The slaves had already chosen the masters they would serve and moved to their positions.
Divided into four factions, they knelt at their masters' feet, bowing their heads so deeply that their foreheads touched the stone floor as they pledged their loyalty.
That was when it happened.
"Hey."
A low, subdued voice.
"Ah, yes. Master Wolfram."
The slave trader reflexively bent at the waist.
Wolfram's gaze stretched beyond the slaves prostrated in a line before him.
It fixed on an orange silhouette sprawled on the floor like a single blemish of contamination.
The child hadn't chosen any master—no, from the start, it hadn't even had the chance to be chosen. It lay collapsed on the ground.
Dark, congealed blood from vomit smeared its mouth, and the raw stump where one ear had been torn off was blatantly exposed.
A young slave so broken that calling it a beastkin felt embarrassing; it seemed only right to treat it as refuse.
Wolfram pointed at the slave trader with a single finger.
"You. The one who brought that thing. Step forward."
One of the slave traders moved forward, sweat beading coldly on his skin.
The next moment—
Slash—
"Guh, guaaaaahhh!!!"
The scream was all too brief and wretched.
The slaves shuddered instinctively, while the trader clutched his right arm—severed clean below the elbow—and dropped to his knees.
The blood splattered on the floor hissed and evaporated in the heat.
But the perpetrator didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow.
"To dare present such filth before us, the next heirs of the Argent Family."
His voice was as cold as a honed blade.
"Even in an ordinary slave market, that scrap wouldn't fetch a price. Be grateful it cost you only an arm."
"O-Of course! In the process of sorting slaves for the training grounds, due to my negligence... it seems I brought one that should have been disposed of. If you wish, I'll remove it immediately. So it never catches your eye again!"
The slave trader trembled with his forehead pressed to the ground.
But the look in his eyes wasn't fear. A blaze of fury burned toward something entirely different.
A savage impulse, sharper than the pain of his lost arm.
A cruel desire to vent his rage on that 'defective' beastkin lying facedown on the floor.
As if to pin the price of his own spilled blood on that worthless trash—as if all it would take was to crush it underfoot—he lifted his toe.
But that was when it happened.
"It's burning with fever. The wound's already infected... Her condition isn't good."
An unfamiliar voice.
"Wh-Who...?"
As the slave trader turned, his vision filled with attire too neat for a slave and a docile face.
It was a boy.
No, a presence that felt somehow off even for a boy.
He knelt on one knee beside the fallen beastkin slave, carefully examining her body.
His touch was gentle, unconcerned by the grime or the dirt and blood staining his suit sleeve.
The slave trader fell momentarily speechless.
His instincts whispered to him.
This child is no ordinary being.
"This place is one where only the legitimate heirs of the Argent Family may set foot."
A voice like sinking ice.
It was Wolfram.
His brows were furrowed far deeper than when he'd seen the defective slave moments ago.
It wasn't just cold words. He was genuinely enraged.
And it wasn't just him.
The other three heirs, who had been inspecting their respective slaves from behind, slowly raised their heads.
Seratina's smile had vanished, Walter's eyes wavered, and Syl stood frozen, fingers rigidly outstretched as if holding her breath.
The one who revered beauty.
The one who pursued only knowledge.
The one who sought nothing but pleasure.
All three wore the same expression.
Disgust.
Unmistakable disgust.
As if they had laid eyes on some forbidden thing they should never have seen.
"Have you lost your mind and forgotten your place?"
Wolfram's voice thinned like a torture chamber blade.
"Answer me, Lucas Argent. Why have you violated the family's rules and set foot in this sacred place, you bastard born of filthy blood?"
That word cleaved the air.
Bastard.
The filthiest, lowliest stain in noble society—one that had to be hidden above all else.
Especially for a house like the Argent Family, which even the imperial family couldn't touch lightly. For them, a bastard's very existence was a crime.
The slave traders didn't dare even breathe heavily.
They knew a single wrong breath here wouldn't end with just an arm.
In the midst of that razor-thin ice, a voice rang out, utterly unperturbed.
"Ah, it's nothing much. It's my birthday today."
Silence fell.
"...Birthday?"
Wolfram slowly raised his head.
"So, what? You think we're here to celebrate the day a wretch like you was born?"
Lucas didn't answer.
Instead, he carefully lifted the one-eared beastkin slave cradled in his arms.
It was the very same being the armless trader had been about to trample to death moments ago.
The boy gently scooped up the collapsed beastkin, as if holding a princess, and spoke.
"No, brother. How could a bastard like me dare hope for celebration?"
Lucas smiled faintly.
"I just... wanted to salvage at least one slave that the four of you were about to discard, under the pretext of a birthday gift."
"Birthday gift...? You mean that fox beastkin on the verge of disposal?"
"Yes."
Lucas nodded nonchalantly.
"Lately, I've been so lonely without a conversation partner that I've ended up talking to myself... Hmm, there've even been times I've banged my own head against the wall."
He pointed to his nose.
Beneath the white accents of his suit, a faint scar from an incomplete heal lingered.
The moment they saw it, the eyes of all four heirs wavered in unison.
Not out of concern.
Lucas Argent.
A bastard, yes—but the family's top human asset, destined for marriage alliances in the future.
If appraised as a slave, a rarer specimen than the imperial family's exclusive bloodlines.
The problem was that such a valuable piece was already showing 'flaws' at a young age.
If the family head learned of this, the blood that might splatter across the mansion floor might not belong to slaves.
And if this upstart, acting as if he were truly of Argent blood, dared bring a healthy slave to raise as his own?
Embracing refuse that could die any moment, wearing an expression like he was about to play house with trash.
Wolfram stared down at Lucas for a long while before finally speaking.
"...Fine. I get it. A birthday gift, you said? I'll allow that much."
"Y-Yes?!"
"Brother?"
"Brother, are you in your right mind?!"
The moment Lucas was permitted to own a slave for the first time in his life.
The reactions of Seratina, Walter, and Syl split starkly.
Seratina, in particular—the next in line after Wolfram for family head—couldn't hold back.
The being before her eyes was neither beautiful, valuable, nor qualified to play 'master' like they did. An ugly defective product.
Yet this bastard was mimicking the rights of a master, as if he were of the same class as them.
That fact alone was revolting enough.
But.
"Brother, no. That child is already—"
"Enough."
A firm command.
Seratina clamped her mouth shut as if her breath had stopped.
Wolfram's gaze pinned her down like lightning.
"Regardless, Lucas Argent shares half our blood. And you've heard it. He couldn't bear the loneliness and harmed himself."
"E-Even so! If that thing somehow enters the heir selection because of this—"
At that moment, Wolfram's eyes curved coldly.
"Seratina. What you're saying sounds like you're 'afraid' that a mere bastard owning one slave threatens you, despite your pure Argent blood."
"...!"
"Shameful. To think you'd be the next family head candidate after me, with such a feeble spirit. Truly disappointing."
Seratina's nape stiffened.
Her lips trembled, but no words came.
Walter and Syl, witnessing it, didn't dare even breathe deeply.
And amid it all, impossibly, one person hadn't lost his smile.
The most wretched being in the room.
Lucas Argent.
"Thank you, brothers and sisters."
Lucas bowed deeply, still cradling the near-death fox beastkin.
"Thanks to you, this wretched body of mine... can hang on a little longer."
His tone was less that of a noble heir and more like a slave despising himself.
An expression of satisfaction in lowering himself and accepting humiliation.
'...Just a few months ago, he was clinging to the separate annex's bars, sobbing to beg for Father's attention.'
A quiet sneer rose in Wolfram's eyes.
'Looks like he's finally grasped his place.'
If this bastard kept up this quiet demeanor until the day he was sold off?
Then his own merit in stabilizing the boy's mind by granting him this scrap of a slave today would surely be acknowledged.
Wolfram smirked, lifting the corner of his mouth.
And flicked his hand.
"Fine. Now get out. As always, scurry like a rat and cling to life."
"Yes!"
Without a hint of hesitation, Lucas replied and turned toward the mansion, carrying the fox beastkin slave in his arms.
But up to that point, no one knew.
The fox beastkin in his arms right now, barely clinging to life with one ear severed.
How much she would upend the Argent Family's landscape from here on.