Chapter 1-4. To Me, the Auction Is Murder (2)
"It's been a while, hasn't it? Almost six weeks since the Seoul Dungeon?"
"Funny, you barely ever show your face at these things. What's the occasion today?"
"Well, thanks to a certain someone, the auctions ran in simplified form for seven whole weeks. I heard today's would be a big one, so I came. Can't call myself a proper Vice Guildmaster if I don't make appearances at places like this, now can I?"
"Spare me."
Right—thanks to Lee Jun abruptly retiring, no official auctions had been held for six weeks.
The Association, which ran the whole thing, had thrown a fit over it.
The Vice-Chairman's seat suddenly sitting empty made that an entirely predictable outcome.
"My, my. Watch the language, won't you?"
"Did I drag myself all the way out here to trade pleasantries with you? How about we just pretend we don't know each other?"
"I'm afraid I can't do that. You owe me quite a debt, remember? It would be rude to just let it slide."
With those words, Lee Hyeon-ah let her gaze slide subtly toward Seo Yoon.
Seo Yoon had been Seolwon's—she might as well have been Lee Hyeon-ah's direct subordinate, in fact.
So it stood to reason she'd harbor no fond feelings toward Seo Yoon either, not just toward Lee Jun.
Scrape—
Lee Jun rose from his seat, placing himself squarely between the two of them.
So that Lee Hyeon-ah's gaze would never touch Seo Yoon.
Watching him do it, she let out a scoffing laugh.
"Oh dear, look at you playing the protective guardian."
"Mental health management is part of managing my hunters."
Lee Jun hadn't come here to wage a battle of nerve.
But if it wasn't an unnecessary fight—in other words, if it was something his management and his hunters needed—
he had no particular intention of backing down, either.
"Hyeon-ah. That's enough."
Just then, a voice as cold as sheet ice rang out through the room.
One quite familiar to the ear—the kind of voice every hunter in the country would recognize.
It sliced through a hall that had been growing noisier as more people filed in, chilling it to silence in an instant.
"...So many distinguished faces here today."
Click.
Click.
Click.
Lee Jun turned his head toward the sound.
Long white hair that seized the eye at once.
A purity like a field of fresh snow—fitting, for the name Seolwon.
And in stark contrast to it, fierce ruby-red eyes met Lee Jun's gaze.
"...Nobody told me Seolwon was sending its Guildmaster herself."
"We didn't announce it to anyone."
"......"
Yoon Seol.
Guildmaster of Seolwon, and... one of the hunters currently closest to S-Class.
Every eye in the hall snapped to her the moment she appeared.
Even the people who'd shown no interest a moment ago now held their breath, staring at the two of them.
The regulars here had probably seen plenty of faces like Lee Jun's—but Yoon Seol was another story entirely.
Her behavior followed no pattern whatsoever; she lived up to the word elusive in every sense.
One day she'd refuse interviews even from the three major broadcasters begging on their knees; another, she'd accept a request from some no-name magazine nobody had heard of.
Which was why a substantial number of people in the hunter world had still never seen her in person.
'She doesn't attend major events as it is—and she's certainly never once set foot in an auction house like this.'
Lee Jun racked his brain as hard as he could.
Why would this woman come here?
Was there something among today's lots that caught her eye?
Or maybe she'd just been curious to see the place once, like anyone else...
But his thoughts kept circling back to the same place.
The biggest thing connecting him and Seolwon right now was... Seo Yoon. It had to be.
"...Haa."
Lee Jun exhaled and looked at Yoon Seol.
She was staring straight at him, her face utterly mineral.
He'd thought he'd grown somewhat used to Seo Yoon's blankness, but this woman was beyond that.
She gave no impression of a living creature... you could honestly mistake her for a doll.
And judging by the looks of it, Lee Jun wasn't the only one unsettled by the atmosphere.
"U-um... Unnie? We, um... we didn't hear you were coming... today..."
Lee Hyeon-ah, at least twice as flustered as Lee Jun, stammered her way through it.
"Mm. The weather was nice today."
"Still, a little advance notice, and I would have prepared something at least..."
"It's a surprise."
She delivered the quip with a face entirely devoid of humor.
But Lee Hyeon-ah, apparently accustomed to this, visibly relaxed as she answered.
"Is there anything among today's lots that interests you?"
"Hmm. Quite a few good things, actually."
"There would be. This is the auction that got pushed back for weeks thanks to a certain someone, after all."
"Mm."
Watching the two of them carry on so naturally, Lee Jun's mind spun like a runaway engine.
What is this.
What's going on.
Why is she here?
What could Yoon Seol possibly want at an auction?
In the future, too, this was a woman who never once appeared at an auction house.
So what on earth had brought her here?
And if you asked that question... the answer was probably Lee Jun himself.
Whether it was about Lee Jun or Seo Yoon, either way it came down to the business of his management.
'Then what matters is how I handle it.'
Lee Jun was in a genuinely awkward spot.
It wasn't that Yoon Seol frightened him—but with that woman present...
'The auction's integrity is at risk.'
Gate auctions had appraisers, and where there were appraisers, subjectivity inevitably crept in.
Participants with big names behind them were bound to receive favorable judgments.
All the more so if there wasn't a single appraiser who judged purely on the merits—in other words, someone like Lee Jun.
It made no difference to him which guild the lots ended up in, so he'd always just distributed by the numbers alone—but he couldn't demand that standard from everyone else.
Guilds were all tangled up in each other's interests, after all.
'The ones who'd rule in Seolwon's favor just to get in Yoon Seol's good graces would be Baekma and Sculpy. And HIM is... hard to read.'
Samhwa competed with Seolwon on equal footing, so some bias would probably creep in there too.
The only person who'd judge with complete fairness was the head of the Craftsmen's Union... that one woman, probably.
Even so, 3-to-2 was a losing position.
4-to-1... and it was over.
But Lee Jun was confident he could win the Union head over completely.
She counted for nearly two votes on her own, so it would likely come out about even.
"Hey."
"......"
Lee Hyeon-ah's voice yanked his thoughts back to reality.
The two of them had finished their conversation and were now both looking at him.
Right—what had they been talking about?
"Haa. I'm letting it go this time because Unnie said so, but you'd better brace yourself for next time."
Oh, right.
Nothing of substance, then.
But who are you to be telling me to brace myself?
"You'd be hopelessly outmatched, trying to scare me."
"Excuse me? Who was it who couldn't lift a finger and got that ridiculous mask knocked off last time?"
"Your mouth's crooked, but at least get the facts straight. I didn't couldn't use my hands—I chose not to."
"Fine. Let's do it right now, then—"
Clack.
"......"
Just as the bickering threatened to boil over, Yoon Seol struck the floor with her heel.
At that single sound, the killing intent that had been seeping out inch by instant vanished—retracted like a snuffed candle.
Lee Hyeon-ah had withdrawn it herself.
"...You should consider yourself lucky today."
"You're the lucky one. Throw a tantrum in here and your entire guild gets shown the door—you know that. The famously mysterious Guildmaster of Seolwon makes her very first public appearance, only to get thrown out on the street. Now that's a picture I'd pay to see."
"......"
Lee Hyeon-ah gritted her teeth and glared at Lee Jun.
Ahh, that expression. I could dine on that face alone for three days, no side dishes needed.
But what could she do? Her beloved Unnie was right there. She had to hold it in.
Right?
— The auction will begin shortly. Please take your seats.
The announcement crackled through the wall speakers.
Which meant the auction would start within five minutes.
It was the first auction in seven weeks, but punctuality was apparently still being honored.
Watching a system he'd built with his own hands run smoothly gave him an oddly proud feeling.
At the announcement, Yoon Seol and Lee Hyeon-ah both rose and returned to their seats.
Seolwon's table sat at the far end of the hall, opposite Lee Jun's.
The very front—seating you'd call the VIP section.
Lee Jun had only been assigned a mid-tier seat because his name carried some weight; the weaker, smaller guilds were nearly always crammed into the dark corners at the back of the hall.
Lee Jun was ruthless about keeping guilds in check, but he'd still respected track records enough to build in this kind of hierarchy.
Because whatever the reason, a track record was a count of how many people you'd saved.
Anyway—he'd been quietly relieved at the thought of not having to look at that face for the rest of the auction.
Then, before taking her leave, Yoon Seol left a parting remark.
"Your first auction. The way you used that Falsehood Predator— it left quite an impression on me."
"......?"
What is she talking about?
But Yoon Seol left nothing but that baffling comment and headed toward Seolwon's table.
Click.
Click.
Then, a few steps in—
she stopped again, turned back, and added:
"Oh, right. What are we going to do about you stealing our boss?"
"Ah."
Damn it—he'd completely forgotten.
That had happened, hadn't it?
"...Should I offer compensation, perhaps?"
"Hmm. There's nothing legally actionable, so there's no grounds to demand compensation."
And no individual could pay the kind of compensation that would satisfy a mega-guild, either.
Both of them knew this perfectly well.
"Then what is it you want?"
"Mm. I don't want anything. I'm just..."
Yoon Seol paused, seeming to mull it over, then said:
"I'm going to sabotage you. Roughly by the same amount."
And with that signature blank face of hers.
Whether it was a joke or not...
there was no telling.
The auction proceeded smoothly.
The early lots were a string of artifacts.
Quite a few items of considerable value were mixed in—more than enough of an appetizer to heat things up for the main event.
Naturally, Lee Jun won nothing.
He did occasionally slip in a bid or two whenever competition looked like it might run hot, artificially inflating the hammer price—but he never once went in with serious intent.
Just now, a legendary-grade artifact called the Heart of the Giant had come up, and once again Lee Jun had run the price up and pulled out.
"Are you truly sure you can let it go?"
It said something that even Seo Yoon, who had been watching quietly, felt moved to ask.
She seemed to have realized this auction was different from the usual, because for once she looked anxious.
By her own standards, that is.
Even now, her expression barely changed at all.
"It's fine."
"If you say so."
"I do. Besides, an individual can't beat a guild at an artifact auction in the first place."
They couldn't even compare on the capital you could throw around.
Gambling favored the deep-pocketed, and auctions were won by whoever had the most money. Simple as that.
And that Heart of the Giant—
"Kyahahahaha! See that, you lot?! No matter how high you drive the price, you'll never beat me! This is the gold-power of Lady Freya, whose coin-hunting even Jotunheim bows to—behold it and weeeep!"
The head of the Craftsmen's Union pounced.
By the rules, appraisers could bid in everything except the gate auctions—though normally they kept their hands off until the gate lots came up...
What on earth was he supposed to do with that deranged old woman?
"How on earth did a person like that end up here..."
Three years ago—precisely when gates began to appear and the Initial Awakeners emerged.
Amid that age of chaos, a single sentient being had crossed over through a gate.
Her name was Freya.
A dwarf who looked like a 140cm runt on the outside, but was a two-hundred-year-old old serpent on the inside.
Some people claimed to like the hearty boldness characteristic of her kind.
Of course, in her case it was just a very short temper.
But despite all these and other flaws of character, her skill itself demanded recognition.
Her tea-brown left eye was said to perceive truth, and her emerald-green right eye to grasp the underlying principles of all things—a master craftsman in the truest sense of the word.
That human civilization managed to rebuild itself in a span of barely three years—half the credit belonged to that old bat.
'Do you have any idea how much hell I went through to keep her in this country?'
Had he not played the radical card of scrapping every single regulation targeting Freya, she'd have packed off to Spain or the Netherlands by now.
At the time, public opinion overwhelmingly held that lifting restrictions on otherworldly races was far too dangerous.
But Lee Jun had told all of that to go to hell, emptied his own personal funds to support her, and set her up here.
The result?
Look around now—all that whining about otherworldly races had gone quiet as a mouse.
"How about it, you bastards?! This is the financial might of Lady Freya, who was unmatched at gold-hunting even in Jotunheim! Drink it iiiin!"
"......"
Ah, the people in this hall are going to swear their heads off.
I'm telling you, her personality is genuinely rotten.
She's teabagging the entire auction.
At her declaration, he could hear the hunters around the room grinding their teeth in frustration.
You know the sound—muscles twitching in barely restrained rage.
And no wonder: after Lee Jun had run the bid up sky-high, a whole string of guilds had chased it, only to be shot down one after another.
Shot down by Freya's overwhelming capital.
That wasn't even union money—apparently it was her personal fortune, earmarked for her own research.
She'd just swept up every rare ore on the equipment lots, so the woman was positively drowning in cash.
So this was... the unregulated mining power of a dwarf...?
"Ah—ahem... That concludes the general auction. The hall has grown a bit lively, so we'll take a thirty-minute intermission before resuming."
Riding the momentum of the moment, the break had stretched from ten minutes to thirty.
The unspoken message: go cool your heads, everyone.
Lee Jun suggested Seo Yoon do the same.
"We've been at this two and a half hours. If you're tired, take a breather and get some air."
"Then... I shall step out briefly."
At his words, Seo Yoon excused herself without being told twice.
This was why working with a perceptive person was such a pleasure.
And the moment Seo Yoon stepped out the door, the seat beside Lee Jun filled up.
A messy blue head of hair bobbed into view from below even his seated eyeline.
"Well if it isn't you! Been a while!"
"Impatient as ever. It's been all of a few minutes since the seat was empty."
"I nearly burst a blood vessel restraining myself from running over mid-auction."
The head of the Craftsmen's Union had graciously deigned to come chat in person.
And here was the important part: this woman was one of the appraisers for the auction starting in thirty minutes.
More than that... she was the single most decisive vote in how today's board would fall.