Inside the opulent auction room of the Whittaker Hotel, almost a hundred businessmen and nobility were here to attend.
Some of them came here with a purpose to spend some cash that they had lying around and some were here for their reputation or connections.
However, there isn't denying the underlying reason for the queen, the Bassets, the Durands, the Danlias, the Lamberts and the other massive families are attending.
Even though the host of this auction is the Whittaker family, there is no obligation to save the face of the Whittaker family. They didn't need to send the family heads to attend this auction.
There was one specific reason why this was so star-packed. This is the same reason that the auction house was packed to the brim.
That was...
"Now, we welcome the centerpiece of this auction today, the beautiful and amazing...demon king horns!"
"W-woooww..."
"They actually got it..."
As the auctioneer introduces the name of the thing on lot #69, the "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" fly out immediately. The room filled with chatter and some anticipation for this auction of the millennia.
Last millennia, there was an epic battle for the horns between the Whittaker's and the Bassets. The Durands found the horns with their heroes and didn't want it themselves.
The battle lasted a long 4 days if you include the thinking time and eventually, the dust settled at a whopping 900,000,000 gold for the horns, plus to pay the commissions and taxes of the Durands for a year.
All in all, the total cost exceeded 1.5 billion gold. 1.5 billion gold. That kind of money is enough to rebuild an entire capital's slum area, and they spent it on fucking horns. Fucking horns that came from the demon race.
It wasn't even theirs!
"Now ladies and gentlemen, only those with the sufficient funds may make a bid for this and that is shown by the color of the bidding paddles; blue for bidding allowed, white for no bidding right now. Now, the minimum..."
He explains all of the rules and finally, after a long and arduous 3 hours of waiting for this moment, the actual thing Rosé and I were here for was coming.
Rosé was very kind to hand me her paddle and do whatever I wanted with it. It's wasn't so much a test as much as a personality check, se she can see what I'm like.
If I'm materialistic or centered in a single goal. She found that I'm the latter today.
"Now, let us start the bidding with... with 400,000,000 gold! 400 hundred million, 400 hundred million!"
"Sheeeeeshhh"
"Youch. 400 million was my income last year..."
With that, the actual war started. The battlefield was just phase one of this entire thing, phase two was the obtaining of the horns. I lost it and now, I'm fighting for it back.
I see that Fulcrum was sitting besides the Whittaker couple, most likely as a reward for his great attitude and great contributions to this entire event. I don't know if they'll abandon him immediately after, but it's of no concern of mine.
Right after that call out came up by Frank the auctioneer, I heard a shout from the front of the entire house.
"550,000,000 gold!"
"Eh-what.!?"
"Alright! For Sir Whittaker right now, going for 550 million gold! That's 550 followed by 6 zeroes! Is anyone willing to raise it? Maybe 555 million? 555 million is the ask!"
I calmly and slowly raise the paddle, but I don't raise it, Rosé does...technically. You see, just as I was about to raise my hand and then my voice, I decided against it.
If a hero was bidding on the horns for the Danlia Corporation, much less me, who allegedly committed treason, it isn't a good look for Rosé, but more for me.
They might use this against me at court, I use Rosé. I shove the paddle into her hand and give her some instructions. She doesn't know why, but she's doing it.
"580 million!"
"Lovely! That's 580 followed by 6 zeroes as the current bid. May I ask for-"
In Frank's voice, you could hear the sound of gold coins dripping into his bank account and the women calling him to bed like a sailor at sea being lured by sirens.
"650 million gold!"
He was rudely interrupted by a man, but this man immediately brought a bigger smile to his eyes. It seemed as if he won a championship of some kind since it looked like he was crying.
This man was apparently, the leader of the Basset family. From rumors, he is 900 something years old due to the horns and honestly, I believe it.
Just looking at him makes me feel like I'm 4 years old. He looks like a skeleton with some muscles and skin that happened to not fall of during the mummification process.
Even without his hair and other needing features to look like a human more than a corpse, the people here look at him with respect and fear. Respect for his name and legacy and fear for...the same thing.
I look at his pursed lips that are curving inwards with a sour expression. From Rosé's words, it appeared that Whittaker was not a lap dog of the Bassets, but more of a little brother.
The Bassets protect the Whittaker's with their name and some contracts while the Bassets have unfair conditions in said contracts. So, this means that the Whittaker family losing money is the Basset family losing money.
I love seeing people lose money that isn't theirs. So, from Rosé's digging along with help from a Lambert, they discovered from some dude named Jeff that the Bassets were in debt.
They could pay it back obviously, but they don't. Why? Because it's got the Whittaker's by the balls.
The jist is that the Bassets borrowed a small loan of 10 billion gold from the Whittaker's around 300 years ago. The interest rate is 0.5% every year and instead of immediately paying it off, the Bassets had a brilliant idea.
They paid it off at a deficit. That mean that even though they were paying some of the money to shrink the debt, it was still growing with that interest rate.
When confronted, the Bassets basically said "go on, kill us and destroy us. How the hell will you get your 10 billion back without us? Can you run banks as well as us? Will the Durands work well with you? Leave us be and get a stable income".
And so, they did. Due to the negligence of the previous Whittaker head who lent the money in the first place, they are now the little brother of the Bassets.
They did a real Atlantic City move which was pretty risky, but still, insanely brave to the point of it being stupid.
Rosé raises the paddle in her hands and ups the price from 750 to 760 million. It may seem like negligible increments, but trust me, it adds up.
"...tsk. 740 million!"
The Bassets were back on our case just like I wanted and Rosé wasn't looking too good either. Her face was pale and slightly discolored because of the amount of money on the line.
If the Bassets pull out while it's our bid, she might lose near a billion gold in a single night. Lose because well...from her companion's tone, it wasn't real.
'However, she is underestimating something...the desire and greed, not for money, but for life'
The amount of money becomes just a bunch of digits at one point or another, so you start looking for ways to lengthen the good times with those moneys you made.
Exploiting it is my goal.
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(A.N) yo! Another chapter for you beautiful readers and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! I hope you had a great and wonderful day today and that tomorrow will be even better!
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