Twirling the lollipop in her hand, Ocheonsa went on.
"There's a dog farm in my neighborhood, see. But rather than get crammed into tiny cages, unable to eat, and die of disease, it's better for the dogs too if they become my points."
"So you killed them?"
"Bingo. Their lives end in death whether they live or not anyway."
Pain, despair, anger, love-hate. The emotions the dogs in those cages already carried.
To find out how she turned those into points, I focused on Ocheonsa's words.
"So I gave them this! I gave them a beautiful ending."
"This is...."
My eyes went wide at the unexpected thing she held out.
"Chocolate...."
I had heard that overseas, too, people sometimes deliberately gave a dying pet chocolate or food it never usually got to eat, so it could have lots of tasty things before it went. The way Ocheonsa had killed the dogs was such an unimaginably humane method that the prejudice I had held shattered.
I had taken her for a psychopathic schoolgirl, but apparently she was just a little off in the head. While I sat there dazed by that thought, Ocheonsa went on, as if delivering a moral lesson.
"But no matter how many I kill, the dogs just keep multiplying. So that place is my points factory."
"Points... factory...."
"But come to think of it, if I kill the dog farm's owner, I'll get more points, and maybe the dogs won't die anymore either, so I'm going to try it soon."
I take back what I just thought. This schoolgirl was missing something vital in a human being. She said, perfectly casually, that she would kill a person because she felt sorry for puppies, and I couldn't see a shred of guilt or hesitation in it.
"Can I take these now?"
"Take them...."
"Tell me if you're interested. I'll take you along when I do the killing. Want to go together?"
The dogs? Or the dog farm's owner?
Either way, I didn't want to be part of it with Ocheonsa.
Today's conversation with her made one thing clear. When it came to converting emotions into points, the value was markedly higher when the emotions were someone else's rather than your own. And whether the pain was direct or indirect, whatever caused a change in the other person's emotions had to come about because of me. In other words, even if I was on the scene when a person suffered at the hands of some 3rd party, not me, I couldn't turn that into points.
'I got the information, but....'
I couldn't earn points the same way Ocheonsa did. Then the simplest way to earn points was to spend my own emotions.
I had no more toenails left to lose. And I couldn't sacrifice my fingernails either, so I would have to endure pain somewhere else or turn some emotion other than pain into points.
Come to think of it, I remembered Darkness saying a thick scent of despair came off me. I wondered whether I could turn that into points. The despair coming out of me wasn't going to go away anyway. It would soon fill back up. People may say humans are creatures of forgetting, but a person living in hell doesn't forget despair as long as the situation lasts. It wasn't the kind of despair that would be forgotten just because someone took it.
***
In the end, I went and spent 500 credits calling Darkness. I was surprised it took more funds than I had thought to summon a manager, but once the wish was completed, 1 point would come back to me, so it wasn't a total loss. To keep from losing investors, the market kept handing out bait points after wishes.
[What did you call me for?]
"I'd like to trade my despair, and I called you to see whether there might be anyone who'd buy it... I mean, some esteemed party who'd buy it."
At my words, Darkness lowered the corners of his eyes as if thinking it over. It was still that unsettling expression that gave away nothing of what he was thinking.
[Investor No. 3029, unless the circumstances are special, a beginner cannot trade directly.]
"Is there no way?"
I understood what he meant. The man who had put up his memories had been a special case. He was saying it didn't apply to me, but I couldn't send Darkness back after spending precious points and getting no information at all. It was something I had felt even in my short time wandering the Ghost Story Market: managers were hard to meet.
'If the conversation ends like this, there's no telling when I'll meet him again, and I'll be stuck waiting forever, so I have to keep him talking as much as I can.'
I had to pry out some useful information. It was 500 credits as precious as my own blood.
At my words, Darkness raised his white-gloved hand high and struck his palm with his fist, as if a good idea had come to him.
[In that case, how about taking part in an auction?]
"An auction?"
[Of course, you are not yet qualified, so you would be going up as the merchandise, Investor No. 3029.]
He seemed to be telling me to try selling my emotions at auction.
At the thought that if I went up as merchandise and sold well, I might get more than 20 points in one go, I accepted his suggestion.
"How do I take part in that?"
[If you wish to take part, it is at the end of the shops over there. Just submit an application at the auction house.]
"Can I take part today? Or can I set the date myself...."
[Oh dear! Investor, I am sorry, but it seems I must be going. Someone who has not come by in a long while has just entered.]
Darkness vanished in the middle of speaking. For a manager, he seemed to have a surprising amount of work.
Maybe running into Darkness on the very first day really had been lucky....
***
When I went to the auction house Darkness had mentioned, ghosts so grotesque I could hardly bear to look at them were standing in line. The sight of them waiting their turn looked a little comical, but I melted into the line among them.
"How many tickets?"
"Ah. I'm not buying tickets; I'm here to take part as auction merchandise...."
"Not this way. Go around to the back."
No wonder I was the only [person] standing in line. This wasn't the right line, it seemed.
Embarrassed, I ducked my head and hurried around to the back of the auction house.
FREEZE—
I would have been far better off squeezed in among the ghosts earlier. If you came face to face with the apocalypse in real life, would it feel like this? I wondered whether I could even call them people like me.
I hesitated, wondering if my choice to go to auction was the right one. Corpse-like figures that had strayed beyond the bounds of the human. There wasn't a single person as neat and tidy as me. From people missing so many body parts it was a wonder they could stand, to people with hollow eyes like drug addicts.
'So this is how it ends for those who couldn't climb in the market....'
You could collapse after a single trade and end up like that, or you could end up like that without ever realizing it, your desires gnawed away bit by bit.
'Is this right?'
This auction house felt like the last stop for people who could no longer trade. A place where people set foot clinging to a thread of hope, only to thrash about and end up like this in the end. It had the very air of a casino....
The thought flashed through my mind for a moment that I might be making a dangerous choice when I had only thought I was trading a single emotion.
'Dangerous?'
Haha.
I didn't know when I had turned so sentimental. I had almost thought I was the same as them just because we stood at the same cliff's edge. I was different from them. I hadn't come here simply dragged by money and desire. I had come to control the desire inside me, achieve my final revenge, and successfully take my life back.
There was no road back for me anyway.
Now that I had set foot in the market, I would achieve both. And I would leave this place with no regrets.
"I'd like to register."
The receptionist glanced at me, then readjusted her grip on her pen.
"Souls, memories, emotions, and body parts can all be put up for sale. Which will it be?"
"Um... I'll go with emotions."
I was thrown by the receptionist's soft voice, 180 degrees different from how she had treated the person ahead of me, but I stated flatly only what I had originally meant to trade. At that, the receptionist smacked her lips as if disappointed.
"Well. It is your first time, after all. If you ever need more funds, come back anytime."
I probably would never trade anything other than emotions here. That hollow-eyed, zombie-like person from earlier. That person seemed to have already lost most of their memories, enough that they probably didn't know their purpose in coming here or even why they were here. If I went that far, I would no longer be myself.
Surviving with my mind intact, and my memories and body intact.
I engraved that as my number one rule for using this Ghost Story Market.
"Take your lot number and move to the waiting area, please."
I moved to the waiting area, mixed in with a crowd like a herd of zombies in a camp. Most of the people in line looked at me with sharp eyes, a chilling glint in them. Deliberately ignoring it, I clenched my fists and pressed my lips shut.
"Right! Let's begin today's auction. There's some real merchandise in the mix today, so pay attention!"
I flinched under the unfocused stares. I knew at once that the 'real merchandise' in the auctioneer's words meant me.
'Get a grip. I just have to trade what I came to trade and get out.'
My turn was nearly last. They had pushed me to the back of the order as a sales tactic.
Load the early slots mostly with people who were barely worth trading, then show the intact goods all together toward the end to build up the heat. I had worked on a marketing team, so I knew.
"Lot number 3002!"
The auction proceeded smoothly, carried along by the auctioneer's slick patter. The atmosphere of the auction house was like that of the art auctions I knew. Except that the merchandise was humans missing most of their body parts, it felt exactly like a refined auction house.
As my turn drew closer, my fingertips went numb with nerves, even though I had come prepared.
"Right! The long-awaited headline item! Fully intact merchandise, every part of it tradable!"
[Uoooooh!]
Ghostly wailing. The shrill noise, like fingernails scraping a chalkboard, felt like it would tear my eardrums.
"Oh dear! But today, only emotions can be traded! However, everyone, there's always another chance!"
When the auctioneer finished his hype, a ghost that looked like staff pushed me onto the stage by the back. Shoved forward before I could even take a deep breath, I stumbled out, and a bright spotlight shone on me.
"Lot number 3029! The bidding starts at 15 points!"
The ghosts, who had kept up a suffocating silence, began murmuring when the auctioneer's shout brought me out, and quickly raised their placards.
"20 points!"
"30 points!"
"32 points!"
It was surprising enough that, unlike the earlier lots, the bidding had started at 15 points, but the points were climbing faster than I had expected. It was even showing signs of turning into a bidding war.
'At this rate, I could get 50 points.'
I was busy analyzing, in my own way, how they raised their placards.
"Ahh! 100 points!!!"
I sucked in a sharp breath at points that had leapt more than threefold. I quickly lifted my head, my eyes darting around to find the figure who had called 100 points.
"A Superior has called 100 points. Any more bids?!"
At the word "Superior," I found the ghost who had called the points. A ghost shaped like a giant toad was looking down at me from a VIP seat spread with a red carpet.
"No. 3029, sold for 100 points!!"
BANG BANG BANG—
The crisp crack of the gavel rang throughout the auction house.