Requesting an Artifact Appraisal

"Will you not lend your strength to the Kingdom?"

"Er...?"

Rosetta let out a baffled noise. She was completely thrown off. Why on earth was someone of the Royal Guard Captain's caliber saying this to a criminal?

"The Kingdom currently faces crises both at home and abroad."

Karinne's grave voice echoed through the hangar.

"Taking advantage of the instability left behind by five years of breakneck growth, the Holy Theocracy's interference has been growing more and more aggressive."

"The situation within the Abyss is no different. The other nations covet our territory at every opportunity."

"Border defense, defense of our Abyss territory — and on top of that, we cannot afford to neglect the exploration of the Abyss's upper layers. If we cannot grow stronger through knowledge and artifacts, we will simply be pushed around by the other nations in the end."

The picture she painted of the Kingdom's situation was remarkably specific — and remarkably grim. The more I listened, the more my face twisted into a sour, chewed-on-something-disgusting expression.

Yeah, I get the gist.

By now I could see exactly what she was angling for. When it came to handling nasty, dangerous work, criminals were the perfect tool for the job.

Hadn't some movie I watched in my past life shown a special forces unit being assembled from a collection of criminals rounded up on a remote island, just to send them infiltrating into North Korea?

Maybe the reason she'd so graciously returned my Titan and the artifacts was just that — a friendly-seeming bit of gaslighting to prime me for dangerous jobs down the line.

"I will give you everything I can offer."

Which meant: absolutely do not fall for this.

Fighting off Theocracy assassins, pioneering the Abyss's deepest layers — just hearing about these missions was enough to make them sound lethal.

"If you would lend that power to the Kingdom —"

Apparently she believed I was extraordinarily strong. In truth, I wasn't that strong. I'd only looked impressive because my high mana let me ignore this dungeon's fog gimmick entirely.

"No... I can't..."

My plan had always been to live quietly once this dungeon run was over. Securing an environment where I could eat and play in peace — that was my number one goal in this other world.

Even if my money ran out later and I had to venture into the Abyss again, I'd planned to farm scraps in the early floors that everyone else had already cleared. I never had any intention of doing anything as dangerous as exploration.

This wasn't a game, after all. Slip up once, and you could actually die.

"I couldn't possibly take on things that demanding..."

And besides, if they were going to work criminals to the bone, they'd work us until we dropped dead eventually. It came down to either volunteering for a suicide squad or going to prison — and factoring in the possibility of escaping jail someday, the jail cell was a hundred times better.

"I can't do iiiit..."

Even as I said it, though, I was on pins and needles. Half expecting to get slapped across the face with a what kind of criminal can't even do this much?

Can't do it? Then it's the death penalty for you! — and hauled off to somewhere, just like that.

I'd have been satisfied if it ended with nothing worse than being clapped in irons.

"Forgive me."

Huh?

The situation veered in a direction I'd never anticipated. The woman, who had been blinking rapidly, suddenly bowed her head and apologized.

In my desperation, I committed a grave discourtesy.

In that moment, Karinne was recalling how transcendent beings were portrayed in novels and myths. For them, the extraordinary was the everyday — which was precisely why they so often descended into the mortal world yearning for an ordinary life.

And yet she had tried to burden this being with worldly toil. Of course she'd been refused.

"I ask that you forget the rudeness I showed just now."

Karinne respectfully dropped to one knee as she apologized.

The Kingdom had already been saved by her once. To ask for anything more would be nothing but arrogant ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠human greed.

"Please stay here as long as you wish. I will see to it that you have access to every comfort and facility."

"Ah, ah..."

Never test the mercy of a god twice. A single light of a miracle is grace enough.

For now, she decided, she would think only of gratitude.

"And whenever you wish to leave, simply tell me."

The distance from the palace to home wasn't far. Marcus's shop was located in the same capital metropolitan area, after all.

After a string of incidents, I boarded the Titan safely, and the moment the familiar back alleys came into view, relief and puzzlement rose up in me together.

They really let me go?

I was actually back home. With my stomach stuffed full of the royal chef's banquet, no less — enough to make my last-minute worry that they'd ambush me and snatch the artifacts away look downright silly.

On the way back, the Royal Guard Captain herself had personally escorted me all the way to the Titan expressway.

Why did they just let me leave?

I turned the question over countless times, but no answer came. Even if I hadn't committed any crime, it would have been the same. The artifacts were legally state property, so I'd naturally assumed they'd be confiscated. That they'd been released this easily was beyond belief.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

In any case, there I was, tearing down the private expressway at the head of eight Titans. All seven trailing units were in perfect condition.

At this point, even if the royal knights came after me, I could escape.

Not that I ever got betrayed or double-crossed, even to the very end.

Screech— Before I knew it, I'd arrived at the city with its familiar scenery. The secluded underground black market in the back alleys. I passed through the alley where neon signs flickered and came to a stop before a shutter door I knew well — Marcus's shop, which by now felt like my own home.

Ding-a-ling!

"Boss?"

The moment I opened the door, Marcus shot up in surprise. Because I'd set my emergency return coordinates to this spot, he was alive and well.

"Why are you still alive?"

"Did you want me dead?"

"No, no — thank goodness you're safe! I couldn't make heads or tails of what happened."

To Marcus, whose eyes had gone perfectly round, I gave only the briefest explanation: a lot of things happened. I wasn't about to admit I'd been kidnapped-scared and bawling like a little kid — what would that do to my dignity?

And anyway, that wasn't what mattered right now.

"You can start working... right away, correct?"

"This is...!"

When I opened the cargo Titan's container, everything I'd collected in the dungeon came tumbling out. No exaggeration — a full truckload's worth. Marcus sprinted over and immediately began sorting the spilled mana stones.

"Outstanding quality. Even at a conservative 2,000 rip apiece, this clears 200,000 rip easily."

"Oh..."

"And with grades this good, if we play our cards right, it could hit 300,000?"

"If you sell it for over 300,000... five percent commission... how's that sound?"

"I'd be grateful for whatever you — eh, wha?"

Marcus, who had been appraising the mana stones, jerked his head around in mid-sentence, startled.

"Five percent... are you serious?"

"Yep..."

Five percent would be fifteen thousand. A fortune comparable to the shop's entire annual profit!

"You mean it?"

"If you'd rather not, I can just pay you hourly..."

"No! No, I'll take it, absolutely!"

It stung to give up, but it was the price of my guilty conscience. After all, he'd followed every order without complaint, and nearly lost his life for it. Had he been a little closer to the explosion's epicenter, he might well have died before my return magic even triggered.

If I'm going to milk him, I should work him harder.

There was investment value in it too. He wasn't bad as a courier, and his salvage-handling skills seemed to live up to his scary face — so I planned to keep making use of him going forward.

Besides, fifteen thousand rip was pocket change compared to what I was about to have appraised next.

Because this is the real prize.

Remotely piloting my Titan, I carefully retrieved the three enormous gems I'd stored away separately. Artifacts weren't just absent from the market — they were outright impossible for humans to make, which meant some of them fetched literally any price the seller named.

Well, appraisal first.

I set the gems, each a different color and shape, on the table and spoke the word of magic.

"Status window."

...Nothing happened. Only Marcus flinched and shot me glances like I was staring at something insane.

Of course — reality wasn't a game, so apparently that kind of convenience didn't exist.

Fine, then.

Borrowing Rosetta's knowledge, I ran a battery of measurements. I fed mana in and checked conductivity. Measured the amplification rate by gauging the strength of the mana that came back out. Once I'd identified each stone's properties, I even mounted them onto spare Titan parts and test-ran them live.

Not bad, honestly.

After two hours of testing, I had a rough grasp of the two artifacts' performance. One was a Mana Heart that absorbed and amplified the pilot's mana. The other was a Mana Stone that boosted mana efficiency. Neither was some game-breaking cheat item, but both were more than worthy of being called national treasures — current technology simply couldn't produce parts of comparable performance.

What would the appraised value be, I wonder?

The problem was there was nothing to compare them against, so pricing them was tricky. Even if I put them up at auction, I'd need a sense of fair market value so I didn't get taken for a sucker.

Forget what the idiots think — I just need a quick sanity check.

Even though I'd sworn I'd never post here again, getting information was a different matter. A part like this should be worth roughly...

Seconds after posting on the Titan Knight forum, the replies came rolling in.

First time back on the forum in ages and the very first thing I see is a pack of morons. The sighs were already starting. Since they clearly couldn't understand me, I explained it more explicitly.

Mostly subpar halfwits. But as they say — pearls in the mud. One genuinely knowledgeable person was mixed in among them.

And that wasn't the only scholar in the bunch!

I gazed upon their debate with profound admiration.

At last, I nodded solemnly, with the gravity of a scholar reviewing a dissertation.

Hmm. So the mana stone would be around 800,000 rip.

A remarkably high-caliber debate for a den of idiots. Following both exchanges, both sides felt logically convincing to me.

Before the logic kings departed, I submitted my second artifact for appraisal. I spent about ten minutes playing my mana-witch-raising game, and when I came back, another flame war had broken out under my post.

Huh? Wait, that's not the same guys as before.

Astoundingly, a completely different pair was going at it this time! And they too wielded the aura of intellectuals rivaling the previous two.

"Ooooh..."

After reading all hundred-plus comments word for word, I nodded my head. Once again, a debate of the highest caliber conducted by intellectuals on my own level. And I agreed with their conclusions.

So the mana core comes out to around 500,000.

The two artifacts alone summed to 1.3 million rip. Even ignoring the junk items, that was already a sum that could buy Marcus's entire commercial building outright and still leave change.

But the appraisal wasn't over yet.

Still one left.

The third artifact. On the table, a marble the size of a human head still glowed with an elegant shimmer. It looked like a massive steel sphere, twenty centimeters in diameter, and peering into its fractured seams revealed intricate circuits engraved with perfect precision.

Looks like a Titan Heart.

By appearance alone, it was unmistakably a 'heart' — the core component that amplified the pilot's mana and converted it into the machine's motive power.

Broken?

Swooosh. I laid a hand on it and carefully fed mana into it. A healthy Titan Heart should ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have sucked in the mana and radiated light, but the sphere showed no reaction whatsoever.

It won't operate at all.

Just in case, I even swapped it into one of my Titan's part slots — but with a dead heart, the machine didn't move an inch.

What the hell is this thing...

As of now, it was a decoration with zero response. But it had survived the heart of that mana explosion intact — I couldn't dismiss it as a mere ornament.

Which means I have no idea what it's worth at all.

But without knowing its performance, there'd be no point asking the forum. And obviously I couldn't sell it at a fair price either.

I'll just hold onto it for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now.

Disposing of the other goods would take a while anyway. This one could sit in a corner until later.

Several more days passed.

Ever since that day, Marcus had suddenly turned serious. He was never a lazy man to begin with, but these past few days he'd thrown himself into work like a madman until dawn — to the point that dark circles appeared under his eyes.

"Heh heh heh... Hngh."

The way he occasionally giggled at his monitor in some secluded corner genuinely looked like a criminal at work, so I deliberately kept my distance. Well, whatever — he was out there earning my money properly, presumably.

...

The notifications rang steadily over the course of several days. Junk items or not, dumping the whole lot at once could shake the market price — hence Marcus's emphatic insistence on selling in installments. I hadn't thought that far ahead myself. Say what you would about the man's colorful former profession, he clearly refused to take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a loss on a deal.

Not bad at all.

Money piling up neatly in my account. And the moment it accumulated, I reinvested it into solid, stable holdings to make it multiply. My returns had already hit five percent, long since recouping the commission I'd surrendered to Marcus.

Everything, up to this point, had gone exactly to plan. All that remained was to lounge around for the rest of my life, and yet —

Phew...

Strangely enough, I wasn't as happy as I'd imagined I'd be.

Glancing at the forum's dimwits, reading trashy novels — none of it was as fun as it used to be. Because at some point, my body had gone completely to hell.

Here it comes again.

My body was starting to heat up again. It had been happening out of nowhere lately — I could feel the mana flowing through my veins literally boiling.

The symptoms seemed to have started right after I returned from the Abyss. Had I overworked myself on the dungeon run? Or maybe from forcing myself to stay awake past nine o'clock?

But no amount of hospital visits did any good.

"Haha, nothing to worry about at all."

"Your daughter's mana is simply growing stronger. If anything, this calls for celebration."

"No need to fret, little miss. That's just your body growing up nice and fast!"

Every pediatrician said the exact same thing. A natural mana surge seen in growing children, nothing more.

The youngest student ever admitted to the Academy — and a dropout no less. So her late-arriving adolescent growth spurt was now supercharging mana that already had no equal?

"Boss, are you quite alright?"

—I couldn't even manage that kind of joke anymore. And I meant that literally; my body was in genuinely terrible shape.

"...I'll be back after one run."

"Sorry... what?"

Phew... Staggering, I made my way to the hangar. I boarded my Titan and headed for the golem colony in the hills nearby.

WHAAAM—! The sound of shattering rock echoed across the mountains. Only by venting my mana out freely like this, tailpipe-style, could I finally breathe easy.

But the relief never lasted. Within a few hours, mana would pool right back up to my throat and the heat would start all over again.

Damn it.

I was learning for the first time that strong mana wasn't purely a blessing. My insides burned like they were smoldering — a maddening pressure, like something on the verge of bursting out that simply wouldn't, weighing down on my chest. And in those moments, a real worry would creep in.

Was I actually going to melt from the inside out and die like this?

I was desperate for help. The replies came fast.

As expected, these bastards were useless. Aside from the squats, I'd tried pretty much all of those methods and none of them worked. And I had a feeling the squats would be equally pointless.