No matter how much he might try to win me over with seemingly trivial pleasantries of how far he is willing to go with them, I am not going to fall for such an obvious tactic. Then again, I guess I am not that much better than him by the standards of my old world, since I actually bought slaves myself not once, but twice in a relatively short span of time.

I saw the letter of introduction from Alan the Slave Merchant in Vale, and that youre looking for a slave whos also a Master Smith. Is that correct?

No, I no longer need a Master Smith.

I it makes sense for him to be thinking that I am still looking for a Master Smith slave, since that is probably what Alan-san has written in his letter of introduction, and thats perfectly logical, since he told me himself that Sherry has failed to become a Master Smith, and when he was selling her to me that was very much the case, since Sherry was only able to become Master Smith thanks to my guidance.

Still, her obtaining tha Master Smith Job wouldnt have been possible if I wasnt aware of this world being the one thats based on a game and if I didnt figure out how its mechanics regarding the acquisition of new Jobs worked. Without those pieces of information, I would be no better than the native residents of this world, and Id probably believed that theres no way for Sherry to obtain the Job of a Master Smith now. But thanks to me being transported here from the real world, I was able to utilize the knowledge that Ive obtained to my advantage and make the seemingly impossible thing possible.

Thanks to my efforts, Sherry didnt have to give up on her dream of becoming a Master Smith, and I dont have to look for one anymore, and so I made sure that this Slave Merchant was aware of that fact.

Okay, I understand.

The Slave Merchant acknowledged my words and then looked at Sherry for but a brief moment. That stare he gave her just now. Was he able to figure out that she was a Dwarf just by looking at her once? Because if so, then I have to admit that he possesses some truly terrifying cognitive abilities.

Most of the people who would see Sherry for the first time without possessing any kind of prior knowledge of her wouldve probably assumed that she was just a child based on her height alone, since other than that the Dwarves are pretty much indistinguishable from Humans, but I guess those who work in the slave trading business must have their perception trained to such a degree that theyre able to pick up the differences immediately. Maybe he even put it together that shes a Master Smith, but even if he did, then tough luck, buddy, because I am not going to sell her!

Sir, since youre not looking for a Master Smith slave as it was stated in the letter of introduction, then may I ask exactly what kind of slave are you looking for here today? That way well be able to narrow down the possible candidates and make sure that youre going to choose the one thats going to best suit your needs and preferences.

You may ask. Today, Im actually looking for a female slave who would fight in the Labyrinths together with me and the members of my Party.

I came here today to buy myself a beautiful female slave that would also be capable of fighting in the Labyrinths with us in order to increase our battle potential and make the exploration of the higher floors easier on all of us, so I dont need the ones that are going to be incapable of fighting. That, and I have a feeling that if Ive chosen to go along with him to the second floor then this guy mightve tried to sell me someone strange.

Anyway, the Slave Merchant went into yet another room, and I followed up after him after quickly glancing at Sherry and receiving an affirmative nod from her.

This Explorer right here is looking for Combat Slaves who could join his Party. All of you who know Brahim, please line up in front of the rest in an orderly line.

The Slave Merchant explains the situation to the slaves and orders them to arrange themselves in a neat line before us.

All in all, that line consisted of about ten people, which is really not that much. Among those ten people, there are various ones: some of them have a blatantly unmotivated looks on their faces, some appear to be moderately interested, and some seem to be curious about me as theyre eyeing me with different sets of expressions on their faces.

At the very least I can say with absolute certainty that all of the slaves present here right now seem to be looking better than the unmotivated ones that I saw in Alan-sans Slave Shop in Vale.

I guess it must be true that there is a lot of demand for Combat Slaves in the Imperial Capital after all. But even so, because there is only a few of them that actually know Brahim, the process of selection should be over rather quickly for me, and it was, since none of them felt like the appropriate candidates for a new Party Member for me.

I feel like the most important question that I have to ask myself now is this: should I be looking for a female slave with a beautiful face, or should I look for the one who looks like shes motivated?

After inspecting all of the slaves in the room thoroughly and not finding anyone suitable to join us, we left the room and were guided to the next room.

Thankfully, there was more than ten slaves who knew Brahim available here, so it looks like the owner here decided to spread them out across a number of rooms instead of keeping them all cooped up in a single room.

Unfortunately though, none of the female slaves in this second room were extremely beautiful, and when we went to look at the ones in the other rooms, there wasnt anyone with a beautiful physique either, which ended up undermining my mood quite a bit.