Artifact Trade (2)
Artifact Trade (2)
The man stared blankly at the artifacts pouring out before him.
Greaves, a battered sword, and what looked like a lantern.
There was a massive helmet that made you wonder how it had even fit through the mouth of the small pouch, along with a crudely made bracelet and an iron rod.
They all looked like old, worn-out pieces of junk.
The old items were piled high in the middle of the room, and I asked the man to appraise them.
"This is all of them. Please check them for me."
These artifacts were part of my share from the dungeon I had explored with Katrin, along with items I had found in the ruins of the Seal Grounds.
While many were useful or intriguing, they were nothing but extra baggage to me while I was staying in the academy dormitory.
Artifacts weren't as compact as the precious metals I'd set aside. Since I never knew what I might acquire in the future, I needed to free up plenty of space in my pouch.
At my words, the man snapped out of his blank stare, stood up, and approached the pile.
Then he inspected the artifacts one by one.
"This... is a pair of boots that dampen sound. A belt that emits light on its own, and a leather cuirass capable of regulating temperature..."
He set the artifacts aside one by one, explaining each of their functions.
Some of their functions matched what I'd figured out by channeling mana into them, while others were things I'd misidentified.
After physically inspecting every single item, he returned to his seat.
He wiped his hands with a handkerchief before speaking to me.
"They aren't anything extraordinary, but they are indeed all genuine artifacts."
I felt like I finally understood what kind of inherited ability User he was.
He was an inherited ability User with the power to discern an artifact's identity simply by touching it.
Only then did I realize why an inherited ability User was working in a place like this.
Come to think of it, his work suited his talent perfectly.
Working somewhere like the royal palace treasury would probably be much better, but he might have his own circumstances, so there was no reason for me to pry.
"What would you like to do? Shall we put them all up for auction? Or would you prefer to sell them directly?"
An auction house, huh? It might be fun to check one out at least once.
"How does the auction house work?"
"The permanent auction house is on the second floor of this building."
"Does that mean all the artifacts are up there?"
"Hardly. Exceptional artifacts are given separate auction dates and venues for bidding. What would you like to do?"
"First off, how much will I get if I sell them right away?"
He pulled out a sheet of paper, scribbled on it, tore it up, then wrote an amount on the next page and showed it to me.
The number was staggering.
He'd said they weren't extraordinary artifacts, but a sum like this made them seem plenty extraordinary.
It was enough to purchase our ducal family's mansion in the capital. With that kind of money, I was instantly rich.
First things first, keep a poker face.
After weighing whether to put them up for auction or sell them for this price, I made my decision.
"If you throw in ten percent more, I'll sell them right now."
Roughly calculating from what he'd said, I figured I could get up to twenty percent more, but negotiating that much didn't seem easy.
Besides, although putting them up for auction would surely yield more, I still found it hard to trust this place.
If I put them up for auction and got ripped off or swindled, things were bound to get tedious fast.
"Ten percent..."
At my words, he tapped his pen against the desk before finally nodding.
"Will gold coins be acceptable?"
Gold coins would be the most convenient for me, too.
"Yes."
A moment later, another person brought in a large sack filled with gold coins.
"These are imperial gold coins. Kingdom gold coins are rather difficult to circulate..."
While imperial gold coins had slightly less gold in them than kingdom gold coins, the difference wasn't significant.
I channeled mana into the sack and confirmed there was nothing unusual mixed in.
In this world, mana conductivity made counterfeit gold coins difficult to produce.
Admittedly, common citizens were sometimes fooled by counterfeit coins with drastically reduced gold content, but such tricks were completely useless against knights or nobles who could manipulate mana.
"So you can manipulate mana."
"There's no way someone who can't even handle mana would bring in artifacts."
He and I exchanged words, sizing each other up.
Then I poured the gold coins from the sack into my pouch.
"Do you have any intention of selling that artifact pouch? If you put it up for auction, you might make even more than you just did from those gold coins..."
The man licked his lips as he watched the pouch, whose volume hadn't changed despite being filled with gold coins.
But there was no way in hell I would sell this pouch.
I was selling artifacts just to empty my pouch; asking me to sell the pouch itself was ridiculous.
Unless I managed to get hold of an artifact bag or something, I would never sell it.
After storing the gold coins in the pouch, I asked him one final question.
"Ah, right. By any chance, do you know an artisan who can repair damaged—or rather, broken—artifacts?"
Since these people traded artifacts and even held auctions, perhaps they knew someone like that.
"Huh? An inherited ability User who repairs artifacts—no, wait, you mean a person? If someone like that existed, we wouldn't be out searching for intact items in the first place."
The man shook his head, but I caught a clue in his words.
I had clearly said 'artisan' or 'person', but he'd brought up an 'inherited ability User'.
There was definitely an inherited ability User capable of repairing artifacts!
I stared intently at the man, then shook my head.
It seemed unlikely I'd get an answer right then.
At any rate, it seemed they couldn't repair artifacts either.
Having gotten some information, I decided to leave for the day.
After the big customer left the building, people gathered in the room where the man was.
The woman who had greeted Alex at the entrance, the mercenaries leaning against the wall, and even the people waiting on the sofa.
They all entered the room and bowed to the man.
Contrary to Alex's expectations, the man who had dealt with him was actually the boss of this organization.
"Did you clear everyone out?"
At the man's question, the woman who had handled things at the door nodded.
"We only had our shills anyway. Ever since Count Chaipree went missing, business has been completely dead."
"I mean, does it make any sense for a damn count to take his entire order of knights and throw them into the Seal Grounds? Thanks to that, we're massively in the red this month!"
The man blew up at the woman's words.
The Count losing his entire order of knights in the Seal Grounds had nothing directly to do with them.
But because of that incident, anyone planning an expedition into the ruins backed out, and artifact trading plummeted.
"Still, thanks to the customer who just left, we should be back in the black this month. He was a massive spender."
"And thanks to him, our liquid cash is completely drained."
"Well, we can just hold an auction right away, so what's there to worry about?"
Everyone nodded at the woman's words.
But the man grimaced.
"We don't have a headline item for a proper auction. If we only had that artifact pouch the guy who just left was carrying, the auction house would be packed to the brim."
At that, one of the mercenaries spoke up.
"Then let me go snatch it. I checked, and he came all by himself."
The man waved his hand dismissively at his subordinate's suggestion.
"Come on. We still have a reputation to maintain."
The woman clicked her tongue at his gesture.
"What bullshit are you talking about? Since when were you a man of honor? You've survived this long by carefully choosing who not to mess with, robbing the rest, and disposing of them cleanly so you don't get caught."
Though they operated an artifact auction house in the Kingdom's capital through connections with nobles, they were by no means legitimate merchants who valued credibility.
After all, no legitimate merchant would secretly run an illicit artifact auction house in the royal capital in the first place.
"Then what do we do? It's a damn shame about those gold coins..."
As the man put on a troubled face, another subordinate added fuel to the fire.
"He had a mountain of artifacts, didn't he? He must've found ruins no one else knows about. There have to be even more artifacts. Or maybe there's still stuff left in the ruins. How about we kidnap him right now, get our money back, and squeeze more information out of him?"
"Hmm, he was definitely looking for someone who could repair artifacts. It really seems like he has more. Ah, damn it. Why did I have to bring up inherited ability Users back then? I wonder if he caught on."
As he recalled his blunder aloud, the man tore at his hair.
"We can worry about that later. So, what are we going to do?"
At his subordinate's question, he stopped clutching his hair and turned to the woman.
"Is someone tailing him right now?"
"Yes. Should I tell them to jump him with the boys nearby?"
When the woman spoke eagerly, the man clutched his head again.
"Ugh... No matter how I think about it, something feels off."
"He just had a fake beard plastered on; he was a complete greenhorn."
"That's precisely why it feels off."
Such a greenhorn had walked into this place alone with an artifact pouch stuffed to the brim with artifacts.
Greed surged within him because of it, but it unsettled him just as much.
"Still, it'd be a waste to let him go just like this."
At another subordinate's remark, he nodded as well.
"I feel the same way. Ugh, fine, let's just confirm who referred him before we move."
At the man's words, the woman raised her hand.
"I actually heard that part."
"Who was it?"
"He said the Firebird Hunter."
At her words, the man's jaw dropped.
Then he let out a sigh so heavy it could sink the earth.
"Fucking hell, he came from the Firebird Hunter?"
"What's wrong with the Firebird Hunter?"
When the woman looked puzzled, the man waved a hand, looking crestfallen.
"Call everything off and forget about it. She's the very person you said we shouldn't mess with."
"Just who on earth is this Firebird Hunter that you're acting like this?"
"You don't need to know. If anyone acts behind my back, you'll get to watch the entire capital get turned upside down."
As the man growled at the woman for pestering him, she gave him an apologetic look and apologized.
"The prey looked juicy, so I sent Dewey to tail him."
"What? Dewey?"
The man's mouth fell wide open at her words.
"Sweet mother of God. Dewey's the kind of guy who throws punches before he thinks!"
"His instincts are good, but isn't the guy he just chased after exactly the kind of prey Dewey loves?"
"Tell him to get his ass back here immediately!"
"Yes, boss!"
At the boss's command, the woman dashed out.
"One gold says he's already pulled something."
"One gold says he's not too late."
"One gold says he's bringing the guy back here as a captive right now."
"Nobody betting on him beating the guy to death?"
The other subordinates began placing bets on whether Dewey had already made a mess of things.
"Stop talking nonsense and get the hell out there right now! If shit went down, we have to clean up the mess!"
As the man roared in fury, his henchmen scrambled out of the room, and he began searching for the contact information of the nobles he was connected to.
Since it was difficult to contact the Firebird Hunter—the Count's daughter—directly, he had to ask another noble for help.
While the man frantically rummaged through his list of noble contacts,
I walked down a back alley, beaming brightly at the people who had suddenly blocked my way from both ends.
"Wow, wow—seriously incredible. A picture-perfect cliché like this."
Things had almost never gone down like the web novels I read in my past life, so I never expected everything to line up so perfectly.
The hulking thug standing in my way had a face I'd never seen before, but the mana emanating from him was exactly the same as the mana I'd felt back where I'd just sold the artifacts.
I gave him a gentle, friendly smile, reached into my pouch, and pulled out the one artifact I had left—a dagger.
"Thanks for coming out like this. Thanks to you, I think I'll be able to find someone who can repair artifacts."
A merchant who mistreats a customer will only get a customer who acts like an absolute tyrant.
And I fully intended to be as much of a power-tripping customer as humanly possible.