“Ribeta. Ribeta! Where did that stupid girl go again?”

“I’m here, Miss. I’ll be right there.”

“Not ‘right there’—come now. Right now!”

A sharp, shrill voice stabbed at her eardrums. The stinging pain in her ears never became familiar.

Ribeta stopped what she was doing and left the shabby kitchen.

The room of the Miss she served, Melissa, was a modest but cozy room that had everything it should have in its own way. However, Melissa, who had lived wastefully as naturally as breathing, considered it worse than a sewer.

Thanks to that, her irritation grew day by day, and receiving all that irritation was entirely Ribeta’s lot.

“Alec is coming tomorrow. Do you know that?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Really? I thought you’d forgotten since you’re so stupid and slow. But what’s wrong?”

“What do you mean……?”

“Alec is coming, Alec! If you have eyes, look at me. Nothing but cheap fabric scraps that can’t even be called a dress, and only outdated earrings and necklaces!”

Melissa threw a fit. Ribeta quietly lowered her eyes.

The dress and accessories Melissa wore were among the few items Ribeta had barely managed to salvage when the Count’s family fell to ruin. Melissa had threatened that she would die if she didn’t have even those.

They were items she had obtained by begging on her knees until they bled before creditors, and so she had managed them even more preciously. Since they were originally Melissa’s belongings, the fashion might be slightly outdated, but they were absolutely not cheap fabric scraps.

Melissa had merely found an excuse to vent her irritation and resentment.

“Why aren’t you answering? Are you ignoring me right now?”

“No, Miss. How could I possibly ignore you?”

“No. You are ignoring me. You’re looking down on me because the family fell to ruin and my parents passed away.”

Melissa’s eyes gleamed. It was a bad sign. Melissa with gleaming eyes like that invariably resorted to violence.

What should I do? But Ribeta had no way to break through this situation. Ribeta bit her lips firmly, bracing for the pain soon to come.

“How dare a slave look down on her master? If I’m a beggar, you’re a pebble rolling on the ground. Not even human. And yet you ignore me!”

Sure enough, Melissa struck Ribeta’s cheek. At the rough touch filled with force, her chapped lips split open.

Even as blood droplets splattered, Melissa didn’t care. Rather, seeing blood excited her more, and she raised her hand again.

“Who do you think you are! Who are you to ignore me! Who are you!”

Ribeta, struck repeatedly on the cheeks, staggered greatly and finally fell to the floor. As if her mouth had split inside too, hot blood welled up in her mouth.

Melissa, her face flushed red, kicked the fallen Ribeta.

“Ugh……!”

Of all places, she’d been kicked in the shin. In terrible pain, Ribeta let out a groan and twisted her body. Then something small and glittering rolled across the floor.

“What’s that? Don’t tell me it’s a jewel? You’ve gone mad. You even laid hands on my jewels?”

“No…… It’s not a jewel, it’s a bead I made. You’ve seen it several times before, Miss.”

“How can I trust a thief’s words? Get out of the way!”

Melissa pushed Ribeta aside and picked up the fallen jewel, examining it this way and that. Her face, which had brightened for a moment, soon darkened gloomily.

“Why on earth are you keeping this useless stone?”

“I was trying to sell it to raise money.”

“Who would buy beads sold by a slave, not even jewels? Stop saying stupid things, and if you have that time, go out and earn money.”

Having finished speaking, Melissa threw the bead. The bead struck Ribeta’s head and dropped with a thud.

Ribeta quietly picked up the bead and put it in her apron pocket. It might be a useless stone to Melissa, but not to her.

“You have to earn your keep for being fed, housed, and clothed, right? Get out. Get out quickly!”

Ribeta barely managed to raise her aching body and left the room. Her kicked leg trembled, but if she stayed home, she would only get beaten. She took off her apron and covered her face with a kerchief on her head.

Ribeta swallowed the blood that kept pooling in her mouth and limped through the streets.

※※※

“Your master must really cherish you, huh?”

Ribeta, who had been about to write her name on the list, raised her head. When their eyes met, the employee tapped her cheek with the pen he was holding.

“There are hardly any slaves with a face as clean as yours who can even write.”

Could this person not see her split lip? Or did he think this degree of injury didn’t even count as being beaten by one’s master? Probably the latter.

Slaves beaten by their masters were as common as pebbles on the street. But no one held the masters accountable. Even if there was no reason for the beating. Even if the beaten slave died.

Ribeta didn’t answer and subtly pulled her body back. Though his hand hadn’t directly touched her, she felt goosebumps from the unpleasantness. It was because of that man’s eyes.

Filthy eyes glistening with desire.

The employee, mistaking her for being shy, chattered excitedly.

“And your brand is even on your shoulder. Usually it’s stamped somewhere visible and as big as a door. Right?”

The employee gestured with his chin as if telling her to look around. Ribeta quietly pretended to look around. If she got on the wrong side of the registry employee, she couldn’t get good work.

This place was a labor exchange, different from places called ‘slave markets’ or ‘slave auction houses.’

Slave markets were places where slaves were directly bought and sold, but labor exchanges were places where slaves’ labor was traded. It was a system where people who needed workers paid a price and hired slaves for a set period of time.

Ribeta had been finding work here since Melissa’s household fell to ruin.

The exchange, converted from a large warehouse, was packed with all kinds of people. But distinguishing the slaves among them was very easy.

As the employee said, they wore brands in visible places.

The brands were stamped with the crest of the household to which the slave belonged.

Most slaves had brands stamped on their foreheads, followed by their cheeks. Quite a few slaves also had brands stamped on the nape of their necks or their throats.

Where the brand was stamped was entirely up to the master’s whim. Masters with the consideration to stamp brands in invisible places were rare.

“You must satisfy your master quite well in bed. How about it? I’ll pull you for high-paying, easy work. I’ll even throw in a little extra pay.”

“I’m finished writing.”

“Acting all high and mighty for a slave. Think you’re something because your face is a bit pretty? Ptui! If this were another exchange, you’d already be……”

Ignoring the indignant employee, Ribeta moved toward where the female slaves were gathered.

There were almost no exchanges that kept to the principle of trading only labor power. If a customer wanted, ‘that kind’ of transaction could easily happen at exchanges too.

But this place, Sirente Exchange, was different.

Directly buying and selling slaves was prohibited regardless of reason, exchange employees must not lay hands on workers who came to the exchange, and the exchange only allowed ‘labor power’ transactions.

Sirente Exchange was almost the only exchange that kept these principles.

That’s why Ribeta deliberately came to the distant Sirente Exchange. Because she’d had unpleasant experiences at other exchanges. Several times.

But she couldn’t not come to the exchange just because she’d had unpleasant experiences. Money was needed to live, and Ribeta was the only one who could earn money. She couldn’t just stay quietly at home because of Melissa anyway.

“You came out today too.”

“Hello, Grandma Janna. You must have come out early.”

Janna, her white hair braided down, received Ribeta’s greeting and smiled warmly.

“An old woman like me comes out early but may or may not get work.”

“That can’t be true. Everyone likes you because you work hard.”

“A powerless old woman has to work hard at least. Even that isn’t easy these days. It seems like people keep increasing.”

As Janna said, there were more slaves waiting for work at the exchange than yesterday.

Ribeta straightened the kerchief on her head.

She wanted to wrap cloth all around her face to hide her swollen cheek and split lip, but she couldn’t. Competition at the labor exchange was getting increasingly fierce.

Recently, the number of nobles who owned slaves—that is, nobles who went bankrupt and fell to ruin—kept increasing.

While many cases involved selling slaves to new masters, it wasn’t rare for people to keep slaves until the end out of vanity despite lacking the ability to employ them.

They sent slaves to labor exchanges to earn at least a little money.