Rewards for the Slaves

The next morning, Master visited the auction winner's shop again first thing.

The meeting went smoothly, and the elemental crystals, the primary reason for coming to Spartia, were successfully delivered.

Buying slaves and having them work as adventurers had finally yielded a major result.

Alexia's red brooch was valuable in its own right, but it was clearly some kind of important Church of the Sun God relic, so he couldn't very well sell it.

This didn't fully recoup all the capital he'd invested in his slaves, but it was a significant step forward.

Every expedition inevitably came with costs, but those were simply necessary expenses.

Cutting corners and risking something happening to his slaves would be a catastrophic loss.

Master didn't make those kinds of mistakes.

As a child, he'd tried to rush his earnings and ended up taking a huge loss. That experience had taught him patience.

He understood the rewards that came from restraint and perseverance.

That said, when he'd confronted the lord's son, the sheer outrageousness of it all had made his blood boil, and he'd pushed things too fast.

If he could keep earning at this pace, expanding his shop wasn't out of the question.

Business at his current shop wasn't bad, but it was cramped.

A small shop meant limited inventory. He could only stock staples, which made cross-selling difficult.

For now, he was getting creative: having Elza produce holy water in a corner of the sales floor, placing homemade smoked goods on the counter, doing whatever he could to squeeze out a bit more revenue.

On top of the successful delivery, he'd also secured gemstones to bring back to the Kingdom.

If he could get those home safely, they'd turn a tidy profit.

The land had been secured since his father's time. He could pay off the debt, or even consider expanding, but the lord's son remained a concern.

Starting an expansion now risked inviting interference.

With hostile eyes already on him, it would be difficult.

For the business meeting, Master had brought only Elza along.

Alexia had been doing her hair, and when he'd tried to call out to her, she'd shot him a look brimming with murderous intent.

Azu, still half-asleep, had been learning hair care from Alexia.

It certainly wasn't that Alexia's glare had frightened him. He'd simply brought Elza along since she had nothing else to do.

Master and Elza strolled around town.

Looking at the shops, it seemed Spartia's staple food was potatoes.

The food shops were selling nothing but potatoes, and street vendors were even hawking steamed ones.

Topped with smoked meat, they looked delicious.

The inn had served potatoes as the staple too… but they were good, so no complaints.

Alexia, the most likely to grumble, had actually gone for seconds.

Apparently the Empire ate a lot of potatoes too, so she didn't mind at all.

Right, she had been a poor noble, after all.

Azu had… no likes or dislikes whatsoever.

Elza said she'd eaten them often during her time at the church, too.

Come to think of it, potatoes had spread across the continent as a famine countermeasure.

You rarely heard of anyone who disliked them. Master himself had eaten plenty of potatoes when money was tight.

Major famines had dropped significantly since potatoes became widespread.

Spartia's potatoes had a sweetness to them, which seemed ill-suited as a staple, but…

According to the inn staff, that sweetness was the nutrition.

In other words, it was these sweet potatoes that fueled Spartia's warriors from a dietary standpoint.

Past the food district, they entered an area selling accessories and other small goods.

Because Spartia obtained gemstones from monsters, the craft of accessory-making had a long and advanced history.

The elderly, women, and warriors wounded in their youth who could no longer fight took up this sort of work.

One shop that caught his eye sold earrings.

Among them, a pair adorned with purple gemstones stood out.

Amethyst.

"Want to pick them up and take a look?"

The woman running the shop called out.

"I think they'd look lovely on the priestess."

"Yeah… They're the same color as Elza's eyes."

Master picked up the earrings, beckoned Elza over, and held them against her ears.

"How do they look?"

Elza showed off the earrings and asked Master.

She seemed pleased, if only slightly.

He'd heard that women enjoyed fashion.

Elza wore nothing besides the rosary hanging at her chest.

He'd already given Azu a gold hair ornament, and this trip had been quite profitable.

He wasn't sure how the Colosseum would go, but at least one of them should make it to the main event.

That alone would recoup the cost.

They'd delivered results. Perhaps some visible rewards to boost morale were in order.

Master made his judgment and bought the earrings.

Apparently, as long as you weren't buying accessories in conspicuously large quantities, items with gemstones didn't count against the export restrictions.

Within reason, as they said.

Surprisingly lax. Then again, nobody would be foolish enough to try swindling this country, Master thought.

"Hehe, are you sure? Thank you!"

Elza said this and latched onto Master's right arm.

Her chest pressed against it.

"All right, all right. You're being a nuisance."

He said, pushing the clinging Elza away.

She was making it hard to walk.

"Oh my."

The problem was Alexia.

She wasn't here, but if he gave Azu a gift and Elza a gift but nothing to Alexia…

The thought alone was terrifying.

A slave instilling fear in her own master. What nerve.

At first, given her past actions, he'd written her off as not particularly bright and figured he could handle her easily.

In reality, she was quite sharp. That was a pleasant miscalculation. It was Alexia who'd helped when he'd been thrown in a cell, too.

Red hair and golden eyes.

Her appearance alone was striking.

"How about a ring?"

"A ring, huh."

While he mulled it over, the cheerful Elza pointed to a ring set with iolite.

The contrast against Alexia's red hair could work nicely.

He bought it too. The price was reasonable, and as a souvenir, it was more than adequate.

"Alexia-chan will be happy."

"I'd like to think so."

The iolite ring gleamed blue.