After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 815

Chapter 815: Voumi Town Slaves (Part 1)
Voumi Town

Inko village was located in a dense forest in the midwestern part of the human territory, and now they were taken to the nearest town.

At this time Gurnam and the other slaves from Inko Village were waiting in the dark ‘storage area’, waiting for their turn to be sold. Inko Village kept about half of them and sold the rest. He and little Milo happened to be sold in the town.

As for how the aborigines had yet to notice he wasn’t a slave, not only had they not encountered anyone with the audacity—as the fates of slaves that have integrated in the people’s world view was really akin to death—but also because they were very complacent.

As for the Lord’s list, though they did not know this yet, slaves were just counted as part of the population. That was the only ‘entity’ they could have so he, as a ‘visitor’, didn’t have a different status than the others.

This could be attributed to Slaves ‘non-entity’ quality in wars, and therefore did not have a special status attached to them. Perhaps, the ‘Population’ stat counted the mass, rather than ‘entity’, which was what allowed him to pretend to be a slave after so long.

On another hand, the Inko Lord was too lazy with his women to check their status properly. If he had, he’d see all of them were elementalists, and he would drown in regret when he found out later on.

In any case, Gurnam just accompanied the rest of the ‘saleable slaves’ as they were brought to a town for selling.

Voumi Town—the first town he had been in—was definitely nothing he had seen in this world before. It had tall two to three-storey buildings unlike the long line of bungalows he was used to.

There were naturally more people there. They were quite dense and everywhere there were chatters of people. Though the majority of the population looked almost as unsightly as they were, it was still much better than Inko Village.

While many of the Terrans didn’t have good clothes anymore, at least the ones they had had better fabric than what seemed to be low-quality hemp clothing everyone else has. In Towns, they still wore plain clothing, but it was still a bit better than in the villages.

And—most prominently—the smell of an aborigine territory was really… special. It was worse in Towns because it was so dense.

Even in Terran, the fact that feces was a frequent sight on the streets during the medieval was common knowledge. Back in villages, they were used to it, but Towns had a much denser population, and it meant a lot more shit.

Sure, there were more dedicated cleaners, but they only pass through a street once a day, how many people take a dump every couple of hours?

Not a few, they could tell.

His musing was interrupted when he heard people around him gagging. A couple of adult men outright vomited on the side of the street, though no one seemed to care. The slave drivers simply sneered and walked past him.

The little boy next to him also gagged, though he managed to hold it in. His face was covered with snot and a few tears though, which was really pitiful.

He patted crying little Milo’s head, trying to adjust to the stench. “Can we have fabric to cover our mouths?” he asked, but instead he was hit on the head by the Inko slave drivers.

He couldn’t avoid it so blatantly so he only adjusted his head forward to minimize the damage.

The force still made him lurch forward and almost vomit his stomach out though.

“SHUT UP. NO TALKING.” He said and everyone shut their mouths.

Gurnam took a deep breath and went back to position. His movement was obviously shakier, but he still followed the order to a tee, just as normal slaves would.

He subtly looked around, observing the town, the people, and especially the people handling them.

How did the slavery system here work? Anyone can order them and they had to follow? Was that how it was?

And how did the transfer work? If they were bought by a Town, would that mean any one from Town would be able to order them around?

Imagine walking outside and anyone could order you to do unspeakable things—all while you were completely conscious, yet also completely powerless at the same time?

These were all questions they dreaded would be answered, and everyone could only wait tensely as their fates were decided by the people who destroyed their homes.

They soon reached a plaza of sorts. There was a makeshift podium up front, with people being presented one by one. It was surrounded by a lot of men, mostly well-dressed, and they were yelling certain amounts and they immediately knew they were bidding.

The ‘merchandise’ all looked poor and horrible, and the women especially looked scantily clad.

They could recognize the features of a Terran in many of them, which just put a nail in the coffin for them.

This really was happening. They were really going to be sold like livestock…

“6 Gold!” one yelled, looking greedily at the beautiful woman.

“7!”

“11!” Someone yelled, and they turned to see it was one of the best dressed men there. He even had his own seating. The audience saw this and immediately started bootlicking.

“Wow! Master Hesso is amazing as always!”

“Only Master Hesso deserves such a beauty!”

The woman sobbed a bit but was ordered down. “We’ll handle the contract later sir Hesso,” the salesperson said. “In the meantime, enjoy her service~!”

Hoots and whistles abound as they watched the woman approach the ugly man. “Sit on me,” he said, and the woman did so.

Gurnam and the others could no longer bear to look as they were led to the storage area where they’d wait until it was their turn to sell.

It was a small makeshift structure at the back of the stage. It smelled horrible, with people’s body odor and the other scents trapped within a small space. It didn’t help that it was also very hot, and the inside of the building was suffocating.

No one could complain and they just sat, waiting for their fates.

The cheapest, most useless slave—the invalids, the old people—were sold for a mere 10 to 30 silver. The other ones varied depending on various factors as well as the bidders, but on average a human slave cost around 5 to 10 gold in a town.

If a village was taken over, they could get a few thousand slaves. This meant that the winning territory could easily earn another thousand gold from the slaves alone.

With the resources and the physiques of the people here—with higher healing rates and lesser chances of illness and infections—most people would survive wounds as long as they weren’t lethal, making it a worthy purchase, most of the time.

From this point of view, it was indeed pretty good to get slaves as meat shields rather than damaging the main force that had required a lot more investments and resources to train.

Of course, knowing was one thing, being sold as one was another.