R-S Chapter 24 (Patreon)

I waited at the very public raffle to determine the winner. I couldn’t help but be wary as I kept scanning the crowds. While everyone else looked happy, the raffle was also a party, with food and drinks being sold. It was a quarterly thing everyone did, and many took the day off to fully enjoy it like a holiday. I was waiting for the ball to drop, for this to all be a scam, and the fat man to show up with a different raffle ticket that was the actual winner.

Thirty minutes after I arrived, the announcer began to announce the winner. It was all pageantry, a giant see-through ball spun, bouncing the four white balls inside. I started to wonder that if I accidentally changed something, would the same number be pulled? She began to read the winning number. “Two!” Three-quarters of the people cried out because their store had been eliminated. Every single one of my tickets was from the number two store.

Swirling the much bigger ball drum to determine the winner. The female announcer slowed down before one finally fell through. That was the winner. The next moment, she started to read who had won the raffle. “We have one eighty-four, which would make the winning ticket number 2184!” Everyone waited with bated breath for the winner to announce their ticket.

I quickly shuffled through and. “I got it, I’m the winner!” I yelled out. Even though I was half certain I’d win, it was still a nice surprise when I did. Walking forward, people cheered. Some tried to grab me while others offered up a hand to high-five. I just kept heading forward after accepting the high-fives. I handed over my winning ticket to the announcer.

She was a really beautiful woman. The long-sleeve shirt and vest combo with the pencil skirt didn’t do much to hide her jutting chest and ample hips. Red hair tied up, she smirked as she shouted. “And we have our winner. Will you get the tab?” This was another part of the pageantry. The crowd would try and convince the winner to pay for the rest of the food and drinks for the day.

The crowd all began to chant. “Pay the tab, pay the tab, pay the tab, pay the tab!” My money was carted out. The reward was twenty zell, but zell was far too big for most stores to break into zeffer. The final payment was eighteen zell, forty-five zeffer, and five hundred zenny. It looked more substantial to the crowd as well, twenty coins wouldn’t appear to be that much.

The prize came with a pouch to hold it all. I separated out the zeffer and zell before sweeping all the zenny into the bigger bag it came with. The crowd once again waited to see if they’d get free food. I smiled at the crowd before flipping a coin to the announcer. The crowd erupted in cheers, as for the next few hours, all food and drinks would be paid for by me.

I didn’t have to pay, but it would go a long way for not having a mob of people hate me. I’m about to break off and leave to go purchase Lola before the announcer came up and handed me a slip of paper. It had her name and a bar name with a time on it and a lipstick print. I looked up at her, and she winked at me. I almost laughed when I thought of showing up having most of this money I just won spent already.

It was probably a honey trap, she might want to sleep with me to try and steal some of the money but, aint no fucking way I’m showing up with more than a few zeffer to spend. I left, and no one followed me; at least, no one obviously followed me. It was hard to tell if a high-ranking infiltrator was following me, but I doubted it. Twenty zell is a lot of money, but that was something even a freshly graduated infiltrator could make in about a year. It wouldn’t make sense for them to risk jail time or a death sentence for such a small amount of money.

I entered the brothel, I had a poker face up, otherwise I’d be smiling ear to ear. My eyes met with the Madame’s as I didn’t say anything before walking up towards her office. She looked at me questioningly until I started to pull out the zell, one piece at a time, each piece made her eyebrows rise further and further. How many men came in and talked big, hundreds, if not thousands? How many could back up their big talk? Not nearly as many; she might be able to count the people on her hands.

Looking at the money, she was stunned, I had baffled her. How much was ten zell? It was about ten years' worth of someone's wages. How could a child who couldn’t afford Lola earlier purchase her now? Was she wrong about her opinion of the boy, and was he a secret noble? Slowly, she moved her hand over to the money before sliding back a zell. “I’ll give you a discount on her.”

It felt odd talking about purchasing a person. I knew slavery was legal, but I had always deemed it something I wouldn’t participate in, not because I thought it was immoral, but because I thought I’d never be able to afford it. Many of the slaves sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts. If a human became a slave, it would normally guarantee their life, while no one would care if they died when they weren’t a slave.

Sometimes, the only way for a family to survive was to sell off one of their members. It was either the slow, agonizing death of starvation or enslaving one of the members to save the rest. The vast majority of slaves were criminals or civilians from other countries. Slaves tended to be non-human, and the treatment for non-humans was worse on average, but it was different for every owner.

My heart pumped as Lola was brought out from her room. I could tell she was just as excited to see me, her eyes widening as the Madame explained that she was now mine. She slammed into me, almost knocking me over, and she peppered my face with kisses. “Alright, alright. Go gather up your things. We still have a lot to do today before you can move in with me.”

The day was spent buying new things for her. Slaves didn’t own much, so the few sets of lingerie and single outfit she wore were the only clothes she owned. We spent the good part of most of the day buying clothes and taking her to get mage testing done.

Mana Capacity- 16

Magic Fluctuations- High

Mental Control- None

Mana veins- Miniscule, thin, 15% effective

Magical affinities- Fire 17%, Water -40%, Air 03%, Lightning 80%, Earth 05%

The free testing had already passed, so there was a price to have her tested. It wasn't anything I had to worry about now, though, since I had so much money. She was weak. She could barely start training as a magic warrior; even then, it would be an uphill battle. My lovely, little sex bunny would be just that for the foreseeable future. Now, I just needed to figure out what she could do in order to stay by my side during my schooling. It didn’t make sense for her to just stay in my room like a prisoner.

None of the other students had maids but… Could I just say she’s my maid?