Chapter 1
Chapter 1
“Buy in fear, sell in euphoria.”
There is a very famous saying in the stock market.
“Buy in fear, sell in euphoria.”
When everyone is running away and won’t even look at the hopeless bottom, that is when you buy.
When everyone is rushing in with excitement, you sell without hesitation.
Most ordinary people fail because they cannot follow that simple principle.
But I am different.
After being dragged into this unknown other world and struggling for years,
I realized that I have a fraudulent cheat ability called “Foresight” that lets me glimpse the future of others for a very brief moment.
“With this ability, I can become filthy rich even in this damn other world!”
I can do it. If it’s me!
With overflowing confidence, I used my foresight ability and saw a future where I would be sitting on piles of money, so I invested everything I had gathered over years of hardship into a shabby merchant…
And my ability was astonishingly accurate.
That bastard of a merchant took all the money invested by me and other fools, crossed the border, and is now living a lavish life.
…
Damn it!! So he got rich with my money?!
…
Anyway, after paying a painful and expensive lesson, I learned a bitter truth.
Trusting an ability that only shows a fragmented, fleeting glimpse,
and blindly investing in someone else’s uncontrollable business is madness.
So, with the few coins I had left,
I decided to directly invest in “human assets” that I could control.
“350 gold!”
“500 gold! I’ll take her!”
A slave auction house hidden deep underground.
I heard that slave auctions outside designated areas are illegal even in this world.
But look at the chief of security and the captain of the guard sitting in the VIP seats.
They are openly examining the “goods” on the stage and calculating profits.
A dangerous tightrope between legality and illegality, or simply a rotten lawless zone where money crushes the law.
“Current highest bid is 500 gold! Anyone else!”
Nobles with bloated bellies and merchants from other lands competed fiercely. I sat in a corner with my legs crossed, clicking my tongue as I watched.
“Fools.”
Jumping into overpriced items that have already skyrocketed in value.
No matter how rare and pretty an elf is, at 500 gold, the return rate is terrible.
A true merchant, no, a “value investor,” would never even glance at such bubble-filled meme coin-like items.
“Now then, the next item… It may have been handled a bit roughly… but I believe some of you may find that even more appealing. You all should recognize this one.”
At that moment, the curtain was pulled back with the auctioneer’s voice.
What was dragged onto the stage was nothing other than a rusty iron cage.
The heated atmosphere in the auction house instantly turned cold.
“Ugh, what is that?”
“It smells like a rotting corpse! You’re auctioning that?”
Inside the cage was something so broken it was hard to call it human.
Its hair was matted with filth and dried blood, turned gray. Its skeletal limbs were covered in horrifying torture marks.
At that moment, my Foresight pierced through the gap.
Over the pile of gray filth, I saw a dazzling silver flash, bright enough to blind.
A faint smile spread across my lips as I confirmed that overwhelming “future value.”
“Found it. An undervalued blue-chip that will turn my life around.”
“You all know this. A few years ago, the eldest daughter of the Valentine Count family, which was annihilated for treason. Camellia Valentine.”
The moment the auctioneer finished speaking, fierce jeers erupted.
“Are you insane?! Who would buy a traitor!”
“She looks like she’ll die any moment! Get rid of it! Not even good as a toy!”
No one bid.
A perfect delisting.
If this continued, she would be treated worse than an animal and eventually die.
But in my eyes, it was different.
Dirty? Wash her.
Malnourished? Feed her meat and let her rest.
The label of being from a traitor family was the worst possible risk,
but at the same time, it was an opportunity to buy at the very bottom with no competition.
Amid the jeers, the auctioneer raised his hammer with cold sweat dripping.
“I-if there are no bidders… I will have to—”
“One silver coin.”
All eyes turned toward me.
The price of a cheap night at an inn.
The worst possible negative factor, “traitor family,” had driven her value down to the absolute bottom.
“That crazy bastard. Why buy trash like that?”
“Isn’t that Nasus? I heard he got scammed out of all his money by some skinny merchant. Looks like he’s finally gone mad.”
The contempt and whispers around me.
But I calmly hid my expression and rejoiced inwardly.
“Idiots. You’ll spend your lives stuck at the top, cleaning up losses.”
Even if it was just for a moment, I had clearly seen how her future would shine.
“U-uh… yes! Sold! Sold for one silver coin!”
The auctioneer quickly struck the hammer as if relieved to get rid of a problem.
The metallic sound of the cage unlocking echoed through the cold underground.
Camellia slowly lifted her head with unfocused eyes.
“Ah… it’s over.”
The image of her parents’ heads rolling in front of her.
After that day, she only remembered two things.
Screams.
And endless torture.
Once admired by everyone, she had now become less than filth on the street.
It was obvious what the man who bought her for one silver coin would do.
He would abuse her, satisfy his twisted desires, mock her family name, and turn her into a lowly plaything.
But it did not matter.
She was already as good as dead.
She tried to stand, but her broken leg would not support her.
Lying helplessly on the cold stone floor, she stared at the approaching man’s shoes.
“If you’re going to hit me, do it quickly. And please… just kill me.”
The moment she shut her eyes tightly, trembling,
something heavy and warm covered her back.
Not a whip.
Not a kick.
A leather coat, still carrying the man’s body warmth.
“…?”
Camellia looked up at him with blank eyes. The man frowned slightly as he looked down at her.
“You look terrible.”
“…Please just kill me.”
Her cracked voice barely came out.
The man lifted the corner of his lips and said,
“That won’t do. From now on, you have a lot of work to do for me.”
“Can’t have you die right after I bought you. I’ll fix your body first, then make your value skyrocket and profit thousands of times over.”
The man smiled as warmly as possible, as if moved by his own grand plan.
But.
At that smile, a chilling shiver ran down Camellia’s spine.
“…A demon.”
In her blurred vision, his smile looked horrifying.
She was a useless slave from a traitor bloodline, with a body so broken she could die at any moment. Yet he bought her for a single silver coin and smiled with such joy.
Even the warmth of the leather coat made her skin crawl.
He must be a sadistic pervert who cannot be satisfied with ordinary torture, or an evil dark mage.
“You said I have a lot of work to do… What are you planning to do to me?”
Her body trembled like a leaf.
She wished her heart would simply stop. Death would be the only mercy compared to being torn apart by that man.
A rough dirt road in the slums.
As I climbed the steep hill, the bundle on my shoulder was disturbingly light.
Skin and bones, as if it would crumble.
The penny stock I picked up for one silver coin looked like it could die at any moment.
I opened the creaking wooden door and entered my narrow, dim room, then dropped her in a corner.
Then I immediately covered my nose and stepped back.
A terrible stench filled the room instantly. Filth, hardened blood, and the smell of infected wounds.
This was not the smell of a human.
“Even for a bottom purchase, this is too damaged!”
She looked like she could die of sepsis overnight.
I could not let my undervalued asset, bought with my precious last coin, get delisted on the first day.
“First, strip off those rotten rags and disinfect her completely. Otherwise she’ll really die.”
In a firm and businesslike voice, I gave my first management order to my precious stock.
“Take it off.”
“…!”
At my command, Camellia’s shoulders flinched violently.
Her lifeless gray eyes shook wildly.
She grabbed her rags tightly with trembling hands and tried to pull her body back.
…
“Why isn’t she taking it off? Does she not even have the strength?”
Do I have to wash her like a pet?
Well, expecting a penny stock on the verge of collapse to perform on its own is unreasonable.
“I guess I have no choice. Stay still, I’ll take it off for you.”