Chapitre 22: Volume I - Chapter 21: Riala Bar

Honestly... If someone is watching me from outside right now, I'm sure I look like an idiot.

The modern look of Wiathen City, the style of the streets, and the design of the cars looked so different and so beautiful from my old world... I didn't expect it to be so... fascinating just because what I was seeing was real and not animated anymore. My mouth was literally hanging open, I couldn't take my eyes off this modern landscape.

"Excuse me... we have arrived."

I was so mesmerized that I only realized we had reached our destination when the taxi driver informed me.

"Oh, I'm sorry. How much was the fare?"

"Twenty-three wels."

After paying the fare I was told, I jumped straight out. The roads were crowded, but I didn't mind, no... rather I couldn't mind.

Because it was a really wonderful experience to see with my own eyes what I had only ever seen from inside the game.

I kept looking at the buildings whose tops seemed to touch the clouds and the modern cars that were one hundred percent eco-friendly and powered by mana. I felt like I had lost myself.

After a while, though, I reluctantly stopped myself.

Yes... the view could have been perfect, I wanted to see the whole city, but I hadn't come here for that.

Taking a deep breath, I turned around, just across the road, and then looked up at the Wiathen Auction Hall, which, although lower than the other buildings, did not compromise on its appearance.

I swallowed when I saw people flocking in.

I really wanted to go inside... Even though I already knew the place well, I wanted to experience the exhibits and the interior design of the building with my own eyes, but I restrained myself as much as possible.

With a deep sigh, I started walking along the road, past the building, toward somewhere else. The reason for this was simple. Because my main goal was not here in the first place.

There will definitely be some good stuff for sale in this hall, but the 'cheat' I really want is not here.

I walked through the crowd for a while and then stopped in front of a building with the sign 'Riala Bar'. It looked just like I remembered it from the game and I felt a nice nostalgia.

I stared at the sign for a while but then walked into the bar.

It was quite crowded inside, but ignoring everyone, I approached a bartender and sat across from him without saying anything.

"What can I get you?"

The bartender greeted me with a smiling face, but without changing my expression, I took the coin I had received from the orange-haired man in the training hall earlier out of my pocket and handed it to him.

When the man saw the coin, he didn't change his demeanor even a little. He just examined the coin briefly, made sure it wasn't fake, and then handed it back to me and pointed to the stairs going down on the side.

I got up from where I was sitting, walked toward the stairs, and then the two guards came up and turned to me.

"Please follow us."

I nodded to them and so we kept walking until we entered what looked like a library.

When we entered the library, the door closed behind us and one of the walls full of books suddenly began to slide open.

Even though I had seen it open very quietly and smoothly many times before, I couldn't help but be impressed. These guys had a really good system...

One of the attendants took out a small necklace from inside his jacket and handed it to me. I knew what it was so I didn't even ask. If I had, there was a chance that they would have suspected me and maybe killed me without even blinking an eye.

I put the necklace around my neck and then transferred a small amount of mana to it. Then the necklace glowed slightly and my vision turned white just like that.

I knew it would be like this, but I still couldn't help being startled by the sudden flash of light. Fortunately, the brightness lasted only for two seconds and then my vision returned to normal.

The purpose of this necklace was to conceal the identity of the wearer. As long as I wore the necklace, people looking at me could not make out my clothes or my face. It had a very useful feature and was absolutely necessary for such illegal places.

Of course, something so valuable was only given to me temporarily.

After the necklace was activated, I looked at my body and then realized that there was a blurry layer of mana surrounding me.

Although it felt strange to see the necklace activated and feel the presence of this layer of mana, I took a deep breath and headed for the stairs hidden behind the library walls.

With each step I took, the shape of the stairs became smoother and more luxurious. Attractive motifs began to appear on the walls and after about a minute of descent, I emerged into a widening corridor.

Lining the side of the corridor were scores of guards, each one specially trained and watching my every move.

They are not compromising themselves at all...

"Come closer, please."

I approached what appeared to be the reception desk across the hall, and was met by a woman whose face and clothes I couldn't make out properly, just like me.

"I assume you know the prices?"

The woman said this to me with a smile. I mean... I assume she was smiling at least by the tone of her voice.

I felt a little confused by this strange situation, which I still can't get used to, but then I opened my watch and sent her twenty thousand wels without a second thought.

Normally only five thousand wels would have been enough, but the fee I paid indicated that I was here for a special purpose.

When the woman received the fee, she sent an e-mail to my watch and then showed me the huge door just to the right of the hallway.

Without saying anything, I walked to the door and then the guards opened it for me.

The moment the door opened, the loud noise of people entered my ears. Hundreds of people in the hall with blurred images turned to me at the same time, but they quickly lost interest.

Well, since I didn't care much about them, I walked past them and entered one of the corridors connected to the hall, because the place before was not an auction hall, but a party place where a few rich people came to have fun. So I kept walking along the corridor and then arrived in front of another huge door.

"Your ticket please."

I couldn't help feeling awkward again as the face of the security guard who asked me this was blurred like everyone else here, but I showed him the e-mail sent by the previous employee and handed him the coin.

The man first checked the email, then took the coin and checked it too, just like the bartender before. Then he slipped it into his jacket and told me my number.

"C-21."

I nodded to him, and then the doors of the auction hall opened for me. I was greeted by a truly gigantic lecture hall.

Although, to call it a lecture hall would be an insult. It was so spacious, comfortable, and luxurious that just being here made me feel like a king.

Even the seats were not like in a normal auction hall, each seat had its own table and unless someone sat next to you specifically, there was at least two meters between you and the closest person.

Even though I couldn't make out anyone's clothes because of the necklace, I knew that everyone here was important, so I made sure not to communicate with anyone and looked for seat number 'C-21'.

When I finally found the single table I was looking for, there was nothing else I could do but wait and watch the people around me.

In the hall I was in, there were huge bosses of huge companies and dozens of people like them. So I felt even more uncomfortable than I actually was. Still, I waited patiently and only about eighteen minutes after I took my seat, a man appeared on the stage at the front of the hall.

"Dear guests, thank you all for coming here!"

Normally, when such a thing is said, everyone in the hall would have applauded, but no one attempted to do so.

Everyone who was here were the people at the top of this world and it was not for them to applaud. And the man on the stage hardly cared about that.

"Today we are going to offer you about thirteen items, of course, as usual, from the least valuable to the most valuable, but you can be sure that there are some very special things today! Now, without waiting too long, let's start the auction!"

The man clapped his hands and then they brought forward a table covered with a cloth from the side of the stage so that everyone could easily see him.

The man walked over to the covered table and then began to explain.

"Our first item is something that, frankly, we're not sure of its value, so we decided to put it first. It refused all mana transfers no matter how hard we tried. We tried almost everything you can think of, but unfortunately, we couldn't get anything out of it. We researched it for a long time, but in the end, we realized that no matter what we did, we wouldn't get anything out of it. So we decided to offer it as an extra in case anyone is still interested, and here it is, a mysterious stone that no one knows what it is."

The man lifted the veil and revealed a piece of black stone, about the size of my fist, which looked quite shapeless but was instantly recognizable as special because of the teal-colored motifs on it and the clearly perceptible mana emanating from it.

I didn't think I would be very impressed as I had seen the stone many times before, but the mana emanating from it felt so mystical and mysterious that I was drawn to it.

"One hundred thousand wels to start!"

And so the bidding officially began, but a short silence fell over the hall.

Obviously, everyone was hesitant. Because this was an illegal place connected to the black market. So no one doubted that they had tried literally 'everything' they could try on that stone.

If even the black market couldn't figure out what it was, then was there really a need to think about it, despite what it meant?

"One hundred and ten thousand wels."

Still, out of curiosity, someone wanted to buy this stone.

"One hundred and twenty thousand wels."

Someone else followed the man who had just bid, and then, with herd psychology, a few more people started bidding for the stone. All the while I waited, wondering how much the stone would sell for.