Larry froze in shock for several seconds at the sight before him. When he finally snapped out of it, he lunged toward the girl, desperate to rescue Anthony from the beast-eared maiden's grasp. He charged at the petite figure, who didn't even turn around. Instead, her free hand lashed out with blinding speed. A tremendous force slammed into Larry's stomach. He staggered backward, tumbling to the ground. His stomach churned violently, and he vomited with a loud retching sound.
This girl's petite frame must have been packed with muscle in every corner.
Michelle gasped and ran toward Larry. The surrounding crowd murmured in shock, yet no one stepped in to intervene—visitors to Lame Street had witnessed Larry's fate, while the dwarf craftsmen and human staff were too intimidated by the wolf girl's terrifying presence to approach. The Amazons maintaining order turned a blind eye, biased toward protecting their own, and Mavis was unfortunately absent today. The middle-aged merchant's face turned the color of liver, his hands desperately trying to pry the claws from his neck. Yet the slender hand remained immovable. His feet kicked futilely in the air as blood poured from his throat, his eyes rolling back in his head.
"Marion, let go!" Tarsha commanded.
Thud! The human merchant's body crashed to the ground like a sandbag. Coughing and gasping for air, he scrambled away from the alien, rolling and crawling to distance himself before she could change her mind. Michel and Larry darted back into the carriage, while the other residents of Lame Street retreated several meters. They didn't know what had happened. Tasha's voice echoed only in Marion's ears.
"Good boy," she soothed. "Breathe deeply. It's okay."
Marion let out a frustrated growl, her tail lashing the air like a whip. Her fangs bared, lengthening and shortening with each breath, her claws digging into her palms. "He called me a slave!" the werewolf girl shouted, her anger choking her words. "He said—slave!"
She bellowed it out loud; even now, Marion still struggled with telepathic communication. Her eyes remained fixed on the panicked merchant, ready to pounce at any moment. Anthony looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Tasha said, "Come to me, Marion."
"I'll kill him!" Marion thought, likely not through telepathy but by thinking too loudly again. "I'll bite his throat out, rip his guts out! Damned slave trader! Don't even think about going back!" A flood of bloody thoughts crowded her mind, mingled with chaotic wolf howls. Tasha spoke again: "Come back. We need to talk."
Her tone was slightly colder than before, carrying a hint of warning—less friendly, but undeniably effective. The beast stirring within Marion felt the reins tighten around its neck. She shot Anthony a furious glare before turning and striding back toward the dungeon.
"He wants to trade slaves!" the werewolf girl protested before Tashar. "He wants to trade my kind!"
"That's precisely why you must keep him alive." Tasha said. "We need his connections to buy beastmen slaves."
Marion's eyes widened.
"What do you think?" Tasha countered. "Kill everyone involved in the beastmen slave trade?"
"They deserve to die!" Marion declared furiously.
"But what we need to discuss isn't whether they deserve to die." Tasha said. "Have you considered the feasibility? How would you track down every single person involved in the slave trade and kill them one by one? Even if you managed it, what then? Would the orc slaves suddenly be safe?"
Marion's expression seemed to say, Why not?
"Have you been to Lake Rebe?" Tasha asked again.
The werewolf girl shook her head. She'd heard of Lake Rebe as a major city further north, but she'd never been to any big city.
Perhaps she had been during her time as a slave. Between her capture at seven and her successful escape at eleven, Marion vaguely remembered being moved from place to place in cages with others of her kind. Their confinement was always similar—either devoid of sunlight or surrounded by towering walls, leaving them utterly unaware of their location. After escaping, Marion had roamed the wilderness, venturing only to small settlements at night to steal necessary supplies. Visiting a major city would have been like walking into a trap.
She never saw her kind again. She never saw her tribe again.
No wonder, Tasha thought.
"Do you know how many beastmen slaves are at Lake Rebe?" Tasha asked.
"I don't know..." Marion replied, encouraged by Tasha to continue, "Seven or eight...?"
"I don't know either," Tasha said. "Too many to count."
Marion froze.
The dungeon possessed Marion's soul. Whenever Tashar wished, she could access the werewolf girl's memories, emotions, and present thoughts. Thus Tashar quickly understood why Marion reacted this way: limited by her experiences, she lacked awareness of her kind's current plight.
She believed only a handful remained—merely the survivors captured alongside her years ago. In truth, while wild beastmen were scarce, enslaved beastmen were far from rare.
A mere handful could never constitute an industry.
Tasha herself had known almost nothing of this before. Information gleaned from the dungeon's inhabitants was often fragmented; only by seeing it firsthand could one grasp the full picture. In the great city of Lake Rebe, she encountered numerous half-breed orcs. They lived hidden from daylight yet bathed in public gaze, like an open secret.
There were pointed-roofed tents, decorated with flashy, ornate patterns. At first glance, they resembled candy houses at a carnival. People called it the "Circus," though its outer fabric wasn't the typical red and green of circuses, but pink. The clustered tents sat on the western edge of Lake Rebe City, silent by day yet bustling with activity at night. Most of the inhabitants were women, with a few men among them. They wore shackles, remained naked year-round, and practiced one of humanity's oldest professions. Their beastkin bloodlines were faint—some bore only one animal ear, the other still human.
In contrast, the mixed-blood beastkin in Rebe Lake's affluent districts bore a stronger resemblance to beasts. Wealthy families maintained hybrid slaves according to strict selection criteria, each household owning several. It seemed a fashion statement, or a status symbol akin to purebred horses. At banquets, they served as platters, dressed up like exquisite little cakes, their non-human features gaudily accentuated. Guests pointed at their ears and tails with admiring murmurs, while hosts casually remarked on the difficulty of acquiring such a rare specimen.
"You know, some old fogies still consider keeping a live one treasonous." They pointed upward, sharing knowing smiles. Ladies with manicured nails pinched the beastmen servants' cheeks and ears, giggling behind fans, sighing that even the finest specimen couldn't compare to a living creature.
Erian publicly upheld the threat theory against alien species. By strict regulation, captured specimens were either executed on the spot or confiscated. Yet just as tax evasion persists, the illicit trade in beastmen slaves flourished in the shadows, a vital commodity on the black market.
The total number of mixed-blood beastmen in Lake Rebe—if ever tallied—would likely shock Marion.
Could such a mature slave trade, involving such vast numbers, truly be resolved as simply and brutally as Marion imagined?
Even if a covert balance were struck with Lake Rebe's administrators, it remained impossible.
Slave traders were endless. What official Erian authorities couldn't accomplish, expecting the Dungeon to achieve it was sheer folly. Forcing Lake Rebe's mayor and acting governor to crack down on Tasmalin's beast slave trade would inevitably disrupt many interests. On one hand, it might attract unwanted attention (which the Dungeon currently strives to avoid). On the other, it would only drive slave traders and their cargo beyond Tasmalin's borders, rendering them beyond reach.
Much like the fable of the sun and the north wind, expecting profit-driven individuals to abandon their ventures for slightly greater risks is futile. Instead, incentivize them to voluntarily deliver orc slaves here.
Would this not exacerbate the slave trade, leading to even greater persecution of wild orcs? Please, the situation in Erian cannot be compared to real-world scenarios like "well-meaning bird releases accelerating species extinction." Here, even without the slave trade, humans would show no mercy to non-human species. In a way, one might even say the orcs have survived to this day largely thanks to the slave trade.
Besides, Tasandria doesn't purchase slaves to set them free.
Anthony wore an impeccably tailored outfit, though the collar at the back had come undone and a stain on his trouser leg revealed what the owner tried desperately to conceal—this merchant's finances were far from sound. Rebe Lake's commerce thrived amid fierce competition, its market like a relentless tide washing away the laggards each year. Anthony had once been a factory owner enjoying his moment in the sun, but now he teetered on the brink of bankruptcy—hence his risky venture here.
He sought to persuade Tasha to invest in his factory, to breathe new life into goods left behind by the merciless tide, never considering that such boasts held no weight. Tasha valued the factory itself: the rudimentary waterwheel-driven lathe assembly line, the charcoal-fueled steam engine... These items, deemed inefficient and useless by others, were far more valuable to her than useless luxuries.
Tasha possessed no omnipotent golden finger. Her knowledge and experience enabled her to manage this underground city, but the engineering expertise required to spark a technological revolution lay beyond her capabilities—though she felt no regret about this, finding the former far more practical. The hardware before her filled the missing piece of the puzzle, compensating for the industrial knowledge she lacked. And within her ranks, she had the technical talent to decipher that knowledge.
Why did private factories only produce luxury goods? Because water and wind power were unstable and inefficient, while charcoal consumption was enormous. If products couldn't fetch a high price, running the machines meant losses. Erian had no coal mines, no oil... but it possessed magic stones and the arcane technology powered by them.
War delivered samples of this technology, and the artisan dwarves dissected them, learning rapidly. Now, with dungeons barely yielding magic stones during expansion, combined with that iron-gray dreamscape, the reason for magic technology's decline in Erian became clear: resource scarcity.
In a dungeon capable of producing magic stones, they were a renewable resource.
Excellent.
For every arcane weapon the Artisan Dwarves deciphered, the dungeon workshop generated its blueprint. Yet these dwarven craftsmen weren't mere replicating machines. Tasha never believed antiquity held the ultimate answers. If their ancestors could invent such diverse arcane machinery, applying this technology to modern production and daily life shouldn't be an impossible task for today's Artisan Dwarves.
Following this successful experiment, Tasha would require vast manpower—a multitude of workers.
"So this is why you bought this pile of junk?" Victor adopted that skeptical tone again. "If you'd chosen a male body, I could understand... So you really do prefer females?"
The first batch of hybrid beastfolk arrived by carriage, all females ranging from teens to their thirties, completely naked. Marion froze the moment she opened the carriage door at the checkpoint. Realization flashed across her face, followed by a surge of rage. The merchant, who had intended to claim credit, sensed trouble and promptly fled.
Staff brought them fabric to cover themselves, and the Amazons lent out clothing. The warrior women's garments hung loose and baggy on the mixed-blood beastfolk. Mavis's medical team quickly became busy; the health of most in the carriage was dire, and even the fittest appeared dull and frail. They walked with considerable clumsiness, having likely not walked in ages. One tall girl had severely deformed ankles. She must have been very young when shackles were first fitted, for the iron contraptions had never been replaced as she grew.
"This is the best batch available!" Anthony declared. "The higher-grade ones aren't sold to ordinary merchants and aren't readily available. But my contact says if we maintain this regular purchase volume, we could get special terms in the future..."
Anthony had never seen sharp-eared elves living here; he clearly misunderstood Tarsha's purpose in having him purchase beastmen slaves. By prostitute standards, this batch of half-breed beastmen was indeed presentable—free of venereal disease, with pleasing features, meeting the definition of "healthy" for this commodity. After Jacqueline, Mavis's psychotherapist clinic gained a new batch of clients.
"You've made a miscalculation," Victor said. "Most prostitutes have had their fertility destroyed. This batch you've brought in won't increase our workforce at all."
"They are the workforce," Tashar said.
"Seriously?" Victor asked incredulously. "Well, if you're willing to have orc descendants serve as dwarven laborers, a bit more wild imagination won't hurt."
"What's wrong with orc blood?" Tasha countered. "Orcs have no shortage of strength, right?"
"True, they excel at hunting and combat. But doing dwarf work?" Victor scoffed. "Why not just train orc mages?"
"How will we know unless we try?" Tasha countered.
Back on Earth, Tasha had read a sociological study suggesting that primitive societies were shaped by combat and famine, while industrial societies were primarily shaped by disease. Thus, genetically speaking, primitive populations might actually be smarter and stronger. Primitive people might seem clumsy in industrial societies, but that was simply because they lacked relevant knowledge. Put industrial people in a primeval forest, and they'd appear clumsy too.
Even in this less scientifically advanced Erian, knowledge isn't inherited through bloodlines among non-dragon races. Thus, Erian's humans and dwarves can be likened to industrial society residents, while orcs resemble primitive humans—no decisive differences exist.
Tasha didn't need them to learn magic; aptitude for different professions (meaning extraordinary "professionals") varied by race, but that wasn't crucial. The operational complexity of assembly line workers is incomparable to magic; dungeons simply require vast quantities of cheap labor. Half-breed beastmen are the natural proletariat here, destined for future utility—even if rebuilding and training workers will likely take longer than Tasha anticipated. No matter; she has all the time in the world. Besides, she could procure beastmen slaves of other types.
The mental health of contract holders might pose a greater challenge.
Marion shuttled among her kin, tending to them and conversing with them. Many half-breed beasts found some solace in her presence, while others showed no improvement. What was truly terrifying wasn't the panic, but the numbness—they didn't care that they'd been brought here from Lake Rebe. Whether surrounded by hostile humans or concerned kin, these hybrids remained utterly indifferent.
The more the werewolf girl lingered among her kind, the heavier the gloom from them settled upon her. Her shoulders were rigid, her ears occasionally flattening against the back of her head. She resembled a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at the slightest touch.
Tasha became the one who reached out.
Marion plunged into her arms like a cannonball, a sensation that reminded Tasha of the time she'd gone to the kennel to pick up the wolfdog she'd boarded after a fortnight-long business trip. Thanks to her dragon-type enhancement, Tasha managed to avoid breaking any ribs, though she still had to flap her wings several times to steady herself. Marion buried her face in silent sobs, her teeth chattering. Tasha recalled a saying: "All human suffering is, at its core, anger at one's own powerlessness."
She'd piled too much onto herself, the weight nearly suffocating her.
"Starting tomorrow, don't go to the ward anymore. There are more professional people to care for them," Tasha said.
Marion jerked her head up, her flushed eyes wide with panic. "I'm fine!" she stammered. "I can help..."
"You can be more useful elsewhere than wallowing in self-pity where you're useless," Tashan replied coldly.
Marion stood there flustered, like a puppy that had been kicked. She looked at Tasha helplessly. Now her mistress had a face covered in flesh, yet gazing into it felt like staring into a bottomless well—she still couldn't read anything from that expressionless, beautiful face. Had she been scolded? But the hand that wiped away her tears was gentle. Tasha patted her head and told her to go back and get some rest.
The next day, Marion boarded the carriage bound for Lake Rebe. Mavis used a rolling pin to lift the illusion from her, and she would now observe the orc slave trade as the attendant to merchant Anthony. No amount of speculation could compare to seeing it with her own eyes. On this journey, Marion would personally engage with things she knew nothing about.
"Should I call you gentle or cruel?" Victor remarked. "Knowing too much might overload that already limited brain of hers, don't you think?"
"Marion isn't that fragile," Tashar replied. "I trust her."
During the first week, Marion boarded a stagecoach bound for a neighboring city. She listened as the freight driver casually discussed the route traversing the entire Erian region. News of wild beastmen sightings in certain regions spread through slave trader networks. The big fish carved up their interests at civilized negotiating tables, adhering to unwritten rules. They avoided making conflicts too ugly, lest they spill into the open and overturn everyone's dinner table.
Tasha had restrained Marion's outbursts dozens of times during the first two weeks. Though Marion's patience hadn't improved much, she finally grasped the sheer magnitude of what she despised. This was no small matter to be resolved overnight or by one person alone. This realization lifted some of her self-imposed weight, instead filling her with renewed resolve. On the return journey, she narrowed her eyes behind her, as if making a vow.
The second month, Marion attended an auction. Having reached the threshold for long-term clients, Anthony secured an invitation. Once the admission criteria were met, anonymity ceased within the club; auctions conducted under real names became a status symbol for the elite. Marion's eyes, capable of seeing in darkness, scanned the faces in the theater, the designer labels, committing them to memory—along with the faces of her kind on the high platform.
"At least we still have this many," she told Tasha afterward. "Better than being alone, no matter what."
She recorded the information she observed and the auction procedures, sketching the club's internal and external structures. When occupied with purposeful tasks, no one had time for self-pity. Tasha valued vibrant anger over dull resentment and suffering.
As trade flourished between the Southeast Corner and Lake Rebe, Anthony's standing as one of the region's agents rose accordingly. Later that evening, he was finally invited to a wealthy patron's banquet, accompanied by Marion. During the latter part of the feast, she slipped away from most eyes and made her way toward her kin.
Tasha knew she'd wanted to do this since the banquet began. Marion's anger was impossible to conceal; without Mavis periodically refreshing her diversion spell, she'd likely slip up more times than Tasha could stop her. Even after all this time, the werewolf girl's righteous indignation and concern for her kin remained as vivid as ever—in a way, it was a remarkable gift.
Tasha forbade her from revealing herself, so she could only engage others as Anthony's assistant. Marion was utterly inept at probing, though thankfully her desperate words sounded more like nonsense.
"Do you want to leave here?" she asked a male servant sporting tiny antlers on his forehead. "I mean... if you had the chance?"
"I have no such intention, my lady." " he replied with impeccable manners.
"I'm not lying. I mean, I'm not asking on behalf of your master," Marion gestured, trying desperately to convey her sincerity. "If your master didn't mind? No one would punish you!"
"But why would I leave?" the servant asked. "I have food and shelter here, and my master treats me well."
"How could he be good?!" Marion exclaimed. "They treat you like a piece of furniture!"
"What's wrong with that?" the butler asked, puzzled.
Marion spoke with all three half-breed servants that evening, yet none seemed the slightest bit interested in her proposal. The cat-eared girl cut her off quickly, haughtily declaring she was the master's most cherished treasure and wouldn't go anywhere but his side. The fox-tailed maid was taciturn; when Marion spoke of freedom and the forest, she stared at her as if she were drunk and delirious.
"I don't understand," Marion murmured upon returning that day. "Do they distrust me? Is that why they speak to me this way? But it feels like that's what they think... I don't understand."
"They were born in the city. You can't expect them to yearn for what they've never seen," Tasha said.
Marion remained silent for a long time, leaning against the window and gazing at the brightly lit houses until the sky began to lighten the next day.
"I'll make them see," Marion said.
She hadn't slept all night, yet she looked more vibrant than she had in a long time. Those emerald eyes shone like a pair of cut gems, each facet adding new brilliance that made them sparkle even more in the sunlight.
"Take back what I said," Victor murmured. "You really are too kind to her."