian, who was trying to hide information in every way possible, it was a miracle that he was not wary.
In these situations, one's mind should have jumped to various conclusions.
He should have been suspicious when Adrian handed over the girl in such a brutal way and declared that she was useless.
He was damaging the goods that he was trying to sell for an excessive price in front of the man going to buy her.
It was quite an absurd thing to do.
Because of his excessive frankness, the merchant consoled himself that it was only the hunter's 'dark humour'.
He still believed.
What an idiot.
He was too trusting for a trader.
Really unsuitable for business.
At least, until he brought her back to the base, and confirmed Noah's status.
"Damn it, I was tricked! That son of a bitch! I was sold an awful piece of trash! Thanks to you, I'll be suffering a heavy loss! You, you Bitch! Useless thing!"
"Uuugh….Ugh…aaah."
The slave trader grabbed Noah's hair and lifted it up, and punched his abdomen many times over and over again.
Every time his voice leaked out, the punches only grew stronger.
Even as his acts of violence increased, Noah remained unconscious.
After using a special one-time item, the slave trader noticed Noah's status, and his face became ghastly pale.
Checking other people's status wasn't a simple thing; They must have a special skill or item to do so. And those too were extremely rare and expensive.
====Status====
Name: Noah
[ Unawakened ]
=============
Normally, he should have checked before making the payment, but the merchant was worried if he perhaps had shown behaviours such as using the item, it would have upset the hunter.
Besides, there was no way for a great man whose name was well-known throughout the city to do something as low as deceiving a mere merchant——this was the result of great expectations.
A week has already passed since he bought her.
And he did not find a buyer... or rather, another fool like himself to fool them into buying this liability and regaining at least a little of what he lost.
In reality, he just did not have the talent to sell anything.
He comforted himself by thinking She was too useless of a merchandise. So much so that he did not even feel like trying to find a buyer, there was no longer any function other than being a sandbag. Or maybe she could be sold off sex slave?
However, even so, even that could not help him regain what he lost.
He groped the unconscious preteen's chest but could feel nothing but a flat chest with no flesh whatsoever. Really, what would he expect from a kid who was starved for a long time? (This man did not even feed the child for the last 2 days!)
Each time he looks at Noah's face, the merchant would remember his failures.
Unfortunately, the merchant, Sataro Fukiage, was a Blabbermouth. On the 8th day of getting scammed, he went to a bar in the black market area, where he was a regular and after a few drinks, poured all his heart out to his supposed friends.
The next day, half of the Black Trading Community had known of him getting conned by a random hunter.
———
"YOU! You useless brother of mine! Wake up! Wake up I said!"
A lean man barged into the room and angrily kicked the big figure sprawled out on the bed. With a surprised pig-like squeak the fat man sat up almost bumping into the angry man.
"Huh? Wha? A-aoi onii-chan!!"
Beyond furious, he pointed at his nose and scolded.
"You, you pig! You know nothing but to cause trouble! Look at what you have done! You have left no place for our Fukiage family to show our faces! Do you really want to be kicked out of the family that much?!"
Sataro dropped his head in shame, making his brother even angrier. After hours and hours of getting lectured and slapped on the head. The piggy asked with teary eyes "....so what do I do Onii-chan? Please help me! Onii-chan! You have to help me! Please! Or else Dad will kill me! "
"Onii-chan! Who's your Onii chan?! You pig! How many times have I told you not to call me that way!!! Really! All you know is to eat, sleep and play!! A grown man acting cute, really shameless!"
Snort and tears ran down his face as he pleaded, "Please Onii-chan! Only you could help me! I won't do this again! I promise! Please Onii-chan! Please! I know you're busy, and you have better things to do than clean up after me! I know, I'm garbage! But please! please just once! Help me just this once! "
Disgusted, Aoi threw off the middle-aged man clinging to his arm, unceremoniously.
"FINE! Shut up so I can think!! ....Nothing can be done about the lost portion, since we, the people of this black business, could not demand money from a hunter so..."
After a little thought, he said, "....Send her to the arena."