Soul Art Online

- Arthas -

I brought out the devil fruit box from my inventory and opened it in front of him. "I wonder if someone will be willing to take this Devil Fruit, the Logia Swamp Swamp Fruit in exchange for the girl I want?"

The guy's eyes almost popped out at the sight of the fruit.

I walked and started leaving the room and he quickly got up and stopped me. "Hold on."

I narrowed my eyes. "What is the meaning of this Mr. Damon? Are you breaking the rules of the auction house?"

"No no. Nothing of that sort. How about I take you up on your offer?" He asked with a smile.

"You have some nerve asking me this, Mr. Damon. First you took advantage of our situation and gave us dirt cheap prices for our equipment, then you put your nose in, causing trouble for us in trying to get our family member back, even going as far as to blackmail us… and now, you see this Devil Fruit and realise the loss you could face and try to ask me for a deal?" 

"Hey now, no need to get angry, This is Sabaody. If you can't even handle this much, then you shouldn't have come here. This is the way things work. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Now, I am offering you a deal. How about it, I will buy all the girls left and add the ones I have already bought, all of this Devil Fruit…"

"No way. I do not trust you. In fact, I am in a mood to give it to someone else just to spite you." I replied in my coldest tone.

"Come on. Don't be angry." He tried persuading me again and this time Veena put a hand on my shoulder and then looked at him.

"Add everything you took from us on top of that and we have a deal."

"Veena!"

"Now Arthas, we don't have time to waste. Don't let your anger get the best of you." She said persuasively.

"Yes yes. Listen to the Lady." The guy quickly said, seeing hope here. "Sure, I will add the equipment." He quickly added.

I looked angrily at him for a moment and then took a deep breath. "I want a contract."

"Absolutely." He agreed and almost ran to the same room. I asked Shiroe to wait outside and went with Damon inside.

"My my, you are having a blast today, aren't you Damon? What do we have this time?" The same guy from before laughed at Damon but the latter was in no mood to play.

"We need a contract fast, Krieg."

"Oh, such a hurry. Okay, I will get it. So what's the deal?"

Damon told him the deal and the guy's eyes bulged at the sight of the Devil Fruit. "Is that? No way…"

"Just do what you are told, Krieg." Damon asked impatiently.

The guy got the message and started making the contract.

The contract was that he would give me all the nine girls, we mentioned the names to not get confused, as well as the items he had traded from me and I will give him the Devil Fruit. If anyone cannot keep their side of the bargain by the end of the auction, they will be considered as breaking the contract.

I had truly underestimated the allure of the Devil Fruit.

Veena looked over the details and we signed the contract. Krieg used his spell again and I felt the tug and got the notification.

Damon looked ecstatic at this. He quickly hurried and gave me our items back and headed back to the room for the bidding.

Coincidentally, this group was the group with the rest of the players.

Veena had already messaged us Grayfia's username.

Bina Lessthan.

I looked at the woman standing there on the stage. Silver hair and red eyes. She was stunning. I can see why she would be such a fan favourite in my previous life.

Sirzechs Lucifer is a man of taste.

The bidding went higher without anyone even raising the prices and ended at nine hundred and thirty thousand gold coins.

The bids went and another girl went for nine hundred thousand gold coins, slightly lower than Bina.

With a million, we could have bought her but that would have been cutting it too close. Not to mention we couldn't do anything about the other players.

The last one didn't go that high but at three hundred thousand only.

Six more left.

In the next round, three girls came, two players and one NPC.

Damon easily bought them. With no one trying to raise the price, they were obtained in three hundred to four hundred thousand gold coins on average.

It was the last round and before break, I went with Shiroe and had something to eat. I told him to go ahead and collect our purchased Skill Books and arrange for our departure as we will need to leave immediately after this Auction is over. 

The last round began and he looked as confident as ever. That guy was probably using all his sources to keep this bidding in his favour.

But I wasn't going to let it go so easily…

This guy had crossed a line… so he needs to pay…

When it was time for the second last girl's bidding, I walked to the balcony of the room, showing myself to the rest of the participants.

The announcer looked at me. "Yes. Can I do something for you, Sir?"

"I have an announcement to make."

"Yes?"

Everyone looked confused and I pulled out the Devil Fruit.

"Anyone who can buy the next girl for me and ensure our safe departure from Sabaody, gets this Logia Type Swamp Swamp Fruit. Thank you very much."

… and then there was chaos.

I came back to the room and Damon looked incensed.

"What is the meaning of this, Arthas!" He shouted loudly at me. "Are you typing to break the contract?"

"Me? When did I do that?" I asked him with a smile. "Ah, I understand your confusion. You see, Mr. Damon, when someone I dislike shows me an opening, if I didn't take full advantage of it… what kind of man would I be?"

"You are breaking the contract with this."

"Oh but you will find out that I am not. If you cannot buy the next girl, you are not fulfilling your side of the contract so you will not get the Devil Fruit either. What part of the contract said I cannot prepare for contingencies? The only thing it said was that you would give me the nine girls and I will give you the Devil Fruit by the end of the auction. What I just announced outside doesn't affect our promise in any way. Oh… but if you fail to get the last girl… I am afraid things will not end well for you."

Before the man could say anything, the announcer started the bidding.

I sat back and watched calmly as the chaos unfolded before my very eyes.

Bids flew one after another till it finally stopped at a price of twenty eight million.

Damon went as far as twenty five million, after calling as many favours as he could but even the people he called favours from were bidding and thus he was caught short in the bidding run.

"Please… please, I can give you anything… just break this contract…" He begged, even getting on his knees.

"Come on now, Mr. Damon. Don't embarrass me. This is Sabaody. If you can't even handle this much, then you shouldn't have come here. This is the way things work. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Since I had to lose the Devil Fruit either way, I'd rather you suffer than if you didn't. I told you, didn't I… that I have written today's incident deep in my memories."

The man desperately ran out to talk to the buyer, to get him to agree on some settlement but it turned out that the buyer was some other bigshot of Sabaody, a T7 guy who directly ignored him.

"Damn Arty… that was savage… not that he didn't deserve it. You are definitely picking up things from Veena." Star whispered quietly.

"Oh my. I wouldn't say that. This was all Arthas. People often forget that he is the son of two very prominent business owners. Such manoeuvres are not exactly uncommon in business. One deal can bring a millionaire on the streets. It's just that in this world, that equates to slavery. Not much different from just a hundred or so years ago in our world." Veena commented lightly.

She was incensed at the guy too and I was pretty sure she would have found one or other way to ruin that guy if he had succeeded today.

At the end of the auction the same tug I had felt at the time of making the contract appeared again and a notification appeared in front of my eyes.

Damon, Mafia Lord, was now my slave…

Everything he owned was now my property, the fact I had been counting on. I had been reading the parchment offered by Krieg and had found this nifty fact. The new owner gets possession of all his assets. 

For all matters and purposes, he was considered dead for the world.

It was cold but this game was never a warm and cosy place to begin with. Again, it went to show just how much details the Game Master had put into making this place. For all matters and purposes, it was a real world. I couldn't imagine any game to have these kinds of details… Were these people even npcs?

Or were they actually other people?

Times like these made it hard to differentiate between the real world and the game.

Crime Lord, was the class after the Mafia Lord. The guy who bought the Devil Fruit was a Crime Lord, Derek. He was one of the top smugglers of Sabaody Archipelago. The guy had wanted a Devil Fruit for too long and took the opportunity as soon as the chance appeared.

We talked and having learned from my mistake once, I directly had an official contract made ensuring our safety till we reached back to our country.

I wondered how that would even work on this guy who was already a T7, but was assured that the rest of the gangs will maintain the contract so unless he was ready to run away from Sabaody and drop everything here, he wouldn't come after us. Well, we didn't have any other options either so we went along with it.

With that done, I proceeded to the nine girls.