A day later, the trio arrived at a city called Windsor. It was far enough north that the temperature was low—around 5°C despite it being early spring. Fortunately, it hadn’t started snowing yet.
Windsor was considered one of the stronger cities in the Northern Region in terms of overall power, yet it still wore an air of decay. The main streets were barely passable, but venture into any alleyway, and the sight was too wretched to behold. Straddling the border between the Outer Second District and Third District, life here was no easy feat for the residents.
The root cause? This frozen wasteland held no future.
They couldn’t even produce enough food to feed themselves and had to import grain from other regions. All other industries fared no better.
Before entering the city, the three had disguised themselves slightly—masks and hair dye. No need to dwell on the details.
While buying candy at a confectionery shop on the street, Sang overheard two human women whispering nearby. Their voices drifted into his ears.
“Have you heard? The current head of the Hill Family is on his last legs.”
“Really? I haven’t heard a thing.”
“The officials are keeping it quiet to stabilize the Northern Region. But it’s true… They’re about to get a new family head… I hope that cursed clan just dies out. My poor husband died in the blizzard a few months ago…”
“Don’t cry… It’d be great if the Hill Family vanished from this land. Without them, the North would surely come alive again…”
“Yeah. All that talk about an Ancient Titan sealed in the Extreme North Mountain Range? It’s a lie! Pure nonsense to fool us! That clan is the real source of our misery… the cursed ones!”
“Exactly! If they’ve got the guts, let that Ancient Titan out for a stroll!”
The Hill Family had kept news of their current head, Orcus Hill, being at death’s door under wraps to maintain stability in the North. It was standard political maneuvering. But on one hand, time had a way of letting the truth slip out—no secret could be kept forever. On the other, rival factions might have leaked it deliberately to sow chaos.
No, no!
Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.
The next moment, Sang quietly shifted his gaze backward to Snow Hill. She seemed utterly accustomed to such talk, standing silently behind them without a flicker of reaction.
Then he recalled what Snow Hill had said that night: “I will only follow my Knight’s Way.” And another thought: the humans she protected wished for her death…
It was both tragic and ironic.
Sometimes, Sang truly wished Snow Hill would treat humans the way the True Ancestor did. At least that would align with her racial stance—no betrayal there…
But Sang was just a small, selfish human. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Instead, he offered a foolish consolation. “If that Ancient Titan really revives, they’ll be the ones crying their eyes out! Right, Snow?”
Snow Hill merely glanced at him, missing his good intentions entirely. With dead seriousness, she replied, “As long as I’m here, the Ancient Titan will never revive.”
“Sigh…”
An ironclad straight-arrow—she wasn’t just unapproachable for flirting; you couldn’t even pry her open.
The trio continued along the city’s main thoroughfare. Sang and Aisha Hodhua led the way, while Snow Hill trailed behind, leading her black horse—Buta—which was hitched to a carriage.
Incidentally, this black horse was Snow Hill’s warhorse, always by her side on her trips between the North and Central.
As they walked, near the city gate exit, they spotted a large temporary tent like those used by a circus. It covered an area the size of two or three basketball courts. Two sleazy-looking human men stood at the entrance. Spotting the well-dressed group, they called out, “Hey, folks, want to take a look inside?”
The three stopped in unison. Sang looked up at the massive domed tent, curiosity piqued. “What’s in there?”
“You’ll see once you step in.”
Sang’s youthful curiosity got the better of him, and he actually went inside.
After his battles with Samuel Cape and the Mid-level Titan Cyclops Ogre, Sang had a rough gauge of his own strength—somewhere between Bronze and Silver.
Don’t let gaming make you think a Silver Lad is weak; that’s already top 15% in Knight Academy City. In his original world, it’d be like a solid second-tier or even first-tier university grad.
Of course… just idle fantasy.
On one hand, his strength was decent enough to protect himself in danger. On the other, he had Snow Hill with him—the First Knight of the era.
Sang would have been strutting like he owned the place already. What was there to fear from a strange tent?
The mystery of what lay inside unraveled in just a minute: an auction house.
But not for vases or antiques—this was a market for live goods. Humans, werewolves, even Titan Beasts.
The crowd consisted mostly of nobles, primarily humans, with a smattering of Blood Race members… As mentioned before, while most nobles were Blood Race, a few humans had earned lower titles like baron or viscount through merit…
Unexpectedly, there were more human buyers than Blood Race ones…
The humans up for sale were unregistered black-market sorts, unprotected by any lord. In other words, if traffickers snatched you and you screamed for help, no lord or knight would bat an eye.
How did they end up like that?
Sang, Aisha Hodhua, and Lusana had covered this before, back when they’d visited Central’s Third District. Humans paid taxes to their lords annually. Fail to pay, lose your registry, become a black-market drifter—or get thrown straight into slavery.
All that might sound like filler, but it boiled down to one thing: this auction was perfectly legal!
At that moment, the host took the stage and delivered a crisp, captivating opening. “Welcome, everyone, to the Montgomery Family Northern Division’s slave auction. We’ve prepared many special items today. We hope you all find what you’re looking for.”
The guests’ eyes gleamed with greed and lust, like devils cloaked in human skin.
“Montgomery Family?” The name rang a vague bell for Sang.
He seemed to recall hearing it from the traffickers who’d nabbed him before.
“Uh… the Montgomery Family. A marquis house near Central. One of the biggest players in the underworld—or Dark World, as it’s called. Affiliated with the Cape Family, they specialize in the slave trade… Rumor has it their family head was once captain of Red Gear,” Snow Hill explained.
This meant she knew about human trafficking. Her calm tone suggested she accepted the Slavery System—or at least took it for granted.
“The Cape Family really is rotten to the core… Nothing good ever comes from them,” Sang said with genuine disgust.
Snow Hill glanced at him, noncommittal.
“But… werewolves aside, they at least have intelligence and humanity—tolerable as slaves. Why auction Titan Beasts too?” Sang asked suspiciously.
Werewolves had plenty of uses, being almost human.
But Titan Beasts? Were they tasty or something?
Aisha Hodhua answered, “My memories are fuzzy now, but as a kid, my family actually kept Titan Beasts…”
“For real?”
“Yeah… Among nobles, it’s popular to raise fierce Titan Beasts. Shows off the family’s might and makes for good spectacle.”
Hearing this, Sang thought of how Gilgamesh in the ancient world of his originals kept lions. Same idea, probably.
Sang, with his modern education, found it all repulsive. Forget the beasts—humans and werewolves were equals, yet treated as merchandise. He loathed it, but what could he do? The world was what it was.
He’d only peeked in out of curiosity and quickly lost interest. No desire to linger, let alone bid.
Just as Sang turned to leave, a male voice cut through the vast auction hall from a corner. Nothing special about the tone—it was the words that stood out.
“I’ve bought them… Every single item here today. I take them all.”
