To my knowledge this was a man whose obtrusive tone for a retirement home entrance knew Rodrick as someone who couldn't be trusted. It goes without saying I reached into my pocket and pulled out a silver coin for him to see. He looked at it with scant interest until he broke out in a cocky smile.

  "You really think I'll just let you do whatever you want with one silver coin?"

  I swayed the coin back and forth hoping his attention would remain fixated on the coin. "True, a bribe of a silver coin is laughable to a bride, but it is much better than the alternative you leave me no choice but to give."

  I stuck my left hand into my pocket. What was important was the jiggling sound I made with only two silver coins in my pocket; keep his expectations high on what I would be pulling out.

  And then--I cocked my right hand and slugged him in the face. Rodrick was a pudgy guy with no enhancement skills to power his strength--but a person who spends his time as a nurse for retired heroes in a world where feats are everything was no match for someone who takes shit from nobles every single day.

  Once he was down I dragged him by his armpits towards a tree setting him down to rest. I wanted to have an amiable appearance to the retired heroes so they would ramble on in a garrulous way about old memories my Memorize skill could copy and record, I needed to look the part. I took off his clothes and put them on. In exchange I tossed my extra large clothes over him. Yes, the nurses' clothes were a tight fit for my pudgy body. It should last me until the end of intel gathering.

  If you're expecting to see me gaslight these old people with the charm of a viper or a savvy con artist, you're out of luck. The author has a grandmother in a retirement home the moment he wrote this sentence and would hate to have me be seen gaslighting the poor elders--even though that's exactly what I will be doing to them.

  There was only one solution to this conundrum: change the POV to another Cooro in another world.

  Cooro 1's POV

  I awoke after nearly being killed by a horse. This time in the reincarnation zone was different: I didn't even get to see the pentagrams that will bestow me with a different skill. I wanted to check my Status screen to see if any new skills were in my repertoire, however, right now a crowd was gathered around me sprawled on the ground with a horse along with me. It was only when my torso was erect but my legs were splayed out I noticed the one who rammed into me wasn't a horse but a centaur.

  I wasn't a mare expert because the author liked Canid species over the Equidae, but from her fur I could tell her subspecies was the same as the mare in Black Beauty.

  The upper part of her looked like a petite girl from Japan in her high school years but was dressed as if she came from the Edo period. Her hair was pigtail black buns, her iridescent red eyes were shining even through the slits of her eyelids, she had a black one piece vest and black gold shoulder pads a samurai would wear on her shoulders. She opened her eyes up and stared with excitement on her face; a little tantalizing to watch considering she was the one who throttled me.

  She turned her head left and right trying to remember what happened. At last she looked into my eyes, and her eyes flared up. Next thing I knew she furled her horse legs while extending her hands out begging for forgiveness like in a manga.

  “I’m sorry, I lost control of my legs! Please forgive me!”

  People were staring at us, mostly naked men and girls leashed by their masters. To see a centaur begging forgiveness was something they relished more than abhorred. That being said, I poked her shoulder before holding her small arms not matching the spindly ebony legs behind her.

  “It’s alright. What matters is we’re both fine(though I’m sure I was killed by this) and this has done nothing to ruin our day. See you around.”

  Before she could say another word I turned around and marched away from her. Her name was Ciranos Yoshiteru, a centaur samurai and a leader of a centaur diplomatic herd. She is one of those characters the creators made you have to be both high of level and naturally charismatic in your exchange to romance her. I’d love to get to know her, but she required a lot of work to spend the night with and right now I wanted to buy three slaves to spend my nights with since all the sex slave maids in the dorm left leaving me with blue balls in this world of eroge.

  In no time I was standing in the entrance to the slave auction. It was surprisingly clean for a place of debauchery and human trafficking. It had two storeglass windows with two mannequins on each side. Unlike most stores that have mannequins to show off clothes these mannequins were completely naked–breasts and appendages added on–put in different sexual positions in ways that left very little to the imagination.

  The interior of the building was mostly black walls, a red lamp dangling from the ceiling, a clipboard with a multitude of photos showing different girls barely clothed and making pleading faces, and aisles of different masks to cover the eyes for the circumspection of the event. I approached the mask aisle scouring for one that would help me. Before picking one up I patted the edges of a few masks, poked the eyelids of a few, and whistled to one with an overabundance of diamonds and snickered to it, finally picking up a mask of a cougar. You know I love those older naughty women you call cougars, but this time it was an actual feline with paper machete fangs on the mask. In the end an achievement showed up telling me I earned 5 SP points just for doing that.

  I approached a big mirror on the wall seeing how I looked; of course I looked like a weirdo but I hoped I looked like one the slaves wouldn’t be afraid of when I called out a bid for the girls. When my appearance check finished I said the word ‘Status’ opening up the screen that showed my skill list. I skimmed through the skills I already knew about going straight to the ones I didn’t know I had: Memorize and Prodigy.

  Memorize: Gives me a 20% discount on learning any skills in my SP store.

  Prodigy: Every 30 seconds you are facing an enemy you get 10 percent of the enemies reward will be received. If any damage is taken the countdown will reset.

  The Memorize skill was pretty useful but the Prodigy skill was a waste of space on my status screen. I can defeat all my enemies in less than 30 seconds meaning I wouldn't be given the time to earn those extra rewards. But the author doesn't care about my progress--I wouldn't be surprised if he takes away my maerd trials just so I don't become too much of a Gary Stu.

  "Can I help you?" I heard a man's voice ask me.

  I turned around to see a man in a black and white suit with a black tie that gave the impression of someone in a wealthy club when really he bought those clothes from a discount store; just an Easter Egg I learned while watching interviews downloading a game from my Stream account.

  He didn’t seem surprised to see a young male wearing a cougar mask before him. Knowing him he probably sees hundreds of men wearing them every single day.

  “I’m here for the slave auction.”

  His face turned from furled brows and a demanding tone to a waiter at a restaurant asking if I enjoyed my meal.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Marvelous. Please follow me to your seat.”

  I followed him to the back of the building right to a wooden mezzanine with metallic steps. We stepped up right to the second store, his posterior in front of me as his shirt did nothing to hide his buttocks. Making our way to the top I found eighty dark green leather chairs with seven men of different appearances wearing crow, bear, fox, and even unicorn masks on their faces.

  I took my seat in the far left behind a chair in the front. Occupying that seat was an early 30 something elitist wearing a red suit, black tie and maroon red short hair wearing an orange fox mask over his gray blue eyes. I don’t know who he is; they never gave names to the random NPC’s they generate for this event who bid randomly to keep the event interesting. All I know is whoever he is–and whoever the rest of the bidders are–I had more than enough coins to outbid them.

  Down below the man in the suit was fiddling with a gray blue orb on a metallic pedestal. When he was done setting it up he stepped on his tiny stage and conjured an arcane circle over his mouth. That magic helped raise his voice to the sonorous sound you’d hear from a principal in an assembly.

  “Welcome gentleman and soon to be Masters. Welcome one and all to this month's slave auction. We have all kinds of slaves from the ethereal beauty of elves to the cuddly rabbit girls. For our first bid we have a lamia. Don’t let their snake tails fool you, they are palpitating beauties who are luscious kissers and can coil you with folds so moist you won’t ever want to be let go.”

  Although he was boosting her up the way she made her entrance was anything but spectacular. An blue wavy haired lamia with red eyes and a green tail all the way up to the tail tip which was yellow, and two men carrying halberds had their blades held just over her neck…if she made one wrong move they would decapitate her in an instant.

  I know what you're thinking: how can we see her down there while we are on the second floor? To answer that, that device he was fiddled with created an enlarged version of her for everyone to see. The men were rubbing their chins and smirking. If that wasn’t vulgar enough one of them called over a human server with short puffy blonde hair in pink lingerie over and he unzipped his pants exposing his penis. With just a wriggle of his fingers he had her giving him a handjob while sitting.

  The lamia’s name was Mosastus no-last-name. For her character background he creators pretty much copied-n-pastied the story of Medusa. Medusa was a very attractive woman who even the gods found pretty; the one who wanted her most was Poseidon. One day Poseidon appeared to put his hands on her but she escaped egressing away into town where she sought shelter from Atena the goddess of wisdom. However, Athena betrayed her and she was transformed into the hideous snake haired monster you know today. For Mosastus they replaced Poseidon with a viscount who kinda looks like Donald Trump and they had her fleeing into the shop of an alchemist. The female alchemist gave Mosastus a potion saying it would make her invisible for one day, but transformed her into a lamia where her former appearance was taken by the alchemist transforming her into Mosastus's former form--using it to seduce the viscount into making her his wife.

  If you're wondering how Mosastus escaped being a slave until she transformed into a lamia...her family could afford more than beauty products with their lineage but what they couldn't do was save a lamia in the streets they couldn't recognize as their daughter.

  The bidding started at 500 gold coins. The guy getting a handjob from the girl who looked as miserable as the bar girl in the first episode of the 1990s Berserk anime started the bid. After that a guy with an eagle mask raised it to 700 gold coins, followed by a mole mask guy raising it to 1000. Then the guy wearing the fox mask raised it to 2000 gold coins causing the rest of the men to keep their hands down and their voices quiet. When the auctioneer counted down until the bid was finalized I raised my hand exclaiming “Three thousand gold coins!”

  The man in the fox mask swerved around looking at the man who outbid him, seething in silent anger he put in the effort to raise the highest bid only to be outbid.

  “Going once…Going twice…sold to the man in the cougar mask for 3000 gold coins!”

  With that Mosastus was dragged out of the auction auditorium by the knights leaving her alone until the end of the auction where she will be mine. Up next was an elf girl they dragged in. She had short silver hair, gray blue eyes, and a few trims on her pointed ears. Her name was Sherrell.

  Sherrell was like many elves before her: born into a life of lavishness and luxury because her parents didn't get married until they were almost 500 hundred years old. They accumulated many expensive trinkets, tapestries and antiques in their lives of profligate spending. When the U.X. Bridge manifested all their possessions were sucked into it leaving them with nothing to their name and barely any money in their treasury. To relieve the burden of their debts they had their daughter forcibly engaged to a rich noble. He was kind, never hit her and only had sex with her if she was okay with it. But he was incapable of having children of his own dying without an heir to rule his fortune. His fortune was inherited by his closet heir: his nephew. Part of the nephews' inheritance was the hand of Sherrell, but unlike his uncle he was short tempered, spoiled and treated her like she was a means of pleasure. Eventually she fled from the noble but was captured by the slave traders to be sold.

  Since she was an elf the slave traders could start with an exorbitant price for her: 10,000 gold coins. Ironically, the same men who couldn’t beat a bid of 3000 gold coins for the lamia started raising their hands with an additional thousand for every hand raised. The man in the fox mask raised his hand only to be immediately countered by the man getting a handjob. This went back and forth until 40,000 gold coins were called. I only had 100,000 gold coins on me and there was one more girl I wanted to bid on–gone are the days of MC’s finding the slave trade to be deplorable and you can thank Rising of Shield Hero for that. When 50,000 gold coins were called I raised my hand up as high as it could go, and when he called a bid of 51,000 gold coins I raised it again to try to discourage the other auctioneers from placing any bids. Eventually the gavel was struck–not really a gavel struck but a resounding echo through the hall of what a gavel would sound like if it was struck–and the elf girl was mine. Although it was a classic tale of an MC winning an elf girl in auction where he treats her like a child before treating her life as a woman making her fall in love with her, but I was more interested in the last girl in the auction than her.

  After her there came a harpy, a cat girl, a sloth girl and even an oni girl put up for auction. They were beautiful women so the men placing bids wasn’t surprising, but I kept my hands to my thighs and stayed down because I knew the rank of these girls were D at best. The fox mask guy won two, the guy getting a handjob won one and the last was won by a guy with a Tom Selleck mustache and a meerkat mask. Finally, they came to the last girl of the auction, a bunnygirl with half updo violet hair, emerald eyes, and a cotton white fluffy tail with fingers so congealed together it was like they couldn’t move away.

  Her name was Fluffina Hopscotch. Yes, she had a last name but her real last name wasn’t ‘Hopscotch’. She used to be a bunny girl born from a bunny girl and a human father in a town outside of these walls. She and her friend went exploring in the first but accidentally stumbled upon a direwolf den with a mother trying to protect her cubs. She chased them, her friend tripped being left for the wolf to eat, but Fluffina transformed into a bunny girl and loped before kicking the direwolf in its nose digging deep into its nasal cavity. It fled leaving Fluffina to admit to her friend she was a bunny girl.

  Although her friend promised she would keep that secret…it wasn’t long before knights came looking for her to take her to the kingdom to be sold as a slave; the anonymous letter coming from her so-called friend. Although they were dressed as knights they were really the slave traders just dressing that way so no one would fight against her abduction…not like any of them wanted to put their foot forward to help a bunny girl–even her own father acted like she was no longer her daughter letting her and her mother be taken since any girl born in a village as a bunny girl must have a bunny girl parent.

  Fluffina was taken away while her traitorous friend was hailed as a hero and attracted the attention of the hard working pretty boy in the mesh of plebians who didn’t have room for a demi-human in their village; like kicking someone they knew out just by getting the dust bunnies out of their eyes and finding out their black. Sad–not very original too–but her capture was my reward. The opening bid for her was 30,000 gold coins.

  I had a total of 46,000 gold coins left. Things looked like they were going to get close with everyone raising their hands to get the girl before me. Things were getting intense as the bid was raised to 60,000 gold coins. Whether it was her cotton tail, those ears or the fact all demi-humans have hourglass figurines made them want to splurge all their savings to have her as a slave. It may look like at first I was being outbid by these demi-human connoisseurs, but what they didn’t know was while they were paying attention on the D tier demi-humans I already teleported back to the dungeon floor Cooro 2 was sprawled on and Ares and fox girl O-Ha were arguing over whose lap he should be resting on, woke him up to explore the floors from Sloth’s floor to one floor below Greed’s boss room–and for every floor he walks through treasure just goes right to him like a paperclip in front of a magnet.

  I teleported to the floor I figured he’d be on, put my hand on his chest to have him with me when I teleported him to the same store I just sold all the treasures from, and just used actual running sprinting back to the slave auction house, scurried up the ladder of the mezzanine like a squirrel, and returned to my seat hoping no one knew I was missing.

  And now–I was raising my hand when the big rose to 75,000 gold coins. The men turned their heads in my direction…even the server girl in pink lingerie stopped stroking the important auctioneer's cock to see if I truly raised my hand at 75,000 gold coins.

  “Seventy-Five Thousand Gold Coins! Going Once…Going Twice…SOLD for Seventy-Five Thousand Gold Coins!”

  With that the auction was over. I made my way down to the front where the man announcing the auction was standing along with the red haired man with the fox mask, the man who kept getting handjobs and a middle haired man with grayish green hair and the famous mustache of the actor who played Magnum P.I stood in a line preparing for our rewards. Since I placed the highest bets I was allowed to step first.

  “Your total is 129,000 gold coins. How would you like to pay for your slaves?”

  Instead of answering I tossed a bag into his waiting arms then disappeared from sight; by the time he opened the bag to see the coins I returned tossing another bag in his direction. Despite having a bag in his hands he caught the other bag with little effort.

  He looked at the coins with a cold and calculating look before closing them and throwing them to what looked like the space but was really a storage wormhole to keep the bags safe until they could be put in an actual vault later.

  “They're in the back. Treat them well and keep them close or we’ll capture and sell them again to another bidder.”

  “Thank you, my good man.” I said with a smarmy look on my face. Finally I was going to get to spend the night having a foursome with S tier monster girls.

  There was of course the vexation of the fox mask man who really wanted those girls for himself. In the game all he could do was seethe when he lost a bid, but I wouldn’t put it past him to try something like a minor antagonist in a manwha. Little did I know he wasn’t the only one who had their eyes set on me–and those eyes were from my very own children.