People in the Capital liked to say that gold could buy anything, but they usually whispered it, afraid the gods might hear. Colonel Jymm Bob didn’t whisper. He didn’t pray, either. He just stared at the ledger on the greasy counter, his scarred face twitching with a mixture of suppressed rage and tactical calculation. "Five thousand marks," Jymm said. His voice was like grinding stones, loud enough to cut through the din of the auction block. The entire slave market went dead silent. The fat merchant behind the counter dropped his quill. The aristocrats in their silk finery stopped fanning themselves. Even the chained ogres in the heavy-duty pens stopped rattling their bars. Five thousand marks. It was the price of a small estate. It was the price of a fully equipped platoon of war-golems. It was an obscene amount of money. But Jymm wasn’t buying an estate. He wasn’t buying golems. He was pointing a gloved finger at a rusted, filth-encrusted cage in the corner of the "Discarded Goods" lot. Inside, two emaciated lumps of fur were huddled together, shivering in a rhythm that looked suspiciously like the death rattle. "For... for them?" the merchant stammered, sweat instantly breaking out on his bald pate. "Colonel, with all due respect to your rank... those are broken units. Fox-kin runts. They won’t last the night. I was going to have them incinerated within the hour to stop the spread of rot." "Did I ask for a prognosis?" Jymm asked, his eyes narrowing. The magical burns on the left side of his face seemed to glow faintly, a terrifying reminder of the Border Wars. "I said five thousand. Wrap them up. Now." The crowd murmured. He could hear the words floating on the humid air—*madman*, *pervert*, *beast-lover*. Let them talk. Jymm could feel the faint, desperate hum of mana fading inside that cage. A specific frequency he hadn’t felt in years. He wasn’t just buying livestock; he was buying a time bomb, and he was the only one in this godforsaken city who knew how to diffuse it without blowing his own soul apart. But as he looked at the trembling bundle of matted orange and white fur, a darker thought coiled in his gut. If they die before I get them to the carriage, I’ve just bought two very expensive corpses.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZbrJZ4BN6s
To read more stories, welcome to my story platform: https://chaosmargin.com/unplot-lite/discover23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLf559peyUT
and then Add to home screen.