The auction district was located on the eastern side of the city, and the contrast made Arthur sick to his stomach.
As he followed the flow of wealthy patrons, the city transformed. The muddy cobblestones gave way to pristine, swept walkways. The buildings became grander, constructed of marble and gilded iron. The city guards here were heavily armed and incredibly attentive, watching the crowds with hawk-like precision.
Nobles walked down the avenues draped in silk, surrounded by retinues of silent servants. Wealthy merchants carried velvet coin purses heavy enough to break a man’s toe if dropped. It was a district built on absolute excess.
Arthur walked quietly among them, keeping his head down. Then, he saw it.
A massive, domed building at the end of the avenue. Hanging above the entrance was a golden scale—the same symbol as the merchant guild—but beneath the scale was the stylized carving of a chained figure.
His expression hardened into a flat, cold mask. He walked up the steps and entered.
The interior of the auction hall was designed like an upscale theater. Rows of plush, velvet-lined seats surrounded a brightly lit, raised wooden stage. Massive crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting a warm, inviting glow over the room. Several dozen wealthy buyers already occupied the front sections, sipping wine and laughing softly among themselves.
Arthur found an empty seat near the back, pulling his coat tight around him.
He didn’t know exactly why he had come here. Maybe it was morbid curiosity. Maybe it was a lingering, burning anger from discovering the dungeon beneath his home. Or maybe he just needed to see the face of the monster he was supposed to be.
The auction began with mundane treasures. A jeweled broadsword from a fallen kingdom. An enchanted ring that glowed with a faint, pulsing red light. Chests of rare, crystallized magical ingredients. Arthur watched with absolute detachment.
Then, the heavy iron doors at the side of the stage groaned open.
A group of people was led out into the bright light.
Heavy, iron cuffs connected their wrists, bound together by a long chain. Arthur’s posture went rigid.
The auctioneer, a tall man in a brilliant white suit, stepped up to the podium and smiled warmly at the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, our next lots are highly healthy and perfectly suitable for domestic or heavy labor contracts."
Arthur’s hands tightened on his armrests until his knuckles turned white. He looked around the room. Nobody seemed shocked. Nobody looked away in disgust. The nobles simply adjusted their monocles, murmured to their partners, and casually raised their bidding paddles.
A young man, barely out of his teens, was sold to a mining baron. Then a woman with bruised shoulders. Then another.
Arthur’s stomach churned violently. He remembered the rusty cages beneath his beautiful, quiet manor. He remembered the coded documents, the scratch marks on the stone, the smell of rot. *This* is what the previous Arthur had been involved in. This was the source of his massive fortune.
He forced his hand to release the armrest. He needed to leave.
His rational mind was screaming at him to walk out the door. This wasn’t his world. He didn’t know the laws, he didn’t know the power dynamics, and he certainly didn’t need another complication. He already had a criminal syndicate, a mysterious crest, and a volatile magical curse to deal with. Trying to play the hero here was a brilliant way to get himself killed on day one.
He stood up to leave.
"And now..." the auctioneer announced, his voice raising with theatrical flair.
The iron doors opened again. A single woman was brought onto the stage by two armored guards.
The ambient chatter in the room instantly died down.
Arthur stopped, his eyes drawn to the stage.
She had long, tangled golden hair that spilled over her shoulders, a stark contrast to the rough, dirt-stained tunic she had been forced to wear. Her wrists were bound in heavy iron, yet her posture remained incredibly straight. She stood tall, refusing to shrink under the weight of a hundred staring eyes. Read the latest chapters at novelping dot com.
But it was her face that made Arthur freeze.
There was no fiery anger in her eyes. There was no desperate, pleading hope. There was no fear.
There was only a hollow, devastating exhaustion. It was the specific, crushing look of someone who had entirely stopped believing that tomorrow would be any different from today. It was the look of someone who had realized they were completely, utterly alone in the world, and had simply accepted it.
Arthur knew those eyes.
He had seen them staring back at him in his own bathroom mirror for years. He knew exactly what it felt like to stand in a room full of people and know that not a single one of them viewed you as a human being.
The auctioneer smiled brightly. "An unusually valuable specimen, my lords and ladies."
Arthur’s jaw locked. *Specimen.*
"Excellent health," the auctioneer continued. "Educated. A highly rare appearance, and our testers have confirmed she possesses an incredibly high magical compatibility. A perfect addition to any noble household."
The woman didn’t react to the words. She simply stared blankly at the floorboards near her feet.
Arthur’s fingers curled slowly into a fist.
A heavily jeweled nobleman in the front row lazily raised his bidding sign. "I’ll take her."
The auctioneer announced the opening price—a staggering amount of gold. Immediately, a merchant on the left side of the room raised his paddle. The nobleman sneered and raised his again.
The price began to climb rapidly, bouncing back and forth across the room.
Arthur watched from the shadows of the back row. He told himself again to stay out of it. To walk away. To go back to his safe, beautiful manor and figure out his own survival.
Down on the stage, the nobleman raised his sign again, laughing at something his companion said. At the sound, the golden-haired woman slowly lifted her head.
For the briefest fraction of a second, her hollow, defeated eyes swept across the back row and met Arthur’s.
Something inside Arthur shattered.
It wasn’t the volatile mana Xetra had given him. It wasn’t the dark curse sleeping in his blood. It was something entirely human. He was looking at a reflection of the boy he used to be—the boy who had bled out on a kitchen floor because nobody was coming to save him.
Arthur refused to let that happen again.
He slowly stood up.
His chair scraped loudly against the wooden floor. The sound cut through the bidding war, and the entire back section of the theater turned to look at him.
The auctioneer blinked, shielding his eyes against the crystal lights to see into the shadows. "L-Lord Valen?"
Arthur stepped out into the aisle. He reached into his heavy coat, pulled out the thick leather pouch of gold he had taken from his vault, and tossed it.
It landed on the nearest wooden table with a heavy, deafening *crack*.
"I’ll take her."
The room plunged into absolute, stunned silence.
"I heard you." Arthur’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a cold, absolute authority that seemed to drop the temperature in the room. He walked slowly down the aisle, his dark eyes locked on the stage. "I’ll double it."
The hall erupted.
Whispers and gasps spread like wildfire from row to row. The nobleman in the front row spun around in his seat, his face flushing with insulted rage.
"Valen," the nobleman spat, his voice trembling with anger. "Do you understand what you’re doing? You are stepping on my current bid."
Arthur finally stopped walking, standing just a few yards from the nobleman. For the first time since entering the building, he smiled. It was the dark, arrogant smirk of the man whose body he wore, but powered by a furious, righteous defiance.
"Yes," Arthur said simply.
He glanced up at the woman on the stage, noting the slight shift in her posture, before looking back down at the furious noble. "I’m buying her. Do you have a problem with that?"
The nobleman’s hand tightened white-knuckled around his bidding sign. "This woman is worth more than you think, Valen. Back down."
Arthur’s smile vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, unbreakable granite. "I know exactly what she’s worth."
The auctioneer looked nervously between the two incredibly wealthy, incredibly dangerous men. He swallowed hard and raised his wooden hammer. "F-Final bid?"
The nobleman gritted his teeth and thrust his sign into the air again, shouting out a new, astronomical number.
Arthur didn’t even blink. He raised his hand instantly, throwing out a number that made several merchants in the room physically gasp.
The nobleman’s face drained of color. He opened his mouth, looked at the furious, immovable wall that was Arthur Valen, and slowly lowered his sign. He had been beaten, and he knew it.
Because Arthur wasn’t just throwing money around. He was fighting a war against his own past, and he absolutely refused to lose. He would not let the belief that nobody cared win today.
The auctioneer raised his hammer, his hand shaking slightly.
"Sold."
The wooden gavel cracked against the podium. It sounded like a gunshot in the silent room.
Arthur let out a slow, controlled breath, the tension leaving his shoulders. Up on the stage, the golden-haired woman remained entirely motionless. But for the first time, she wasn’t looking at the floor. She was looking directly at him.
Arthur met her gaze, his expression softening just a fraction.
He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know where she came from, or what kind of tragic history had led her to a slaver’s block. He didn’t know what kind of political or criminal consequences buying her was going to bring down on his head.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty. When he walked out of this miserable building today, she was leaving with him.
And somewhere deep inside Arthur’s chest, buried beneath the warm, emerald light of his mana, something cold and violent stirred.
It pulsed once against his ribs.
Almost like laughter.