Chapter 55: Auction 1

Three days passed in the blink of an eye, and it was already the night of the auction.

Damon put on his mask, checked out of the hotel room, and headed for the Treasure Auction House.

The underground market today was undoubtedly more busier than in the past few days, perhaps due to the auction. Today there were more diverse amount of masks. Everyone including even the Treasure Auction House’s staff wore masks.

The moment Damon stepped inside, Khloe was already waiting at the reception. He recognized her quite easily even with the half mask covering the top part of her face.

“Respected guest, please follow after me.” She motioned.

Khloe led Damon deeper into the auction house, until they reached a door scribed with; VIP Auction hall.

But Damon had to show the black card he had been given by Khloe the other day, to another masked attendant, before he was let in.

After which Khloe led him to a VIP room 13. The room was quite highly luxurious compared to some of the room Damon had seen.

There were some chairs and tables, and a one way glass view to the brightly lit auction stage.

The whole auction hall could be compared to a small-sized stadium. At one side were the VIP rooms and on the other end was the auction stage.

On the ground were hundreds of seats and adjacent to it were three balconies fitted with tens of seats. Most of the seats were already filled with masked individuals.

“Please take your seat Mr Mark, the auction would begin in half an hour.” Khloe gestured at the chairs.

“I told you to drop the honorific, just Mark is fine.” Damon said taking a seat.

“On this day, everyone is a respected guest, and the House demand they be treated as such.” Khloe smoothly replied.

“Fine, you do you.” he muttered.

“Here’s a list of the items that are going to be auctioned today. You can go through them while you wait.” Khloe gestured at the scroll on the table. “I have other things to attend to, so I’ll be taking my leave.”

“Wait.” Damon said. “What if I want to bid for an item?” He was wondering that because he didn’t have any cash on him.

Khloe turned back.

“Then you can just bid for it. Whatever it’s price is, will be deducted from your own sale. Just make sure it’s price doesn’t exceed that of your sale.”

Khloe soon left the room, and since there was nothing else to do, Damon picked up the scroll, and began looking through it’s contents.

The first three items were a mystery, however, It didn’t take long before he saw his stand. It was seventeenth on the list to be auctioned.

’Not bad at all.’ Damon muttered. And it didn’t also take him so long to see what he came for. The item was 112th on the list, towards the end of the entire auction.

’This is going to be a drag.’ Damon thought. He was kinda hoping it would be auctioned at the earliest, so he could quickly leave this place.

Half an hour later, a stunning blond woman came upon the auction stage, her hips swaying, as she amplified her voice and spoke; “Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Treasure Auction House’s weekly auction. It’s your favourite auctioneer, Lyra, and we’re pleased to have you guys here with us today.” She announced with a smile.

Some of the more animated audiences were already clamoring.

–”Miss Lyra can I ask for your hand tonight?!” One particularly perverted idiot from below shouted.

–”Oh shut your trap, you’re not allowing us hear her!” another shouted at him.

“Without delay, let me start the auction by bringing out the first merchandise of today’s list.” The blond ignored the crowd and continued. It seemed she was already used to it by now.

The surface beside where the auctioneer stood automatically opened like a gaping maw, but a big object covered by a red cloth appeared above the surface.

“Open it!”

“Open it!”

“Open it!”

The crowd continuously chanted. It seemed like a regular occurrence.

The auctioneer smiled.

“Since you want it, there you have it.” She grinned, pulling off the red cloth, displaying a cage. In it was a magnificent snow white fox with a, pure white halo shining brightly above it’s head.

“A familiar.” Damon shifted in his seat, his mind going back to Bubbles.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the three tailed moon fox familiar. After being summoned from the familiar dimension, it mauled the sorcerer who summoned it on the spot. So do you think you can tame this wild wild thing?!”

“Let us see who the lucky man or woman is! The starting price is 2000 gold knotts! Let the auction begin!” The blond enthusiastically announced.

“3000 gold knotts!”

“5000 gold knotts!”

“10000 gold knotts!”

In a mere second, the bid had already increased from 2000 gold knotts to 10000.

And in the span of a few more seconds, the bid increased to 40000 gold knotts. Normally, the items to create a familiar summoning ritual wouldn’t cost more than a 100 gold knotts.

But the risk during that summoning was what most aetherials weren’t willing to take. Case in point, what happened to the original sorcerer who summoned the fox.

After the bid surpassed 50000, quite a lot of people quieted down and only those who possessed enough capital opened their mouths to bid.

“90000 gold knotts!”

“We have 90000, from VIP room 22.” The blond woman announced. “Do I hear a ninety five?”

“95000!”

“95000, from VIP room 18! Do I hear a hundred?”

After that, the auction house quieted down completely as only silence remained.

The auctioneer knew that she had reached the peak possible sale with this merchandise, so she directly asked, “Is there no one else willing to bid?”

Hearing no reply? the auctioneer announced; “95000 to VIP room 18, going once!”

The auctioneer looked left and right before opening her mouth again, “Going twice!”

The blond woman took a deep look before finally opening her mouth.

“100,000!”

The auctioneer’s eyes lit up.

“100,000 from VIP room 26!”

’This person must either be really desperate, or has too much money to spare.’ Damon thought shaking his head.

If he hadn’t already had a familiar, he might have considered bidding for the fox. But he already had Bubbles, even though the winged fur ball could be unreliable sometimes.

After a few seconds of silence and seeing that were no more bids, the blond woman decided to finish, “Going once!”

“Going twice!”

“Going thrice!!! Congratulations to the person in VIP room 26 for obtaining the three tailed moon fox!”

“As you can see, this cage is too big to be transported right now, so I kindly ask the winner of the bid to wait till the end of auction.”

After the cage was taken away, the ground once again opened up like a gaping maw, and this time, an even bigger object surfaced, also covered in a red cloth.

“Open it!”

“Open it!”

“Open it!”

The crowd chanted once more like before.

“If you want it,” the auctioneer winked. “There you have it.” She pulled off the cloth.

The crowd cheered even harder this time. Mainly because it was another cage. And inside of it were… half naked men and women.

They were trying desperately to hide their figures with their hands but that just aroused the audience even more into the cheers.

The auctioneer announced that they were slaves who got branded for unable to pay their debts. The blond woman then pointed at one of the women, before announcing.

“The bidding starts at a 100 gold knotts. Would anyone be willing to lend this men and women a hand..?” She winked.

The crowd burst into atrocious laughter.

’Sometimes I kinda forget that this is a dark fantasy world.’ Damon grimaced. But there was nothing he could do. Even if he bought them and set them free, these people would only be caught again.

The only thing to do was to go after the root, which was the underground market itself. But he wasn’t nearly strong enough to do that. Like the chad man said; he would be courting death.

The women quickly got sold for about 500 gold each, to different masters, while the men only sold for about 200 to 300 each. It was an unfortunate sight that a human value to a fellow human was less than that of a familiar. But then again, if humans treated each other differently, they wouldn’t be humans. ’And this would be a dark fantasy world otherwise.’ Damon thought.

The next object, was a humanoid figure once again. Only this time, it was a crying girl of about Damon’s age, full of tears and snot. But the thing was that, she had severe pointy ears. ’How even did they get an elf?’ Damon thought. Perhaps she was one of the few living in the human domain.

The elf sold to a VIP room for 3000 gold knotts.

Now that the mystery items were sold, the next few objects weren’t near as arousing for the audience, not until the seventh item came on stage.

*************

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