Chapter 123: Contract Market
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Sekhmet’s eyes stayed calm, but his mind remained on the new skill.
Vampire Creation.
He did not feel excitement.
He felt responsibility.
And suspicion.
Because a skill that created loyal vampires was not a small thing. It was the kind of thing that started legends. It was the kind of thing that made gods watch.
He kept his face neutral. He did not let the thought leak into his posture.
He simply walked.
Auri’s voice was quiet beside him.
"Master," she said, "why do we go to the contract market?"
Sekhmet did not look at her.
"I need a solution," he replied.
Auri nodded as if that was enough. She did not ask questions she did not need to ask. That was one reason Sekhmet kept her close. She was loyal by summoning law, but she was also disciplined, and discipline was rare.
They passed from merchant districts into older streets where signs were faded and guards looked less proud. The buildings became tighter, the alleyways narrower, the air smelled more like sweat than perfume.
Then the street opened into a broader space.
Ahead stood a structure that did not look like a normal market.
It looked like a fortress pretending to be a business.
Tall iron fencing.
Runes carved into stone pillars.
A guarded entrance with a heavy gate.
And signs that did not advertise fruit or cloth.
They advertised contracts, bonding, purchase, ownership.
The Contract Market of Slik City.
Sekhmet slowed as he approached the gate. His eyes narrowed slightly.
Auri’s gaze sharpened, reading the guards, reading the runes, reading the way the place was built not to welcome customers, but to control them.
Sekhmet stopped a few steps away from the entrance. He stared at the gate.
Sekhmet did not move.
He stood a few steps from the entrance, letting the morning light fall across the iron bars as if the sun itself was testing the gate’s mood. The Contract Market looked less like a marketplace and more like a prison that had learned to smile politely. The runes carved into the stone pillars were not decorative. They were warnings that did not bother to pretend they were anything else.
Auri’s presence was steady beside him. Her cloak hid her wings well enough for a casual glance, but not well enough for a trained eye. She stood like a blade wrapped in cloth, silent and ready, watching guards, watching angles, watching the way people moved.
Sekhmet watched something else.
He watched the people.
A line had formed at the entrance, and it was not made of only humans. In Slik City, the word citizen was wide enough to include anything that could stand upright and pay taxes, even if it had horns, scales, or a tail that knocked over baskets by accident. A tall beastkin woman with feline ears argued quietly with a short goblin clerk who kept pointing at a paper as if paper could solve pride. Two lizardmen stood behind them, one of them wearing a shiny collar that looked like it had been polished more than his conscience. A human couple held hands so tightly their fingers looked like they had signed a marriage contract on their own skin.
Some faces were calm. Some were desperate. Some were hungry in a way Sekhmet recognized too well.
This place sold life.
Not always in a brutal way. Sometimes in the polite way, which was worse.
Sekhmet’s jaw tightened.
Auri’s voice was quiet. "Master," she said, "this place is heavy."
"It is," Sekhmet replied.
He did not say more. He did not need to. Auri could read a room. She did not need him to narrate the obvious.
At the gate, guards stood in pairs. Their uniforms were not city guard uniforms. Their armor carried the Contract Market’s crest, a neutral emblem meant to signal that the market was not owned by any single house, even if every house had a hand in its profits.
Neutral power was still power.
A guard stepped forward, a middle-aged man with a shaved head and a face that looked bored enough to be dangerous.
"Name," he said.
Sekhmet could have given his full title. He could have made the line kneel by weight of reputation. But reputation was a light that attracted insects, and insects in Null often had knives.
He kept his voice controlled. "Sekhmet."
The guard’s eyes flicked to Auri. "And her."
"A servant," Sekhmet said, which was not a lie by contract rules, even if the word servant did not capture what Auri truly was.
The guard’s gaze lingered a fraction longer than polite. He looked at Sekhmet’s posture, at his hands, at the way his eyes did not wander like a tourist’s.
The guard did not smile. "Entry fee."
Sekhmet paid without argument. The stone pouch in his hand felt heavier today, not because it held money, but because it held choices. Every chaos stone spent here meant someone’s fate shifted.
The gate opened with a slow, grinding sound. Metal rubbing metal. Runes pulsing once, faint as a breath.
Auri’s shoulders remained relaxed, but Sekhmet noticed the way her fingers subtly adjusted under the cloak, ready to strike if the runes tried anything unexpected.
The moment they stepped inside, the air changed.
Outside, Slik City smelled like food, sweat, and business.
Inside, the Contract Market smelled like ink.
It was the smell of paper that had decided it mattered more than blood.
A wide courtyard opened into multiple halls. The architecture was strange, half administrative and half ceremonial. There were counters like a bank. There were platforms like an auction house. There were private doors guarded by rune-sealed locks where people entered in pairs and left alone.
A signboard stood in the courtyard with neat lists, each line a category, each category a quiet cruelty.
Service Contracts.
Debt Redemption Contracts.
Bonded Retainer Contracts.
Labor Exchange Contracts.
Marriage Alliance Contracts.
Concubine and Consort Contracts.
Prisoner Transfer Contracts.
Even the categories had manners.
Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed.
Auri murmured, "They sell marriage like they sell tools."
"They do," Sekhmet replied.