Arc 21: Auction (2)

On the appointed day, Elodie arrived in Acre, the city where the auction was being held. Revet was with her, of course.

Stepping out of the car, Elodie savored a freedom she had not felt in some time. She was so famous at Constel that she drew stares wherever she went. Never one to enjoy that sort of attention, she had long since grown tired of it.

"Confirmed. Lord Revet de Richae, Lady Elodie de Richae. Please go inside."

"Now, see here. My sister is Elodie de ‘Inies’ Rishae. Get her name right—"

"Just go inside, Revet."

Elodie gave her brother a firm push in the back and entered the auction hall.

It was packed. Revet’s claim that something extraordinary would be on offer seemed to be true.

The interior resembled a movie theater. Rows of seats spread out in a gentle curve, facing a platform set aside for the auctioneer and the items on sale.

"Are you nervous, Elodie?"

"Nervous? I’m not a child. It’s not as if I’ve never been to an auction before."

"But that was a very long time ago."

Revet had a point.

This was actually only Elodie’s second visit to an auction. The first time... what had it been for? She remembered coming along, holding her father’s hand.

She thought the item her father had bought then was a Wizergram. The one she had given to Frondier.

"... What’s that bastard doing here?"

Revet suddenly spoke through what sounded like gritted teeth. Indeed, his face had transformed into that of a wild beast.

As far as Elodie knew, only one person could make him look like that.

"... Frondier?"

Frondier was sitting a little ahead of her, to the left.

That jet-black hair, that utterly languid face. There was no mistaking him. Judging by his expression, he looked ready to fall asleep in his seat.

"Who does he think he is, coming here...?"

"Revet. It’s just an auction hall. Anyone can come if they book in advance."

"... Right."

Even as she calmed Revet down, Elodie was puzzled herself.

Frondier, at an auction? Looking around him, she saw no one from his family. He seemed to have come alone. In other words, he had not come under Ampere’s or Atzier’s name.

But without his family behind him, Frondier ought to be penniless.

"Be careful, Elodie. The head of his family may simply have sent him off with some money. To give him experience, you see."

"Experience?"

"Yes. Whether we like it or not, nobles often find ourselves involved in expensive transactions. At an auction, the value of an item changes from moment to moment. It teaches you just how fickle the flow of money can be."

Revet’s explanation sounded quite plausible.

If Frondier had been an ordinary noble’s son, that is.

But Frondier was Frondier—the family’s loner, to whom Ampere reportedly had not spoken a single word in the past five years.

Would he suddenly decide to give Frondier some experience of the world?

"And usually, they’ll give someone like him one particular errand."

"An errand?"

"To buy a specific item. In this case, unbreakable steel. Whether it’s for Lord Ampere or Atzier, unbreakable steel is an extremely important metal to a warrior."

"... So you’re saying he’s my rival in the auction?"

"Yes. An enemy."

She had asked if he was a rival. Why agree, then change it to enemy?

Elodie was about to object, but the auction began before she could.

"Distinguished guests, thank you for joining us. On behalf of the committee, I, your auctioneer Gilles Brosso, welcome you all."

The auctioneer appeared onstage and opened the proceedings with a familiar greeting.

While he talked about the season, the weather, and the trouble everyone had taken to come all this way, Elodie lowered her voice further and asked,

"So when is it? The unbreakable steel?"

"At the very end. It’s the most valuable item on offer today."

Revet handed her a pamphlet listing the auction lots.

When had he picked this up? Elodie carefully looked through the list.

... Looking at it now, quite a few items seemed interesting. Though she had neither the eye nor the knowledge to tell how much they might be worth.

The auction began in earnest, and the items were brought out one after another.

Each time a new item appeared, Elodie looked back and forth between the illustration in the pamphlet and the real thing before her. Revet watched her with a smile.

"... These things look good."

"The first lots at an auction tend to be valuable. That gives people the impression that the auction is of a high standard. Then it’s easy for the less valuable or flawed items that appear around the middle to fetch surprisingly high prices too."

That made sense.

She had heard that auctions guaranteed the fairest prices when people thought rationally, but thinking rationally was harder than one might expect.

Elodie glanced at Frondier. He had not stirred as the items came out. Was he after the unbreakable steel after all?

Once the opening phase of the auction was over, the items began to grow rather mediocre, just as Revet had said.

She could not tell whether they were valuable, but peculiar, bizarre things began to appear. Things that certainly stirred the curiosity.

The next item was one of them.

"Now, our next item is the ‘Cursed Cloth.’"

As the auctioneer spoke, a piece of ordinary blue cloth appeared at center stage.

There was no sign of artistry anywhere on it. She could not identify the material, but it could hardly have looked more ordinary.

Its name, however, struck a different note from the items that had come before.

"This blue cloth once passed through the hands of a noblewoman. She decided to cut a piece from it to use as a handkerchief. After cutting it to a suitable size, she put it in her pocket, ready for when she needed it. But one day, a few days later! The handkerchief that should have been in her pocket had vanished."

With a theatrically earnest expression and tone, the auctioneer spun his tale.

Oh? Elodie listened closely.

"On a hunch, she examined the original cloth from which she had cut it. And to her astonishment! It lay there, exactly the same size and shape as before she had cut it. Only then did she understand. The piece she had cut off had disappeared and returned to the original. Whether she cut it, tore it, or unraveled its threads, it returned to its original state with time. She realized that this cloth was cursed!"

The auctioneer’s voice rose as he concluded his tale of the curse.

But interest was fading from the bidders’ eyes. They were all thinking much the same thing.

Beside Revet, Elodie whispered,

"... Doesn’t it just have restoration magic cast on it?"

"Well, yes. Everyone here is probably thinking that."

But no one questioned the auctioneer. Even if they did, they were unlikely to receive a proper answer.

Judge an item’s value solely with your own eyes. That was the rule of this auction house. If you did not like it, you could simply refrain from buying.

"But suppose it isn’t restoration magic."

"What if it isn’t?"

"Then it’s even worse. Its value drops further."

"Why?"

"Because then it’s genuinely cursed, and useless to boot."

Elodie considered his words for a moment, then understood.

"... Oh, right. You can’t cut it to shape."

"If it all returns to its original state whether you cut it, tear it, or unravel its threads, what could you use it for? That’s probably why this noblewoman put it up for auction in the first place. She gave it a suitably intriguing name to dupe someone into buying it."

Convinced by Revet’s explanation, Elodie nodded.

Indeed, there was no use for it. Cloth was meaningless if it could only remain cloth.

Meanwhile, the auctioneer announced the starting price: 100,000 quir. It was markedly lower than the prices of the items so far, but no one raised a hand.

Revet whispered,

"No one would buy it even at a quarter of that price. The nobles gathered here aren’t foolish enough to—"

He broke off mid-sentence.

"Number 139! Number 139, at 100,000 quir! Any more bids?"

The auctioneer cried out eagerly. Perhaps he had never expected anyone to bid; his excitement was unmistakable. To put it nicely, he had thankfully made a sale. To put it less nicely, he had hooked a sucker.

Elodie and Revet turned their heads in perfect unison. Their gazes landed on Frondier.

He was holding up paddle number 139.

"... Was Frondier always that stupid?"

"Don’t say that. Maybe he has a use for it."

"Hmm. Well, it isn’t expensive. He probably just wanted the fun of buying something."

Revet arrived at an explanation he could accept.

It never even crossed his mind that Frondier might actually try to use it. Surely he could not be that stupid. He must simply have wanted a taste of bidding at an auction.

If that was his intention, 100,000 quir was not particularly expensive. It would probably be the lowest sale price of the day.

The auctioneer called the bid three times, and the Cursed Cloth went to Frondier.

Naturally, no one envied him.

... And time passed.

The long-awaited moment arrived, and Elodie straightened in her seat without realizing it.

"Now, then, our final lot of the day."

Every eye in the audience followed the item being brought to center stage.

When its covering was removed, several people let out cries of admiration.

"The fabled metal, unbreakable steel!"

The auctioneer’s confident announcement heightened the excitement in the room.

The main reason was the sheer size of the unbreakable steel. A piece that large could easily yield two proper weapons—no, three.

Amid the admiring cries, Elodie asked,

"Can we really buy it? It’s incredibly popular."

"Of course. The competition doesn’t matter. Whoever has the most money takes it home."

"... Well, that’s true, but..."

"So, Elodie, I’ll leave this lot to you."

Elodie’s eyes widened.

"M-me?"

"Yes. It’s going to be yours, so isn’t that only natural? Try bidding for yourself."

With that, Revet held out the paddle. Elodie hesitantly took it.

Revet added a word of caution.

"And keep an eye on Frondier. He’s nothing much himself, but he’s bound to have brought an enormous sum to buy the unbreakable steel."

Elodie nodded. This time, Frondier did indeed seem to be studying the unbreakable steel with considerable curiosity.

... At present, Elodie was probably the only person who could detect that much of a glimmer in those sleepy eyes.

"The starting price is five million quir. Now, then..."

A starting price fifty times higher than the Cursed Cloth’s. But it would not stop there.

Paddles rose all over the room, and the price soared.

Elodie participated enthusiastically. She neither agonized over her bids nor watched the other bidders’ reactions. Her hand simply shot up again and again without a thought.

Revet watched, suppressing a laugh.

In fact, opponents like Elodie were the most intimidating to other bidders.

She did not seem particularly eager for the item itself, yet she kept raising her paddle as though she were merely there for fun, her intentions unreadable. No one knew how long that clueless hand would keep going up.

Of course, even Elodie did not raise her hand every time the price rose.

But unlike the others, her only reason for not doing so was that she could not be bothered. She was simply thinking that someone else would raise theirs anyway.

And all the while, Frondier remained utterly still.