Chapter 133: Toad Servant
After leaving the street block of Forging Gold Hammer, Xilutiya returned to the marketplace and strolled around a few times.
Many first order and second order students had gathered here these past two days. Along the way, she encountered many of them; some were purchasing things, while others were selling their own products and insights.
“Teaching Flower Blooming Technique, 20 gold coins, can provide guidance for one month.” It turns out teaching classes can also make money.
“Selling special travel hardtack biscuits to replenish adventure consumption, 1 silver coin each.” Made with excellent quality wheat flour, these compressed biscuits are convenient to carry.
……
By the end of the day, although Xilutiya hadn’t bought anything, she had gained much knowledge. There were so many side hustle methods for making money.
The next day was the official opening day of the marketplace.
The usually spacious marketplace roads were packed with people today, many of whom had come from other outposts to trade and procure goods.
“Strong beastmen servants, 5 gold coins each, limited quantity~”
“First order beast fangs big-horned sheep from the western continent, 20 gold coins.” There were also special livestock animals for sale.
“Professional clerk, helps manage your team’s expenses and finances, or run a shop, monthly salary only 50 silver coins.”
“Velvet long-sleeved formal dress, 80 silver coins each~”
“Volcanic black basalt, absolutely fireproof, 2 silver coins per piece.”
Walking along the extremely lively streets, Xilutiya had to pull her hood and cloak tight to avoid bumping into others. After a good while, she finally arrived at the area dedicated for trading slaves and servants.
There were quite a few alien race sub-humans here, of course there were normal humans too, but they were mostly looking for employers rather than completely selling themselves.
After inquiring around, Xilutiya learned that the situations here were roughly divided into four types.
The first were slaves who had undergone training and been inscribed with marks; once bought, they completely belonged to you and could be disposed of at will.
The second were employees seeking employers; they often had different skills and could work as clerks, calculators, cleaners, nannies, chefs, and so on, requiring monthly pay. If accidents or death occurred during work, a huge compensation had to be paid to the Woodland Association, so they generally wouldn’t be abused.
The third were servants; these servants were mostly sub-humans from various edge regions or small countries on the surface. They hadn’t undergone slave training and weren’t completely slaves; they just had to serve the Woodland due to exchanges and obligations. As a student of the Woodland, she could naturally hire them too, and at low prices. If accidents or death occurred, points would only be deducted from the Woodland Association, without severe punishment.
The fourth were temporary laborers, often used for short-term tasks like assisting gardeners with harvesting large wheat fields, helping fell forests, transporting miscellaneous items, demolishing buildings, and so on.
Among these four types, slaves were the most expensive because ensuring they wouldn’t harm and were useful required the merchant guilds to spend a lot of effort on training.
Next were employee laborers; their pay didn’t differ much and they could be used for medium- and short-term various jobs. In short, employees were like temporary workers with advanced skills and longer work periods.
The cheapest were the servants; they didn’t cost much to hire, but the downside was that these servants often hadn’t been trained and lacked strong rules constraining them. If they ran away midway or resisted, it depended on the employer’s own means.
Due to the Woodland Alliance’s promise, humans, elves, moon rabbits, and lizardmen could not be slaves, so the slaves and servants here were mostly various beast sub-humans or non-human creatures.
After walking around, Xilutiya felt that slave prices were all very expensive. If she hired a large number now, she couldn’t afford the expenses. Additionally, she had some aversion to the slave system, probably due to the education she received on Earth in the past.
Although it was a bit strange to care about this in such a social environment, she still couldn’t quite accept it.
After comparing and planning, she chose to find those sub-human servants, which also cost much less.
“Are you looking for someone to help manage fields?” A professional manager saw Xilutiya’s interest and immediately came over to inquire.
“I recommend minotaurs on this side; they have enough strength and can do many heavy jobs.” As he spoke, he patted the tall minotaur nearby, who had dark brown curved horns and a robust build.
Looking at the minotaur taller than two of her, the maiden shook her head: “A minotaur eats food portions for five people per month; it’s too uneconomical. Besides, there are only five minotaurs here.”
If she added more hands later, she’d have to keep finding sub-humans of other races, which would be too chaotic to manage.
“Then I recommend the goblins over here; they eat little and there are many of them. 10 copper coins covers a month.” He then led the maiden to a cage nearby, where noisy and filthy goblins were imprisoned; their eyes were full of cunning and they didn’t look like honest workers at all.
If she were leading a team to war, these could perhaps serve as cannon fodder, but for farming, these guys would be too hard to manage.
The maiden shook her head again.
“How about this then: werewolves from the Greedy Wilderness; they are disciplined. As long as you’re stronger than them, you can make them obey.” With that, the manager summoned a group of werewolves.
These werewolves had wolf heads and human bodies, many with scars on their bodies, probably sold to the Woodland after losing tribal wars. But their individual strength wasn’t strong, and training them as slaves wouldn’t fetch high prices, so they could only serve as servants.
Werewolves huh… Xilutiya looked at this group; though somewhat unruly, there didn’t seem to be many better choices.
She was hesitating when she heard a commotion from not far away.
“Gua, I want to eat food; you promised.”
“Dough, gua.”
“No dough, no work, gua.”
Hearing the sound, Xilutiya turned her head and saw a group of strange toad sub-humans being brought over from nearby; they resembled enlarged frogs that could walk upright, but with varied skin colors.
“These are toad sub-humans from the southern continent, said to be from the Hot Rain Marsh area,” the manager answered, flipping through the booklet in his hand.
“Can they work?” Xilutiya asked curiously.
“Probably; according to reports here, they used to work in Rain Puddle City, but recently Rain Puddle City’s economy has been bad, so the city lord sold off many of the toads in the city.”
“These toads have too low value as slaves to train individually; now they’re being sold in bundles, 20 per group for 1 gold coin per group.”
“They require food made from flour every day, and also need to soak in water, otherwise their skin will crack after a long time.”
Seeing the maiden still curiously watching these guys, the manager continued introducing.
“If you hire them, you must ensure the loss rate doesn’t exceed 20% over a year. After all, they’re not slaves but association servants; if too many die, the association will issue you a fine and deduct certain points.”
“Then them it is.” Seeing these croaking little guys, Xilutiya felt it was a kind of fate.
Compared to werewolves, these toad sub-humans seemed much more controllable and amiable.
