Selecting employees

Entering the slave shop, Aurus looked around curiously. It was the first time he entered such a shop.

On the right side of the shops were a few doors which most likely led to where the owner of the shop kept the slaves. On the left side was a simple counter and the owner of the shop, the slave trader, was behind the counter.

Coming closer, the slave trader started talking first.

"Hi, customer. My name is Mankey, I'm the owner of this shop. I'm pretty sure you know what we sell in this shop. So, what do you need?"

The tone of the owner of the shop surprised Aurus. He was expecting some kind of foul-mouthed person. However, the owner had a gentle tone and seemed to be a kind person. Of course, Aurus wouldn't base his impression on that. After all, the owner was still a slave trader. However, who said slave traders couldn't be kind people?

The man, Mankey, was approximately as tall as Aurus and had black hair and eyes. He wore a white tunic and had an x shaped scar on the chin.

When the man got up from behind the counter, Aurus could tell he seemed to be in his late thirties and was still quite fit.

"Hi sir, I'm looking for a few slaves. However, I have a few criteria. Do you mind if I take a look at the slaves?"

"Ah yes. Indeed, taking a look at the 'merchandise' before buying is totally normal. Please follow me." With a smile, he took some keys from behind the counter and led Aurus to one of the doors on the right side of the shop.

On Aurus's side, when he heard the man talk about the slaves as merchandise, he was a little bit unsettled. However, he still followed him. After all, no matter how he called them, he still had to buy a few for completing the task and helping him by working in the store.

As soon as he entered through the door, he could see three types of slaves. The first kind of slaves were those who had a lifeless look in their eyes and didn't seem to have the joy to live anymore. He was quite sure that those slaves would do anything asked of them without a bit of emotion but would also let themselves die slowly. This kind of slave who had already died from the inside made him feel some sadness for them. However, he knew that he couldn't help everyone and with his current funds he couldn't help them out.

The second kind of slaves were those who were shouting at him as he entered the room. This kind of slaves according to the shop owner was criminal slaves. They committed a great crime against the kingdom and instead of being put to death, they were captured and made slaves. This kind was not the people Aurus wanted either. He wanted someone who was civilized and could work in his shop. Of course, he didn't say that all criminals were uncivilized. He just felt that this kind of slave in front of him seemed to want to kill and held a great amount of hatred. He didn't doubt that if they were freed, they wouldn't hesitate to kill more people.

Finally, the third kind of slave were those he wanted to buy. They were slaves who got such a status with bad luck. Either they were conned in being a slave, they were sold by their family because they couldn't make ends meet or they simply had no other choice if they wanted to survive. When Aurus looked at them, he noticed that most of them still had hope in their life and still wanted to live without hating everyone else.

In Aurus's opinion, the first kind of slaves could be great servants if they found a purpose to live and good masters. The second type of slaves was most likely sold as battle slaves. Finally, the third kind of slaves were those who could work and most likely had experience working. As such, the third kind of slaves would make great people work in his shop.

Selecting this kind of slave, he made Mankey aware of his choice.

Nodding at Aurus, he kept a straight face and they walked back to the hall. However, he was quite shocked in his heart. In this world, those who bought slaves were mostly nobles or adventurers. The normal families wouldn't have the money to buy them and the businessmen wouldn't trust the slaves in handling their shops.

As such, only the first kind of slaves, the ones who could become servants were bought by nobles to either be servants but most of the time, they took a few extras for granted. As for the few extras, the nobles preferred the ones who were submitted instead of the ones who would look at them as if wanting to murder them which were part of the third kind. Of course, some nobles would do such things because of certain fantasms but in the end, some of them would end up murdered. After all, even if there was a magic contract protecting the owner from the slave, there were quite a few ways for the servants to bypass those limitations.

Amongst those ways was a well-known case where a noble forced himself on the third kind of servant and while the servant didn't take any revenge due to the contract, she still contacted an assassin organization. While she never explicitly said "Kill the noble", she said things such as "The left door is always unlocked, there are a lot of treasures in the house, especially in the safe in the room which I know the password."

With this, the assassins understood the task of the slave and completed the task which included murdering the noble in question.

There were multiple such cases but they were relatively rare as the nobles kept their preferences to the first kind of slaves Aurus had seen.

For the second type of slaves, the criminal slaves, they were mostly bought by adventurers to complete tasks with them or to use as cannon fodder in a particularly difficult task.

As such, the first two kinds of slaves were quite popular. However, the third kind was quite unsellable. The merchants would lose a lot of money just by keeping them alive. Of course, since they couldn't make much profit from them, they were sold at a very low price.

And since Aurus wanted to buy this kind of slaves, in the slave shop owner's opinion, he was either extremely stupid or simply was ready to risk his life. He automatically put Aurus in the types of people who weren't very bright and who was looking for death.

However, would Aurus honestly care about what the man thought of him? He planned on bringing them to another world thanks to the management icon and make them work for him through the system contract. As such, getting people who were good at business was a must.

"Here are the files of the slaves which you specified." Aurus immediately took the files and started reading them. There were more than thirty slaves which had been selected by Aurus to see the files. After all, he couldn't buy everyone and he still wanted to be sure they had at least some skills. Also before buying them, he would have to ask for a small interview. Asking if there were any lingering attachment to this world such as families or friends. Without forgetting to ask if they had worked in a shop or managed one before.

As he looked at the files, he gave the files which couldn't fit his requirements to the man. While looking at the remaining twenty files, he saw that none of them had a history of violence and they were only in slavery because of bad luck.

Taking the twenty files, he asked the manager of the shop if he could meet them in private as he needed to ask them a few questions before buying some of them.

"Please sir, if you will follow me." Immediately extending an arm toward another door, Aurus entered into a small room with chains on the far left of the room. On the right side, near the door was a chair that Aurus simply sat on.

A few minutes later, the man entered the room with two other big men who escorted an average looking man. He seemed calm but Aurus could see there was a restlessness in his heart.

When the men had chained the thirty years old man to the wall, Aurus started to ask questions.

"Hello, sir. I wanted to ask first if you have any family left in this world?" Starting with a respectful speech, Aurus went directly in the heart of the matter. If he said that he did indeed have a family which he loved, he would immediately refuse to buy this man. After all, they would leave this world and probably wouldn't have the chance to see his loved ones again.

"Yes. I have a son who is an adventurer, a small daughter and a wife at home. My son is currently collecting enough money to buy me back. So please sir, don't buy me." The man answered lightly in fear that Aurus would ignore his plea and buy him anyway.

However, Aurus merely nodded his head and got up saying that he wouldn't be taking this man.

Feeling that this might take too much time at this rate, he asked the man to send all of the remaining slaves at the same time. After all, just locking and unlocking the handcuffs took a lot of time. As such, he would merely ask everyone this one question without handcuffing them and those who had someone left in this world, he would merely send them back and talk to those which responded negatively.

The man left with the man and came back over twenty minutes later with the nineteen remaining candidates of employees. He felt like he was having them go to an interview for a job they had no idea about.

Shaking this weird thought out of his head, he looked at the nineteen people. There were ten women and nine men. Amongst them were four elves, eight humans, five beastmans and two fairies. The fairies were extremely small, being the size of his palm and had four fluttering wings on their backs. Of course, they didn't have any handcuffs as they were too small for them but they seemed to have some kind of curse stopping them from using their magic.

With the owner of the shop in the room as he looked over the slaves he brought in this room, he asked again: "Do you have any family or friends left in this world?"