Auction

We had to pay 1 gold coin each to even participate in the auction. Several soldiers of D and C rank were constantly patrolling the area or standing guard. The servants were moving about quickly and not being a bother to anyone. I even noticed that some statues and portraits had some weird sort of magic tool in them. According to the agent, it allowed the security to know if there was anything weird by sensing any change in mana, aura or heat of the participants. That was simply how high tier this thing was.

I started to feel out of my depth here, but I calmed down.

"That's strange… shouldn't there be a lot of people attending the auction?"

I asked and Nukeme shrugged.

"There have to be people who can actually buy the things going for the auction in the first place."

Ignis said nonchalantly and walked over to the big man in a black suit wearing a mask. He handed over 4 gold coins and the man accepted the money with a gleeful expression, before giving Ignis two golden tickets.

'Wow… you paid for us?'

I asked and Ignis looked genuinely surprised.

"Erhm… I-I just bought two golden tickets. Normal tickets are black."

'Oh... ok.'

I felt a bit embarrassed, but I quickly recovered. I really didn't want to buy something too expensive. Two coins gave me that luxury hotel room the night before for at least a month. With unlimited room service! I couldn't just give up two gold coins.

'But… it's for Ulva… No. Wait. If I just use 1 gold coin each, for me and Nukeme, that's 2 gold coins. We will simply go and sit in a trap, but I at least used two less coins. In that case.'

I took out two gold coins and gave it to the man who smiled creepily. His big hands grabbed my tiny hands and he said.

"Oh~ Madame Moiselle, do enjoy the lavish VIP seats we have reserved for you. May I know what House you belong to?"

'House? What's this guy talking about?'

<<Notice: A House refers to one of the highest of the Noble Factions in the world. There are currently fifteen established Houses>>

'Seriously? Well damn. I guess I don't belong to any of those, huh?'

<<Affirmative>>

"Oh-um… Her House is to remain unknown here."

Ignis came between the man and myself.

'Huh? Are these guys not aware of the fact that this is a trap?'

This was very interesting. The man was acting as if he didn't know that this entire auction was made up just to catch me. Did the orchestrator set it up in this way so that I didn't notice anything odd? Pretty risky of him, isn't it? Whatever.

"Oh. I see. How presumptuous of me. Please do not consider my earlier actions rude~"

He set, before drawing the curtains and leading a path for us. He gave me a ticket and I wondered where the other was.

"Eh-em… Please, is your carrier not aware of where he must wait for the goods?"

He was glaring at Nukeme as if he were the scorn of the planet.

"Of course. Now, off with you."

Ignis gave an order to Nukeme which infuriated the hob-goblin. He almost drew his daggers to fight, so I gave him the order. He calmed down and we walked through the curtains, leaving him behind.

When we crossed over, we were lead to a large auditorium with not more than a hundred chairs set up on the ground. However, these chairs were half-filled with no one sitting in the front rows. I noticed a balcony where two people sat, their whole attire revealing not even a single hair on their body.

One servant came and led us towards the stairs leading to the balcony. There were exactly 5 chairs set up in the compartment we were sent. A small room, but spacious enough with two guards standing guard outside. A clear view of the entire auditorium that couldn't be disturbed by anything, and also allowed the host to see us easily. Even better, they had grapes. Truly a place for VIPs.

We took our seats and the guide set a bell on the table. He said if we needed anything, we could simply ring, and the servants would come attend to us.

'You know… I find it odd that mere villagers could suddenly afford V.I.P seats in an auction house.'

"W-Well, our master is a very influential man, you know? He is also very caring so he gave us this for the bare minimum."

'Is that so? He must possess a lot of money, I mean. He is of the House Kyde, right?'

Ignis shut up. The look on his face was priceless. One of pure fear and shock. Same for his wife who just sat there, mouth aghast.

I ignored them and focused on the auction. Now that they knew that I had information on them, they wouldn't make any reckless actions that would cause them to sway from the plan Yokino had mapped out. Or at least I hoped so.

Over the course of the auction, we saw a lot of items and slaves being sold. I really wanted some of the items I was seeing and ended up deciding that I would have steal those later on if I got a chance. I even gave Nukeme the order to steal anything he could. (What? Don't act like you wouldn't want to.)

"And now, for the final item on the list. Going for fifteen gold coins."

A girl in rags was made to come up on stage. She had chains binding her legs and visible wounds over her body. Her hair was muddy and her face, bruised. I found it odd that they would be keeping a slave in such poor conditions, but upon further inspection, she looked just like Ulva. I was honestly stunned.

Something didn't feel right though.

'Wasn't Ulva supposed to have been with the nobleman? Yo, agent! Is it some sort of magic?'

Suddenly, I started feeling uneasy about everything. My heart rate had gone up.

<<No magical interference can be sensed>>

'Huh? Does that mean… that's actually Ulva?'

<<It is possible. Use the Unique skill [Analyst] to confirm>>

'Oh right! I have that…'

Just as I activated the skill, everything suddenly disappeared. I was only surrounded by solid darkness. The thunderous silence suddenly started to break me. My heart felt uneasy and my mind kept asking several questions. The most prominent of them though, was,

'What the hell is happening?'

A single pink flower petal flew past me. Followed by another, then another, and in no time, hundreds swarmed my vision, wrapping me up in their vicious dance and flinging me out into an open field of snow. When I looked up, I saw a glowing sakura tree with a person sitting underneath it.

"Hello there."

The person said. I assumed that it was the System Master, but then this simply wasn't how her domain was like the last time I was here. Also, the person sitting under the tree wasn't the form she took the last time.

'W-Who are you?'

I asked and the person melted into a pile of snow.

"To think that you've already forgotten my voice. It's me. Your favorite immortal."

'Eh? My favorite immortal?'

I felt warm, slender, arms wrapping themselves around me. Dark hair fell over my body and I looked around only to be met with familiar irises on a familiar face. Too familiar.

The puffy cheeks pink cheeks, the small cute nose that was as red as Christmas lights whenever it got too cold, the mischievous impish grin that would sometimes cause me pain and in the other times cause me laughter and the short-cut black hair that always smelled like disgusting mangos.

'Mitsuki?'

My little sister. What the hell was my little sister doing here?

"Nope! It's everyone's favorite system master!"

She said with arms now in the sky, letting go of my bird body. Her statement shocked me, but nonetheless riddled me with several questions. Something definitely wasn't right about this situation.

'Eh? Why do you look like my sister? I thought you were taking the form of Maya.'

"Oh? This is your sister's form?"

She was acting oblivious. And she was intentionally making that fact obvious.

'Yes. You can't tell me you didn't know that.'

"Oops. Was just taking the form of a person that just died."

She smiled creepily after saying that, and my heart sunk. I didn't even know how to feel after having such information dropped on me out of nowhere. I even started to doubt the validity of what she just said.

'What?'

"Well I thought you would want to know that. This became awkward… Anyway, I came here to ask you to rate my system. Give it a five star rating please."

'You come here telling me that my sister is dead and now you want me to rate your system?'

I was furious. This was stupid, even for her.

"Yes."

'Did she also reincarnate here?'

"I don't know. Maybe. I'm not the only one bringing in souls, you know. There are others here with me playing with mortal souls. So she could possibly be here, or she went to Elysium."

I tried to grab the system master by the throat, but that didn't have any good effects. I just ended up passing right through a body of burning snow. The snow was so cold it felt like I was be burnt instead.

"Do try to be careful. The snow in this place has destroyed souls before."

She warned and with a wave of her hand, the snow I touched blew over and I was back to normal, the pain had disappeared almost as if I never felt it.

'Dangerous.' was all I could think as I looked at her. I decided to switch the topic quickly.

'H-How… how did she die?'

"Remember the boarding school she was supposed to attend? Well, looks like some crazy weather storm hit her on the way before she could even make it. A pity I'd say."

She said something scary. At this point, I could only assume that she caused Mitsuki's death.

'W-Why?'

"Who knows? Freaky weather this year. There was that one massive hail storm in New York City yesterday. Or was that next year? Ah well, time is kind of confusing sometimes. Either way, several lives gone and stuff."

She was toying with me. I never should have even had the slightest bit of faith in this person. She was so powerful she could do anything she wanted and I wouldn't be able to defy her out of fear of death. Once again, I am forced to acknowledge my own weakness. I was starting to get confident in my abilities when I hadn't even reached the level of Minerva at the very least. I had no rights to be angry here.

After clearing my head, I could finally focus on what was important.

'Are my parents safe at least?'

"Listen here kid. I don't know. Just rate my system and let me go."

She shrugged, folding her arms while staring intently at me.

'Tch… fine. Three stars. Now go.'

"What? Three stars? Why only three stars? Does this look like some shitty B-rank system to you, ya brat?"

'One star for the system allowing me to get stronger, one star for the consistency, two stars gone because of a crappy system master!'

She had tears in her eyes and started to whine about.

"No fair! I put in a lot of work, you know?"

I ignored her and looked about. Thinking about it, this place was endless. It was just white snow spreading out.

'What is this place, by the way?'

"None of your business! Get out!"

She ordered, causing me to suddenly return to the auction house. A bit confused, I looked about and saw nothing out of the ordinary. They were still selling the slave. No. Calling it a slave was wrong. Very wrong. That thing was a monster and I was starting to wonder how the hell they even caught it.

DING!

[You have 1 pending message from the servant Yokino]

'Open it.'

[Yokino: Kill everyone in the auction hall.]

The message was a bit surprising. I didn't really expect her to bluntly tell me to commit murder. I was about to ask why, but then a water spear flew right into the head of the host. A woman with crimson red hair descended, her eight eyes glowing angrily and spider legs moving about viciously.

"Sorry, ladies and gentlemen! Show time is over. Time~ To~ Die~~"

Yokino just dropped in out of nowhere and said those words. At first, the present members assumed that it was just a sort of play, but then when Yokino killed one of the audience members with a lightning blast, the situation suddenly became real.

I tapped my forehead, a bit angry with how she spontaneously made her decision without informing me. I decided that I wouldn't directly help her with the situation she had gotten herself into. At least, I would summon some help for her.

'[Portal Creation].'

I snapped my fingers.