The Developer Reborn As Archmage

The corridor opened up to a larger space at the end, with a small crowd already gathered. Darya noticed some of the fighters. They were talking with the wealthy auction bidders, likely for sponsorships or similar deals. A dead fighter was being wrapped in a white cloth in a separate chamber. Arten was on the floor in another chamber being operated on by a bunch of healers.

Seris stopped in her tracks as they passed. She grabbed Darya’s hand and leaned in to whisper. “That guy’s nearly dead!”

“Huh? The healing’s not working?”

“I think it’s too late. He’s lost too much blood.”

Darya’s eyes briefly crossed with a robed figure that was standing at the back of the room with a peculiar black lantern.

“That must be a soul harvester!” Sarka’s hushed voice came from under the glove.

“You see anything odd?” Darya asked, breaking eye contact with the creepy lantern man.

“Still seeing blurred, but I can sense necromancy just fine,” Sarka said.

The auction hall was another staircase below this level. The crude stone staircase and walls were painted red, but everything about the place felt like a dungeon. It seemed to have been part of the sewer system at some point, but all the tunnels had been sealed with wooden barriers.

The seating was like the colosseum with segmented private sections at the top. Another red-dressed woman came to greet them and politely asked for the invitation. After that, she guided them to a private section at the top right.

Drakva gave one of these to us? seems like he wants to leave an impression. Or it could be a trap.

Three groups occupied the other sections. Some of them had their own guards, servants, and bookkeepers. Darya’s was the only private section occupied by two people. They watched the auction hall fill up with more bidders.

When all the seats were filled, Drakva came in through the only unsealed tunnel with a large package wrapped in red silk. It was about as tall as him, rigid and wooden. He placed it at the center of the room and raised his hand.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! I’m in a sour mood with that horrendous last fight!” he announced in the same cheerful voice and started laughing. Some of the bidders laughed with him.

“Ay! Drakva, you should retire that fool Ikaro. He’s too old to care about plans. This is the second time this month he beat someone to death!” a snide voice came from one of the private sections next to Darya’s.

“You’re only too right, my duke. The fault is mine. Despite everything, I like that old forest fool. He’s one of the first ones I bought when I started. I’m sentimental.”

“It’s time to let go. I lost thirty thousand betting on that fight.”

“Well, I lost a fighter worth a hundred fifty thousand. Arten didn’t make it,” Drakva said solemnly. Some bidders in the crowd gasped. He clapped his hands. “Anyways, let’s get started. Hopefully, we all make some money today. The last item will be a pleasant surprise—well, at least for some of you.”

He pulled the red silk off the big wooden thing that he planted at the center of the room. “Alright! starting with this. A two-thousand-year-old piece of bark from the Candor Tree of Loisen!”

It was a polished piece of wood preserved with a thick layer of lacquer or clear resin of some sort. A thread of golden letters was carved on it. The wood was glowing golden-orange at the edges.

“Impressive find!” Sarka remarked. “Candor bark makes great Manacers!”

Darya had faint memories of some rare Manacers being made from a special sort of wood. This tree had to be a world tree. In the VRMMO, only four of those existed in the world. According to the lore, cutting one of those was a crime worse than murder. Harvesting chunks of the bark was the accepted workaround.

“Sixty thousand!” Drakva announced after giving the bidders time to get a good look at it.

“Seventy-five!” A bidder in a seat below yelled.

“We have seventy-five—!”

“Ninety-seven!” another yelled.

“Ninety-eight!”

“Hundred ten!”

Darya also decided to join in. She wanted to participate to make it less obvious to Drakva what item she wanted most. “Hundred fifteen!” she said between the shouts.

Drakva smiled at her.

“We have one hundred fifteen! going once!”

“Hundred seventy!” A muffled voice spoke from one of the private sections.

“Oh! We have one hundred seventy! going once! going twice!”

“Hundred eighty!” another private section spoke.

“Hundred ninety-nine!” The muffled voice said right away.

“We have one hundred ninety-nine! Anyone else! going once! going twice!” The bidders were quiet. Drakva slammed his fist on his palm. The sound echoed like a gunshot.

Well, that’s a Berserker, alright.

“Sold!” Drakva yelled, pointing at the private section with a muffled voice.

Darya leaned forward to take a look. It was in her row. The section was closed off with an intricate silk curtain.

The next three items were just as random and insane as the first. There was a preserved heart of a rare sea beast, which sold for two hundred fifty thousand to a hooded figure. A beastkin young man with glowing stripes on his back was sold for eighty-nine thousand to a representative of a warlord.

The third item surprised both Sarka and Seris. It was called a Dark Prism Artifact, something that had been stolen from Goliante. It sold for three hundred ninety thousand to a private section, the duke who talked with Drakva at the beginning.

The bidders lost their minds when Drakva brought in the last item.

He pushed a glass tank about four feet tall on a trolley. The top part was covered with red silk; the bottom part was in the tank, a swirling iridescent mess of fins and scales inside.

“A mermaid?” one of the private sections exclaimed. It was a woman, one who had been quiet this entire time.

“That is a surprise, Drakva!” the duke said.

“Indeed!” the muffled voice remarked.

Drakva laughed loudly as he pulled the red silk to unveil the top. The mermaid was in full display, hung above the tank by her arms on each side, tied to the frame of the tank.

The mermaid looked immature, either inherently or by age. Her eyes were bigger than her nose, and she had pale skin decorated with iridescent scales in places. Long locks of dark green hair rested behind her shoulders. The body shape was hard to see through the oversized rags that she was wearing. She had a red strip of silk wrapped around her mouth, neatly finished with a ribbon to shut her up. She glared tiredly at the room, not even bothering to struggle against the restraints.

Her tail was about one and a half times larger than her upper body, and she had three shark fins around her hips. Two on each side, and one on the back. Two more smaller fins were at the midsection, and two tiny ones right before the flaring tail. Her scales glowed like jewels in mesmerizing patterns as she flung her tail in a constant pattern.

“Six hundred thousand!” the female voice in the private section yelled.

Drakva laughed. “Calm down, ladies and gentlemen! I haven’t even told you the starting bid yet!”

Seris swallowed hard and looked at Darya. “That’s a Nere. One of the rarest types. She’s young, too.”

“How young do you think that is?” Darya asked curiously. The mermaid looked scared, but her big eyes held a lot of charm even from a distance. They were sharp despite her dire situation.

“From the blur I see, and the mana flow, she is younger than fifteen,” Sarka said. “Quite young for a purebred Mermaid. The druid or elven equivalent would be a third of that amount. The human equivalent would be somewhere between ten and thirteen.”

“Oh, that’s young. I thought she would be older with a tail that big.”

“A tail like that is a signature of imminent maturity. This is the age where mermaids are most protected by their tribes, because they’re the fertile females of the next generation.”

Drakva clapped his hands and raised his arms. “This is a young Nere Siren! She’s from the famous tribe of Enarem!”

“Take those rags off! We want to see the merchandise!” one of the bidders yelled.

“Ah, that part is complicated. I abide by the Enarem tradition of hers. Only women are allowed to see her skin.”

“Who cares about that!” Someone else yelled.

“I care because it is my item at my auction house. You want to take her rags off, you bid high enough to buy her!” Drakva slammed the glass tank with his palm. The mermaid jumped in place as water spilled from the top.

“Seris, use the Sea Crystal,” Darya said, leaning forward. Drakva seemed eager to sell the mermaid, and the bids were about to get crazy and done with really fast. This was their chance to check if the girl they came looking for was this mermaid or not.

Drakva cleared his throat, raising his hands in the air. “Now, I already know this is going to be a bloodbath. Starting bid is eight hundred and fifty thousand!” he yelled.

“Nine hundred thousand!”

“We have—!”

“One and a half million!”

“Oh dear,”

“Two million!” Darya yelled.

Drakva turned to her with a grin. The mermaid stared at her helplessly with her big yellow eyes.

“Three million!” the muffled voice said. Darya grinned, leaning back on her chair.

Aha! That’s right. Show me the ceiling.

“Princess,” Seris tugged at her arm as she held the Sea Crystal necklace. It was pulling straight ahead, the highest angle it had bent so far.

“Oh, that’s her after all?!”

“No,” Seris said, gulping hard. “This isn’t about her,” she said, pointing her finger at the crowd below. “See? This angle is off by a lot.”

Darya tried to measure the direction from the Sea Crystal’s perspective. Seris was right. The mermaid was to their left on the stage. The crystal was pulling perpendicular to them. It was pointing at the bidders below.

“Now that’s odd,” Darya said. “Any idea who it’s pointing at?”

“Somewhere in the back, in that direction,” Seris said, drawing a line with her hand. There were six bidders in that direction, and two armored guards. “Why would it point at one of them, though?”

“I know why,” Darya said, standing up.

“Huh?”

“The Seer. He must be here. I thought it was the girl who wore this necklace. Looks like I had it wrong.”

“But this thing pointed us to the colosseum last night, didn’t it?” Seris asked with a gulp. “He was here the whole time?”

Darya leaned on the railing, taking a good look at the six bidders. They were either masked or hooded, but she was pretty sure they were all human. A merfolk bidder with shiny scales would’ve stood out like a sore thumb in this crowd.

Suddenly, it became clear to her what the crystal was pointing at.

“One of the guards. He’s one of the guards,” she told Seris urgently.