Chapter 310: Logical Reasoning; Earning the Favor of the Fox Lady

Wise one was a bit of a stretch, really. I was confident in a lot of things that I was. Wise was not one of them. Yes, I did consider myself smart in some regard, but one would also be shocked to realize that my area of expertise, more often than not, could be… uhm, controversial.

But that didn’t matter at all. Despite how I may come across at times, I could be very adept at reading the room too.

And that was why it was easy for someone of my caliber to sense the shift of power the moment the fox lady entered with all her breasts spilling around her.

’What did he call her again?’

Fintan of the White Tail Clan. That seemed to be what this tall man had called the fox lady.

Politely, and burying my deep enthusiasm at meeting a prey that had escaped my clutches by mere luck again, I lowered into a gentlemanly bow.

“Sky General, what an honor to meet you here.”

I took a step forward after the bow and took her by her hand, giving her a gentle kiss on it.

Her eyes widened for a moment, but soon she seemed to squirm at the gesture, her eyes flickering with blushes spread across her cheeks. But it was only a glance, because barely a moment passed and she was already back to what she normally was.

She turned to the man and raised her shoulders, throwing her head back with a look of disgust aimed at him.

“Look at that! Will you learn from that, Atlas? This is how a lady should be treated!”

Atlas chuckled but managed to keep a polite tone. Barely.

“A lady, yes. But certainly not an old hag like you.”

Lady Fintan’s brows, which were like two large white dots of hair above her eyes, knitted together.

“You weasel, how dare you?”

“Like I said, Lady Fintan, this is not the place where you should be causing trouble.”

He stole a glance at me but did not dwell on it. The lady glaring at him seemed to be a more urgently pressing matter than whatever he needed to do with me.

And that was what made this whole exchange interesting.

“Open those damn doors! If I lose the Firehaven feathers because of you, I will reward you with ten slashes of cane across your chest. You peasant, open the damn door for me.”

The man, Atlas, as he had been called by Lady Fintan, stood straighter, as if to physically reinforce whatever answer he was about to give.

“Rules are rules, my lady. Once the auction starts, no new bidder can join anymore. You were late, and this is usually the case for you almost every time.”

She groaned painfully and shook her head.

“Your rules be damned! You would open these doors for that wench if it were her.”

The man stood straight without saying anything. It seemed that he was in a predicament, and I didn’t exactly feel like sitting on the sidelines, because I was with the fox lady on this one. I wanted in just as much as she did.

And the fact that he was refusing to let her in had started me wondering whether he was genuinely going to let me through simply because I asked.

There was no way. So I, of course, needed to support Lady Fintan, use her as my anchor point, and enter the auction.

’It’s just a damn place where they sell a lot of shit. Why the hell are they all so guarded about it?’

The harder it was to get into that place, the harder I wanted in. Selling what I could was part of it, but the major reason, I believed, was networking.

If there were many people like Lady Fintan here, it could be my chance to catch a glimpse of the powerhouses of the continent. Maybe even the entire world.

Thinking about it and giving myself all the reasons only made me want to get in worse than before.

But I still had to figure out a way past this situation for Lady Fintan. If she couldn’t be allowed in by this man and she was stuck here, furious, what could possibly come out of my mouth that would carry more weight than the argument she’d already made? She was a Sky General. She’d played the authority card and lost.

Because even though I was the shit in my hometown, I wasn’t quite unaware of the fact that I wasn’t even an Earth General, if there was anything like that.

My voice was not valued here. And in fact, I believed I would be speaking out of line to the man Atlas. For anything I said to be reasonable, to Lady Fintan or to him, it had to make intense sense.

I thought about it and turned it over multiple times in that single moment we all stood there. Atlas unmoving, Lady Fintan simmering, and me pretending I wasn’t calculating angles like my life depended on it.

Then eventually, my voice came.

“If I may.”

Both of them turned to me. Atlas with the look of someone who had forgotten I existed, Lady Fintan with the sharp glance of someone who hadn’t.

I cleared my throat and turned my attention to the tall man, choosing my words with the kind of care I usually only reserved for spending money.

“You mentioned that once the auction starts, no new bidder can join. I understand that. Rules exist for a reason, and I assume House Valatian set them because they need the process to be trusted. If anyone could walk in whenever they pleased, the whole system falls apart. Am I wrong?”

Atlas blinked. He hadn’t expected agreement from me, given this strange predicament. That much was clear.

“You are… not wrong.”

“Good.” I took a breath and let the next part come naturally. “Then let me ask you something. The Firehaven feathers Lady Fintan mentioned, those are a rare commodity, yes?”

Atlas said nothing, but the slight tension in his jaw told me I was on the right track.

“Rare items drive high bids. High bids drive commission. And when someone of Lady Fintan’s caliber enters a bidding war…”

I paused and gestured loosely towards the fox lady.

“No one in that room is going to let a Sky General outbid them without a fight. Which means the price climbs. Not just for the feathers. For everything. Because the moment she walks through those doors, every person at that auction is going to feel the pressure to bid harder, louder, faster. They’ll want to prove they belong in a room with her.”

I let that sit for a moment.

Atlas’s expression didn’t change. But he wasn’t interrupting either, and a man like him probably would have if my words had no teeth.

“You’re not breaking a rule by letting her in.”

I held up a finger.

“You’re making a business decision. And I’d wager every life I took tonight that your employers at House Valatian would prefer the decision that makes them richer over the decision that makes them… principled.”

Lady Fintan had gone very quiet beside me. I could feel her gaze on the side of my face, but I didn’t turn to meet it. Not yet. I wasn’t done.

“Also.”

I reached into my armor, hiding the fact that I was summoning something, and then simply pulled out one of the Permafrost Fangs. I held it up between two fingers so the pale blue surface caught the light. Even in the dim corridor, the thing seemed to glow with a cold that didn’t belong to the air around us.

“I have materials to sell. Rare ones. Things that would do very well on an auction floor.”

I placed the fang gently on the small ledge beside the door, as if I were setting down a business card.

“More lots on the floor means more bidding. More bidding means more money for your employers. So if you’re going to open the door for one of us…” I looked Atlas in the eye. “You might as well open it for both.”

Silence settled over the corridor, pressing against the walls and making the air feel thicker.

Atlas stared at me for what felt like a full minute. His eyes dropped to the Permafrost Fang on the ledge, then rose back to my face. He looked at me differently now. Not with respect, exactly. That would have been too generous a word for whatever was behind that careful expression.

But I also wasn’t too sure what it was, exactly. For one, a small smile seemed to coil around his lips.

Then Lady Fintan spoke, and her voice was… different. The fury that had been burning behind every word she directed at Atlas had cooled. Not extinguished. Just banked, like coals that remembered they were fire but saw no need to prove it right this moment.

“This young man makes a fair point, Atlas.”

’Oh?’

I almost said something about that, but swallowed it.

She folded her arms beneath her chest, which did catastrophic things to my peripheral vision. I kept my eyes forward through sheer force of will and the ghost of Kassie’s glare living in the back of my skull.

“House Valatian has always prided itself on being a place where money talks louder than tradition. Are you going to stand there and pretend that has changed?”

Atlas’s jaw tightened. He looked between us, the Sky General and the F-rank nobody, and something complicated moved behind his eyes.

Then he exhaled.

“The auction has strict policies for a reason, Lady Fintan. But…” He glanced at the Permafrost Fang on the ledge. “House Valatian does appreciate new consignments. Especially rare ones.”

He looked at me again.

“You said you have materials?”

I nodded. “Enough to make tonight worth their while.”

Another beat of silence. Atlas turned to the door and produced a small, dark key from the inner pocket of his coat. He didn’t look happy about it.

“You will both be registered as late entries. This carries conditions. Your bidding rights will be limited to items that have not yet been called. You will not disrupt proceedings. And if either of you causes a scene inside those doors…” His gaze landed on Lady Fintan specifically. “House Valatian will hold you personally accountable.”

“Me?!” Lady Fintan looked personally offended. “What about him?!” She pointed at me.

Atlas looked at me. Then back at her.

“He is not the one who threatened me with ten slashes of cane, my lady.”

Lady Fintan opened her mouth, closed it, then turned away with a dignified huff that fooled absolutely nobody.

I said nothing. I was too busy trying not to grin like an idiot.

’We’re in.’

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