The slavers’ leader took a carriage and rode toward the town of Leen. I accompanied him, along with a single Ripper Swarm, which hid in the cargo hold. The city’s gates received constant traffic from peddlers, so it was left open.
We managed to enter the city without much questioning. Thanks to that, our cargo—and the Ripper Swarm guarding it—went undetected as we made our way into Leen. Had we been inspected, I planned to pacify the guard by swiftly jamming a Parasite Swarm down their throat, but it seemed my concerns were needless.
At worst, I’d have had the Ripper Swarm slaughter the soldiers and turn the carriage 180 degrees to flee Leen. Picking this option would have meant we’d never return to Leen again.
“So, where might I find the local tailor?”
In the large town of Leen, my first order of business was to find a tailor.
“Ahh, that must be the place.”
Upon riding down Leen’s main street, we found a store that had some elegant clothes out on display. It seemed to be the exact kind of place I was looking for. I had the slaver stop the carriage, and then the two of us disembarked, leaving the Ripper Swarm to watch the proverbial fort.
“Welcome. Oh, it’s you. The slaver. What do you want with us?”
While we were at first greeted with a retail smile, the shopkeeper quickly turned sour upon seeing the slaver. Apparently, people in this world frowned upon those who dealt in the slave trade. That was a good thing; I was pleased to learn that this town’s citizens were decent folk.
Conversely, if I’d learned that this world welcomed slavery, I’d have been awfully annoyed.
“I came... to sell clothes.”
The slavers’ leader was dominated by the Parasite Swarm, and thus effectively by the greater Swarm and myself, forcing him to speak against his will. Normally he’d scream for help and beg to be saved from the monster inside his body, but instead he started bartering with the employee.
“Clothes? You mean things you pillaged off the elves? No one wants threads you ripped off of some knife-ear. Their clothes are far too seedy for our establishment. We only sell garments of the highest quality. Now go away. Shoo, shoo.”
There was discrimination against the elves after all, even though they were trying to live as well as they could off the blessings of the forest. I suppose the humans of this world assumed the elves to be barbarians of some sort. How irritating.
“No. Clothes I bought... from a merchant.”
I’d thought up a story beforehand: he had sold some slaves and received these clothes as the payment. It might come across as suspicious, but that was the only plausible story I could come up with.
I prayed and prayed that the man would believe it. Standing in the shadow of the carriage, I could only transmit my wishes through the air.
“Fine.” The shopkeeper eventually caved. “Show me your merchandise, then.”
The slavers’ leader hauled a chest full of clothes from the carriage and placed it on the counter.
“This is...”
He lifted out a few expensive-looking dresses, woven with silk-like threads by the Worker Swarms. The box was stuffed with dozens of them, ranging from everyday clothes to evening dresses that wouldn’t look out of place at a grand ball. The shopkeeper eyed them with awe.
Thank you, my sweet little Worker Swarms. Your hard work is being appreciated!
“This is amazing,” the shopkeeper breathed, examining the dresses carefully. “I’ve never seen clothes like these before. The nobles would just eat them up.”
He was outright mesmerized with how pleasant to the touch the fibers were and by the intricacy of the designs.
“How much... will you pay for them?” the slaver asked.
“For clothes like these? Twenty thousand floria sounds about right.”
All right, time for some good old haggling.
Having asked the elves about it beforehand, I had concluded that I would sell the dresses for at least 30,000 floria. Still, this was my first time haggling, so I wasn’t sure I’d do it right... but I had to do what I could. We needed as much money as possible, and we needed to obtain it legally.
“Too little. You can... pay more for it. If you won’t give me forty thousand, I will go to another store.”
“Fine. Thirty thousand floria, then. I’ll take them all for that much, and not a single floria more.”
I’d expected the negotiations to take longer than this, but they ended in the blink of an eye.
“No objections. That’s a... deal,” uttered the slaver, who then pushed the chest toward the shopkeeper.
We could have probably bargained for more, but failing the negotiations here could impact our business in the future. Even considering he might have tricked us because of our inexperience, we should still compromise for 30,000 floria.
“There you are, thirty thousand floria. Take it.”
Having accepted the chest, the shopkeeper handed the slavers’ leader a bag stuffed with coins and excitedly carried the chest to the back of the store.
That cleared stage one of my plan.
My original intent was to give the elves these dresses and have them go to Leen to cash them in, but they seemed to fear the town and refused to go near it. I could certainly see why. With people like the slavers around, it was only natural the elves wouldn’t get used to this place.
The teachings of some so-called God of Light declared that nature gods, whom the forest-dwelling elves worshipped, were evil deities. The elves were treated as heretics and barbarians, marked as targets slavers could “legally” capture and sell off for coin. I cared little for religion, but even I believed people should be free to worship anyone or anything they desired.