[ ]
Name : —
Age : —
Level : —
[ ]
From the very moment young Aurelious stepped out of the carriage, this was what he saw.
A translucent golden interface that he quickly realized only he could see. He tried his utmost best to understand what it meant but couldn't, even reaching out to touch it only to watch his hand pass straight through.
"Are you okay, Your Highness?" the knight following him asked.
"It's nothing, Sternford," he said dismissively.
The interface vanished.
'...Just what was that?'
"...Yes, my master would like to purchase something."
Aurelious turned to find Sternford already speaking to a man who appeared to hold a high position in the establishment.
"Your Highness."
The man approached and bowed, to which Aurelious tapped him on the shoulder.
"Rise. I have no need for pleasantries."
'Though I would have had your head if you didn't do it... smart man,' he thought, his innocent smile still fixed in place.
"Nonsense, it is solely my honour, and mine alone, to bow before a Morningstar."
By this point most of the other customers were being quietly ushered out. A royal was in the building.
"I see. You will go places..." he trailed off, tilting his head, to which the man understood immediately what he wanted.
"Gustavo. It's Gustavo Rayas."
"...Gustavo."
The young prince nodded.
The man turned. "Please follow me. Surely the journey must have been arduous," he said, leading them up the stairs to a private floor reserved for VIP customers alone, which in this case meant the young prince.
"You own this place?" Aurelious asked suddenly, taking in the vast space and luxurious furnishings.
This was a merchant shop known to sell practically anything. And by anything, that included slaves, though that was a privilege reserved for those of high standing in society.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Slavery was still very much a reality in this era, and that was simply because the nobles had vehemently stood behind it. It was beneficial to them, and so they saw no need to abolish it.
But there was one rule that held firm.
No citizen of the empire could be made a slave. It didn't matter if the individual was a commoner or worse. As long as they were born within the borders of the empire, they were born free.
Which naturally brought about the question of where slaves came from.
The Outer Walls.
A zone that existed between the inner walls where the empire was centered and the corrupted zone that served as humanity's last line of defense against the Outsiders roaming beyond. It was more or less a no man's land, riddled with mutated ether beasts and creatures of all manner. A dangerous place to live.
This was where the slave traders found their goods. The work was perilous and one could venture out and never return, but the pay was handsome enough to keep men trying.
Even so, the Laws of Avalon still applied to slaves taken from the Outer Walls. Upon turning seventeen they would be taken for the next trial exams. So slavery mostly occurred at the lower age bracket of below seventeen. As long as the seal was placed on an individual it didn't matter how powerful they grew within Avalon, they would remain a slave until their master chose to release them.
That said, older individuals of around twenty-five were not unheard of in the Outer Walls. They were found there often enough, but those individuals were extremely volatile and difficult to control, given their upbringing in a place more suited to wild beasts and crazed monsters than people.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Surely you jest, Your Highness. I am merely a possible heir," the man laughed.
"I see," was all Aurelious said before falling silent, admiring the dazzling chandelier overhead and the spiralling staircase they ascended. It was all... elegant.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"A slave?" the man reiterated.
The young prince nodded.
"Yes."
"Do you have something in mind?"
"I do. Have you received any new acquisitions recently?" he asked, to which the man nodded eagerly.
"Yes, Your Highness. A couple of months ago actually. Is there one in particular you have in mind?"
"Yes. A girl of around sixteen, perhaps already seventeen. Pale pink hair and amber eyes."
He leaned back against the couch, turning a red apple slowly in his hand.
The man flipped through the catalogues he had on him, working through the pages for a few minutes before stopping at a particular entry. He studied it briefly, then rose and approached the prince.
"This is the only one matching that description, Your Highness. She had already awakened when she was brought in, so she should be sixteen or seventeen. We were already preparing to ship her off to Avalon with a few others." He held it out. "Could she be the one?"
Aurelious regarded the photograph for a long moment without a word.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
His thumb moved slowly across the image, and it all came rushing back.
"You're supposed to be a Morningstar, right? So why are you so weak?"
"Hey, let him go! He's my friend!"
"I don't get why they treat you this way, Rel. You're a nice person."
"You know what, let's go. Don't worry, you don't have to fight. Since you're obviously just going to get yourself killed, let me handle this."
"Amelia, meet Aurelius. Don't be too hard on him, he can be a little shy."
"No. He's not like the others. I trust this Morningstar... with my life."
"...You disgust me, Aurelius. I can't believe I ever loved you."
The young Morningstar closed his eyes, sealing away what little remained of his heart, before opening them once more.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"It's her."
[ ]
Name : Aurelius Morningstar
Age : —
Level : —
[ ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In the carriage the young prince sat, his eyes fixed on the passing scenery.
The ride home felt oddly longer than the one that had taken him into town, but the young prince had for a while now remained far too still, his mind somewhere that didn't bother about time.
It was finally starting. There was no denying it anymore. The future was beginning to move.
Seeing her today had touched something in him. Something he should have felt from the moment he had that vision but hadn't. A clenching, wretched feeling in his chest knowing how unfair his fate was. Knowing he was going to lose it all, and as young Aurelius had once feared as a child, die alone.
Hated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aurelius had a curse he only came to discover in that future life.
A curse that refused to let him grow any stronger than the weakest human in existence.
A curse that had existed long before he was even old enough to understand it.
A curse he never deserved but had to bear nonetheless.
It was this curse that was the root of every misfortune. Being cast out from his own family for being the weakest Morningstar to ever draw breath. Bullied even by the scum of the academy, trash who should have grovelled at his feet, all because of this curse.
That same curse kept him exactly as he was until the day he died.
Powerless.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Drop.
'What... am I still crying?'
He realized his vision had blurred.
'Pathetic,' he told himself.
But the tears came all the same.
One would wonder, though. Was he crying because of his unfair fate? The pain he had endured? Or was it because he could now foresee the monster he was going to become?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"My Lord, we have arrived."
The door was opened and the young prince stepped out.
The journey through the mansion was reluctant as always, but the moment he climbed the first set of stairs into the hallway and took the turn, he stopped dead in his tracks.
His eyes had landed on someone he had long since forgotten.
"You have refused to come visit me. So I have come on my own."