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Chapter 39: Turbulent Auction
After concluding the meeting at the Shinjuku Dungeon Guild headquarters, I returned to the underground fortress office. Shedding the agent’s tactical suit and gas mask, I changed back into my usual hoodie and headed to the main floor, where Rin was furiously pounding the keyboard with the expression of a demon.
“Geez! You’re late, you idiot president!”
She must have been swamped with work. The moment she saw my face, Rin shouted with bloodshot eyes.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble I’ve been through!? The Stampede only ended yesterday, and inquiries from guilds, government agencies, and even top overseas media wanting to contact Eye‑sama are flooding in! The lines nearly crashed! I handled all of them myself, turning down countless requests! A special bonus won’t even cover it!”
“Sorry, sorry. But this should cheer you up.”
I showed her the black card I’d received from Togo‑san, placing it on the table in front of her as she continued her tirade.
“What’s this? You think a plain black card will calm me down—”
She picked it up with a dissatisfied look, but the moment she saw the gold crest engraved on it, her complaints stopped.
“A special reward from the Guild Master. …It’s apparently a ‘Special Class A VIP Pass’ that waives all taxes on dungeon‑sourced items.”
“…Huh?”
Rin’s eyes darted between the black card and my face three times.
“T‑Tax… exemption…?”
“Yeah. From now on, sales of dungeon‑sourced items in our auctions won’t have half taken by the state. All of it will go straight to our company’s net profit. Your margin won’t get cut either.”
“KYAAAAAA!! President! I’ll follow you for life! You really are a god!!”
Rin, who had been complaining non‑stop, practically lunged at me with the ferocity of a wild animal, snatched the black card from my hand, and started rubbing it against her cheek. A perfect about‑face.
But with this, we could trade with the world’s wealthy without fear of tax burdens. It was a blessing beyond measure.
“Now! With taxes gone, there’s nothing to fear! I’ll finalize the ‘Master_Eye Official Auction’ right now!”
True to form, Rin’s typing speed shot up to an incredible rate, even surpassing the speed during the Stampede defense.
This time, it wasn’t a VIP‑only auction but an ‘Open Auction’ open to everyone worldwide. On offer were the Mythic Level and Legendary Level weapons and armor that had been loaned to three hundred explorers on the battlefield last night.
“—We now begin the online auction of Master_Eye’s artifacts, hosted by Antique Eye, Inc.!”
After typing the message, Rin slammed the start button with a thwack!
At that moment—
====================
[Lot.001: Legendary Level ‘Fudo Myoo’s Castle Shield’]
＞Current bid: 10,000,000 yen
＞Current bid: 50,000,000 yen
＞Current bid: 150,000,000 yen
====================
“Whoa!? That fast!?”
Within a single second of starting, the bid counter began spinning upward like a slot machine.
“I’m scared the server might burn out… but the bidders are the Japanese explorers who fought in the defense… fufufu, looks like the promotional effect worked perfectly. This might earn more than we expected.”
The chat window displayed at the edge of the monitor scrolled like a waterfall.
‘It’s mine! That greatshield is my partner!’ ‘I’m going all in! If I miss that infinite‑mana staff, I’ll regret it forever!’ ‘With that sword, I can earn as much as I want in the deep layers, so it’s practically free!’
“…Amazing. Once people taste the power of strong weapons, they really get this desperate.”
“That’s how it is. Those who have known greatness can’t let it go easily.”
The explorers, betting their lifetime loans and guild futures, were desperately hammering the bid button to reclaim “that weapon” they’d used last night. My “free trial” strategy had turned into a potent drug, driving the market wild far beyond my expectations.
“Fufufu, yes, bid more! The price keeps climbing…!”
Rin, her eyes shaped like yen symbols, was glued to the monitor. But the frenzy didn’t stop there.
Ten minutes after the auction began, the Japanese explorers’ funds were running dry, and bids were settling around the “several billion yen” mark. Then—
====================
[Lot.001: Legendary Level ‘Fudo Myoo’s Castle Shield’]
＞Current bid: 5,000,000,000 yen
＞Current bid: 500,000,000,000 yen
====================
“…Huh?”
Rin and I gasped simultaneously. The digits were off by one… no, two orders of magnitude. The bids, which had been creeping up one digit at a time, were suddenly overwritten with a number on a completely different level: 500 billion yen.
“R‑Rin, is this a system bug?”
“N‑No… it’s a legitimate bid. And it’s not just this shield; all three hundred items are getting hit with bids of astronomical amounts, like a bombing run… probably thanks to the broadcast.”
In the chat window, the explorers were screaming in despair at this sudden overwhelming capital violence. The terrifying power of the weapons I had repaired had been proven to the whole world through last night’s broadcast hijack and live coverage. Arab oil tycoons, major American guilds, military organizations from various countries—it seemed the world’s biggest players had come to fight over my inventory.
“That part I can understand… but Toru‑kun, something’s off.”
Rin, who had been analyzing the frenzy of bids, suddenly grew serious and pointed at a section of the monitor.
“Look at this group of accounts that’s been placing the highest bids across the board… their IP addresses are cleverly scattered around the world, but…”
Rin opened a traffic analysis window next to the main monitor and began typing at a ferocious speed. She reverse‑traced the dummy routes scattered around the world, cross‑referencing the encryption protocols of the fund transfers with the timing of the bids one by one. Eventually, the countless scattered points of light on the screen began to connect into a single line.
“See, I knew it. It’s one large organization.”
“One organization? A foreign government?”
“Not a government… I think. For a government purchase, the way they’re hiding their tracks feels a bit off…”
“Off?”
“Well, it’s just a hunch… but in any case, hoarding this many weapons is definitely suspicious. …Well, as long as they pay well, I don’t mind!”
She returned to managing the auction, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease.
Not explorers, not a government—a mysterious giant organization was trying to buy up my weapons using hundreds of billions, trillions of yen? For what purpose?
(Just to monopolize them? …It’s a bit ominous. It is just some wealthy entity, right?)
I shivered slightly at the unsettling feeling, but the auction continued to gain momentum and was a resounding success.
In the end, the ‘Grand Auction’ we held sold out all three hundred items. The total winning bids reached a staggering record of ‘over ten trillion yen,’ and the curtain closed on an unprecedented result.