On the sixth day, the kennel door opened at dawn.
Guards entered, not to beat him but to unlock the chain. John flinched anyway, his body conditioned now to expect pain from any interaction.
"Up," one guard said, not unkindly. "Lord's orders. You're coming out."
John tried to stand. His legs buckled. The guards caught him, hauled him upright, and half carried him out of the pen. The dogs watched him leave with the same neutral attention they'd shown his suffering.
Outside, real sunlight hurt his eye. Fresh air overwhelmed his nose after days of breathing kennel stench. He squinted against the brightness, disoriented.
They brought him to a washing room he'd never seen before. Servants were already there, heating water in large basins. Real water. Clean water. Steam rising from the surface.
"Strip," one servant said. An older woman with efficient hands and a face that suggested she'd seen worse than one half dead boy.
John's fingers fumbled with his filthy clothes. The fabric had fused to his skin in places where wounds had scabbed over. Peeling the shirt off reopened half of them.
They lowered him into the first basin and he nearly passed out from the shock of heat on damaged skin. But then hands were washing him, scrubbing away layers of filth and blood and piss and dog hair. The water turned brown almost immediately.
They moved him to a second basin. Cleaner water this time. Soap that actually smelled pleasant. Someone worked carefully around his injuries, cleaning infected wounds with stinging alcohol that made him hiss through his teeth.
Third basin. Nearly clean now. His skin emerging pale and bruised but recognizably human.
They dried him with rough towels and gave him new clothes. Servant clothes still, the same cheap undyed fabric as everyone else wore, but clean and whole. The shirt hung loose on his frame. He'd lost weight he couldn't afford to lose.
Food came next.
They led him to a side room off the main kitchen and sat him at a small table. An actual table, with an actual chair, not the floor. A servant brought bread and cheese and thin soup and John stared at it like it might be a hallucination.
"Eat," the woman who'd supervised his washing said. "But slowly. Your stomach can't handle much yet."
John ate. Slowly at first, then faster as his body remembered what hunger felt like when it might actually be satisfied. The bread tasted like the finest thing he'd ever consumed. The cheese was a religious experience. The soup was salvation in a bowl.
He ate everything and wanted more but they didn't bring seconds.
"The lord will see you now."
They brought him to a receiving room. Smaller than the main halls but still nice, with actual furniture and tapestries on the walls. The young lord sat in a cushioned chair, dressed impeccably as always, looking like he'd never beaten anyone in his life.
"Ah," the lord smiled. It almost looked genuine. "Much better. I was beginning to worry you'd die before learning your lesson."
John said nothing. Kept his eyes down. Survival meant silence.
"I've been thinking about your situation. Perhaps I was too harsh. Too quick to punish. You're new here after all, unfamiliar with our customs. A stranger in a strange land, as it were." The lord's voice was reasonable, almost kind. "I think we can find a use for you. A way for you to contribute that doesn't require you to follow complex protocols."
John's heart, stupidly, hopefully, beat faster. Maybe this could work. Maybe if he was perfectly obedient, perfectly useful, he could survive.
"I'm hosting a private gathering tonight. Close friends, intimate setting. And I've told them about you." The lord leaned forward. "About your fascinating tendency to ramble about the strangest things. Your theories and observations and that peculiar way you have of analyzing everything like it's some kind of story."
John's stomach dropped.
"I thought it might be entertaining. For you to speak freely about your little fantasy world views. My friends are easily bored and you're nothing if not unusual. What do you say?"
What could John say? No wasn't an option. Refusal meant back to the kennels, or worse.
"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord."
"Wonderful." The lord clapped his hands together. "Tonight then. Just be yourself. Talk about whatever nonsense fills your head. They'll love it."
That evening they dressed John in clean servant attire and brought him to a private dining room. Smaller than the great hall but still lavish. A table set for fifteen, already occupied by young nobles in expensive clothes. Ten men, five women, all around the lord's age. All with that same entitled looseness that came from never facing real consequences.
The lord sat at the head, naturally. He gestured John forward.
"Friends! The entertainment has arrived. This is the creature I told you about. The one with the imaginative delusions."
Laughter rippled around the table. Not mean yet, just amused anticipation.
"Go on then," the lord said. "Tell them about magic systems or power scaling or whatever it is you think about."
John stood there, acutely aware of fifteen pairs of eyes on him. His broken rib ached. His healing wounds pulled tight under the clean shirt.
He opened his mouth and started talking.
About isekai tropes. About how this world had interesting magic mechanics with the prayer based divine power system. About optimization strategies for combat casters. About narrative structure and protagonist journeys.
For the first thirty seconds, they listened with curiosity.
Then the interruptions started.
"Did he just say this world? What does that mean?"
"Is he touched? Actually simple minded?"
"No no, let him continue, this is hilarious."
Someone threw a piece of bread at him. It hit his chest and fell to the floor.
"Tell us more about these 'anime' whatever you keep mentioning."
John tried to explain. Tried to make them understand the framework he'd been using to process reality. But every sentence brought more laughter, more mockery.
"He thinks we're characters in a story!"
"No, better, he thinks HE'S a character. The main one probably."
A woman in an emerald dress leaned forward, her voice syrupy sweet. "So if you're the protagonist, does that mean you'll get special powers? Become strong and defeat everyone who's wronged you?" (subtle foreshadowing lol)
More laughter.
John's face burned. He kept talking because stopping meant punishment but every word felt like self mutilation.
They threw more food. Called him jester and fool and idiot. Made him repeat certain phrases because they sounded funny. Asked increasingly cruel questions designed to highlight how divorced from reality his worldview was.
"Do you actually believe you died and came to another world?"
"What was Japan like in your delusion?"
"Did you have friends there, or were you this pathetic everywhere?"
An hour passed like this. Maybe longer. John's voice went hoarse. His legs shook from standing.
Then one of them, a young man seated near the middle, held up his hand.
The mockery quieted slightly.
He'd been quiet this whole time, John realized. Watching without participating in the cruelty. His clothes were fine but simpler than the others. His face was harder to read.
"Enough," the man said. His voice carried authority despite his youth. "I have questions. Real ones."
The lord raised an eyebrow. "Saunder? Really? You're taking this seriously?"
Saunder ignored him, focusing on John. "You said the prayer system has optimization potential. Explain."
John blinked, thrown. An actual question. A genuine inquiry.
"I... yes. If prayer speed determines access time to divine power, then theoretically someone who could speak faster would have tactical advantage. Or if sigils can substitute for verbal components, then artistic speed might matter more than vocal speed."
"Interesting. Continue."
For the next twenty minutes, Saunder asked questions and John answered, falling into the rhythm of actual discussion. The others grew bored, returned to their own conversations and drinking.
Finally Saunder leaned back in his chair.
"How much?" he asked the lord.
The lord blinked. "Pardon?"
"For him. The servant. How much to purchase his contract?"
The table went silent.
"You can't be serious," someone said.
"Twenty gold," Saunder stated flatly.
Gasps around the table. That was actual money. Real money. The kind you spent on horses or weapons, not broken servants.
The lord's face went through several expressions. Shock. Calculation. Amusement.
"He's worthless. Brain damaged. You're wasting your coin."
"Twenty gold," Saunder repeated. "I'm intrigued by his ramblings. Call it an eccentric purchase."
The lord studied him for a long moment, then shrugged. "Your funeral. Twenty gold for the fool."
Money changed hands. Papers were signed. Just like that, casually, over dinner conversation.
John stood there, struggling to process what had just happened.
He'd been sold.
Bought by a stranger for rambling about magic systems.
Saunder stood and gestured to John. "Come. We're leaving."
John followed, his legs moving on autopilot, his mind completely blank except for one thought:
What the hell just happened?