The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 600: It is important to spend an amount that will make my husband proud

Chapter 600: It is important to spend an amount that will make my husband proud

The sound of exclamation was not just coming from our booth, but also several others. Not all of them, but I heard at least one sharp gasp followed by murmurs from another booth. It was to the extent that I could hear them, despite the booth designed to muffle sound. Even Zarfa, who hardly got excited about any of the items before, widened her eyes in shock.

That showed how much this relic was something special. But...

I leaned down and asked Zarfa in a whisper. "What’s that?"

"Ah, so..."

Through Zarfa’s explanation, the bead seemed to be a relic connected to the human Goddess. Jin had found one in a ruin somewhere in the west during the rest period before they started their adventure in that blasphemous kingdom. Later, the Templars showed them another one and said that it might help them locate the Goddess.

How, you ask? Who knows. They just felt the Goddess’ power in the relic, and felt like if they gathered more of the beads, they could use the power as a beacon to trace where the Goddess was...or something like that.

"I see..." I nodded, staring at the beads with more interest right now. I didn’t care if it was merely a relic connected to the Goddess, but if we could use it to find Her? That was another story. "Hmm...but why is it being auctioned here in the open?"

I mean...wasn’t this something important? I would have thought whoever owned the bead would go to the church or try to sell it through the black market. Hell, they should have tried reaching out to the Hero if it was something connected to the Goddess, seeing that they were in this kingdom anyway.

Oh, perhaps they didn’t think the Hero would pay much?

"Maybe they have no idea what it is?" Zarfa shrugged. "But it’s still a relic, so it’ll still fetch a high price even if the use is unknown."

"Hearing the reaction from other booths though..."

We glanced out of our viewing windows, before exchanging glances with the others. They also looked rather tense, especially Jin and Fatia.

"It means they knew what it is," Fatia muttered in a low voice. "Or at least its connection to the Goddess."

"Hmm...a bit suspicious, isn’t it?"

We looked at each other as aggressive bids started to pour out from the other booths. Perhaps because it was the last item, they didn’t have to conserve their fund anymore, and the price soared up to the hundreds almost right away. Jin, who never asked to bid for anything, bit his lips nervously and glanced at me.

"Do we bid?"

Was that a question? I turned toward Zarfa and snapped my fingers. "Go wild."

"Yahoo!"

And thus the final fight began. Well, despite shouting loudly inside our booth, Zarfa was bidding carefully as usual. No sudden jump while raising the bid, and waited until the last call as if we needed to think about spending more. Truthfully, we could really go up to a billion since I knew there was at least that much money inside the account. Knowing it might be a clue to finding the Goddess made pouring the money easier.

After all, what was the end of finding the Goddess?

Keeping my son by my side.

Yep. If it was for Shwa, I didn’t care how much money I had to pour. If it was for Shwa, none of it was a waste.

Meanwhile, the bidders had dwindled a little bit. At first, everyone jumped to own the relic. According to Fatia, there were three kinds of people bidding for the bead. Some might want it as a collector--or to be sold to a collector. Some might want to sell it to the church, or use it as leverage for a special status at the church. And some, just like us, might know exactly what it was.

In the end, as the price kept climbing to three hundred million, only three remained. I wondered if each was a representative of the types Fatia told me earlier. Among the other two, however, one was exceptionally aggressive, calling out to raise the bid right away every time we and the other one-upped the bid. The increase was big at the start, but it came to only another one to five million each time in the end.

"What are they doing? That just looks desperate," Zarfa shook her head.

"Maybe they are desperate," I shrugged.

Expression wise though, we were probably more desperate. But we had enough money to be confident that we would get it in the end.

"Who are they anyway?"

"I think it’s the one making a commotion in front of our booth," Fatia said. "They sound the same."

"Ooh~ what fate, huh?"

"Such a poor soul..."

What were these girls saying while using other’s money?

I chuckled while they continued the bidding war, and looked at the item in my hand. It was the ’tree decoration’ I won earlier, a statuette around twenty centimeters tall. It was even prettier up close, and the jewels still shone brightly from within even after going through plundering.

"It’s like that tree in the river," Ignis commented as I stroked the tree.

It was hard, like metal, but it didn’t have that cold property. In fact, this white material felt so familiar. My left arm tingled slightly then, and a soft exclaim came out of my mouth. "Ah..." I ran my finger along the natural texture of the bark. "It is made of Alveitya."

The spear in my arm hummed in a muted excitement. It must have been a strange feeling to meet another item made of the same source, but the source itself was no more.

Sighing lightly, I stroked the branches of the tree. While the statuette itself was flat, the details on the branches were excellent. They were beautifully placed and some branches were fused with the others, as if making an endless connection from the bottom to the top. If I lay it down, the connected branches even looked like a labyrinth of some sort.

Hmm? Wait...

This pattern felt...familiar?

"Five hundred!"

Oh, that point already? It seemed like only us and that noble house remained. I was honestly impressed that they could still keep it up after seemingly stumbling during the three-hundred range earlier.

Zarfa looked at me for permission, and I nodded.

"Five hundred and ten!"

I stored the tree inside my ring, and waited patiently as the auctioneer called for another bid. It was obvious that he made the count longer and slower, but oh, well...in the end, no one could go past half a billion.

"Yahooo!" Zarfa threw her arms up and turned around to face me, making a curtsy. "Thank you, Mister Sponsor."

"Thank you, Mister Sponsor, Sir!" naturally, the mischievous kids Aina and Ian followed suit, before giggling as I pressed my finger in front of my lips and told them to quiet down.

Thankfully, the others expressed their gratitude more calmly, because the staff came at that moment to give me the final bill and paid.

At first, I wondered why they did not come to ask for payment each time we won the bid, but it seemed to be a privilege for the premium booth. Or rather, it was something that only a premium booth owner could do, since our medallion was registered at the start. Even if we left the place before paying, the debt would be registered to the medallion.

Hmm...I wondered if that meant we could trace where the money used to pay for the tree statuette went...

"The receipt, Sir," the staff politely handed me a card with all of our purchases and Zarfa whistled.

"Hmm...not bad," I nodded. It did not touch a billion at all, but spending seven hundred million in a night was not too shabby. "Do you think he’ll be proud?"

"His Lordship will be elated, Sir," Heraz nodded.

Another staff took my medallion with two hands and placed it on the payment device which got me truly interested. Very cashless. Very nice and modern.

"Wow..." Zarfa laughed when the payment was proceeded seamlessly. "Without even blinking."

"He did say I could have whatever," I shrugged.

"Such a dream husband," she sighed and giggled before whispering in my ear. "If he can provide that much money on this side, how much does he have on the other side?"

I thought about it for a second, but I hadn’t seen his big book for more than a year, so...

"They showed it to me once, but my head hurt."

"Oof--is this what we call suffering from success? The gold is blinding, Sire!"

We laughed quietly and shrugged. It was easy to spend money if it wasn’t ours. Kind of funny too, because I didn’t think I would be able to spend Natha’s money willy-nilly like that before. Was it because we were married now? Because legally, his money was my money too?

How wonderful.

"It is done, Sir," the staff returned the medallion. "You may check with the bank to make sure we take the right amount of money."

"Heraz."

"By your command."

I looked at the medallion briefly, wondering how much was left in there. But then, I recalled that Natha said I could just ask more to Heraz if I needed it, so...

Eh--I didn’t think we’d need this medallion again. More likely, we would handle things with untraceable money from now on.

"Here is the last item, Sir."

Ah, right--the bead I didn’t know how to use. I offered the bead to Jin earlier, but he said he couldn’t receive a half-billion gold item, and told me I should keep it on my person. It didn’t matter who owned it anyway, as long as we were on the same side and combined it later. So I checked that the bead was the real thing--feeling that divine energy--before putting it away in the storage ring along with the medallion.

"Is there anything more you need, Sir?"

Honestly, I wanted to ask about the person who sold the tree statuette. But asking that posed a risk of disclosing that I had something to do with the druids, so I thought it would be better for Heraz to investigate it quietly. In that case...

"Can you make sure we get out without being seen?"

If I had this thought of looking for someone who sold something, there must also be someone who thought about seeing the person who bought the relic, especially with how aggressive that last bidding war was.

"But of course," the staff smiled knowingly and walked toward one of the walls. He made a pattern on that section and a door appeared. "This is a special service, Sir. Please keep it to yourself."

Or so he thought, but who cares? We followed the staff through the secret tunnel and disappeared from the auction house.

I heard later that some people were indeed waiting to see us, standing in the corridor and waiting in the parking lot. But well...it wasn’t my business.