‘That was surprisingly quick,’ I thought, sitting down on the bed within the room that the auction hall prepared for me. 

The initial discontent with my appearance vanished in a single moment when I flashed my storage ring. And when I revealed its content and my wish to sell it all off, every officer turned willing to be a bitch of mine if so I desired. 

‘Still, it’s nice to sit on something soft after so long,’ I thought, enjoying myself as I laid back on the pillows. 

But I wasn’t given any chance to enjoy this rest. Before I could as much as lower my eyelids to let my eyes rest a little, a knocking on the door forced me back to the world of the living. 

“Come on in,” I shouted over, unwilling to get out of the bed. 

“I’m sorry to bother,” the same female officer that took care of me before now intruded on my room. 

Behind her, the man followed. 

‘This is the guy,’ I thought, instantly recognizing the man’s face. 

It was the very man who initially wanted to chase me out of the building. 

A small smile crept up on my face as I forced myself up and sat on the edge of the bed. 

“Before you say anything,” I raised my hand and spoke when I saw the girl open up her mouth. I then turned my face to the guy as I stood up, only to lower my head the very moment I stood before him. 

“I’m sorry for chastising you like that. But, I figured out it would be the easiest and quickest way of getting through to resolve my uncommon situation,” I said. 

That was the truth. 

I didn’t really mind the way the man reacted. I wasn’t one of those douches from the earth that would pretend to be beggars straight from the streets and would enter fancy shops only to flex their wealth after being chased out. 

Just like the fancy shops on earth, the auction hall of this world was a place where a lot of money would pass. And people capable of forking out sums necessary to conduct business in places like that wouldn’t endorse the idea of beggars breathing down their necks!

“Huh?” the man shrugged, surprised by the unexpected development. “So you are not going to force the firm to fire me?” he asked in a soft voice, tears brimming in his eyes. 

“You just did your job,” I waved my hand before returning to the bed. “I was at fault there. I’m sorry for using you like that,” I added with a smile before laying down on the bed. 

“Sir…” the girl muttered, clearly hesitant about something. “If you are so rich, why did you bother traveling on your own?” she asked, only to blush a moment later and lower her head. “Sir’s business is not my interest. Forgive me for the asking,” she quickly excused once she realized her blunder. 

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied.

I was in a pretty good mood. Just being in the same city as Mia was filled my soul with a strange happiness. 

‘I wonder if I would actually be able to approach her now,’ I thought, unsure about myself. 

The emotional scar that made me push her aside all those weeks before still laid in waiting, ready to act up the second I tried to fix it. 

‘I never thought I would actually get raped, though,’ I sighed to my own thoughts before refocusing my attention back at the girl. 

“It was all a part of my own growth. I hoped that by challenging myself like that, I would gain insight that would help me to advance,” I explained, using the same fake story that I would share with anyone else asking. 

“So that’s the case,” the girl raised her head, clearly fascinated with my explanation. 

‘Or rather, with the benefits that come from befriending someone who, despite being so young, already reached the tenth stage,’ I thought to myself, gold-digger alert going off in my head. 

There was only one person that I could accept turning into a gold-digger and then interacting with me. And her name started with M and ended with ia. 

“Right, before you go,” I said when the silence prolonged to the point of getting uncomfortable. 

“Can you check if there are any messages forwarded to me?” I asked, bringing out the auction hall token. “I kind of expect some items to arrive here, but there is a chance they did arrive a long time ago already,” I pointed out before passing the token to the girl. 

In theory, doing so was pretty risky. After all, this was the one sort of document that I could use for identification. It was also the only key allowing me to access my current wealth. 

But the one caveat allowed me to be pretty liberal with it. As the girl likely didn’t possess a single drop of my blood, she wouldn’t be able to authenticate a single use of the ID!

As such, despite how vital a piece of token it was, I felt pretty safe about passing it over. 

“Sir, I will check right away!” the girl raised her head, her eyes shining with excitement. 

She then grabbed the token and hurried out of the room, not even bothering to say a word to the man she came to my place with. 

“Sir…?” the man muttered hesitantly, clearly unsure of what he was supposed to do now. 

“Seeing that you stayed back, how about doing me a little favor?” I asked, smiling at the man as I relaxed myself on the pillows. 

“Sir, anything!” the man fell to one knee, more than happy to be of service to me. 

‘I guess he really can’t get over the blunder that I forced on him,’ I thought, recognizing the symptoms of someone unable to believe they were getting away with something without consequences. 

In reality, I didn’t have any pressing matters that needed someone to attend to them right away. There were only some things that I ultimately had to deal with sometime in the near future. 

And the only reason why I decided to pass some of those tasks to the man was to let him forgive himself for what I made happen before. 

“You see, back at my previous location, I managed to score quite a bounty by messing around with the shortages of whatever people at the sect needs,” I claimed, putting a relaxed smile on my face as I carefully crafted another story. 

“I’m not going to ask you to spy for me,” I quickly added, seeing the look on the man’s face changing. “I just want you to go and bring me the news about anything interesting that happened recently at the sect,” I explained my wish. 

“Sir…” the man hesitated for a moment. He then took a deep breath and slapped his hands on his cheeks. “I will do that right away!” he announced as soon as he came to terms with his situation. 

And just like he said, he did, running out of my room. 

‘He couldn’t even close the doors behind him,’ I thought, feeling all my sympathy for the man disappearing in an instant. 

Still, I didn’t bother to move and close the doors myself. Rather than that, I laid back in my bed, waiting for the girl to return. 

And as if some god was playing around with my misfortune, the second I managed to calm down and close my eyes, the female official of the auction hall returned. 

And she did so with gusto. 

She didn’t bring in just a small box and a letter or two. That’s what I expected to receive from the boss of the auction hall. After all, she was perfectly aware of just how interested I was in the development of our business!

No. Rather than just a few letters and a storage ring, she brought in a whole package, filled with letters to the brim!

“At first, I only found those two,” the girl explained, pointing her fingers at the two envelopes at the top of the pile. “But as I dug deeper just to be sure, I found all those other letters hidden away in the counter!” she added.

‘Huh?’ I thought, surprised by the notion. ‘Did I just strike the gold by acting as a normal person would?’ I thought, recalling the way I handled the problem with that unfortunate official. 

I quickly reached out for the letters that the girl pointed out. And just as expected, while the first one was just a report of the boss dealing with all the affairs I asked her to settle, the other was fully about our business’s expansion. 

‘It seems that it goes relatively nicely,’ I thought, holding back a random chuckle. 

Back when the first concept of using dildos in this world appeared in my head, I only expected to make some quick bucks out of it. But with the scale that the auction hall was clearly going for…

It could pretty easily shake the foundations of not only the Tuxi sect but also everything that the people on this sorry continent believed in!

‘Still,’ I thought, putting the letter back on the pile before reaching for the other one. ‘What are those?’ I asked myself as I pried the envelope open and started to slowly read the content. 

I only glanced through the paper before two things caught my attention. 

First, the date. The letter that I picked up just so happened to be sent on the same day that I departed for this place from the outer headquarters. And the other thing that I noticed was the lovely signature at the very bottom of the paper.

‘Mia sent it?’ I thought after deciphering the signature. 

It was written differently than the letter’s content, proving that someone helped her write those. As such, it was actually way easier for me to decipher the content. 

But the second I managed to understand the first sentence, my face darkened. 

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” I said in a cold voice as the sudden shaking of my soul reflected on my face. “Oh, and remember,” I added, raising my eyes at the girl. “You never passed those letters to me. Come here in the middle of the night. I will read them all and then will need you to return them to where you found them.”

“Yes, sir,” the girl quickly nodded her head. She then turned around and left the room, leaving me with nothing but Mia’s stories of the events that transpired over the last month. 

I looked at the paper once again before releasing a deep sigh and bringing out a bottle of vodka from my storage ring. 

‘This is going to be a long night,’ I thought as I took a sip and focused down at the letters covering the entirety of the paper. 

THE END OF THE ARC

//*Author’s warning that doesn’t increase the chapter’s cost: Starting from the , the narration will change a little. It’s the very thing that I announced a few chapters prior, so don’t be weirded out when the next few chapters come 😀 Trust me, it will be worth it in the end!*//