Chapter 77
The clerk, his face deathly pale, ran out of the VIP room.
Before long, I saw him whispering to the host, who was in the middle of auctioning off another item on the stage below.
Even the host, who had started out looking annoyed, widened his eyes the moment he heard the clerk's words.
“Hold on, just a moment! Something urgent has come up, so we'll be temporarily suspending the auction. We'll resume shortly, so please wait a little longer!”
The host hurried down from the stage with the clerk leading the way.
And in less than a minute, he was out of breath as he knocked on the door of the VIP room where Dean Raymond and I were.
“Huff, huff... P-pardon the intrusion!”
The host asked anxiously, breathing hard.
“I-is it true that you're putting up for auction a magical tome explaining how to use natural mana?!”
“Yeah, well...”
“I-if it isn't too much trouble, could I take a quick look at the contents...”
“Ahem! Hey!”
Dean Raymond cut the host off and raised his voice.
“And now you're saying you want to casually peek at a mage's signature spell, and what's more, the one and only spell of its kind in the magical world?!”
“S-sorry, Dean Raymond! But this is such a serious matter... We have to verify at least the minimum level of authenticity...”
The host looked at me with a tearful face.
“Dean, let him look.”
I didn't particularly want to argue, so I just shrugged.
“It's not like I'm keeping it anyway.”
“B-but, Student Lunaris!”
“You can look at the first page or so. That should be enough, right?”
Well, even if he saw the beginning, it wasn't like he could copy it.
No, even if he read the whole thing to the end, it would probably still be... difficult.
I hadn't exactly written it with the reader in mind.
With my permission, the host swallowed hard and took an appraisal monocle out of his pocket.
Then, with trembling hands, he activated the wizard board.
“...!”
Mana formulas and spells made of mana rose up in the air.
The host's eyes raced wildly across the text.
-Crack!
With a tiny snapping sound, a crack ran across the lens.
The appraisal tool couldn't withstand the density of mana contained in the theory within the wizard board.
“Oh, ooh... ooooh!!”
The host cried out in rapture, not even realizing that his glasses had broken.
“Th-this is... real... it's real...!”
“How long are you staring at one page?!”
Dean Raymond rebuked him in disbelief, but the host was already beside himself.
“So? This can be submitted for auction, right?”
“Absolutely! This is the best thing we've handled at this auction today... no, among the items we've dealt with in this auction house over the past few months!”
The host groped at the wizard board with trembling hands and shouted.
“Could we add this as a special auction item at the end of today's auction? As for the starting price... I wouldn't even dare to set one.”
“...At the end?”
I had been planning to go right back once I got hold of the Book of the Microcosm.
And while I was at it... I wanted to see that guy's face, too.
I casually shifted my gaze past the glass and down toward the stage.
Bidder No. 145 was still in his seat.
As if he had nothing to hide.
“...Well, do whatever you want.”
Since it had come to this, I might as well watch what that guy was doing as if I were reading a novel.
“Thank you! I'll get everything ready right away!”
The host handed the wizard board off to the clerk and kept bowing to me over and over.
“You, carry this board carefully. It's worth more than your own life, so handle it with the utmost care!”
“Y-yes, sir...!”
...That thing isn't so amazing that he needs to make such a fuss, though.
*
The auction house was buzzing with energy.
The atmosphere had heated up because the bidding war over the very first item was already fierce.
Perhaps because of that, even the later items were selling for far higher prices than the dean had predicted, a strange phenomenon occurred.
The Book of the Microcosm, the very item I and the dean were after, was no different.
“Phew! That was really close.”
Dean Raymond let out a rough sigh and shook his head.
“The price shot up to 300 gold coins. I almost couldn't pay for it myself. Here, take it, Student Lunaris.”
“Thank you, Dean Raymond.”
I took the old tome handed to me by the dean and hugged it to my chest.
With this, my comfortable bedroom—no, my pocket dimension—was secured.
“This is all because Student Lunaris whipped the auction house into a frenzy from the very start.”
Dean Raymond clicked his tongue and glanced sidelong at the case on the table that held Nebula's Egg.
“What exactly is that egg that had you so eager to buy it?”
“Hmm—well.”
I tapped the case and tossed out a casual joke.
“Wouldn't it taste good if we made egg tarts out of it?”
“...That would be the world's most expensive egg tart.”
Dean Raymond burst out laughing in disbelief.
“Still, that overheated atmosphere will probably work in Lunaris's favor. I can't even begin to guess how much that wizard board you put up for auction will sell for.”
“Come on, it's just a beginner's book that scribbles down only the absolute basics. At best, isn't it about as good as this book?”
I casually opened the ‘Book of the Microcosm’ I had been handed, eager to check the spatial magic formulas inside.
Without much thought, I checked the contents of the book.
“...?”
I frowned at once.
“What is this... what is this thing?”
“Hmm? What's the problem?”
“What on earth is this writing? Are worms crawling across the page?”
A whole page packed with squiggly, metaphysical symbols.
Leaving readability aside, I couldn't make out what it said at all.
“What else would it be? It's obviously Ancient Language.”
“No... how am I supposed to read this?”
“It's an ancient spellbook, so of course it's written in Ancient Language. Did you think it would be a translated version?”
Ah, I'm screwed.
This is an unexpected variable.
“By the way, do you know?”
As I stood there with my mouth open, blinking blankly, the dean grinned mischievously and added.
“There's actually an Ancient Language interpretation class among the general education courses at our Eltérion Academy! Ohohoho!”
“...Hah.”
A sigh slipped out before I knew it.
I'm trying to build a pocket dimension so I can skip class, but the fact that I have to take a class in order to build that pocket dimension is really depressing.
Guess I'll have to enroll in Ancient Language as an elective next semester.
“All right! Thank you for waiting!”
At that moment, the host on the stage raised his voice to the top of his lungs.
“We will now proceed with today's special auction as the final item!”
In the somewhat hectic atmosphere, the clerk who had been serving us until just now came out holding the wizard board, his face tense with nerves.
“It's an item that wasn't in the catalog we provided in advance, but... I can guarantee it's something everyone here will want!”
The host went on with an intentionally solemn expression.
“There is one mage who has been the hottest topic in the Magic Tower this year, isn't there? The one whose promotion to archmage at the youngest age in history is all but guaranteed! And the one and only user of natural mana! Lunaris Evermoon!”
When the host put my name in his mouth, the people below the stage began to stir again.
He didn't miss the opening and smoothly launched into his spiel.
“Many mages wanted to learn magic from him! But unfortunately, Lunaris politely declined, saying he too was still only a student with much left to learn!”
“...?”
When had I ever said something like that?
More importantly, the person the host was introducing... that was me, right?
“Ooh~ As expected of the greatest mage of the next generation, isn't his character perfect as well?”
“Pfft!”
At the host's flashy rhetoric(?), Dean Raymond burst out laughing.
Wow... that old guy is really good at talking. He's probably fantastic at selling things.
“But! After our auction house begged and pleaded! In the end! At long last!! we managed to get our hands on it.”
The host pointed at the wizard board in the clerk's hands with a sharp gesture.
“This is the basic spellbook personally written by Lunaris himself, containing the method for using natural mana!”
“...?!”
“????”
“?!??!”
For a moment, silence fell over the stage.
And exactly three seconds later.
“W-what did you say?!”
“What ridiculous nonsense!”
“N-natural mana... s-spellbook...!”
Cries of shock burst out from all directions.
At the astounded reactions of the assembled mages, a broad grin spread across the host's face.
“The value of this spellbook! I think everyone here knows it without me having to explain at length!”
The host took the wizard board from the clerk and held it high above his head, shouting.
“It's the first publication of the youngest archmage in imperial history! His debut work! Not only is it invaluable for research, but as a collector's item it's worth an incredible amount too~ I me...”
“Wait! How can you prove that's the original?”
A doubtful voice rang out from somewhere.
“Excellent question!”
As if he'd been waiting for that, the host pulled something from his pocket.
“Please take a look at this artifact! A state-of-the-art appraisal tool that roughly measures an item's potential value based on various kinds of information.”
What he was holding up was a monocle with its lens completely smashed.
“The moment this artifact was pointed at the spellbook... as you can see, the lens shattered!”
“...!”
“That's right! Unmeasurable! Proof that its value exceeded the machine's limits!”
The atmosphere heated up once more.
“If anyone can bring proof that this spellbook is fake, I will personally refund 200% of the winning bid out of my own pocket! I'll also give you a certificate of guarantee!”
The host really poured fuel on the fire here.
With a refund guarantee in place, there really was no room for doubt.
“All right! Then we'll start the auction immediately! The starting price is...”
“F-five hundred gold coins!”
“Yes, 500 gold coins! We'll begin from there!”
Someone's desperate shout became the starting price, just like that.
There's no way that's the combined value of Nebula's Egg and the Book of the Microcosm.
“What kind of thief are you! You're trying to take that for just 500 gold coins? 600 gold coins!”
The problem was that this was only the beginning.