Enigma of Sin

Kayn glanced down at list of items in front of him and started reading through them, but he was interrupted by the odd stare he was getting from the young butler. Kayn could tell that his eyes were shifting between the two girls sitting next to him and himself.

Maybe it was because Kayn hadn't entertained himself yet after spending money on them?

Knowing that this butler, though a slave, was quite loyal to his duties, he was probably required to update his superiors about the status of each VIP and how they were enjoying the services provided so far.

Kayn sighed internally before setting the list down and reaching one arm around each girl's shoulder and pulling them in closer to him, sending a message directly into their heads with mana.

("I have no intention to harm either one of you, I swear on my life. Just play along and everything will work out.")

However, out loud he spoke, "Ladies, go freshen up and prepare yourselves for me to celebrate with after I successfully outbid everyone else here!"

He then returned to glancing at the list. The two women looked at each other with skepticism, but the alcohol they had been drinking helped to ease their nerves. It was true that Kayn hadn't touched them over the last hour or so inappropriately and only asked them questions, but that didn't mean he didn't have other plans as they had three days here.

The two women then stood up to head to the wash room. Even though the one had just washed up recently, the butler could only assume that his guest wanted her thoroughly cleaned since she had soiled herself.

With the two ladies removed from the situation and Kayn's statement, he felt the gaze that he was receiving from the butler become far less scrutinizing. He also had a plan to make the facade he was playing even more convincing.

"Say, I was wondering if I could speak to one of the officials here. I became aware that one of my pets has a younger sister. I was wondering if I could purchase her as well, or better yet, I would love to just purchase both of them permanently. This one suits my tastes well and I can only imagine having both sisters with me at the same time!"

Kayn had to force the words out of his mouth because of how perverted they sounded, but this was one of the ways he could show his goodwill to Repha and begin to gain her trust. He didn't need them to like him or trust him fully, just enough to go along with his act.

"Ah! As you said I would need to grab an official as I don't think I would be able to answer your question satisfactorily. We will have to wait until the auction concludes for the day though as all of the officials that can answer your question will be busy while the auction is on-going." The butler replied with nervousness as he knew their VIPs never enjoyed waiting for what they wanted.

Kayn thought about pushing a bit more, but came up with a different excuse instead. "Fine, I want to pay attention to the auction without distractions anyway."

None of the specialty items were listed for sale on the first day and any unlisted items were only going to be sold starting at the end of day two, so Kayn swept through the listed items again to see if there was anything he wanted to buy.

Nothing in particular caught his eye unfortunately, but there were a few things he could probably use or give away to people like Kinzie and Rowen for their use. He decided to buy these items no matter the price as it would help to solidify his appearance of having deep pockets by spending money on whatever caught his eye.

With this, the officials may think about selling him the girl and her sister, but name an exorbitant price for their purchase, which Kayn would happily pay.

Kayn had been ignoring the first few auctions so far as they were nothing but trash in his eyes, but finally one of the items he was going to buy came up.

"These folks, are 20 ingots of adamalt metal! An extremely rare metal that boasts of high durability, but also flexibility and elasticity! A true rarity among metals! The lot will begin at 50 gold coins!"

The starting price was remarkably low in Kayn's eyes, but as this was the black-market and these were probably obtained through stealing or other means, it wasn't surprising. The auctioneer was correct that this metal was extremely rare, but the ingots could hardly be classified as that.

Rather than a standard size ingot, each one was the size of a small fist. However, it was more than enough for Tina to craft a new bow for Kinzie out of. Not to mention adamalt was known to be highly acceptable of enchantment magic, even buffing the intended effects by several fold.

In a realistic setting, Kayn could see buying these 20 ingots on a normal market at a price of 50 gold per bar. So, starting at 2.5 gold per bar was truly cheap. Kayn watched as the bids for the ingots rose at a rapid rate. Though, as it was a raw material, not very many people were interested and there were only a few people bidding against each other.

"500 gold coins!"

"550!"

"700!"

The bids were still steadily trickling in every few seconds, but all of the sudden the auctioneer announced something he hadn't done yet for any of the other items auctioned off.

"We have a bid of 10 platinum coins from a VIP!"

Quickly one of the people trying to get the metal bars chimed in, "1050 gold coins!"

"11 platinum coins from the VIP room!"

Kayn smirked while watching through the window as a man with a grimace under their half mask was looking between the VIP room windows, wondering which one was bidding against him.

The man then grit his teeth and raised his number again, "1250 gold coins!"

The auctioneer was pleased as any sales above market value earned him a large commission. "We have 1250 gold coins going once!"

"Going twice!"

"15 platinum coins from the VIP!"

"Going once!"

"Twice"

"Sold! To the VIP for 15 platinum coins!"

Secretly the auctioneer was extremely happy that the VIP room had continued bidding in platinum coins. Even though the standard rate was 100 gold to 1 platinum, it could fluctuate higher in a black market setting as having platinum was seen as a sign of success. With his commission being in platinum rather than gold, how could he not be pleased?

The young butler standing behind Kayn had an astonished look on his face, he couldn't believe that a person would spend that much money for a bunch of raw materials. Someone from a VIP booth no less.

Kayn himself though was smiling behind his veil as he couldn't wait to have Tina make Kinzie a new bow to gift to her along with the bracelet he still had from Charlotte.

Kayn had thousands upon thousands of platinum coins from his parents and Yvaris Earthborn, not to mention the extra money Charlotte had left in the ring for him to use as they were going to get it all back anyway. Kayn had asked her about the amount of money she gave him thinking it was far too much, but she just chucked and said for people at her stage, it was chump change.

He couldn't help but chuckle at that as her chump change was more than his family's entire wealth, at least what he received anyway. She even gave him a few trump cards in the case that something popped up that he absolutely had to buy or the slaves they were trying to purchase became far too expensive.

In the ring were five emerald coins. Just one of these emerald coins was priced at a market value of 1000 platinum coins. That was 100,000 gold coins! He didn't even know this currency existed until she told him what it was. Apparently most high-end trades for rare and unique materials were purchased with either emerald or platinum coins.

The surprises didn't stop there though as Charlotte told him that there was one more currency above the emerald coin, diamond coins. These were exchanged at a rate of 1000 emerald to one diamond coin.

Kayn almost had a heart attack when she said that she had denied an offer of 10 diamond coins for the set of equipment he was currently parading around as an assassin in. That was 1 billion gold coins! He honestly couldn't believe that she valued his Demonic Dragon Heart that much!

If he didn't offer that, would he have ever had the chance to obtain it?

Kayn thought he was rich currently, but only now realized compared to the real big shots, he was but a frog in a well. He was also never going to let the Garments of the Shadow Phoenix out of his sight.

The next few hours of the auction proceed with Kayn making several purchases with platinum coins. Sometimes he would only need a few, sometimes he spent a few dozen, it really just depended on the item and how many people were bidding.

One of his most expensive purchases for the day was the entire corpse of a space attributed C-rank rune beast. He had to spend almost 30 platinum coins on it, solely for the chance that it had a core stone he could study. If for it turned out that it didn't have a core stone, his money would have been a waste.

But not really as he was going to get everything back at the end of the auction anyway.

The women had exited the bath midway through the auction and Kayn had them get into the bed to wait for him. He didn't have to wait for long after the auction ended before he heard a knock on his door.

It was time to see if his big spending had paid off.