Chapter 183: Rules for First-Timers
He had spoken as if he already knew exactly who Walfred was.
Having said his piece, the young man turned and walked off. Left alone, Walfred quietly watched the young man’s retreating back grow smaller.
’The way he talks... how do I put it?’
The guiding light of the community’s strategy board.
He sounded a lot like SSS-rankProfessor.
Surely it couldn’t actually be him?
The thought of asking crossed his mind, but he couldn’t. The man had already disappeared.
Just then.
[The auction will begin shortly.]
[Please take your assigned seats.]
’Assigned seats?’
Where were those, exactly?
Then a glowing arrow appeared on the floor, as if telling him to follow it.
Walfred did, and before long he arrived in front of a brightly glowing chair. This was apparently his assigned seat.
"Oh, friend. We meet again."
Julian, seated next to him, greeted him warmly. For a second Walfred wondered whether they’d been placed in adjacent seats by coincidence, but no.
Everyone seated around Julian was a hunter in winter gear. Li Xiaoqing was among them, as was the young man who’d torn into her.
’They group people by dimensional realm?’
That was how it looked.
The martial artists, the elves, and the humanoid robots were all seated in their own sections too. Just then, several hunters shot him sharp looks.
"Hey, new guy."
"Cut the chatter and sit down already."
"The auction doesn’t start until everyone’s seated."
He hadn’t known that was a rule.
Walfred nodded immediately and dropped into his assigned seat. Julian’s eyes lit up, as if he’d been waiting for exactly that.
"Anyway, friend."
"...?"
"What are you after today? Skill books? Elixirs? I’d like to factor it in during the auction, so how about a little hint, just for me?"
What was he planning to do with that information?
Walfred started to ask, then closed his mouth. Answering the question at all would mean getting drawn into a probing match.
Besides, Elma had told him not to trust a single person at the Auction House. When he chose silence, Julian let out a sheepish laugh.
"Ha, ignored completely. That’s a little hurtful."
He took it with his usual good humor.
And Julian didn’t try to speak to him again.
A little while later.
Once everyone from the waiting room had entered the auction hall and taken their seats, the platform that had been sitting in darkness lit up brightly.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience."
And at that moment.
A man in a tuxedo glided into view on the platform. His entire face was covered by a bizarre square helmet.
"I am Root, auctioneer for the Dimensional Merchant Guild."
The man who introduced himself as the auctioneer.
Root bowed deeply to the customers filling the hall. Then he spoke in a voice tinged with amusement.
"We’ll now begin the 1,742nd Dimensional Auction. First, however, I should go over the rules for those attending for the first time."
His gaze turned toward Walfred.
As if he could see straight through to the fact that this was Walfred’s first auction.
"The auction proceeds in this order: artifacts, elixirs, skill books, marks, runes, and miscellaneous goods. Within each category, items are listed from the lowest rank up to the highest, so please keep that in mind while you shop."
A clean, intuitive explanation.
When Walfred nodded to show he understood, Root spoke with a faint smile.
"Now then, enough talk. Let’s meet our first item. A Unique rank artifact, the [Legion Commander’s Baton]!"
The item opening the auction.
It was the [Legion Commander’s Baton] that Walfred had registered for sale only a few hours earlier.
The moment the baton appeared in Root’s hand, detailed information about the item unfolded before every person seated in the hall.
Walfred included.
-----
[Name]: Legion Commander’s Baton
[Rank]: Unique
[Special Skill]: Grand Legion
[A baton wielded by the commander of a legion.]
[When the number of familiars, summons, and creations under the user’s command each exceeds a set threshold, the Grand Legion buff activates, providing a variety of buffs.]
▷[Centurion’s Spirit]: 100 or more subordinates
[All physical abilities: +50%]
▷[Vanguard’s March]: 500 or more subordinates
[All action speed: +100%]
▷[Footsteps of a Thousand]: 1,000 or more subordinates
[All skill effects: +200%]
▶Mana cost: 100 per second
-----
The full specs of the Legion Commander’s Baton.
Walfred frowned at them.
’Still useless, even on a second look.’
The artifact was meaningless without subordinates in the first place. And even with them, that mana cost made long-term use impossible.
’Is anybody actually going to buy that?’
He was the one who’d listed it, and even so, the specs were bad enough to make him wonder.
Just then.
"The starting bid is 100,000 coins, with a minimum bid increment of 5,000 coins. If no further bids are placed within one minute of the first bid, the auction closes."
Root explained how the bidding worked, along with one caveat.
"Additionally, if no initial bid is placed within five minutes of the auction starting, the item goes unsold, and each time it goes unsold the starting price drops by 20%."
And after it went unsold three or more times?
It would be judged worthless, returned to the seller, and the sale forcibly terminated.
The instant he heard that.
Walfred’s eyes gleamed.
’This is going to be a serious game of chicken.’
To get what they wanted even slightly cheaper, no one would place a bid during the first five minutes after an item came up.
And the way to save coins would be to hold off until it had gone unsold twice, then start bidding in earnest.
"Well then, let’s begin!"
Just then.
With Root’s cheerful shout, the auction proper got underway. A separate window appeared in front of everyone, Walfred included.
-----
[Place bid]: (Disabled)
[Buy it now]: (Disabled)
[Sellers are prohibited from bidding on or purchasing their own registered items.]
-----
Unlike everyone else’s screens.
On Walfred’s, as the seller, both buttons were grayed out. He read the note at the bottom and understood.
’Reasonable restriction.’
A system to prevent sellers from acting as their own shills and inflating the final price.
It also seemed to stop a seller from pulling an item back through buy it now simply because they didn’t like where the bidding was going.
Once he’d finished quietly admiring the design, Walfred checked in on the bidding for the Legion Commander’s Baton, which was already in full swing.
And.
[Item: Legion Commander’s Baton]
[Current bid: 515,000 coins]
"...?"
What was this? Why was the price like that?
Not even five minutes had passed since the auction started, and the bid had already climbed more than fivefold. Walfred stared blankly at a situation he’d never seen coming.