Chapter 25 Auction of the Mad Banquet and Signs of Ruin
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
**The Banquet of Shadows, Day One.**
The special stage was flooded with blinding light. One after another, the strangest “goods” were displayed, then sold amid wild, almost frenzied excitement. The crowd’s roar, punctuated by sharp shouts, only drove the room’s temperature higher.
A huge magic beast—big as a mountain: twenty-three thousand gold coins. Its scales held a dull, menacing sheen, and one could almost feel the beast breathing. An ancient magic item capable of commanding the dead went for fifteen thousand gold coins after a fierce contest among wealthy nobles. The item, radiating a dark aura, drew every eye in the room.
It reached the point where a single-use “Ancient Slave contract”1—said to turn anyone into a Magic Slave—was sold for five thousand gold coins each. The aged parchment bore blood-red patterns. It was strange that a contract cost more than the slave it bound.
I watched the endless, high-stakes contest of wealth with a cold, careful eye, but a growing unease stirred inside me.
(…Something is wrong.)
Rare magic beasts, ancient lost relics. With all that on the table, why were two normal human sisters the “star attraction” meant to close the last night of this three-day event?
I felt a flicker of doubt—but, unfamiliar with how auctions worked, I pushed the question to the back of my mind for now.
Then the fated third night arrived.
The noise in the hall had never been louder. The crowd’s buzz—a mix of heat and hope—moved like a living thing. Finally, our target—the “goods”—emerged onto the brightly lit stage.
”Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for waiting! We now present to you the treasure that will crown our Banquet of Shadows! From the desert kingdom of Zahara, these two flowers! The elder is named ‘Fama,’ and the younger ‘Leela’!”
As the auctioneer gestured grandly, the two young women stepped forward. Beneath the lights, they looked like a painting come to life.
The elder was a skilled dancer with sleek, black hair. Her supple figure was accentuated by thin, flowing silk.
The younger was a singer possessed of a delicate, almost ethereal beauty, her hair the color of moonlight. Her thin lips seemed poised to break into song at any moment.
That sight sent a wave of frenzied adoration through the hall, as if the entire room had drawn a collective gasp. The air grew taut in an instant; every eye fixed upon them.
”Now, let the bidding begin! These two flowers, starting at three thousand gold coins for the pair! Please submit your bids using the designated hand signals!”
For the actual bidding, I had designated Balthazar as my proxy. As the heir to a merchant guild, he should have managed without difficulty.
At the auctioneer’s signal, hands began to rise silently throughout the hall.
”Eleven thousand!” “Twelve thousand!” “Thirteen thousand!”
The signals shifted one after another in time with the auctioneer’s calls. The quiet exchange of bids only generated a stranger, thicker heat.
The air in the room felt heavy, as if saturated with the sound of money changing hands.
(Hmph. Plenty of room left.)
To win what others desired with nothing but money. The thrill of feeding that hunger must surpass anything else.
”Go on. Do it more,” I said quietly.
But that easy confidence turned to genuine worry once the price surpassed twenty thousand gold coins. It had already exceeded the value of the enormous magic beast sold on the first day.
”Twenty-five thousand!” “Twenty-six thousand!”
The number of bidders signaling began to dwindle.
And then—after the call of “Thirty thousand!”—the auctioneer raised a hand and announced:
”From this point forward, bids will increase by five thousand gold coins!”
The hall stirred.
The quiet exchange erupted at once into a loud, uneasy clamor. With this steep pricing, the bidders were finally whittled down to three.
The wealthy merchant Ignazio Wallachia.
Margrave Albion de Blanchefort.
And us.
Ignazio the wealthy merchant signaled with his gleaming red eyes. “Thirty-five thousand!” His face was etched with a desperate need to win.
Margrave Albion responded with an elegant, almost playful motion. “Forty thousand!” I could not read his expression, but his composure was unsettling.
”Are these people insane?” I hissed.
”F-five hundred thousand…!”
Balthazar shot back desperately. His nerves were at their limit; he looked as though he might shatter at any moment.
”Stop! Don’t push it!”
(…Time to quit.)
I decided to pull out. This was a wild, reckless madness. Remaining any longer was too dangerous.
I shot a look at Balthazar, and he looked back at me as though begging for help. I could read on his face that he had finally grasped the danger of this situation and was deferring to my judgment.
We were drawing too much attention from the surrounding nobles and merchants. I could not simply speak up and say “Stop” out loud.
I gave a single, quiet nod, visible only to my partner—a signal meaning “That’s enough. Back out.”
He must have read my meaning flawlessly. Relief washed over his face.
Balthazar nodded back to me, just as resolute.
Right after, Albion flashed a mocking smile and raised six fingers high. That smile brimmed with the certainty of victory.
”S-six hundred thousand!!”
The auctioneer’s announcement sent the hall into an uproar.
The crowd’s roar crashed over us like a wave.
”Phew.” I exhaled in relief. I had managed to avoid paying that outrageous sum.
But the very next moment—
Balthazar thrust his trembling arm toward the sky, signaling the auctioneer with eight fingers held high.
His arm moved as though acting entirely of its own accord.
”E-eight hundred thousand gold coins!”
—What?
Why are you driving the price up?
…Don’t tell me you took my signal as “Go! Throw out every last coin you have!”
”No, that’s not it!” I screamed inwardly.
”My nod meant Stop it now, you idiot!”
My inner scream, of course, reached no one.
…The hall went dead quiet. The earlier noise was gone, replaced by a heavy, suffocating hush.
Ignazio and Albion ground their teeth in fury, silently lowering their hands. Their stares sent waves of freezing, deadly hatred.
”E-eight hundred thousand gold coins! Eight hundred thousand! Any other bids? …It seems not! It is decided! This gentleman has won the bid!”
Clack! Clack! The dry crack of the gavel echoed through the hall.
The sound pierced my ears as though striking directly inside my skull. The cheers and applause sounded as though they came from miles away.
My mind went blank.
With this, our war chest was emptied. Maintaining a blank face, I was completely lost.
Feeling a sharp stare, I looked over to see the wealthy merchant and the Margrave glaring at us with pure murder in their eyes. Their gazes burned with a hatred like hellfire.
Beside me, even Gregor—who should have been the calm one—was frozen, his face white as ash. His trembling shoulders and the river of sweat down his back spoke volumes about how dire this situation was.
In the middle of this thick, strange air, only one person failed to grasp how dire things were.
Balthazar turned around with a broad smile. That innocent, sunny grin was painful to behold.
”W-we did it, Xenos-sama! I successfully won the item you asked for!”
…Ah, yes. You did a wonderful job. You really pulled off a colossal mistake, didn’t you?
His pure, sunlit cluelessness was the only thing I envied in that moment.
—
Summary:
Xenos attends the final night of a high-stakes, decadent auction known as the Banquet of Shadows to acquire two rare human sisters. A misunderstanding of hand signals between Xenos and his proxy, Balthazar, causes the bid to escalate to a ruinous eight hundred thousand gold coins. Xenos is left in a precarious financial and social position as the auctioneer confirms the purchase, earning the lethal enmity of other powerful bidders.
—
Trivia:
The Banquet of Shadows is a three-day event featuring increasingly bizarre and dangerous goods, ranging from ancient artifacts to human slaves.
The auction uses a specific system of hand signals to facilitate bidding among the elite.
Xenos is operating under the persona of a character from a game script he is intimately familiar with, though he is currently failing to maintain control over the situation.
Balthazar is the heir to a merchant guild, which is why he was selected to handle the bidding as proxy.
The auction price of eight hundred thousand gold coins for the sisters far exceeds the value of rare magical beasts and artifacts seen earlier in the event.
—
Translation Notes:
Notes:
• de – A particle used in the aristocratic name of the Margrave Albion de Blanchefort.
• Fama – An elder sister from the desert kingdom of Zahara who possesses obsidian-black hair and is a skilled dancer.
• Leela – A younger sister from the desert kingdom of Zahara who possesses silver hair like moonlight and is a talented songstress.
• Balthazar – A short, plump Zaitz Merchant Guild heir with greasy skin and a scent of pastries, he is the fawning, arrogant son of Lazarus Seitz. Serving as a proxy for the Grimlocks and Xenos, he is known for his questionable ethics and grotesque business proposals. Easily intimidated, this trembling merchant often sweats under pressure, masking his insecurity with childish arrogance and expensive, stained attire.
• Wallachia – The family name of the merchant Ignazio.
• Ignazio – A gaunt merchant with slicked-back white hair known as the ‘White Snake.’ He is the leader of an information organization and possesses a cold, predator-like gaze. A tycoon and merchant who possesses glinting red eyes and a deep obsession with victory.
• Blanchefort – The family name of the nobleman Albion.
• Albion – A Margrave who carries himself with elegant, playful gestures and an air of chilling nonchalance. A nobleman with flowing silver hair who holds territory near the Elven Forest. He carries an elegant smile that masks deep arrogance and potential danger.
• Gregor – A butler who maintains a stoic and professional demeanor. He remains observant and composed even in dangerous, illicit settings. A companion to Xenos who is typically cool-headed but becomes pale with shock during the auction. A lean, sharp-eyed butler with a calm and professional demeanor, serving the merchant guild since the time of Balthazar’s father.
• Xenos – Reincarnated as a hated, “Zero Mana” nobleman, the calm and calculating head of the Grimlock family masks his immense power behind a facade of incompetence. Using his deep knowledge of the game script, he manipulates the underworld and key figures like Mina to achieve his goals. He remains cold and strategic toward enemies while acting as a benefactor, currently forcing an annulment with his fiancée.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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