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“Luke, is that a good item?”

“Who knows?”

“But why are you continuously bidding then?”

“Because I’m bored.”

I needed it, and I did come to see if there was anything good, but honestly, just watching the auction was dull. Watching people call out prices to buy items was just plain boring. So, out of boredom, I raised my bid. If someone else was going to buy it, let them have a taste of it.

“Do you realize that everything you’ve bid adds up to over 1000 gold?”

1000 gold. Just thinking about how we could live for years with the few dozen gold we’ve earned makes it easy to see how much that is. Even if we had saved every penny from what we earned, we wouldn’t even have half of that amount. And yet, I casually bet that much just because I was bored.

“Why should I care?”

“Good thing you weren’t the one who won. What would you have done if you actually got it?”

“Just run away.”

Do you know what a no-show is? You probably don’t since that word doesn’t exist in this world. From the looks of it, the items aren’t handed over immediately upon winning, so it seems like they do a bulk exchange after the auction. If I win, I can just not show up.

“And it won’t be won anyway.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You seem to have lived in the light too long, Riche. Did you think the bids were all made by humans?”

“What do you mean? Are there demons or something?”

“Not exactly. There’s a spy.”

This is a place where all sorts of dirty work happens in the shadows. By the way, thanks to having read novels, I know that there are spies putting in bids at auctions. If you enter the depths of the underworld, you should at least have some notion of that. That’s just how underworlds work.

I had no idea when the spy would stop bidding, but I was just lucky. I had the mindset that it’s fine as long as I didn’t win. If I did win, I’d simply no-show as I mentioned.

“Riche, with your lifelong exposure to the light, you can’t even imagine what lurks in the shadows.”

People don’t casually divide things into the light and the dark without reason. No matter what kind of evil you can think of, there’s bound to be something worse in the darkness. It’s like peeling layers of an onion — there’s always more underneath. Besides, the deeper you go, the worse it gets. Honestly, there might be some insane person out there trying to kill someone to turn them into a chimera.

“Something about you wearing that mask makes it oddly credible…”

“What’s wrong with my mask? It’s a symbol of manliness!”

To be honest, if I’ve seen that anime, I could tolerate just the word mask, but I can’t stand the boar mask.

“So, did you find anything worth buying?”

“Nope. I’m not buying anything here.”

“Then why are you here…?”

“Obviously came to find some items.”

“But you just said there’s nothing to buy.”

“Right. I won’t be buying anything.”

Because I’m not going to buy it.

“I’m going to steal it.”

At my answer, all three of them responded in unison.

“Uh…?”

“Excuse me…?”

“Wh-what…?”

*

That evening.

Of course, there’s dinner at the auction house as well. In this world, there’s no such thing as a 24-hour day. Thus, we waited in our lodging until dinner and then stepped back outside just after midnight. The reason? To steal some items as I mentioned earlier.

By the way, I left Yui back at the lodging. What we needed for stealing was stealth. But Yui, being clumsy, wouldn’t be much help, so I told her to stay behind, and she seemed happy about it. This is how recluses are.

As we left the lodging, I followed the path I memorized earlier. Of course, the guide was Luna. I had already forgotten everything by then. As we headed to the auction house, Luna seemed curious and asked.

“Um… Luke, do you remember the pickpocket you caught a while ago?”

“I don’t know. How am I supposed to remember some extra character?”

“…That person who broke all my fingers to teach me that stealing is bad.”

No, I told you, I don’t know! Who remembers a pickpocket anyway? There’s hardly anything to remember about that.

“So, why do you bring it up?”

“Didn’t you tell me then, that stealing is wrong?”

“That’s right. Stealing is wrong.”

“But isn’t what you’re trying to do now stealing…?”

What I’m about to do is stealing, and that’s wrong. That’s what Luna must be trying to say.

However.

“Luna, do you know what the opposite of justice is?”

“Huh? Isn’t it evil?”

“No.”

Most people think of evil as the opposite of justice. But that’s one of the misconceptions. While it’s being reinterpreted lately, the opposite of justice is…

“Another form of justice.”

In my previous life, there were both lawyers and prosecutors. To someone, a lawyer embodies justice, and to another, a prosecutor might. So would those two think of each other as evil? No. They’re just people working with their own sense of justice. If my stealing can be justified in some way, then it’s not evil, but another form of justice.

“…Isn’t that just finding a reason to justify what you’re doing?”

“Honestly, I think that too.”

Which is all a lie. My thoughts aren’t much different from Luna’s.

“But Luna, have you forgotten? I’m not a hero.”

In truth, I don’t actually need a good reason. Why? Villains can commit evil acts without justification. If someone were to say, “How could you do such a heinous act!” I could simply say, “Because I’m a villain,” and that would be enough for everyone to accept it.

No one would try to understand a villain’s mindset anyway. Trying to understand a villain’s way of thinking would mean that person is attempting to become a villain themselves.

“…I guess I forgot for a moment there.”

“As long as you remembered it now, that’s what’s important.”

As we were chatting about that, we soon arrived at the building. Just like in the morning, we descended into the underground, pushed the bookshelf, walked through the underground waterway, went past the barrier, and reached the changing room. This time there was no need to change clothes, but we stopped at the changing room because there was something to hand over.

“Here, catch.”

“What is this? A bracelet?”

“A magical tool for invisibility.”

“Is that the one you used in survival before?”

“You know about it?”

“Someone kept hitting Arthur with that, there’s no way I wouldn’t know.”

That wasn’t really hitting. It was just playful. If it was serious, the toilet would be dead by now.

“But you’re supposed to return it afterward, right?”

“Of course I snuck it out.”

“……”

Do you think I’d go through all that trouble for a measly magical tool? Of course, I completely forgot and snuck it into my inventory while the opportunity was there. By the time I remember, I’d likely be long gone from being a professor.

“By the way, didn’t you say you could hide using the barrier last time?”

After the Mirror event ended, I had a comprehensive information gathering session. I found out what skills Yui and Luna had acquired. Yui said she had eliminated the queen’s persona and claimed her powers. And Luna said she could use the barrier for complete invisibility. So wouldn’t it be better to just use the barrier rather than wearing this bracelet?

“If you use the barrier, everything inside goes dark, and you’ll end up getting caught.”

“Then you should have made a better one.”

Why was it made so ambiguously?

“…That was the best I could do.”

“Well, then there’s nothing to be done.”

As I wore the bracelet, Luna put one on as well. Riche, slightly confused by our sudden disappearance, soon sensed our presence and put on a bracelet too.

“So this is what it feels like…”

“Just be careful not to get too close, or you’ll be detected.”

“If getting too close gets you caught, then how come Arthur didn’t notice even after being beaten up?”

“Why do you think? He’s just dumb.”

This is why people shouldn’t get emotional. When something is right in front of them, they can easily recognize it with a bit of focus, but they don’t know because they’re angry, huffing and puffing.

“More importantly, let’s get going.”

“Oh, right.”

“Yes.”

We opened the door to the changing room and descended the spiral staircase. This time, instead of guards at the entrance checking tickets, there were guards with weapons patrolling the entrance, carrying torches.

We had to be cautious not to get caught as we quietly slipped into the auction house. Inside, the same thing was happening; guards were patrolling, so we kept our distance and roamed through the auction house. What we were searching for was the storage for auction items and unsold items. Without a map, we wandered around for a while.

“Aiming just to avoid our targets is a talent in itself, isn’t it?”

“Can’t you find your way even on a normal day…?”

Honestly, this time I could make excuses as well. Shouldn’t a storage room have the thickest iron doors? All the doors inside the auction house looked identical, making it impossible to know which room was which without checking every single one.

This could be considered a kind of camouflage. If the doors were made of thick iron, it would be like announcing, “Hey, we’ve got precious items!” But since everything looks the same, it forces you to get lost. Maybe it’s a strategy? If luck is on our side, we might find it right away, but this time it was just pure bad luck.

“Whatever, let’s hurry up and get out of here. I’m getting sleepy.”

The moment I flung the door open to wrap things up…

“Who’s there?!”

“Oh crap?!”

Seeing someone inside caught me off guard, and I accidentally cursed. Thinking about it, it makes more sense that there’s no guard in such an important place. There were four guards, but they couldn’t see anyone through the open door, so they all drew their weapons, on high alert.

“What should we do, Luke?”

“When this happens, don’t panic.”

Kill them.

“Understood.”

I can already see the future where we don’t kill them, and they wake up later to scream. It’s better to just kill them all. Luna has adapted remarkably; after watching me kill a few people, she’s completely unhesitant now when I tell her to kill someone. Others might hesitate or feel guilty, but not her, which makes it convenient to have her around.

“Urk… urgh…!”

“Cough, cough…!”

As Luna moved, in an instant, the guards’ throats were sliced, and they choked on their blood, gasping for their last breaths before dying. After clearing the corpses to one side, I began to inspect the items in the room one by one.

The only problem was that everything here was something I didn’t recognize. So how was I supposed to identify the genuine article? I figured that out by just touching things and seeing what info would pop up.

◈ Item Information

Name: Infinity Mask

Grade: A

Description: An artifact of unknown origin. When worn on the face, it allows you to perfectly change into someone else’s face. The voice changes, but the body does not, so caution is advised. Transformation can only occur for those the user knows.

“Whoa, crap! You scared me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all.”

Suddenly, the information window appeared, and I realized that what I was holding was an artifact shaped like a mask. Why do other novels have it go ‘ding!’ when you find something, but mine just suddenly shows a blue screen in front of me without any sound? Seems like this is all the author’s plot; I won’t let them off easy when I meet them later.

Anyway, now that I confirmed how to tell if something is genuine or fake, I put the rather useful Infinity Mask into my inventory. Now, all I needed to do was find the items I wanted.

“Tsk. No wonder the security is so lax; everything is just fake.”

At first, I had been wondering why there were only four guards in the storage room. I initially thought the auction house’s owner was just foolish. But now I see, there’s nothing worth protecting here, so they just left it unattended for anyone to steal. So far, nothing I’ve touched besides the Infinity Mask has had any information pop up. As I rummaged through the junk, searching for my target item…

◈ Item Information

Name: Anilo Puego

Grade: A+

Description: An artifact of unknown origin. Enhances the fire magic power of the wearer.

“I found it.”

“You found something?”

“Yep.”

I found the target artifact. It was just a plain red ring without any unique characteristics or special designs. This is an artifact that’s given to Riche among the heroines. Just as described, it’s a perfect fit for Riche, who uses fire magic. Naturally, I slid the ring onto Riche’s finger.

“Uh, um…?”

Then Riche’s face flushed. I knew exactly what reaction that was; however, since this is a fantasy novel, it couldn’t be helped. In a fantasy novel, when gifting something to a heroine, it always takes the form of a ring. It has to be on the ring finger, or it won’t show any effects, or you’d have to make it a necklace on a chain. That results in the heroine blushing over her own misconceptions. It’s a cliché that’s both predictable and stale, yet what could I do if it looked like that?

Sigh…

Ignoring Riche, who was lovingly caressing the ring, I turned towards Luna, who had been quiet this whole time to see if she had found anything good.

“Did you find anything worthwhile?”

“Ah, Luke.”

From over her shoulder, I saw that Luna was holding something that looked like green metal, but even when I picked it up, no information showed up. I had no idea if it didn’t show because it was a material or because it was worthless, so I would have to put it in my inventory for now, and maybe later I would ask the uncle about it.

Just as I was about to suggest we head back since we had gathered what we needed, a loud noise came from the door we had entered.

“Intruders!!!”

One of the guards at the entrance spotted us and shouted. Even though we shouldn’t be seen, it’s easy to assume we’re intruders for a simple reason: The guards are sprawled out in the corner, and from their perspective, the items floating in mid-air are obvious signs of intruders.

“Weren’t we the ones who just opened the door?”

“This room doesn’t have a locking mechanism.”

“Oh, I see.”

As the guard shouted, in less than a minute, a crowd of guards piled up outside the door. Thinking I wouldn’t be able to escape elegantly, I said,

“Ah, don’t worry. I’m a survival-type thief… No, a savior-type thief.”

 

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