Chapter 146: Bid Wisely
“Ugh, I swear I can still sll it.”
I sniffed and frowned.
It had been twenty minutes since I logged out of MacGuffin World, but the damn stench of filth still seed to cling to .
I knew it was just in my head.
Even so, the soggy sensation and vile odor etched into my brain refused to fade easily.
“There is no way data fragnts have a sll. There was no need to recreate sothing like that so thoroughly.”
Making a realistic virtual world was one thing, but faithfully reproducing the stench of sewage was clearly a matter of bad taste.
Was the Cleaner class assigned just so it could enjoy watching
suffer?
Who knew what an artificial superintelligence was thinking.
“…Let
just get on with it.”
The sll would fade eventually. I had things to do.
Back in my dorm room, I imdiately took out the item.
A necklace adorned with butterfly-wing ornants shimred with a clear blue glow.
I opened my laptop and typed in a familiar address.
[Blind Auction]
The top-tier auction house directly managed by MacGuffin.
In the ga, trading took just a few clicks, but in reality the process was a bit more involved.
[Identity verification complete]
[Welco, Cleaner Ryu Jinwoo.]
Now that I had done my cleaning, it let
in without complaint.
Efficient, at least. Which sohow made it more irritating.
‘Relic auctions should be this way.’
I moved the cursor and entered [Weekly Auction].
Up until now, I had only used junk markets and basic exchanges.
But today, I had an actual relic.
This was the stage where real weekly auctions took place.
[Weekly Auction]
[Proceeding with item registration.]
When I pressed the register button, text appeared and the air rippled softly.
With a low humming sound, light extended from the laptop screen.
A rectangular holographic space ford in midair.
[Please place the item inside the box for verification.]
I carefully slid the necklace into the holographic box.
It floated gently instead of falling.
Wiiiiing—
A precise scan followed.
MacGuffin’s main system was directly verifying whether the item existed, whether it was genuine, and whether it had defects.
This strict, reliable verification system was what made Blind Auction the industry leader.
No one dared attempt fraud here.
As I watched it like a microwave in operation, a voice echoed in my head.
[What are you doing?]
“This? Getting the item inspected. It has to be proven genuine to sell.”
[Sell it? You intend to hand over a relic of the tower to another?]
“It is mine now. What I do with it is my business. I cannot even use it anyway.”
They sold just fine in the ga. What was the problem now?
Ignoring the White Deer’s muttering about greed and displeasure, I waited for the scan to finish.
Ding!
[Verification complete: Authentic]
[Grade: Relic (Lower)]
[Would you like to list this item for auction?]
[Fee: 1,000 Credits]
One cleaning session earned 500 credits, so the fee was no issue.
Credits were essentially the universal currency across all MacGuffin systems.
More surprisingly, at Blind Auction, credits were real money.
Auctions were conducted in credits, and non-reporters had to purchase them with cash.
Of course, credits could also be converted back into money.
I planned to sell the necklace for credits and cash out if needed.
‘It is kind of amazing that sothing this anonymous is still legal.’
Probably because people at the very top used it too.
With that idle thought, I registered the item.
The necklace floating in the hologram scattered into particles of light and vanished.
It had not disappeared—it was transferred to a subspace warehouse managed by MacGuffin.
‘…Right?’
Watching such a valuable relic vanish right in front of
made anxiety spike.
I quickly checked the address bar again.
‘It is not “Blawind Auction” or sothing, right…?’
A phishing site with cleverly altered spelling crossed my mind.
In the ga, the system guaranteed everything.
In reality, personally sending an item made instinctive resistance unavoidable.
Thankfully, the spelling was correct.
The auction logo was official.
‘If a phishing site popped up, MacGuffin would crush it instantly anyway.’
I pushed aside the pointless worry and checked the screen.
A new icon had appeared in the center—
a simplified icon labeled [Azure Willow Butterfly Necklace].
[Please enter seller comnts.]
The final step.
The product description field blinked.
Normally, people wrote long descriptions here—“excellent condition,” relic background, acquisition details, and so on.
‘That is amateur stuff.’
I skipped it lightly.
Even as a lower-grade relic, it was still a relic.
It was on a completely different level from junk items found in low-tier gates or random hills.
And since it was a tower reward, its quality was unquestionably top-tier.
Anyone who mattered would already be salivating just from the physical inspection data provided by MacGuffin.
For those people, long-winded explanations only reduced appeal.
True luxury needs no explanation.
This was a case for aesthetic restraint.
‘Set the instant buy around here. Minimum bid at ten thousand.’
Click.
I coolly left the comnt field blank and hit confirm.
[Item successfully listed.]
[Starting bid: 10,000 Credits]
[Auction begins in 17 hours and 16 minutes.]
The auction would probably finish by next week at the latest.
Over the course of a week, bidders would cautiously raise the price.
It was a long wait—but thinking about the sweet payout at the end made it trivial.
Watching how high the price climbed would be fun in its own way.
“Good. That takes care of that.”
I finalized everything and closed the laptop.
The fishing line was cast; now it was a matter of how big a fish I would reel in.
Then I could think about what to do with the money.
Stretching, my stiff body crackled.
That raised a question.
‘So what now?’
But it was a aningless question.
What I needed to do was already decided.
‘Rest.’
I could not even rember the last ti I truly rested.
So much had happened in rapid succession.
Nothing ever ca easily.
Catching one’s breath was important too.
People needed to breathe properly to keep living.
‘And sothing always happens at the end of the sester anyway.’
In that sense, knowing the future might be a curse.
It kept
tense, always anticipating when events I knew would occur.
But today was fine.
‘Let us go.’
Today, I would rest.
No matter what.
***
Beep—beep!
“Ah! So close!”
“Break it! Break the left one first!”
“Hey! What are you doing?!”
Electronic sounds, noise, groans of frustration, bursts of cheers—
I found myself at an arcade. One far from Zero Academy.
Thirty minutes by high-speed tram after leaving campus.
The reason I chose a place so far away was simple.
I did not want to run into anyone I knew.
‘They would not co all the way out here. There is an arcade closer to the academy anyway.’
From experience, the main characters of Heroes Zero were magnets for trouble.
Stay near them and the chance of getting dragged into sothing was ninety-nine percent.
If I wanted rest, I needed distance.
This was a nest built to avoid incidents.
“Your parfait is ready.”
“Thank you.”
I received a parfait piled high with colorful fruit and whipped cream from the food counter.
I scooped up a generous spoonful and put it in my mouth.
An almost shocking sweetness spread across my tongue.
‘This is it.’
Sugar was exactly what I needed.
Peaceful.
Bright noise, rows of ga machines, and sweet dessert.
This was rest.
My mind and body, exhausted from battle and training, slowly lted away.
As I absentmindedly licked the spoon—
‘Hm?’
I felt a gaze.
Soone near the fighting ga machines was staring straight at .
A boy who looked about elentary-school age.
He wore a white taekwondo uniform with a neatly tied yellow belt.
He had stopped watching the ga and was focused on .
‘What?’
Was he just fascinated by the parfait?
I tried to ignore it, but his interest was strangely persistent.
And oddly… he felt familiar.
Where had I seen him before?
No, it was my first ti seeing him—so why did he feel familiar?
As I searched my mory, the boy approached, eyes wide.
His gaze was fixed below my face, on the necklace around my neck.
“Uh!”
“Uh?”
“That necklace, hyung.”
He pointed at my chest.
“Where did you get it?”
“This?”
I fiddled with the necklace peeking out from my clothes.
A handmade piece woven with unicorn hair.
Crude enough to stand out.
“It was a gift.”
“I have one too! My sister made it!”
Before I could ask which sister, he smiled brightly and rolled up his sleeve.
“This one! Cool, right?”
On his thin wrist was a bracelet of the sa material and design as mine.
The distinctive knot made from braided unicorn hair.
Not a common item.
“…Huh?”
I narrowed my eyes and studied his face.
Light brown hair with a hint of orange, round eyes with slightly upturned corners, hazelnut-colored irises.
‘Do Haru?’
He looked like her.
Like a gender-swapped, shrunken version.
“What is your na?”
“? I am Saul!”
“Saul? What Saul?”
“Do Saul!”
Do Saul.
‘That settles it.’
The Do surna was not common.
And I vaguely rembered Do Haru saying her ho was not far from the academy.
Still—of all places.
“Is your sister’s na… Haru?”
“Huh? You know my sister? I have two sisters! Haru noona and Ildeul noona! Look, if you touch the bracelet here, it glows.”
“……”
I was montarily speechless.
Haru, Ildeul, Sahru—
What kind of blunt, tragic naming sense was that?
What ca next, Naul?
As I stared at Do Saul rambling in typical child fashion—
“Hey, Do Saul. I told you to co straight ho after school.”
Soone approached from a distance.
A school-uniford girl, probably middle school age.
She frowned, clearly displeased with the arcade noise.
She grabbed Do Saul’s shoulder and bowed to .
“I am sorry. My brother is being rude—oh?”
Her eyes widened slightly as she looked between my face and necklace.
Her sharp eyes stood out, but overall her features were identical to Do Haru’s.
The na tag on her chest sealed it.
[Do Ildeul]
It really was her.
Haru. Ildeul. Sahru.
“…Do Haru’s sisters?”
I had deliberately distanced myself from all the main characters for a proper rest.
But running into their family instead?
‘This feels bad.’
An image flashed through my mind—
the calm before a storm.
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