She nodded.
"Why don't you listen for yourself?" That was all he said.
Lisa felt her expression tighten in annoyance. This was the world of beasts, wasn't it? Shouldn't men be pushing each other aside, trying to attract the attention of women, doing favors in the hope of forming a mating bond?
Lisa pointed again to her ear, then to the men talking.
The rabbit man finally spat out the celery he had in his mouth, approached the bars of his own cage, and stared at her curiously.
"Why don't you say anything?"
Lisa swallowed, bringing her hand to her mouth. The pain was still there, muffled and distant, but ever-present. The absence of her tongue was a void in her mouth.
She turned again toward the two men talking. If the rabbit man wasn't going to help her, she wouldn't pay him any attention.
"What? Did I offend you?" She heard his voice next to her but didn't turn to look at him. "Females are so sensitive..."
She gripped the bars of her own cell. Why wouldn't he just shut up? It was hard enough to hear anything with the distance between her and the conversation.
"They're saying they're going to sell you," the voice continued calmly.
Lisa turned, alarmed, looking at the rabbit man.
He smiled, apparently pleased to have caught her attention. His human ears had been replaced; in their place, two rabbit ears twitched restlessly.
"They intend to sell you; that's what they do here. As a female, you'll have many buyers."
She knew it. That was the antagonist's end she'd read about in the books. To be sold, tongueless, to a region where females struggled to survive. But how would she escape this situation? Should she seduce the beast-man who bought her? Perhaps cause conflict and wait for an opportunity to escape? But how could she do that without a tongue? And if she did escape, how would she live? She knew nothing about this place, had no food or clothes, and knew no one.
She didn't want to be sold. Lisa wasn't stupid. She knew that in this world, women were contested; many ended up kidnapped by ferals and spent their entire lives without a word to say about how they lived. To survive like the characters in the book, she needed to create a family. That's what females in this world did. They selected the strongest males for their harem, and in exchange for protection, they provided them with a home and offspring.
She couldn't achieve that if sold to just any beast-man. There was a huge difference between choosing someone of her own will and being bought like merchandise. The relationship with an unknown male would be very unequal, leaving her powerless in decisions. Moreover, if she were to choose, she wanted a strong male, capable of protecting her from ferals, monsters, and the wild nature of this world.
If sold, her life could be horrible.
"The tiger-man wants to sell you to the merchant," the rabbit man continued, oblivious to her internal thoughts, "but since you're a mated beast, the merchant isn't interested. He finds you ugly and couldn't keep you for resale before being robbed. But he might offer you to the crowd for the highest bid... Interesting."
Lisa looked at the man, alarmed. He was watching the two men talking with a calculating look. It was as if discussing the sale of people wasn't unusual, and perhaps in this world, it wasn't. But for Lisa, the female about to be sold, everything felt surreal.
Observing more closely, the crowd of beast-men that seemed to follow her since entering the village had grown, and her guards appeared anxious. Lisa felt fear, imagining what would happen if all of them decided it was better to risk simply stealing the female than to wait. With so many beast-men, she'd be torn apart by the crowd; it wouldn't be different from a lynching.
She took a deep breath and tried not to hyperventilate. Lisa, the antagonist, had been described as beautiful more than once, but she supposed that after so many days without a bath, wounded and dirty as she was, she looked horrendous.
What could she do as a mute, mutilated, and ugly female in a world where beauty was more precious than gold? In the world of beasts, part of the success of the protagonist and villainess had been due to their appearance. Wasn't that why so many strong males vied for them?
She looked at the rabbit man, then shook the bars, pointing outward.
He raised a questioning eyebrow at her.
She pointed at herself, then at the bars again, mimicking a pushing motion. Come on, didn't the beast world have charades?
"You want out?" he smiled.
Lisa nodded but then, thinking better of it, stopped. What would be worse: escaping now or waiting for someone to buy her? She feared that any sudden movement she made would cause the males watching her intently to attack.
With a sigh, she slumped against the bars. What would she do? She looked at the rabbit man, whose situation probably wasn't much better than hers.
He smiled.
"I can get you out of here."
That caught her attention. She fixed him with an expectant look, then pointed to the bars imprisoning him.
He followed her gaze.
"That's nothing. I have a plan, but for that, you need to come with me."
She narrowed her eyes. Was this some kind of trap "I free you and then capture you?" Maybe this man wanted to mate with her? She knew from the book that most males in this world seemed to have one goal in common: females.
She gave him a distrustful look but then nodded. It was better to take any opportunity that arose; with luck, one of them might work.
"Oh, I think they're about to start the bidding now."
That was all the male said before she noticed the change around her. Her guards closed the circle around her, and Rufus, who had been negotiating her price with the merchant until now, returned to her.
It was the beginning of a spectacle.