Almost immediately after the twelve million shard bid was called out there was a hurried knock on their door before Bellod let himself in. The auction master looked frantic, as though he didn’t have a second to lose.

  “Bellod?” Asher asked, looking away from the hesitant host on stage who didn’t seem to know what to do. “Is everything okay?”

  “No time for that, would you be willing to meet with the winning bidder as requested?” Bellod asked, huffing as if he’d just run a marathon. “This is incredibly unorthodox, but not entirely unheard of. Though they are supposed to run these requests by us before the start of the auction, not surprise us at the end! Would you be willing to meet with them?! You don’t have to buy anything they want to sell or agree to anything other than just a meeting!”

  “Yeah, that’s fine in that case,” Asher said, and Bellod let out a huge sigh of relief. Immediately, the auction master ran to their window, pulling out a blue handkerchief and waving it frantically. The moment he saw it, the host’s smile returned, and he beamed.

  “The seller has accepted the offer of a meeting, which puts the new winning bid at an astonishing twelve million shards!” the host shouted, whipping the crowd into a frenzy at the strange turn of events. Not only had someone actually shouted out a bid, which was a rule they seemed to take more seriously here in the main auction house compared to the others, but they had demanded a meeting as well. To these people, these events were probably like some sort of unexpected twist they encountered while watching their favorite soap opera.

  Nobody was willing to go higher than twelve million shards, which finally brought the heated auction to a close. Asher could only exchange numb stares with Samantha as the weight of what had just happened finally settled in.

  “Combined with the books, that’s thirteen million shards…” he muttered, thinking back to when he’d thought he was rich having a few hundred thousand shards sitting comfortably within his soul. “Wow…”

  “Technically, your total winnings today are thirteen million, two hundred and fifty two thousand shards,” Bellod said, letting himself sink down into one of the plush chairs as he fanned himself with his handkerchief. “The Knowledge element you brought in sold for sixty-two thousand shards, and the lesser demon corpse for one hundred and fifty thousand. After factoring in the three percent I receive as your appraiser, you’re walking away today with just over twelve million, eight hundred and fifty thousand shards.”

  “Close enough to thirteen,” Asher shrugged, doing some quick math. “Wow, that means you got what, somewhere around four hundred thousand shards for acting as our appraiser? Not a bad gig at all!”

  “Indeed,” Bellod chuckled, dabbing at his forehead before tucking away his handkerchief. “Though I do hope you realize auctions like this are quite few and far between. Your greater demon corpse is the most expensive item of the year by a longshot.”

  “I figured as much,” Asher said, wondering how exactly they dealt with what came next. Samantha still looked a bit shell-shocked at their new wealth, and Brian was busy pouring over the booklet, presumably hunting for ideas as to what they should spend their absurd fortune on. “So… we agreed to meet with the buyer. How does that work?”

  “Well, that’s largely up to you. Though I would recommend meeting with them sooner than later, as we technically cannot give you your winnings until you fulfil your part of the deal. If you’d like to meet with them now, I can run over there and see if they would be amicable to such a suggestion.”

  “Would you mind checking if they would be okay with holding off until tomorrow?” Asher asked, glancing at Brian as the twelve-year-old tried showing his sister a picture of an enchanted bow that formed its own arrows out of light, the starting bid for which just making Samantha turn even paler. “We’ve got plans for today, and I don’t want to put them on hold for anything.”

  “It is your winnings,” Bellod said, looking like he wanted to say more before catching himself. “I will inquire with your request. Do you have a sending stone? I forgot to mention this earlier, but seeing as we have agreed to an official partnership of appraisal, it would be wise for us to exchange runes.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea!” Pulling out his stone, Asher watched as Bellod pressed the two artifacts together for a few moments. Once they were separated, each had a brand-new rune engraved upon its face. Asher’s contacts had officially grown to three as Bellod’s rune was added beside Samantha’s and Donvath’s.

  “You are welcome to pick up the winnings from your other auctions before you head out,” Bellod said, giving them a deep bow and one last warm smile now that he’d collected himself once more. “I hope you enjoy whatever it is you have planned for the rest of the evening.”

  “So do I,” Asher laughed, waving Bellod out as he finally turned to his companions. “Alright, we’ve been in this stuffy box all afternoon. Brian, what are we doing next? We only have a few more hours before we need to bring you back.”

  “Can we grab something to eat? Nowhere fancy though, something fast, like a food stall. I don’t want to waste any more time sitting around!”

  “I think Samantha would appreciate a nice, cheap meal,” Asher said, unable to hide his grin as he poked Samantha’s cheek. His touch caused her to jump and snap out of whatever daydream she’d been thinking about, and she shook her head.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “Brian requested grabbing a quick bite at a food stand,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Are you okay? I know I’ve been teasing you a lot today, but if something is actually wrong, make sure you let me know.”

  “I’m fine,” Samantha said, taking a deep breath and clapping her hands over her cheeks a few times, forcing some color to return to them. “Sorry… It’s just, after finally getting used to the idea of us having a couple hundred thousand shards to our names, suddenly discovering you now have a couple million… it’s a lot to take in.”

  “I think you mean we have a couple million,” he corrected, blinking as she stood up and shook her head more fervently.

  “Nope, I’m not touching a single one of those shards you got from the greater demon. That was your kill, so those are your shards. And before you say anything,” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t forget you used the same argument earlier on me with the Knowledge element! If I get all those shards because I found it all on my own, then you get all these shards because you fought the greater demon all on your own. Fair’s fair.”

  “I thought you gave in a bit too easily about the Knowledge element,” he muttered. He thought about trying to argue, but one look at the determined glare in her eyes made him think better of it. With a sigh, he conceded the point. “Fine. But you’ll at least take half the winnings from the book collection and the lesser demon, right?”

  “I suppose that’s fair as well,” she said quietly, as if even the thought of suddenly having half a million shards tucked away within her soul was a bit much. Still, Asher knew it was a big step for her. To go from severe debt that she probably figured she’d be paying off most of her life, to such unimaginable wealth… He was impressed she was handling everything so well, if he were being honest.

  “Just remember, I’ll take any shards the two of you don’t want!” Brian added, grabbing their hands and tugging them out of their booth. “Now come on, let’s do something fun!”

  The rest of the evening was spent doing pretty much anything and everything Brian could think of. After not seeing her little brother for an entire week, Samantha didn’t complain about a single request, happily letting herself be led around the capital as they went from one thing to the next. Unsurprisingly, the capital city of the entire kingdom had no end to the number of activities available for its citizens to entertain themselves with, and Brian seemed to make it his mission to do each and every one of them in a single evening.

  After grabbing a few skewers of grilled meat from a food stall, they first hit up a large petting zoo. Complete with everything from an actual pegasus to a couple of baby mogrants, the three of them had a blast simply walking around and taking in the different animals.

  Once they’d had their fill of fluffy creatures, they checked out what was essentially this world’s version of a carnival set up near the edge of the capital. Asher was startled to discover that this world actually had their own version of miniature rollercoasters, albeit ones that were far more tame than anything one would find back on Earth. From what he could tell, they consisted of little more than railcars enchanted with skills similar to the moving boards they’d played around on back in Dormaul. Brian ended up not being a huge fan of the speeding carts, but he had a grand time trying his hand at many of the different games. Asher was surprised to discover he himself seemed to have a natural talent for many of the dexterity-based games, and his Personal Rift began filling quite rapidly with his various winnings. After shoving his fourth fake-sword into his rift, he ignored the glare from the woman manning the game booth as he leaned over to Samantha.

  “You know, I wasn’t nearly this good at these kinds of things back on my world,” he admitted while they watched Brian try and fail to throw knives through a hoop into a block of wood. “Honestly, I’d even go so far as to say I used to suck at them.”

  “Maybe it’s your Spatial element?” Samantha shrugged, shouting out a few words of encouragement as Brian grabbed a new set of knives and tried again. “You said the Stage of Honing was when a person’s element begins to subtly influence them, didn’t you? Most frequently the origin element? Wouldn’t it make sense for the Spatial element to make you more aware of your own movements and surroundings?”

  “That would explain how I managed to get so much better at attacking and dodging so quickly,” he muttered, clapping as Brian finally managed to lodge one of the knives in the hanging block of wood. “I’d always just chalked that up to Moxy being a good instructor, but this makes a lot more sense.”

  “Speaking of Moxy, I hope she’s not getting into any trouble,” Samantha said, smiling as Brian selected a novelty arrow with a tiny carved fist where the arrowhead should be as his prize. “What did she say she was doing today, anyway?”

  “She said she’d found a new sparring partner,” Asher shrugged as Brian ran back to them. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “Did you guys see that?” Brian asked, handing Asher his new arrow to shove into his rift. “Those knives were barely sharpened at all! I think he was cheating!”

  “Brian, it’s a carnival,” Asher said, laughing at the confused look on his face. “All of the people manning the games are cheating!”

  “What?! But you’ve been winning prizes all night!”

  “And making quite a number of enemies in the process,” Samantha muttered, peering over her shoulder at the handful of stall owners still staring daggers at his back every now and again.

  “It seems I just have a knack for carnival games,” Asher shrugged, ruffling Brian’s hair. “We only have a little bit more time before we need to drop you off again, and then we won’t see you for a whole week. Any last-minute items on the agenda?”

  “Oh, can we go out to the field and practice archery for a bit? I want to show you guys how much I’ve already improved!”

  “Brian, didn’t you spend most of your week away practicing archery?” Samantha pointed out.

  “Yeah?” he asked, looking confused. “I like archery!”

  “I think that sounds like a perfect way to end the evening,” Asher decided, taking Samantha’s hand before tugging her away from the loud carnival and toward a random dark alley, for what good it would do them. Bright emerald wings stuck out a good bit, but at least with Flight Burst, Samantha could get them far enough away from the ground that they wouldn’t be recognized. “Come on, you’re the one with the wings! Let’s fly!”

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