The Crown and the Muriel Red Light District

A lifesaver?

You've heard about the terrorist attack.

The eldest son of House Alben deserved to hear it.

It was none other than Bahat Alven himself who took charge of the case.

At first, I wasn't sure, so I pretended not to know.

"Saving lives, I don't know what you mean."

"Diane told me that His Excellency might come by to say hello to me, but after two days, I still hadn't seen him, so I went looking for him myself."

So that was it.

It was only natural for him to look for him himself.

"I found out later that you were in the infirmary."

"You came to see me."

"Yes. I was frustrated that I couldn't figure out what had happened to you, and it wasn't until two days ago that I heard from my father himself what your Excellency had done."

I shook my head.

I was comfortable with the fact that I hadn't played a role in the case.

"I didn't do anything at the time, I just...."

"That's okay, even if you didn't do anything."

He smiled, his eyes shining.

It reminded me of the look Benjamin used to give me when he admired me.

He's such a burden.

He's obviously a good man, but his enthusiasm and pressure weigh me down.

"I hope you feel free to take it," he said, "and consider it a gift from me in honor of our past relationship."

I decided to just take it for free.

I didn't think it would hurt anything.

"In that case, I'll take it."

"Haha, good thinking. I thought I'd be late to the auction and miss out on the early items, but it's a good thing I'm late because I get to meet His Excellency here."

After that, we watched the auction, chatting about this and that and our past together.

Not surprisingly, nothing came up that interested me.

"If it were something I was interested in, I would already know about it.

But I stayed focused on the auction, just in case.

If Carlos was going to buy me one, I wanted to make sure it was the right one.

I wish I was closer to the podium so I could read the item descriptions.

I was flipping through the auction items.

"This is an artifact recovered from the depths of the ocean floor. It's an artifact, but it's artistry and aesthetics are what brought us to this point. Here it is. A crown found on the ocean floor, the 'Ruler of the Sea'!"

The item on the podium was a black crown of unknown material.

When I saw it and heard the description, I didn't think much of it, but the message that popped up surprised me.

[The 'pure original sin' feels the power of 'charitable greed'].

"Greed!

The shard of greed I'd gotten from Lanox was currently enshrined in my bag.

But when I looked at the crown, I realized where the blood jewel had been embedded.

"It was a set with that crown.

I looked at the crown and saw that it was missing gems in several places, and it looked like it needed five gems in total.

"Auction starts at 100 million wills, the reserve price is 10 million wills."

Crazy.

I'm speechless at the horrific starting bid.

Even though Carlos said he'd buy it for me, I couldn't ask him to buy it for 100 million, not even for his dog's name.

But to my surprise, Carlos looked at me and spoke first.

"Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Uh, no, sir."

How did he know, was he so obvious?

He smirked and tapped the bid on his tablet.

"Your Excellency. Have you forgotten who I am, I'm Alven. The same Alven who is worth the top five of the Empire in terms of money alone."

He looked up at the dais, his eyes shining.

"I'm going to show you today what Alven's money talks about."

No, you don't have to do that....

"There is. I've got enough.'

It was a sin, if nothing else, and I was grateful to be able to pay for it.

Of course, the crown alone would not complete the page of greed, but the rest of the shards could be collected over time.

"Since we've come this far, we should also investigate the whereabouts of the scattered shards.

Since the shards were in the form of jewelry, it would be easier to get information than I thought.

It wouldn't be an ordinary gem as it contained the power of greed.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand! 250,000 wills! Is there more?"

While I was thinking, the price had risen exponentially.

The crown was imbued with the power of greed, and it seemed to stir people's appetites.

That's when Carlos calmly typed into his tablet.

"Huh!"

A sudden gasp of surprise escaped the moderator's mouth and he swallowed hard.

"Five hundred million wills! Five hundred million wills!"

I started to get a little scared of Carlos, who doubled up in a matter of seconds.

Even after calling 500 million, Carlos remained nonchalant, or rather, calm, as he checked the trends around him.

"I got 510 million!" he said.

"Boom."

Carlos clicked his tongue in disapproval, and he typed back into the tablet with an uncharacteristically stern expression.

"Six hundred million will, six hundred million, six hundred million!"

He said he was showing me the money, and he was showing me the money.

Even though it wasn't my money, I felt like I was getting rich quickly.

At that moment, an even crazier guy than Carlos appeared.

"One billion!"

I looked around the same invisible floor to find the person who had unknowingly typed in 1 billion, and Carlos was grinning from ear to ear.

"Funny. How dare...."

I don't think I've ever seen Carlos like that before.

I've always seen him as reserved and willing to go out of his way to help others, but he must have had some Albion pride.

Normally, I would have stopped him from bidding, but I couldn't help myself.

I don't care if it's a billion, as long as I can get the item related to the destruction of the world first.

Even if it's 10 billion, I'll take it as long as I have the money.

'By the way, I'm curious about the person who called for a billion. Was it a rally? Or someone in the Emperor's inner circle? No, I don't know who the greed was in the first place.'

Maybe it was just a rich sign that got carried away with greed.

I was eager to see who was bidding, but all the VIP seats on the second floor were cordoned off.

"1.5 billion will!"

I could see Carlos' cute face as he raised to 500 million when his opponent raised to 400 million.

Although the amount was not cute at all.

But the amount didn't stop there, it skyrocketed.

"Five billion wills. Five billion wills!"

The numbers were so big now that I lost my sense of reality.

It even made 100 or 200 million seem like nothing.

"Hmmm."

I furrowed my brow, not expecting such a large sum, even for Carlos.

It wasn't something he needed, and at best it was too expensive for a gift, but it was already beyond expensive.

Just when I thought I was going to have to pretend to be dry at this point, Carlos smiled at me.

"I see you can't resist me after all, and I apologize for the anxiety I've caused you."

"What?"

Before I could say anything, Carlos entered the bid amount again.

Watching from the sidelines, I felt a cold sweat run down my back.

"10 billion....

At the same time, the moderator shouted

"Ten billion! Ten billion will-!"

I could see the audience on the first floor roaring with excitement.

Partly because it was the highest bid of the day, but also because it jumped from 5 billion to 10 billion in one fell swoop seemed to get them excited.

I still don't get it.

If they were doing so well, why suddenly double the amount?

Noticing my gaze, Carlos, still smiling, looked down at the roaring first-floor audience and said.

"Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get a little nagging from my dad, but if I tell him I made a gift to His Excellency, he'll let it slide."

"Ten billion?"

"What? Aah, that's okay. Ten billion should be enough to make it up in a few months."

As it turns out, real nobles have a different idea of economics.

Even if it was more advanced than the ordinary medieval world due to magic, it was still the same world of riches and poverty.

Especially nobles who were rumored to be famous, such as the Alven family, 10 billion didn't seem to bother them.

'Heck, even the Academy's Alben Street invested hundreds of billions just to have their name on it.'

I don't know.

It was a gift I couldn't refuse since it was a shard of greed.

"Wow. Well, that's a lot of money well spent. Are you meeting us for dinner by any chance?"

"No, it's later at night."

"Great, let's grab a bite to eat."

He looked so unconcerned that I wondered if he had just spent 10 billion, but now I couldn't tell if he was actually unconcerned or just pretending to be.

'If you look at his breathing and the size of his pupils, he really doesn't seem to care....'

It was still hard to understand the creature.

* * *

"Today was the most fun I've had in a long time."

"Next time, I'll come to Albenga myself, brother."

"No, you don't have to, I'm never home anyway, my father is at the Matriarchate and Diane is at the Academy, so even if you did come you wouldn't see anyone anyway."

After they finished eating, Carlos waved and said goodbye.

It felt strange to see him, after all, he hadn't bought anything of his own at the auction.

The crown he'd bought me was still in my space-expansion bag, straight from the auction house.

'You never know.

I'd gotten a glimpse of the unexpected.

He wasn't a living character in the game to begin with, so it was both exciting and strange to meet him in person.

'In the end, I got a shard of greed for saving Carlos' life.

In Benjamin's case, the butterfly effect of my actions caused him to suffer misfortune, but it was interesting to realize that such a good influence could be created.

I will continue to save as many people as I can.

You never know when or where you'll be useful again.

I should probably get going.

I rented an inn for the night.

There I changed my clothes, wrapped my galakshur in cloth, and donned my mask.

If I'm going to Yinji, I need to keep my identity a secret.

I made my way to the tavern that led to Muriel's afterlife.

It was the only way to get to the "Red Light District," where the auction house was located.

I'd been to this place often in the game, so even without Morne's letter, I knew how to get there.

The red-light district wasn't exactly a high quality place, but I think I visited it about 10 times in the game and got into trouble eight or nine times.

'There's a good chance I'll get into trouble, but I can't ignore Morne's words.'

And it's about Dragon Rare.

Too good to give up.

The tavern was noisy.

Thousands of people were chatting and emptying their glasses, and I spotted a drunk lying dead in a remote corner.

I walked over to his table and slipped him a gold coin.

The drunk snatched it up as if he'd never been sober before, got up, and started walking away.

"I'm glad nothing has changed.

I was relieved at the game-like progression.

Of course, if it had, Morne would have written to let me know, but it's best to be familiar.

Following him, I entered the back door that led to the tavern's kitchen.

As we entered, I felt a sharp jolt of foreboding from above.

"Bloody Dan?"

I heard someone say.

He must have been mistaken by the mask.

"It's the Yinzi, they recognize the mask.

It didn't matter.

I wore it to hide my identity in the first place.

I didn't answer, just stood there.

Then a figure slithered down from the ceiling, checking me out.

"Hmph. Now I see you're the one who killed Dan, I always wondered, because he's dead and his mask is gone."

I didn't react to anything he said, just stood there, and then the tongue-in-cheek guy gestured to me.

I followed his gesture and paid the entrance fee.

"Be careful," he said, "there are quite a few people in here who want that mask."

As he moved out of the way, I continued to walk toward the far wall of the tavern's kitchen.

I bumped into it, and the wall passed through my body like a lie.

Puck!

"Crack!"

As soon as I passed through the wall, I saw a grimy gray street and a man falling to the ground with a knife.

There were countless people passing by, and none of them seemed to care that anyone was falling.

"This is the red-light district of Muriel.

A danger zone of crime and lawlessness, a place where no good could come of it.

And the location of today's true objective.