"You want me to work for you? Why?" Suspicion filled Emily's mind because they neither knew each other really nor did she receive any special education except going to middle school.
After the mana outbreak, high schools became more important as they taught martial art skills, and thanks to that, tuition fees also increased manifold.
As such, an orphan like her could have never entered even a bad high school without any credits.
Even normal citizens had problems procuring enough credits to allow their children to enter a high school.
Jason also knew what it meant to be an orphan and could roughly understand her struggles, even if he had it much easier thanks to meeting the Fler's, the existence of his mana eyes and multiple more advantageous events.
However, exactly because he knew what it meant to be an orphan, he wanted to give Emily a small opportunity to change her future.
If he could help to improve someone's life with a few credits, why shouldn't he help?
Furthermore, it was not like he wouldn't receive anything from it because Emily would still be his employee, working for her salary.
Considering that he demanded a soul contract to prevent betrayals and discriminating behavior to some customers, Jason was sure that he would come out of this deal with more profit while at the same time helping the young girl in front of her.
"There is no apparent reason. I just need employees and you need to make a living now that you're free!" Jason didn't want to bother too much about this and neither expected to get the 2 Star notes he spent to 'purchase' Emily back.
However, what he didn't expect was that Emily who seemed to be somewhat naive and innocent confronted him
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"}) "I don't even understand why you spent 2 Star notes to help me out before and now you want to employ me instead of making me your slave?"
These words caused Jason to lift his eyebrow as he asked
"Do you want to be enslaved?"
Shaking her head in denial without hesitation after she heard his words, Emily couldn't help but feel conflicted.
She didn't want to be enslaved, but in her opinion, she wasn't even worth 1 Star notes, which caused her to bit on her lips in frustration.
Neither did she possess anything valuable nor was her education great.
Only her soul-awakening and mana aptitude were somewhat decent, yet, nothing comparable to Terebrean's prodigies.
Jason noticed that something was wrong with Emily and thought that her mindset could be somewhat different than his because enslavement was not something far-fetched in the B-grade city they currently resided in.
As such, without waiting for Emily to say something, he continued to speak nonchalantly
"I don't know what exactly your issue is, but if you're bothered about the 2 Star notes, you should just work hard enough to let me earn more than that? In the end, it was my choice to pay for your freedom or however you want to call it.
Furthermore, I don't want to enslave you. The only thing I want right now is to employ you and sign a normal soul contract with you, without any harsh clauses.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})As you might be unaware of what you even have to do after I employed you, it's pretty simple. Sell the items in this shop according to the prices I set and take care of the customers.
I'll also give you a few handbooks about your occupation and during the weekend you can memorize everything. Starting from Monday, the 'Golden-Soul' shop will open and start selling goods.
However, you don't have to give out any special service to anyone and if someone demands anything like that, just tell them that we have a camera and other more dangerous defensive mechanisms inside the shop."
Nodding her head, Emily couldn't help but smile weirdly and feel nervous because she was unable to believe that she was lucky enough to encounter Jason, who sincerely wanted to help her.
Jason not only rescued her from the slave merchants' subordinates but also gave her the opportunity to remain free and work as his employee.
Seeing that Emily nodded her head, Jason manifested a soul contract made out of a soul thread he led outside his body before he started to write down the clauses he already stated previously.
He just wanted to prevent anyone from betraying him, having any bias, discriminating against others, behaving like monkeys and so on.
To put it simple, Jason searched for kind and loyal employees, which however didn't mean that they had to cope with unfriendly customers.
This was something he couldn't accept and rather than trying to retain such customers, Jason would rather lose out on the profit and have a professional and great atmosphere in his shop!
Once the contract was done, Emily read through it once as she dre a soul tread out of her soul world.
Jason thought that she would sign it immediately only to see her adding a clause, which was only possible if it didn't demand anything from Party A who set up the soul contract.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})This confused Jason, but he waited patiently to see what clause she added to the soul contract, only to smile lightly.
[I, Emily, will be thankful for everything I received until I die! I will repay everything!]
Only a moment later, Emily signed the contract before she slumped on the ground, exhausted.
To Jason, it looked like she used her soul the first time in her life which shouldn't have been the case because she could control her soul energy better than others, which was something he didn't expect.
However, she also didn't possess an amplification in her mana core size or transmuted mana!
"Now that everything is done, take these handbooks and read through them. Here are also a few mana stones that you can sell for credits to purchase a new quantum bracelet so that I can transfer your salary to it next time.
With the remaining credits, you can look for a small apartment to live in!"
Handing her a few small books he purchased for himself to learn more about doing business and how to handle a shop, with a few small grade-1 mana stones he didn't use anymore, Emily's eyes gleamed brightly because she never received anything since she was forced to enter the orphanage.
Jason was still pondering whether or not he should mind the Slave market for now because he had already more than enough enemies to face, and there were even more things he had to take care of to be even eligible to become stronger.
Right now, he couldn't even fully utilize his soul world without breaking apart. How should he be able to offend the whole Jual clan, if their family was behind the Slave market?
In his opinion, it would be extremely difficult to establish a slave market inside a city without anyone from the government noticing, which was apparently even the other side around, as the government seemed to have established it.
This also included that the Jual clan member, who governed Terebrean, was in this mess.
Even if Jason was not a fan of enslavement or anything even remotely close to that, he couldn't just charge ahead and reform several big families only because he wanted to.
However, understanding that there are multiple big families who treat their citizens not better than trash and force them into doing things they didn't want to, Jason wondered how the whole situation looked in other islands or even Kingdoms on Canir.
'Not every big clan and family will be like them….probably?'
Shaking his head to come back out of his train of thoughts, Jason looked at Emily who already started reading inside a handbook he gave her as he said
"Don't you want to contract a soulbond? I noticed that you have good control over your soul energy which means that you practice with it diligently.
Knowing this, you should have amassed a lot of soul energy units, even if you might not practice the Heaven's Hell technique.
Just by following the crudest principle of soul energy enhancement, by forcefully inserting the soul energy inside the soul world core, for several months should barely allow you to reach your current soul energy control!"
Averting her gaze from the book to Jason, Emily didn't know what exactly she should say and she decided to remain simple as she frustratingly said
"I don't have any credits to purchase a soulbond as an orphan!"
Hearing this, he could only smile before he said
"And what about the emerald crystal or rather egg in your hand?"
