Volume 6 - Ch 3.10
Either it is that rare or it is something specific to the inhabitants of the fishing hamlets and the villages by the sea who are often going out to fish on the open waters.
Would you like to buy this particular slave, sir?
I have not made any decisions just yet. If at all possible, could I have an interview with her first?
It is possible, but allow me to give you a fair bit of warning, sir. That girl, not only she does not understand the words that are spoken in Brahim, but she was also found guilty of a crime, and was therefore judged and sentenced to become a slave as a punishment for the transgression that she committed.
So does that mean that I cannot buy her because she is technically a former criminal?
No, that is not the case here. If you want to buy her, then you can absolutely do it.
While the Slave Shop owner was saying that, his expression changed into an annoyed one for a very short moment and I did not let it go unnoticed. Could it be.. could it be that maybe I will be able to buy her for myself at a truly bargain price? Or maybe this is all the Slave Merchants act, a clever ruse by him and the slaves that he owns that is meant to deceive me and trick me into buying a slave that is absolutely not going to be worth the money spent on her? Whatever the case may be, I have apparently saw all of the female slaves that are capable of understanding the words spoken in the Brahim Language and could be taken to the Labyrinths with me, so now the time has finally come to go through the interviews with the best possible candidates.
Ultimately, I have selected three female slaves for that purpose.
The first one is the female slave from the very first room, the one that had quite a decent face and decently motivated eyes, so maybe she is going to be motivated enough to be just as willing to be going to the Labyrinths on a daily basis as Roxanne and Sherry are. I asked her all the questions that I wanted to ask, and after hearing her responses to all of them, I have to conclude that overall that first female slave was neither good nor bad, situated exactly in the middle of the scales that I was using to measure up if she is going to be a good addition to my Party. She is not a perfect candidate by any means, but trust me when I say this: it could have been much worse, so I should be happy about finding myself such a fifty-fifty opener. Form here on out, things with the other two can go either way.
The second one that I interviewed was the extremely beautiful female slave that seemed like she was out to catch herself some wealthy customer, and just like I was expecting, she was apparently not interested in joining my Party at all, because while she was answering all of the questions that I was asking her, she was doing so without showing even a shred of interest in any of them, not to mention that she was avoiding having to loo directly at me whenever she could. Very well then, if she is going me such obvious signals that she does not want to have anything to do with me, then goodbye and have fun waiting for your wealthy prince charming!
And besides, I feel like someone like her would not be of much help to us anyway, because let me be completely honest with you: if I am to take her attitude right now and those dead-fish looking eyes of hers as any indication, then I have a feeling that she would just be one of those people who would not only not be of any help in the Labyrinths, but she would probably wait for an occasion to stab me in the back while exploring so that she could be done with me and move on with her gold digging, if in the off chance that she agreed to join my Party, I would specifically have to keep her will in such a way that she would die when I was killed, just to show the big, fat middle finger to her plans.
The third person that I have decided to interview was Miria, who entered the room when the Slave Merchant called her over from outside of it.
Her height is more than Sherrys, but lower than Roxannes. If I had to guess without measuring her properly, then my guess would have to be that she is around one hundred and fifty centimeters. She also has a pretty slim figure and a moderately sized chest that was neither too small or too big. When I saw her earlier I thought that the color of her hair was black, but now that I look at her in a slightly different lighting, I can see that her hair is actually kinda bluish.
It is a dark blue.. no, dark navy blue, and it looks pretty nice when put together with her slightly round face, which is looking incredibly cute, just like her big, round eyes. And of course, who could ever forget the ever-lovable cat ears atop her head? Hair on the outside of her ears is blackish blue, just like the hair on her head. Hair on the inner side of her ears, however, is white.
Soft ears covered in delicate hair.. ahhh, I so wanna play with her ears right now! But now is not the time for that. Now is the time for an interview!
Roxanne, can I ask you to be my interpreter for this interview?
Of course. Please, leave it to me, master.
I then start her interview with Roxanne as my personal interpreter.
All right, so first things first, let us talk about fish. How frequently would you like to eat it?
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She says that she would like to eat fish at least once every three. No, once every five days.
Only once every three or five days? Damn, from her earlier phrasing, I was under the impression that she would want to eat fish pretty much every day, but knowing that this is not actually the case is something of a relief for me.
I have no idea how much fish is eaten normally in this world, but at the very least we have a fishmonger shop available in Quratar, so getting a hold of the fish every few days should not technically be a problem. What might be a little problem though, is the fact that so far I have never seen Sherry or Roxanne cook fish, so I have no idea how any fish-based dishes would turn out if they were the ones responsible for preparing them. And you know how they say that the Japanese people of the modern age have stopped eating as much fish as they were eating in the past? That might be true to a degree, but considering how much of them is still being sold at the fish markets and in stores, then I guess the fish-consumption not only in Japan but in the entire world as well is not as bad as everyone seems to be thinking that it is.
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What did she say just now?
She said that in order to not be too much of a burden on us, she would be willing to hold out and eat fish only once every ten days if need be.
Oh, so she actually went down on her demands, huh? Well, she probably did so to make herself appeal to me just a little bit better, but still, that is a very welcome thing, and not only that, but now Miria is also looking at me with expectant eyes
Would you be fine with eating fish every ten days, Roxanne, Sherry?
I do not dislike fish, so I would not have any problems with it.
I would be fine with that as well.
Well, I guess that means that I will just have to try making meuniere sometime, I guess.