The silence that followed Leonhardt's final offer wasn't the expectant kind that marked the end of a bid—it was sothing else entirely.
A strain in the air, stretched tight by disbelief, broken decorum, and barely suppressed contempt. It lingered not because of awe, but because the room couldn't quite accept what had just happened.
Soone had thrown the weight of a dungeon lord's authority into the middle of a sacred transaction—and shattered it like glass.
Murmurs rippled through the seated shadows.
"Unacceptable…"
"Unorthodox."
"That was no bid. That was a command."
"Has the auction lost all dignity?"
Each voice ca low, concealed behind veils or masks, but no attempt was made to truly hide the bitterness. Only the fear.
Only the knowledge that challenging him was not sothing one survived.
The plague-masked hostess didn't speak right away. Her gloved hand moved slowly, trailing along the edge of her pedestal, fingers dragging across a ring of etched runes as though waiting for soone—anyone—to say more.
No one did.
Zafira leaned slightly forward in her seat, her wings twitching once behind her back. Her gaze fixed on the crowd, one blink at a ti. Calm. Predatory.
When she finally straightened, her voice was calm. Cool. But beneath it, a serrated edge had begun to show.
"The contract has been sealed. Our laws have not been broken—rely… interpreted."
Another pause.
"A new asset is claid."
The runes flared violet.
Leonhardt did not blink. He did not bow. He simply watched as two robed attendants descended the steps, their movents chanical, faceless—like the process itself had no soul left to mar.
They approached the girl with her limbs still bound, her legs dragging behind her, arms trembling under the weight of the cursed sigils etched into her skin.
They did not show her kindness.
Only efficiency.
Unshackled, she collapsed forward, knees hitting the floor with a dull thud that echoed through the hush. She did not cry out. Her body barely responded at all. And yet, even broken and shackled by ages of tornt.
Her eyes...
The only thing left untouched—lifted slowly and locked on the man seated just beyond the velvet stairs.
She knew him.
No, maybe she knew his atmosphere, rather than the man himself.
Or thought she did.
She rembered him not from stories, not from whispers, but from the cold familiarity of the magic that had once gripped her mind and twisted it into loyalty.
Erina's throat beca sore, tight... as if sothing was lodged inside.
She couldn't breathe properly, not when she saw that girl's face—the dull gleam of her corrupted soul. The trembling halo of what should have been divine magic was now tainted and twisted by black chains of obedience and fractured will.
She didn't look like Dia. But she felt like Dia.
Like soone who had once served the light—and now only knew the dark.
Leonhardt stepped forward at last.
'This girl is interesting... she slls... different.'
His boots clicked on the obsidian stairwell, slow, steady, deliberate. His coat fluttered behind him like a banner in a storm, his shadow long and coiling down to where the girl now knelt, motionless but not entirely defeated.
He stopped in front of her.
Not above. Not quite beside.
Just close enough to watch her inhale with effort and speak.
"…You," she rasped.
The word was barely more than a whisper—but it was enough.
Her lips cracked with the effort. Her body tensed like a hound expecting the whip.
"I rember…"
Leonhardt's face didn't move. No surprise, no delight. Only calculation. Reflection. The faintest flicker of sothing else, sothing deep in the chest that didn't have a na. It vanished before it could settle.
"We have never t, young girl... what can you do?"
That's when he noticed it...
The reason for his feeling of familiarity and the desire to have this girl.
Small translucent wings fluttered weakly behind her, damaged and limp, but they were wings, a fairy's wings!
[Oh... I see, she's also a fairy.]
'Hmm?' That's when the mories of the archmage and his previous form surfaced, and the truth that he didn't begin as a monster but a small... fairy-like creature.
(She seems to have more human blood, but I think she will be useful!)
The murmurs died, but the silence thickened. Not the kind that soothed, but the type that pressed against your lungs like a damp cloth. The kind that knew sothing unclean had just taken root and chose to watch it grow. Power lingered in the air—not just Leonhardt's—but the cold magic stitched into the girl's skin.
Even Zafira didn't speak.
Not yet.
Leonhardt stepped forward, the sound of his boots slicing the quiet. One after another, they echoed like strikes on a temple bell. Stone answered stone, and the shadows bent forward to listen. His coat dragged behind him, a flutter of velvet shadows. He stopped at the bottom stair, where the runes barely reached.
Where the girl knelt, trembling.
She didn't move.
Not when the attendants left her behind like discarded at. Not when the magic faded and her chains loosened. She barely breathed. Not out of fear, but absence. Like sothing essential inside her had long been pulled out and never returned.
Leonhardt's gaze lowered.
She wasn't anything like what he'd expected. Thin, almost elven, but too soft in the jaw, big eyes, but with a human look. Wings—faintly visible now under the flickering light, folded behind her like torn silk. They quivered weakly as his eyes narrowed.
Fairy.
The mont the thought passed, Ifrit whispered.
[Yes… she's Fae. Or was.]
'No, not quite,' he thought back. 'She slls wrong. Like .'
That scent—familiar and twisted. The way broken magic and half-blood mana clung to her skin like ash. Her face lifted. Just barely. Her eyes t his.
And for a mont, it was like looking into a cracked mirror.
"…You," she whispered, lips dry and cracked. Her voice was breath and bruise. It wasn't a plea. It was recognition. A mory without shape.
"Please... don't throw away."
Leonhardt didn't blink.
Didn't speak.
He crouched.
Fingers steepled against his knees as his eyes drank her in.
The way her mana curled inwards. Her posture was like prey that forgot how to flee. A broken creature pretending to breathe.
She didn't look like Dia.
But she felt like her.
The weight of divine power once carried, now devoured. The bitter heat of obedience stamped into sothing holy. Erina stirred behind him, her throat tight. The girl's aura was wrong, twisted. But not foreign.
It was familiar.
Too familiar.
'What's going on,' Erina thought, 'will he hurt her?'
Leonhardt's voice finally broke through the silence.
"What's your na?"
She opened her mouth.
Nothing ca.
She blinked.
Her brows trembled.
She didn't know. Or it had been taken. Forgotten, perhaps—but not by accident.
Leonhardt exhaled softly.
Not pity.
Just a decision.
"Then I'll give you one."
He rose.
The room seed to breathe again, slightly. Like the rune-choked walls waited for the new word, the new order.
"Mira."
One na.
Three syllables.
Softly spoken.
But it felt like a chain settling around her neck. A na given not with affection, but ownership.
Zafira remained silent.
But her eyes flicked between them. Jealousy. Interest. Caution. All three at once.
Erina?
She couldn't look away, with a strange feeling brewing in her chest
And in that quiet...
Mira bowed her head.
Leonhardt didn't reach for her.
Instead, he motioned with two fingers. Silent. Cold.
The attendants lifted Mira by her arms, her limbs light as silk, her bare feet dragging over the velvet carpet like sothing already dead. One tried to wrap a cloth around her shoulders—more for appearance than warmth. The other avoided her eyes entirely.
"Make sure she's comfortable, and remove those chains." He finally spoke as the girl vanished into the side room.
Erina gazed up at him. "L-Leon..."
"Go with her, Erina... do as you please."
"Nn!"
He watched in silence as the two entered the room beside them, but the crowd started to grow rowdy and excited again as Leonhardt's attention returned to the stage.
The plague-masked hostess gestured once.
A side gate opened near the edge of the auction stage, leading to the red-draped hallway reserved for high-value patrons. The kind with old money, deeper power, or noble blood.
The second auction was about to begin.
The crowd hadn't settled.
Their voices rose now with false calm, like nobles sipping poison behind gilded fans. Eyes darted beneath masks. A few custors whispered to each other, weighing bids, debts, and the dangerous precedent that had just been set.
The auction stage pulsed again with magic.
Light shimred across the floor, drawing attention as the hostess stepped back onto the central dais. Her gloved fingers traced along a scroll suspended in midair, ticking nas, prices, and histories into a soft purple light.
"Let us proceed," she intoned. "Our second offering—Lot 24. A rare variant, hybrid type. Elven descent... infused with moonlight sorcery. Magic potential: unstable, but potent."
Leonhardt didn't blink.
A subtle warmth pressed into his side.
Zafira had moved closer. Her thigh touched his, smooth skin brushing leather. Her long fingers curled lightly over the back of his hand, not holding it, just resting, just there. Her golden eyes didn't et his directly.
"She's thin," Zafira said, voice low, sweet. "Not nearly as interesting as the last one."
Leonhardt said nothing.
She smiled tighter.
"Probably has no idea how to please a man either. Moonlight types are so... ethereal. No edge."
Her tail slid slowly over his boot, curling there.
Leonhardt turned his head slightly. Just enough to glance at her, then back at the stage.
"You're jealous."
Zafira stiffened. Just a flicker, then turned to him with a shocked face.
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