Heukwol Auction House (8)

‘Over there… did a few comments get posted?’

On the way to the exhibition hall, Hyeonseong glanced sideways at the Interstellar Network screen she had left in the corner of her vision. On a whim, she refreshed the screen.

[Comments: 3]

In the meantime, someone had left comments and gone. Hyeonseong immediately checked them.

[Anonymous: Even looking at this, I still don’t really know. Other people will probably tell you.]

[Anonymous: I thought it might be similar to our world, but looking at the added details, I don’t think so after all. We’ve never had an incident like that where I’m from.]

[Anonymous: I know this place. I sent you a note, so check it.]

‘Where is the scam in this?’

Seeing a comment that was not merely useless but was outright deceitful, the corner of Hyeonseong’s eye twitched. Naturally, not a single note had actually arrived through the Interstellar Network.

‘I really don’t want to be reminded this way that people are the same everywhere.’

[Anonymous: I’m the original poster. I haven’t received any tip-offs yet, so….]

After leaving a single reply in the comment window, she pushed the screen back into the corner.

‘More importantly… is this place right above the auction hall?’

The moment she stepped into the second-floor exhibition hall, a glass wall caught Hyeonseong’s eye. Beyond the glass wall, she could see the darkened view of the first floor.

With a stage-like area laid out like a theater and a great many seats prepared, it looked like an auction hall no matter how one looked at it.

‘Structurally, I figured this place would be right above the auction hall… but technically, it looks like they designed it to resemble a split-level structure overlooking the auction hall.’

This time, Hyeonseong’s gaze turned toward the interior of the exhibition hall.

Inside, items were displayed at fixed intervals. Items that could fit inside showcase cases were placed inside them, while long weapons or large works of art were hung on the walls.

Every displayed object had one guard assigned to it. Because of that, the people in the exhibition hall looked like half guests, half auction-house staff.

‘Ugh… with it like this, who could even look around properly without feeling intimidated?’

Hyeonseong surveyed the exhibition hall with a look of distaste. Of course, she did not actually feel frightened. She simply found it ridiculous how typical this behavior was of people with a lot to hide.

‘And there are probably more than one or two surveillance cameras installed too.’

Modern society and electronic surveillance networks were inseparable anyway. But even amid that, the kind of people with plenty to hide, like this auction house, were bound to become even more obsessed with such surveillance networks.

‘…Then I guess there are probably limits to what Nemesis can do after all.’

Even while thinking that, Hyeonseong naturally called for Nemesis and asked a question. After becoming aware of just how convenient and useful it was, she had started seeking out Nemesis almost half out of habit.

“Are you going to look at everything one by one from the beginning?”

Standing near the entrance and scanning the inside, Haesu asked.

“That’s the plan. We have plenty of time anyway.”

Hyeonseong started walking. Like a genuine visitor, she began examining the showcases from the very front, one by one.

‘Black Spirit Orb? They’ve put up something ominous right from the start. Next is Yin-Yang Gokok? They’ve really gone and publicly displayed something that famous.’

As she looked at the displayed items, Hyeonseong clicked her tongue. She had no idea what gave them such nerve, but this auction house was boldly displaying even notoriously famous stolen goods.

Compared to that, items with vicious attributes or brutal effects almost seemed cute. It would have been stranger for an auction house this shady to hide those.

But what truly made Hyeonseong recoil was not those items.

‘That’s a key… what?’

Hyeonseong’s face twisted when she saw the description card placed in front of the key. The card explained that the key was for the iron cage holding a certain chimera monster.

‘And not from another world, either. A chimera created right here through dungeon byproduct experiments.’

Its existence itself was not a fresh surprise. Hyeonseong too had heard countless horror stories about biological experiments that injected dungeon byproducts or dungeon-monster genes into humans or animals on Earth.

They were the sort of horror stories that had always circulated ever since the era of dungeons and the Interstellar Network began. But just because they were called horror stories did not mean they could simply be dismissed as nonsense.

There were already synthetic lifeforms that had been created through legal research processes by mixing byproducts or genes. Who knew whether violent experiments were being carried out somewhere in the shadows using dangerous beasts as subjects?

‘If it were a legal lab, it would be bound by strict laws and ethics codes, so there’s no way they could create predatory chimera….’

As far as Hyeonseong remembered, the synthetic lifeforms revealed in the news had been low-aggression livestock, companion animals, and plants. There had been nothing like the synthetic lifeform described on the card before her, one made using a venomous snake with deadly poison.

‘If something like that were being made openly, it’d trigger protests.’

Hyeonseong shook her head. It was regrettable to have confirmed yet another horror story whose reality she had not particularly wanted to verify.

But unfortunately, that was not the end of it.

‘And what is this?’

After passing a few objects, she saw another key. This time it was not a chimera cage key. But it was still an item enough to make Hyeonseong’s face twist.

‘A teenager, a D-rank non-combat Awakened…. Have they lost their minds?’

After reading the description card in front of the key, Hyeonseong recoiled again. This key was linked to some restraint device binding an unnamed teenage youth.

‘Sold here in place of the parents’ debt…. This is insane.’

Naturally, the target of Hyeonseong’s condemnation was the auction house. As for the parents, there was no way to know what circumstances they were in, so judgment had to be reserved.

‘If they sold them willingly, then they’re bastards, but the child could also have been taken regardless of their intentions. …More importantly, if that’s the case, then the rumors that they trade monsters and humans here are all true too, aren’t they?’

If everything written on the descriptions attached to the keys was true, then all the rumors circulating about the auction house were true as well.

‘…But is this really genuine? It seems strange to flaunt things like this so openly.’

A doubt arose in Hyeonseong’s mind. Flaunting stolen goods openly was already strange enough, but it was nothing compared to illegal chimeras or humans.

But the auction house also had no reason to invent lies like this and put them on display. If they were going to lie, pretending such things did not exist would make more sense.

‘At least pretending they don’t exist has a clear purpose, like avoiding crackdowns or filtering out riffraff. Pretending they do exist doesn’t gain them anything.’

Hyeonseong glanced sideways toward one corner of the air. It was a message sent by Nemesis.

Just as expected from the start, Nemesis expressed difficulty with infiltrating the internal systems of the auction house. It said it could force its way in if necessary, but the moment it did, the intrusion would be detected.

‘It can infiltrate certain low-security cameras and terminals without being noticed, but the core sections are difficult….’

It was a disappointing answer. But Nemesis’s message did not end there.

‘It seems this auction house uses an independent communications network instead of a standard line, and that the place is somewhere outside Sinuiju, somewhere difficult to pinpoint by region…. Huh?’

She could understand the part about not using normal lines. But the information that followed was harder to grasp at once.

‘It’s not inside the free market?’

After thinking for a moment, Hyeonseong’s eyes widened.

‘…Right, come to think of it, they only ever told us to use the entry ticket inside the free market. Not once did they ever say this auction house itself was inside the free market.’

Because the whole process of acquiring the entry ticket had been so closely tied to the Sinuiju Free Market, she had simply assumed the auction house was also inside the free market.

‘…If Nemesis hadn’t told me, I probably would’ve suspected it was a double trap using that misconception. And….’

Hyeonseong thought back to the time she had tried to connect to the internet on her phone.

‘It showed out-of-coverage. Even in the middle of a city, that sometimes happens in places like underground parking lots, so I didn’t think much of it…. But maybe this isn’t some underground facility at all. Maybe it’s really in a completely different place.’

In any case, after checking even the information Nemesis had sent, she became all the more certain.

The people backing this auction house were truly suspicious.

‘If they can display illegality this openly and the auction house has still remained untouched this whole time, that means whatever’s behind it is enormous, even if I don’t know exactly what it is….’

Hyeonseong’s eyes quickly scanned the exhibition hall.

The guests looking over the items here must also have realized that this auction house was deeply abnormal. At this level of blatant display, no one could fail to notice it unless they were utterly clueless.

And yet not a single guest showed any sign of doubt or disgust. She could not tell with guests who hid their faces like Hyeonseong’s group, but all the guests who showed their faces were like that.

‘At this point, they’re either desperately pretending not to know, or they simply think it’s none of their business.’

If it was the former, that was almost the better option. Because the latter meant that their moral sense had been similar to that of the auction house from the start, to the point that they did not even feel the need to be conscious of it.

‘…I just wanted to get one item, and I ended up in a monstrous place.’

Hyeonseong’s expression naturally turned grim. Given the nature of the place, she had accepted a certain level of danger, but this kind of danger was beyond what she had expected.

‘Even if there was trouble, I was only imagining the level of a bunch of thugs chasing us with tools in hand….’

“I don’t think there’s anything else to see.”

Hyeonseong, who had been looking over the items with a cluttered mind, snapped back to attention at Hyeonyeong’s words.

“Yeah, looks like we’re done already. What about you? Did you see anything that looked decent?”

Hyeonseong asked naturally.

“I’m not sure. The items themselves all looked fairly convincing, but….”

Hyeonyeong shrugged.

“Well, there wasn’t anything that seemed like a perfect fit for you. But the things displayed here aren’t all there is, are they?”

“Right. They say they’ve displayed the kinds of items that are good for publicity, but it seems the things that really count are kept hidden until the day of the auction.”

“For things like that, just letting rumors about their existence circulate is probably a better publicity effect…. There’s nothing more to see now, so should we go?”

Hyeonseong asked the group. The group soon left the exhibition hall and returned to the first-floor lobby.

“Ugh, that place really was creepy as hell.”

The moment they came back down to the first floor, Haesu muttered with a look of disgust.

“But… you’re not really planning to buy something there through the auction too, right?”

Haesu asked with narrowed, fish-like eyes.

“Well, you never know. And in there, saying it that way was the natural thing to do anyway. With guards right beside us glaring at us with their eyes wide open, what else was I supposed to say?”

At Hyeonseong’s answer, Haesu still looked uneasy, but nodded.

“Where should we go now?”

“Before that, I was thinking we should check whether any replies came in.”

Answering Hyeonyeong, Hyeonseong pulled the Interstellar Network screen in front of her.

“Ah, by now there should be some kind of answer at least.”

Hyeonyeong and Haesu also checked their posts after Hyeonseong.

‘There really are more comments. As for direct messages….’

“Oh, a message.”

It was while Hyeonseong was checking the comments on her own post. Hyeonyeong muttered in a somewhat surprised voice.

“What? From who?”

“How would I know without checking? Hold on.”

Hyeonyeong lightly gestured through the air a few times. Then the message screen Hyeonyeong was viewing appeared in front of Hyeonseong’s eyes.

“The sender is… Unwol? Doesn’t seem like a Constellation.”

Looking at the shared screen, Hyeonseong muttered. Someone using such a short name was more likely to be a user—that is, an Awakened—than a Constellation.

“Yeah. Not a Constellation. An Awakened like us.”

Hearing Hyeonyeong’s answer, Hyeonseong quickly checked the content of the message.

‘…This is surprising right from the start.’