Chapter 7 (1/2)
07.LITTLE GIRL GIVES A GIFT
“Hah… Hah…”
“Now, stop acting like an old man and come here already. We don´t have time to waste.”
“Is this supposed to be something a brat should be meddling about?”
“What I am worried about is how many years you have left.”
Not caring about Borudo´s sour sidelong glance, Bela headed to the town.
“”Well, it seems my protective charm is having effect.””
Bela felt that the gazes of people evaluating how much she would be paid for were less than at the times she was by herself. That was obviously because of the dwarf old man walking behind her. Because he still had just been released from the cage, he was still wearing rags. Despite being small, dwarfs had their characteristic muscular physique, and so, despite the rags, it seemed that his muscular and covered in wounds body was drawing attention from the surroundings.
Most of the scars were from whips, but because it was apparent that that dwarf was entangled in some kind of trouble, it seemed there weren´t many people that wanted to casually get involved with him.
“It seems that you have been very noisy today, right.”
“Is that so? These last months, I´ve been inside a cage all the time, so I don´t really know much about what´s going on outside.”
In these last months, Borudo´s world consisted pretty much of only being in a cellar and sometimes going outside to the courtyard that was there. It has been months since he has walked in a town like this.
“Ah, is that so? Well, fine then. I kind of have an idea why you are lively anyway.”
Borudo tilted his head to the side in confusion of Bela´s words, which seemed to be holding a hidden meaning. However, without caring about it, she staringly looked at him from his head to his toes.
“What is it?”
“No, it just that I just saw they washed you up.”
“I´ve just been bought after all. They do that kind of stuff before sending the slaves to people.”
Borudo answered. If Borudo was still dirty, Bela would have to first have him wash his whole body. However, since it seemed that this wasn´t going to be necessary, she advanced her plans and decided to head to the equipment shop.
—————
“Welcome, Bela-sama.”
“Yeah, I am here again.”
Bela answered to the shopkeeper. With amazement, Borudo, who had suddenly been brought to the shop, looked around at the interior design that despite how it was of an equipment shop, was of good quality. However, with a hand gesture , Bela signaled him to go forward. Thus, just as ordered, Borudo headed to the front of the shopkeeper.
“What is it?”(Borudo)
“Ah, this is the slave I talked about yesterday. It looks like he is as much brawny as I had guessed before. So, can you have it prepared?”
Without reacting to Borudo´s words, Bela asked the shopkeeper.
“Yes, there are no problems. Do you want to have it immediately set up?”
“I will be counting on you for that. Borudo, go have a dressing up together with those onii-chan´s there for a moment.”
“Yeah, do I look deaf to you? Yes, yes, I got it.”
“[Gimru]!”
“Gyaaah!”
By the binding spell, once again, Borudo screamed in agony.
“Leave it at that. You aren´t some brat at the rebellious age.” (TL note: What does ->シャキッとおし<- mean? =”” -.-=”” it=”” translated=”” it=”” to=”” “leave=”” it=”” at=”” that”=”” since=”” it=”” would=”” make=”” sense=”” if=”” that=”” meant=”” something=”” similar=”” to=””>
“Dam… m.. Yes, I have understood, master. ”
With an angry tone of voice, Borudo readily stood up and was brought to the back of the shop by the other shop a.s.sistants.
“Sorry there. Really.”
“Please, don´t mind. It seems that slaves that are captured old are this much difficult to deal with after all.”
The shopkeeper gave a bitter smile. After people grow old, it becomes difficult to correct their personalities. Bela, who was aware of that, nodded.
“Right, it becomes hard to train once the age takes them. I bought a really troublesome product.”
Saying that, Bela laughed with her usual “Hyahyahya”, and the shopkeeper gave a dry laugh in response. That was something a child usually wouldn´t really be talking about.
“Then, that thing we talked about yesterday. Did you get the info?”
While looking at the behavior of the shopkeeper, Bela changed the topic of the conversation.
“Yes, well… It looks they are going to lose in the end… My country…”
With a low voice, the shopkeeper answered Bela´s question.
“It is said the front lines are hectic. People are crowding into the invading troops of the kingdom of Paroma, so it can´t be helped.”
The shopkeeper was talking about the territorial war at the Moro territory Bela had been thinking about partic.i.p.ating. At the time Bela came to this shop yesterday, she heard about this topic about the unrest of the war being talked about. The reason for her to have decided to buy Borudo was because she believed he would pay off after a while. However, Bela still had done this with incomplete understanding of the situation since she didn´t know in details about the movement of the Paroma kingdom.
“I heard that they didn´t have it that easily though.”
With Paroma ´s current situation, they feared that they wouldn´t be able to defend against the other neighboring countries if they invested more military power than they had already done. The kingdom of Ruuin didn´t expect that their power would increase even more once they got here by somehow getting more soldiers and other supplies for the territorial war.