The Immortal's Alchemical Elixir (7)
I still couldn’t tell exactly how strong he was.
Maybe it was because I’d been holding back my mana even at this distance. Without seeing him move, it was impossible to gauge his true skill. If I could read someone’s level just by watching them sit still, I would’ve ditched the adventurer life and opened a fortune-telling stall ages ago. Hell, I could’ve class-changed into a goddamn combat power scouter.
〈Then the first item──〉
Anyway, now that I had a good look at the target’s face, I leaned back in my seat. The auction’s minimum bid was one silver. Knowing that one silver equaled a million won was honestly pretty awesome, but since we were only planning to pick up reasonably cheap stuff, I wasn’t too worried.
〈Next is the fourth item. A magic item crafted in Narmer-Nile—the “Scarab of the Sun.” It contains powerful solar energy, so it should be quite useful for esteemed mages.〉
Oh, it’s already up. My eyes sparkled. I’d been ignoring most of the items since they were all selling for dozens of silvers each, but this one caught my interest. That golden legendary dung beetle was something I genuinely needed.
〈Twenty silvers!〉
〈Twenty-one silvers!〉
〈Twenty-two silvers!!〉
〈Yes! Bidder seventeen bids twenty-two silvers! Any higher?!〉
It must have been a fairly major item; the bids climbed quickly. The long-bearded man wearing a turban on the lower floor was apparently bidder seventeen. He smiled contentedly and stroked his beard.
At that moment, the female thief from Primor’s group spoke up.
〈Thirty silvers.〉
The turban-beard glared at her frivolous voice, but the moment he realized the bid had come from the noble seats, he wisely shut his mouth.
〈……Th-thirty-one silvers.〉
Of course, he wasn’t giving up just yet. One silver at a time looked pathetic, but raising the price by a million won in a single jump was nothing to sneeze at.
Still, a thirty-one million won bug brooch? That’s insanely fascinating.
─Glance.
Primor looked at the turban-beard, then whispered something to the female thief. The thief barely held back a burst of laughter as she relayed her master’s words.
〈Forty silvers.〉
Oh my, oh my, holy shit. Our lady knows how to flex.
I clicked my tongue at the ten-million-won jump. The turban-beard lowered his head. Even if he fought back now, it would only go up to fifty silvers and end there. He seemed to understand that too.
〈Yes! Sold to bidder thirty-three for forty silvers!〉
The auctioneer, who had been watching the turban-beard’s bold challenge with interest, spoke with clear regret.
〈Shall we move on to the next item!〉
Watching him conduct things so cleanly, Primor fanned herself with an elegant fan as if relieved. She really did look like a noblewoman from head to toe. Knowing her circumstances, though, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her.
Sorry about that. Please consider this my fee for taking revenge on your husband in your stead.
〈Fifth item! A greatsword engraved with an unknown spell formula! The starting bid will be…… five golds!〉
The auctioneer shouted energetically, but there was zero response.
─Murmur murmur.
Far from sparking a bidding war, some of the customers were actually frowning or looking confused.
〈Five golds? For that thing?〉
〈Is he out of his mind? How did they even appraise this?〉
It was loud enough that even I, sitting in the back, could hear it. The auctioneer, who could hear the bids from this distance, must have felt even worse. He tried to keep a smile on his face, but he couldn’t hide how awkward it looked.
And for good reason. That greatsword with a minimum bid of five golds was, by any measure, complete garbage.
It was a rusted, worn-out sword. The wide blade was densely engraved with some kind of pattern. I could tell it was a magic item with a spell bestowed upon it. Still, I frowned as I examined it with Odin’s Eye.
‘It really does look like junk…… right?’
The only reason I’d deliberately kept Odin’s Eye active was in case I might fish out a pearl from the mud. In movies and novels, the protagonist always snags something decent at auctions like this. From a scenario writer’s perspective, there’d be no point devoting screen time to an auction full of trash, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t hoped for something.
‘But why is the item that looks the most promising the biggest piece of trash?’
In fact, its appearance wasn’t even remotely impressive. It genuinely looked like a rusted weapon salvaged from a sunken pirate ship. Because the bestowed magic was quite complex, even Odin’s Eye took some time to analyze it. But it felt like the kind of deliberately convoluted English reading comprehension passage from the college entrance exam—twisted just to make it hard, not because it was actually profound.
Even after managing to parse part of it, all I could make out was a weak flame-spouting spell. It was basically the advanced TOEIC technique of roughly guessing the content without reading the whole thing.
‘No matter how I look at it, there’s no way this is worth five hundred million…… huh?’
I was enduring the headache that came as a side effect of Odin’s Eye when my eyes suddenly widened. I had finally seen the rest of the magic I’d only deciphered halfway.
〈Is there… is there no one who wishes to purchase it? If not, then we’ll move on to the──〉
〈Five golds.〉
By the time I realized what I was doing, my hand was already in the air.
─Whoosh!
Every eye in the hall snapped toward me in an instant. Half the gazes asked, “What kind of brain-dead sucker is buying that?” The other half wondered if it might actually have some hidden value I didn’t know about.
‘The hell are you staring at, you bastards?’
Look away, damn it. I can feel cold sweat running down my back.
I pretended to be calm, keeping a straight face while sweating buckets.
‘Our house is worth two golds and forty-five silvers, and I’m jumping into a five-gold bid like it’s nothing? If I can stay that chill, maybe I really should get diagnosed with mental weakness.’
But this gamble had that much value. Was there some incredible hidden power sealed inside the greatsword? No way. That kind of thing didn’t exist. This really was a piece of dogshit trash. If this were a game, it would be the kind of garbage weapon you’d be too lazy to even sell or dismantle—you’d just throw it away. I’d rather buy a golden dildo and play with Franc than drop five golds on this thing.
But someone once said life is a series of suffering. Which means a life without suffering is no different from death!
I swallowed hard, repeating that famous quote to myself. A dirt-poor guy like me had to bet his entire life on big-scale gambles. Thinking that way made me feel a little calmer. Was this the final stage of accepting death?
“N-Norde?”
Franc looked at me with wide, startled eyes. But the shock in my wife’s gaze soon softened into firm trust and love. And thanks to that, my cold sweat started flowing again.
‘……God damn it……’
The trust you receive from someone you love brings both joy and burden at the same time.
I realized the faucet of back-sweat I’d desperately tried to keep shut had been smashed open with a hammer and despaired.
‘Fuck, these are borrowed clothes. If I soak them in sweat, don’t I have to pay for them?’
This is bullshit. Bad news always comes in waves. What do I do? Will this gamble pay off? It has to. If it fails, our family’s entire fortune is gone!
Well, not the entire fortune, but five hundred million definitely wasn’t an amount a husband with a cheat for eyes could spend on a whim!! Married men say that even spending fifty thousand won on a whim turns dinner into self-cooked ramen. If I burn five hundred million on literal trash and come home, no matter how much my wives love me, they might look at me with ice-cold eyes full of contempt!
Of course, I could cancel the purchase later, but then I wouldn’t get the item and would only get half the bid price back. If I actually won the bid, I’d have no choice but to cancel, but that still meant our house money and all our savings would vanish into thin air!
‘Please, fuck! Please, fuck!’
I prayed to Odin and every other god I could think of. At this point, anyone would do—just let some other crazy bastard join this stupid game of chicken! If someone else jumped into this ridiculous ten-million-won chair-value battle, maybe the other black cows would think, “Wait, does that thing actually have something?” and burn their money too! Who knows?
And, thank every deity in existence, they answered my prayer almost immediately.
〈Five golds and ten silvers.〉
It was an incredibly calm and heavy voice, completely unlike what you’d expect from a kidnapper. The young handsome man with red hair politely raised one hand, responding to my raise. Ivan Ritter—what’s-his-name—had joined this insane competition over a five-hundred-million-won piece of trash item.
Leaving the auctioneer practically dancing with joy, he stared at me with an expressionless face. There wasn’t the slightest change in his features, but from that face—more noble than the nobles themselves, a refined and ridiculously handsome pretty-boy visage—I could clearly sense a firm intention.
─What the hell is this bastard doing, acting all high and mighty?
Yeah. That was exactly the question his eyes seemed to be asking.
When I saw his gaze, I snorted inwardly. A pathetic provocation. This master-level grass-eating herbivore Norde doesn’t mix personal feelings into business. I’m a pro.
So I answered in an extremely businesslike tone.
〈Six golds.〉
What’s the matter, asshole? Scared? If you’ve got a problem, then try to keep up.