Although nature seemed cheerful I felt dead inside, why you ask?
Well, first things first, I am Richard Montecchio; I am a regular 28 guy, brown hair, green eyes. People tell me I am handsome, I don t agree with them but whatever.
I am the only son of one of the richest and most influent family here on Verona. My ancestors were the first family to publicly buy slaves once the slavery law took effect.
But don t be fooled! We weren t your typical human abusing people! Thanks to the new law, when people would lose everything and still be in debt, they would be considered slaves. Slaves are lower than anything on society; they aren t even considered human beings!
So, once one buy a slave, one is allowed to do anything with it, being it s property, our family however, used to buy slaves, mainly to give them a better chance of living with dignity, we would not harm them, they were free, no chains, no nothing!
Never in our family history there has been a single case of a slave fleeing from us. They knew that if they were caught, their destiny would have been worse than death, and since they had good treatment here, there wasn t a motive to go anyway.
Well, one of my dearest slaves died yesterday, she was Nina, an 80 years old nekomimi (Nekomimi are beings with ears, tail and sometimes paws of cats) that used to take care of my once my mom stopped breastfeeding me.
She had no time to waste with me anymore, at that time I was sad and hurt with the absence of my mom and dad but now I think I am relieved they didn t raise me, I was the 6th son, so it wasn t I that was going to take the family house name and keep the legacy.
Destiny was really funny though, on one of the endless parties our house used to uphold, a big earthquake hit, and part of our castle crumbled, killing both of my parents and all my siblings.
That made me the new person that should carry the family name on the shoulders, and I was only 8 at that time.
Nina then, already 60 at that time, took great care of me, as if I was her son, she would give me strength when I was down, she would tender me while I was sick, she would be always there, like my mom never was. She was more important to me than anything in this world.
But yesterday was her burial, and this house seems so empty! Nina was always saying I needed a couple more people to work here (she never referred to others as slaves) and I always kept postponing the hiring of more.
I felt sorry for the people that fall to that point but now, though luck, I was going to the market first thing after lunch, I had an idea and I really wanted to put into action today, hoping it would bring the results I was planning.
After a quick lunch in which all I managed to eat was a light ham and cheese sandwich, my thoughts were a bit confused and I felt that my stomach wasn t on one of its glory days, dealing with other people s lives wasn t a light matter, and going to a slave market isn t like walking in the park.
But the time came, so I took my rain coat, since it was rainy lightly, and headed to the market.
On the way I began wondering which kinds of slaves I needed: I surely needed one strong male, human or nekomimi, because Stephan was already on its early 50 s so any help would be welcome.
We were also lacking maids, Nina was strict so nothing was out of order, but now since she was gone, the remaining ones will surely need help on organizing stuff.
I was thinking I might as well get some young ones (normally the slave s children) so they grow in a less hostile environment and might even achieve a bit of happiness, while tons would have bad luck on ending on a abusive home, a little bit of them would see a better side of the life.
We arrived at the market around 2 pm, it was already crowded. The nobles would have places reserved on the very nearest part of display stand, common people would stay farther, and would only have opportunity to buy once the nobles got the best looking ones that would suit their needs.
That was something that made me quite sad, some time ago; only nobles would be rich enough to sustain slaves, but due to the increasing number of people going down to the state of slaves, they were becoming rather inexpensive.
I directed myself to the place reserved for the Montecchio family, it was the second seat, only the Capuleto would sit ahead of us, since they were directly related to the king, their seat was empty though, considering the last I heard, they should be on the east coast of south Verona by now.
It also meant that I would have the preference on choosing the first one product displayed, that would give me a nice chance to actually snatch something really good right from the start!
Right after those thoughts crossed my mind, a big dark man with ice cold black eyes appeared in front of the selling cells, the silence was instantaneous, he got was seemed like a microphone and started talking to the audience:
- Ladies and gentlemen! Today we have a really good batch of merchandise! Please step up! Take a look and choose what is of your liking! We do our best to please all of your fine costumers!
The salesman then pressed a button and the door that lead inside the cages opened, shortly after a group of merchandise started entering the cage.
They were of all sorts of ages, there were a lot of women though, fine looking ones by the way, but mysteriously, one of them caught my attention, all others simply vanished, but that small little thing burned her image on my mind like hot iron on a bull!
She was a small nekomimi, she had black fur and brownish eyes, her ears were dropping she was very small and seemed fragile, she was really afraid of what was going on, she , didn t seem to comprehend what was that all about.
My heart beat painfully to that little creature, hell she didn t even seem to be over 10 years old! I didn t care for what the people would start saying, but she was going to be my first buy, definitely!
- Ok dear costumers! Let s start with Montecchio! Which one do you want to purchase?
I stood up, pointed to the little girl and to the surprise and judging from the reprove look I got from people, thinking I was a stinking lolicon, I said:
- I want that one! The little nekomimi girl!