Tired cries and resigned sobs were the only sounds in the underground black market’s fourth wing. For someone brought here newly, the cries seemed almost bland and helped them give up against fate a tad sooner; for the ones here for a while, the sobs that never adjusted were annoying—even the steps of their captives coming in for rounds were more bearable.

  One such veteran customer of this rather peculiar guest house was a woman with white hair and similarly white eyes, nary for the touch of blue tint amid those whites that resembled a clear stream on a sunny morning.

  Anyone who saw her would be in awe, and in such a place where species incomparably rarer than humans, even some captive demons had been kept trapped, she had quickly become the most important ‘item.’

  It was not for her looks, though they played a part, but rather for her lineage. The heiress of a duchy, the most regal, the noblest, the rarest and bluest of blood among any that could be found.

  That woman stood still in a single cage, like a sculpture yet to be revealed hidden behind a cloth, only inviting anticipation.

  The woman had become annoyed. She was growing frustrated. But like always, her emotions did not make their way to her face, let alone to her voice.

  She had been the earliest person here. Her tears fell alone and her cries were only exciting the fantasies of the guards that made their rounds, and she had been the quickest to adjust as well.

  She lost her childhood, her life, and her sight to a curse. Her mother to that same curse, her brother to disease, her father to his hatred and the guilt that stemmed from hating his own daughter. Then she lost her fiancee to an archmage that swooped in out of literally another world; her title to the fact that her engagement was renounced. For someone who had lost everything, what was her freedom?

  It felt natural to an extent. Now she just waited to be bought like an item and then planned to bite her tongue the moment she could find the courage.

  She thought she would only wait in annoyance, until one day, the empty cage next to her own flung open, and a silly little elf was thrown in.

  “Guah! Hey, can’t you throw me gently!?”

  “Let me try, come here.”

  “N-no no! There's no need to throw me again. I am good.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  As the guard left and the cries continued, the new member sat awkwardly and glanced around. He sighed and spoke to himself.

  “I shouldn’t have gone behind Acheron… what do I do now, if I am sold I will get delayed in going back if I even go back home.…”

  ‘Elves and their twisted sense of time,’ she thought. As if he had heard the words bouncing in her usually empty mind, the elf’s ears perked up and he slammed his face next to the bars of his cage, peering into hers.

  “Hello!” he said. “Are you a statue? A person? What’s your name, I am Marco. Humans are all just scumbags right?”

  The heiress glanced at the next cage and then turned back ahead.

  She was going to be a little more annoyed than before, it seemed. The gods were really testing her, weren’t they?

  ***

  People used to say one plus one heads make eleven heads—perhaps not they, it might have just been one particularly bubbly girl back in my class when I was not living in this piece-of-shit world, but I digress. In that sense, for two people, adding two more heads should have been the equivalent of 22 heads.

  “So… where do we start?”

  Yeah, fuck that theory. Even with two more people, we were just as lost as expected.

  I crossed my arms and looked at the three people who were now essentially my teammates. At times like these, I wondered if bringing Marco along would have been nice. He was naive, but he was smarter than Tanien. As far as the two knights in Jonathan and Riziel went, their IQ points seemed to be equivalent to their ages.

  “This is troubling,” said Jonathan. “I think there is a way to find out such knowledge though, in the red light districts.”

  Tanien whistled. “Someone’s talking.”

  Riziel looked at both of them with disdain filling her eyes. “You just want to go to a brothel, simply say that Jonathan.”

  “That is not the case. I know how to keep my work and my love for pant—my desires separate.”

  Real convincing display right there.

  But it was difficult to say he didn’t make sense. The ones who historically held the most information (according to most murim and fantasy webnovels) were the beggars and the prostitutes.

  “Perhaps that’s not a very bad idea…” I mused.

  Riziel snapped at me and then nodded. “You’re right, sir adventurer. People who have loose legs attract ones with loose lips.”

  “Wait, so it's fine if Sir Adventurer talks about going to a brothel? You aren’t judging him?”

  “Shut up. You think from your lower half, sir adventurer is clearly using his head. He even got us out of trouble.”

  This conversation was getting increasingly uncomfortable. I made another mental note of how well these two got along and interrupted.

  “Alright, we’re only considering it since it's a real possibility. Also, call me Acheron please, you two.”

  “Right, Acheron.”

  “Got it.”

  I crossed my arms and nodded. “Then, we should split up into groups of two and move around. One group can check out the red light districts and the other can inquire around with beggars. There seem to be quite a few of them.”

  The others seemed to agree with my words. I couldn’t trust anyone here, but surprisingly enough, I found Tanien to be the least trustworthy. At least the knights seemed like they would come back, but if Tanien slipped my grasp I would be deeply annoyed.

  I chose to go with Tanien to the beggars and the other two headed to the red-light districts, they seemed more suited for that.