Chapter 254

Aside from the Manager, the others in the waiting room were all elderly men and women. Of course, these weren’t ordinary people either. They looked sophisticated. Probably nobles.

There were plenty of chairs and everyone sat where they liked and talked freely. At least here, it seemed like people were just generally seen as sellers, and there were no strict aristocratic rules.

“You three. Take a seat over here.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Aye.”

“Th-thank you.”

Daniela sat down to her left. Lemon didn’t hesitate to take the other seat next to Daniela, which meant I was forced to sit on the right side of the Manager.

“By the way, I don’t believe we’ve spoken before. Uh, Lemonfrost, was it?”

“Uh, ye-yes! I am Lemonfrost Grasilf.”

“Yes, I’ve seen you with Asagi on multiple occasions.”

I had felt that someone was staring at me a number of times once I arrived in the capital. So it was her. She had been watching me from the shadows.

Lemon and the Manager seemed to get along after that. Daniela would occasionally mutter something and the overall mood was congenial. As for me, I stared dazedly at the ceiling. I was bored… If only something interesting would happen…

“Ah.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

The Manager turned away from Daniela to look at me. There was something that I had been wondering and it seemed like a good time to ask about it.

“Manager. Why do you go by Kapricorn Shteiner?”

“Ah, that. What took you so long to ask?”

“I had a lot on my mind and forgot.”

Her real name was Rindo Kizugawa.

“Look at this place. Do you think I would just use my real name?”

“Uh, I didn’t have a second thought about using mine.”

“You have no sense of danger… In any case, I did. Besides, I was pretending to have amnesia.”

“Right… So, why that name?”

“Because I’m a Capricorn.”

That was simple.

“And Shteiner?”

“It sounded cool.

Embarrassing.

“Well, I told them that I got my memories back. I even had my status card remade the other day. So it’s back to Rindo Kizugawa from now on.”

“Uh, great.”

And that was it. Daniela had an idea about what we were talking about, so she just nodded. Lemon was looking at us blankly.

“Uh, she’s an old friend of mine. She was a manager at a general store.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yes. We were separated due to circumstances. And we just happened to reunite at the tournament.”

“It all makes sense now!”

Lemon said with a brightened expression. It was just then that there was a knock on the door. Everyone’s heads turned as it was opened.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Preparations have been made. Please follow me.”

Finally. I was getting tired of staring at the ceiling…

Everyone got up noisily and started to shuffle out of the room. I hadn’t counted earlier, but there seemed to be about twenty of us in all. That was a lot. It kind of felt oppressive.

On the way, Daniela and Lemon were led through a different hallway, as they weren’t sellers. Still, they would apparently be seated near the front. Lemon seemed to have pretty good luck when it came to seats.

□ □ □ □

“Now, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for gathering here today. We were quite anxious once we heard that the tournament had been delayed. And yet, so many of you have shown your faces here today. I am full of gratitude. Thank you, thank you.”

There was a round of applause from the guests. Us sellers were seated up on the stage. Ten to the right and ten to the left. The magic lights were practically blinding and painful. In fact, I could hardly see the audience at all.

“Please forgive me, I have not introduced myself yet. I am your host for the day, Mericareed Yafina. At your service.”

He gave a gentlemanly bow.

“Now, let us get to business. Here is the first item of the day!”

He suddenly seemed to be very excited. The audience reacted with cheers and whistles. Apparently, it was always like this. Even now, I still had images of secret auctions and slave auctions in my head, so it was a good way to be brought back to reality. I had been wondering if I should put on a mask.

The first item was a painting. It was of some muscular guy, and the painter was supposed to be very famous, so the price was quite high. After that, there was an extravagant suit of armor. And then a glass shield. What the hell?

And then came the Manager’s item.

“And here we have an artifact from the Adventurer Rindo. It was discovered deep within a dungeon.”

Mericareed said as the bow was brought out.

“It is a bow…but it does not require arrows!”

Huh. She sure picked up something interesting. And in a dungeon…I hadn’t really experienced something like that myself. But maybe I hadn’t been searching hard enough. Though, there was that one kobold mine we had gone down. And there had been something surprising at the end.

The audience was clearly enthusiastic. And as the bids went higher and higher, I turned to the Manager.

“What kind of dungeon was this?”

“Ah, it was a place I went to with other Adventurers I happened to meet on the road. There were lots of traps and monsters, which is always fun. Makes you think of those role-playing games, doesn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah. What else?”

“That’s about it. Well, such places could hold treasures if they haven’t been cleaned out already. That bow was given to me by one of my party members.”

“Given…you’re not being literal, are you?”

“Bah. They all died.”

“Ah…”

It was a surprisingly sad story. She then told me that they had been killed by a guardian who was protecting the dungeon core at the deepest level.

“We were so close to winning too… It’s true what they say about letting your guard down. It leads to death. Asagi, if you are interested in dungeons, you best be careful too.”

“I’ve had my share of brushes with death. So I know to be careful.”

“Haha. That’s a death flag if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Grr…”

“Ah, it’s been sold.”

While I was being teased, the bow without arrows was sold.

“Congratulations! Sold for eight hundred pieces of gold!”

“Oh, not a bad price. I’ll be able to indulge myself for a while.”

She stood up and took a bow before sitting back down again. Eight hundred seemed like a lot for ‘indulging yourself’ for a while. …What was she going to do?

After that, there were other magic items that I didn’t know anything about, along with some fancy armor. The kind of stuff you’d expect nobles to sell, I suppose.

But there was one thing that really caught my eye. It was a set of light armor made from wind dragon.

“Excuse me, I’d like to buy that.”

“But you’re a seller.”

The Manager reminded me as I raised my hand. Yeah, but if we had that… Daniela’s armor…she would have gauntlets. She had the chained ore gauntlets, which were quite powerful, but most of her equipment was made of wind dragon. So this would be perfect for her. The rest of it? We could just sell it…

As I thought about this, the bidding began. Oh, Daniela was really going for it. Yes, we were going to earn money after this anyway. There’s no need to hold back!

“All right, one thousand and four hundred! What about you?”

“One thousand and eight hundred!”

The other guests were shocked by Daniela’s words. The reward for hunting the lesser wyvern and the wind dragon materials. The reward for the orc hunt. All the money we made from selling materials. All of that added up to quite a hefty pile of savings. To be honest, I didn’t even know how much it all was. It was all in the hollow bag…

And that’s what Daniela was using. It was the party funds, so I had no problem with it. In fact, I really wanted her to get it.

“Anyone? Anyone? Sold! One thousand and eight hundred pieces of gold!”

“Yes!!”

I raised my fist into the air. I could barely make out Daniela smiling on the other side. Still…it was quite expensive. It was a whole set of armor, after all. It would have been nice if they sold it separately.

And then I realized that I was up next.

The artifact made by the ancient elves. The Automata. It was the star of the shows. How much would I get for it… I couldn’t wait to find out.