With the current arrangement, if someone wants a purely combat slave, they can get the Wizard, and if they want a beautiful woman for her looks alone, the young lady is going to be awaiting them.
Yes, this must be a cleverly designed order, one that additionally works in my favor like a charm, or even better.
「Now, let’s move on to the third bid. The slave being exhibited is the fifteen years old Dragonkin tribe female. The minimum bid is two hundred thousand Nars. Then, please start...」
「Two hundred thousand!」
I bid as soon as he says the word 「start」. The momentum is crucial here. Now that I am the one who placed the first bid, that’s going to give that much more of a psychological advantage over the other bidders.
「Two hundred and ten thousand!」
「Three hundred and ten thousand!」
The second bid increased by ten thousand Nars, so I decided to increase the amount by ten times. Therefore, I bid another one hundred thousand Nars.
「Three hundred and twenty thousand!」
「Four hundred and twenty thousand!」
「Four hundred and thirty thousand!」
「My bid is five hundred and thirty thousand!」
I increase it by another one hundred thousand Nars. It is necessary to show them my determination in bidding, regardless of the amount. After all, I can still keep going, because now that I have a platinum coin with me, any amount below one million Nars is not going to make me falter.
「Five hundred and forty thousand!
「Six hundred and forty thousand!」
One person seems to have already quit, which proves that my strategy is working, therefore I decided to continue pressing on while I still have the advantage and so I still increased my bid by another one hundred thousand Nars.
「Six hundred and forty thousand Nars. The current bid is six hundred and forty thousand Nars.」
「......!」
The man who bid five hundred and forty thousand Nars glares at me as if he wanted to kill me with his eyes alone, but I don’t pay him any mind and simply keep my best poker face on.
「Anyone else wants to bid...? If not... then six hundred and forty thousand Nars going once, six hundred and forty thousand Nars going twice.... And sold! The successful bid is six hundred and forty thousand Nars! Both the successful bidder and the exhibitor, can you please move to the room backstage to finalize the purchase?」
That, and I definitely would love to see those beautiful watermelons in front of my eyes some more.
I head to the meeting room. However, there is a strange feeling of intimidation when I am near Vesta. Or maybe the better word to use here would be 「pressure」? Yes, what I am feeling right now is definitely a type of pressure, so maybe I should tell Vesta to not walk behind me all the time?
While feeling like that, I go inside the meeting room, with Vesta standing next to me.
「There is a thousand Nars compensation when you successfully purchase a slave from the Guild that organized the auction, so I will deduct a thousand Nars from the bid amount of six hundred and forty thousand Nars. This time, the auction was a great success for me, so the total amount that you need to pay shall be four hundred forty seven thousand and one hundred twenty Nars.」
Ooooh, now would you look at that! Quite unexpectedly, my thirty percent discount ended up working!
I thought it would be inapplicable in the auction. Well, it isn’t this Slave Merchant who’s paying. I’m the one who’s paying, so t’s my win to have gotten the thirty percent discount skill to work and not having to pay the full price for Vesta’s purchase.
「Please and thank you.」
I finish the payment procedure fast before the Slave Merchant suddenly decides to change his mind after all. Right now, I don’t even have to bust out the platinum coin that I have acquired precisely for this occasion.
After the necessary changes to the Intelligence Cards have been made and a long explanation of the usual dealings with owning slaves, everything was now finished and Vesta was finally officially mine.
「Thank you very much for having me. There are still a lot of things that I do not know about, but I hope that you’ll take care of me nonetheless.」
After bidding our goodbyes to the Slave Merchant, both Vesta and I walk out of the room while the Slave Merchant stays in there.
「Does the Slave Merchant have something else to do in there?」
「Yes, he said he’s meeting with someone else shortly.」
Vesta mutters quietly so as to not bother the other people around us. It seems he still has some business to attend to. The auction is an opportunity for Slave Merchants to meet with one another, so maybe that is exactly what he’s doing? It’s not strange for acquaintances to exchange information after the auction ends, after all.
「Alright Vesta, first thing’s first, I want you to try to wear these.」
I take out Hardened Leather Boots from my Item Box and hand them to Vesta, because unsurprisingly for a freshly bought slave, she is barefoot. Even if they are combat slaves, it seems that Slave Merchants still won’t provide them with appropriate equipment.
「Okay, thank you very much. Are we going to be entering the Labyrinth right now?」
「No, we are not going to be doing that right now.」
「Then, what are these boots for?」
「For you to keep them on, obviously.」
Even though Vesta is quite big for a woman, it should be fine because of the magic incorporated in the equipment that makes the equipment grow or shrink depending on the person that tries to wear it.