The Were-Tiger Claire Orion was currently in a fully-transformed state, which could only be accessed by few members of the Were race.
Maybe one in a million was able to transform into the Teraph-form. That meant, Claire Orion was a little treasure as long as she was used properly.
'Her price makes sense, for sure.'
As long as Claire Orion would turn into his devout Slave, he could ask her about her Soultrait, and figure out if her Bloodline Power had already awoken.
But before that, he had to restrict her.
The Were-Tiger growled at him threatening. To others, this might be intimidating and scare the shit out of them, but Liam just smiled.
Claire Orion was already malnourished, her fur was dirty, and it was not exactly difficult to tell that she faced a Arcane Power deficit state.
The fact that she was fully transformed into a Teraph meant that she wouldn't be able to life much longer if not treated properly.
Nonetheless, she growled at him the moment her surroundings changed. She noticed that she was in an attic and that a white-skinned Devil was standing in front of her smiling amiably. The amiable smile would have fooled others, but not Claire Orion.
"How about you calm down a little, Claire Orion?" Liam asked lightly, only to take a step back as Claire Orion dashed to him.
Her strength was certainly not weak, under normal circumstances, but she was in an even weaker state than Liam. Furthermore, his Devil's Eyes Soultrait was activated right now. He moved to the side after stepping back, evading her attack.
A moment later, his left hand shot forward, hitting her neck.
Claire's eyes rolled back and her sight blurred before she collapsed on the ground, unmoving.
"Well, that was easier than I thought," He mumbled before getting to work.
Liam didn't kill Claire Orion and knocked her out instead. Her Teraph-form was also removed due to her inability to maintain the form.
Thus, the young woman's true form appeared in front of him for the first time.
Claire Orion was probably a beautiful woman, under normal circumstances, of course. She was covered in scab from injuries she had sustained over the course of months…no, probably years, her long dark-wood-like hair was dirty and matted. It smelled bad as well.
She had a small tiger tail that grew out of the tailbone and long ears jutted out of her matted hair. Other than that, she didn't have too many additional body parts, or indicators of her being a Were race. This was quite rare since the Were race was known for being half human half monster.
Usually, they were covered in fur, or half of their body at least.
'Well, her eyes are not like human eyes either. More like slits of a ferocious tiger…maybe not that ferocious.'
Liam observed the naked woman without a tinge of lust. Claire Orion was extremely skinny, but that was to be expected from a Slave who hardly got any meals. Maybe a small piece of mottled bread and a glass of water a day, but that was it.
He sighed a little and got to work by purchasing a few things. Now that Claire Orion was lying in front of him, unable to protect herself, he could force her to drink a few potions. He didn't really care about her consent, whether she was conscious or not, but it made things easier now that she couldn't fight against him.
Spending a hundred Arcanium in the blink of an eye, he purchased three potions. He fed the content to the unconscious woman before he started to clean her.
He had also purchased a simple set of clothes that should fit her decently. Liam was not planning to help her too much, but cleaning her, feeding her some potions to accelerate her natural recovery and stabilize her mental state, in addition to giving her some simple clothes should be enough to gain a tinge of trust.
Even if he would gain her suspicion instead, it should be enough to talk to her. At least, Claire Orion wouldn't pounce at him.
That was something Liam was quite certain about.
Unfortunately, this confident statement was crushed the moment Claire Orion regained her consciousness.
It had been well over an hour and Liam was done cleaning her. He had even put on her new clothes already.
Thus, seeing them getting ripped apart the moment Claire regained her consciousness, transforming into the Teraph-form instantaneously, didn't really feel nice.
"Fine…buy your own clothes then…" He grumbled, ignoring the growling girl.
"Looks like you're feeling better now. If you're done fooling around, how about we talk?" Liam asked while retrieving a bunch of plates, all of them filled with high-quality meat.
He put the plates down in front of him and waited a few seconds.
Claire Orion continued to growl but she grew quieter with the passing time.
A load growl form her stomach changed the situation entirely.
It was almost as if a switch had been turned off.
Claire pounced forward, and she began to gobble down the meat without any qualms.
'I can hardly tell her that she will get a stomachache from eating too much at once. She would just growl at me. Well…it's not my problem.'
Liam shrugged inwardly, vividly imagining the malnourished woman screaming in pain later the day. He knew that his words wouldn't help in any way. Thus, he kept his mouth shut for a while.
He merely watched Claire Orion in the Teraph-form swallowing the food in a tranced state.
Liam was pretty sure that the little girl was starving and that her mind had shut off at the sight of the food. That meant her state was truly bad. After all, he could have put aphrodisiac or poison into the food.
'Looks like she is still naive.' Liam thought with a faint smile. It was good if the little girl was still naive. It meant that she hadn't been tortured too bad, and that nobody violated her.
Of course, his train of thought didn't exclude that his conclusion might be wrong. However, Liam felt that the situation changed in a good way. The tension in the woman's body was slowly dispersing, even if it was only because of the food she ate.
Only when she had finished her meal did she regain her composure to a certain degree.
She recalled the situation she was in and retreated instinctively.
'Really? Now you want to retreat?
"You can return to your original form now, right? I don't plan to abuse you sexually or anything like that. I want to use you, not your body. Just so you know, you can regain your freedom, and I could have acted differently if I wanted to treat you like a shitty slave…since you were already bound to me the moment I purchased you.
I could just order you around and force you to remove your Teraph-form. Though, you might not believe me," Liam said at this moment.
He shrugged his shoulders while looking at the Were-Tiger in front of him and he sighed deeply.
However, instead of listening to his words, Claire Orion had begun to growl at him once again.
'She really doesn't want to listen. What a stubborn, idiotic girl…using her might be easier than expected.'
"Then don't return to your Original form. That's fine with me as well. Work for me voluntarily in exchange for 10% profit of all the things you create," Liam said, staring at Claire Orion for a few seconds to see her response.
She didn't move and simply stared at him.
"…"
This time, she didn't start growling and kept her eyes on him.
"Interested now? Either way. You can regain your freedom by working for me. If you don't want that, I will just force you to create weapons for me. I don't really feel like abusing you sexually or anything like that. I want to use you, which I just said, but not in a way you would dislike. Regain your freedom by working tirelessly for me!"
Liam was fully aware that it was unlikely for Claire Orion to believe, forget about trusting him. It was more likely that she would never believe him.
However, seeing hope and trusting someone was quite different. Even if Claire Orion didn't trust Liam, it was pretty obvious that she was hopeful.
She wanted to regain her freedom more than anything, and Liam gave her the opportunity. He might be lying, the chance was quite high, in fact.
But what if he wasn't lying?
ραпdα -n૦νe| , c૦m He was very unlikely to be telling the truth, yet the minuscule chance attracted Claire's attention.
Claire was not moving anymore. She stared blankly at him and sized him from head to toe.
Liam noticed her response and retrieved a second pair of clothes from the Storage Rune.
Smiling lightly at her, he knew that she wouldn't be hard to convince.
"I won't return your freedom if I have to force you to work for me," He said calmly, resulting in Claire Orion flinching.
The hair all over her body stood up to its end and she jumped forward impulsively.
However, instead of pouncing at Liam, Claire Orion appeared in front of the clothes which she picked up.
Her paws slowly transformed into human hands as she transformed back to her human form.
She groaned in pain as the last bits of her energy were used for the transformation before she hurriedly put on the clothes while hiding her body from Liam.
As Liam saw her exposed back pointed at him, he couldn't help but feel a little sad.
'These scars are pretty long. Scars from a whip, and long blades?'
Liam tilted his head a little as he didn't expect a descendant of the Were-Tiger's Orion Clan to be mistreated like this.
It was a slight surprise, but Claire's stubbornness was most likely the cause of the wounds all over her back.
That made it a little bit difficult though….
At least that was what Liam thought before he heard Claire speaking.
"I-if I…If I agree to help…can you rescue my Clan?"
