Chop ooh'd and aah'd at the softness of the carpet as they entered, drawing displeased glances from the other guests.

Eik was pretty sure he had been to this specific auction house before but many of them were so similar to each other that it could be difficult to tell one apart from the others. Usually they had a few smaller auction halls designed for the sale of items belonging to a certain niche or theme, and then a much larger, main hall for general auctions or anything that would pull in more customers.

From the ceiling hung a majestic chandelier so large that it practically took up the entire space above the greeting floor, the glittering lights reflected by the countless crystals swinging from it creating a magical atmosphere in the room.

He had yet to see a ceiling decoration in any of the auction houses that topped the facsimile of a starry night sky that was displayed in the auction house Andihar had first brought Eik to, although the name of the place escaped him at the moment.

Hushed conversation reached Eik's ears as they passed the stairs leading up to the second floor where the VIP rooms were located. "Why are they wearing masks if they're just going to the commoners' floor?" said one person, barely trying to conceal their voice.

"I suppose it's one way to feel more important if you have nothing to show for your life," came the snickering comment from another.

"Come on, guys," said a third. "If you speak that loudly, you're going to ruin the evening them. He finally got the opportunity to bring his sickly, old grandfather to a place like this. Look at him admiring the first quality rug he's ever felt." The voice was dripping with spite.

Eik looked back, revealing that he had heard everything but didn't respond otherwise. The group of five youngsters, three guys and two girls, sent him a mix of smirks and glares, completely devoid of remorse. Judging by their ages, which he estimated to be somewhere in their late teens, it was perches on the shoulders of their wealthy parents that allowed them to have such a disgusting view of those less fortunate than themselves.

He turned back and continued toward the ground floor seats, tiny Living Manifestations already deployed in the folds of each of their horribly expensive outfits. Mentally linked to each of the summons through Eyes of the Beast as he was, he heard every word they exchanged after that.

Not even one more sentence was about Eik and his "sickly and old grandfather", Chop the Blade, legendary X-ranker, demonstrating that there had never been any interest in them. What was meant to hurt and put down a complete stranger had been nothing but a meaningless joke. They couldn't care less about the impact.

Annoying little shits.

Eik and Chop took their seats, soaking in the atmosphere while they waited for the show to begin. After more than fifteen minutes of incessant chatter, which he had tuned out with practiced ease, the conversation between the five youngsters upstairs, together in their own private VIP room, finally touched on something interesting.

"You know, if we leave early, we can probably make it in time for the party at Peq Peqillac's father's estate. I heard the daughter of one of the members of the board of directors of Gimleh Academy of Awakening is supposed to show up."

"Seriously? If I could get in there, my mother and father would definitely get off my fucking back. You reckon she's easy?"

"For a loser like you?" one of the girls snickered. "not a fucking chance!"

"Fuck you!" the loser laughed.

"I have to get as many parts as I can in this auction," another speaker, one of the guys, said with a sigh. "It's such a bother, but my dad said I could get anything I wanted if I get him what he needs."

"What does he want you to get?"

"Fuck if I know," he scoffed with that archetypal young master tone. "I'll just get a bit of everything and he'll let me do whatever I want."

A bit of everything, eh? Now that he thought about it, a bit of everything was exactly what Eik wanted too. Man, what an incredibly unfortunate coincidence that was. Whatever would they do about that?

"What are you giggling to yourself about so creepily?" Chop asked.

"Oh, nothing at all," he said. "I was just reminded of one of my many nicknames." This auction house used numbered paddles to distinguish the bidding customers and Eyes of the Beast had just informed Eik that this squad of absolute butt holes had paddle number 79. Eik had number 82.

"And what, pray tell, is that nickname?"

Eik's smirk was wide enough to nearly reach his ears on each side. "The Fabled Sovereign of Pettiness."

***

"And next up," the auctioneer shouted, voice amplified to comfortably reach even the back row where Eik and Chop sat. "we've got three bundles of strong, off-the-bone sinew harvested from an Orikaldean Twin Tail today! Starting bid at seventy thousand credits, please… Yes, number 79, eighty thousand credits! Thank you!"

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Eik raised his own paddle in response. "Aaand, we've got a bid of ninety thousands credits from number 82! Anybody else?"

"You need that sinew?" Chop asked.

Eik shrugged. "Nah, not really. If I remember correctly, Orikaldean Twin Tails are A-rank monsters, no? From what I've gathered, a potion like Potion of Mighty Strength will always need a monster part equal to the appropriate level of the imbiber. I highly doubt this is the key to the grade 6 potion."

"Then why are you bidding on it? You've been bidding on—and won—everything since this whole thing started."

Behind his mask, Eik grinned and pointed up at the VIP viewing platforms above their heads. "Because of number 79. I believe we encountered them when we entered, sickly, old grandfather."

"Aha, I see," Chop said and Eik could hear a smirk in his tone as well.

Eik, number 79, and a few other bidders one upped each other for a minute before everybody else finally backed down and let Eik take the sinew. "Thank you! Three bundles of freshly harvested sinew from an Orikaldean Twin Tail goes to number 82 for six hundred and twenty thousand credits!"

A groan of frustration echoed into the room from one of the booths above. Eik didn't need to see it through the Eyes of the Beast to recognize the voice at this point. He giggled.

"And now," the auctioneer announced as a couple of auction house employees rolled out the display case with the sinew just as two others rolled in a new one. In it was a jar with six eyes suspended in some yellow, semi liquid gel. "one of our rarer items tonight! The eyes of a Boulder Skitterer! All six of them intact!"

This got the crowd going and Eik saw many heads lean in in quiet discussion. "Those are interesting creatures," Chop told him. "They use some kind of weight manipulation magic to roll large boulders back to their nests as building materials, all done while they're perched on top of it in a balancing act."

"S-rankers?"

"Usually, yeah. Very fast."

"What do they look like?"

"Arachnids," came the magically translated answer, likely automatically going with the closest words Eik could comprehend. At this point, Eik was more than proficient at Nidafjeld Common thanks to the secondary effect of the translation skill he nearly always had on him.

As one's brain continued to receive and magically interpret a foreign language, the original words and pronunciation would gradually stick in the brain until the language had more or less been transferred naturally without any actual studies, almost like how a baby learned their mother tongue.

Naturally, if one wanted to understand why grammar and other such linguistic specificities were correct, one would have to study. And any words or concepts that didn't have a sufficiently closely related equivalent in the target language would also have to be learned the good ol' fashioned way.

Being about three years into his regular use of the translation magic which usually left the user fluent in a language encountered daily in about four years, give or take a year, Eik was more or less as good as he could get. Considering that all his work and even his conversations with his new family members were conducted in Nidafjeld Common, he had been learning fast. Bin, Ihasu, Andihar, Gul, and many others from the Alliance were also well on their way to fluency in English in turn.

He had even begun to talk to Ihasu and the kids in Danish, hoping that he could hear the real words come out of his kids' mouths one day.

"Six Boulder Skitterer eyes will start at nine hundred and fifty thousand credits! First bids?"

Eik immediately raised his paddle, the auctioneer stabbing an excited finger in his direction. "Number 82, thank you!" she said, only to look up into the private booths. "Number 33, one million and fif— Number 79, one million and one hundred thousand credits!"

Eik raised his paddle. "Number 82! One million and two hundred thousand credi—"

"Three million," Eik corrected, interrupting the auctioneer.

"Seriously?" Chop asked.

"No, I actually do want this if it's from an S-ranker."

"Number 82, thank you very much! The bid is at three million credits!"

A roar of teenage indignation silenced the room and a second later the guy who had been hoping to buy stuff for his father dropped down from the floor above, anger marring his face. He looked like Eik had killed his pet, not bought some stuff from under his nose. And it wasn't like he knew it had been just to fuck with him.

His four friends hopped down as well as the main boy scanned the rows, spotting Eik who still had his paddle number 82 raised high. "You!" he snarled, marching up to Eik, shoving away anybody in his way. "You've been taking everything I want all night! What the fuck is your problem, bro?"

"Sir, please," one of the staff tried, approaching to come between them, but the guy slapped his hand away.

"You shut the fuck up, servant! If you move a muscle, I will make sure neither my father nor any of his associates ever return to this rundown shack of an establishment!"

Indignation darkening his face, the staff member backed up a few steps, likely unable to escalate without a more senior employee present. "Please, sir…"

"I mean, look at this fucker!" the teenager shouted, stabbing a finger in Eik's face, "how can you even let him bid so wildly? He's practically a vagrant! Even if he worked five lifetimes, he would never be able to pay for even one of the items he's won tonight!" His friends snickered at his tirade. They probably took turns making asses of themselves in public, and now it was this little idiot's turn.

Guards who had been present in their private booth followed them down and flanked the young rich guy protectively.

Eik honestly hadn't expected it to go this far but he was having fun. Maybe a little too much fun. He stood up. "How about we calm down a bit, young man? We can solve this calmly and go our separate ways after the auction."

"Don't you fucking talk to me!" the young man howled and planted a fist in Eik's stomach. The S-ranker literally couldn't tell it apart from a soft caress.

He bent over hesitantly and clutched his stomach. "Oh, uuh, ow ow…?"

His friends and many others seemed to notice his rather robotic reaction, but the main boy himself was too agitated to give it any thought. "Back out of your purchases and I might consider letting you go with a few bruises. I'll even spare your grandfather a beating."

Eik looked around. The onlookers down here were clearly afraid to interfere with an angry young master and those above likely couldn't be bothered. More auction house staff arrived but it only made the guy madder.

"Nah, I'm keeping it all. If you go back up there and stop causing a scene, I will let you have the rest of the items, unless there's something I actually want," Eik offered rather generously.

Face reddening, the young master shouted right into Eik's face. "Are you trying to die, bro?" In the next moment, he wound up for a slap and delivered his palm right across Eik's cheek, tearing the mask clean off in the process.

To him and all others present time seemed to slow to a crawl as the mask fell away to reveal cold eyes already crackling with brilliant blue, the noble crown of the Azure King rising above his head.