"Deal."
Oliver accepted the money; he believed it should be enough to buy him at least one artifact from the auction.
There was a particular reason he did not take the artifact for himself.
Yes, one of the reasons for that was that he wanted to purchase something from the auction and did not currently need the medal.
The second and most important reason was that he knew about the bad side-effects this medal had.
[Medal of Eternal Pain], with such an ominous name, had a dark history associated with it, as explained briefly in the novel.
It was told in the novel that this artifact was originally found by a camper when he visited an ancient forest with the intention to explore.
At first, the camper was not sure about the forest; it was rumored to be famous for its notorious death rates and ghostly activities, as claimed by the nearby residents.
He wanted to prove everyone wrong and become famous. He knew of demons and exorcists yet refused to believe that something dangerous would be in the forest. He wanted to try something that no normal human had ever done before...
But as he went forward, ironically towards the same direction where he found a broken skull, he started to encounter strange things. He didn't think the skull belonged to a human; it could have been animal remains.
His mind would sometimes hallucinate about things that shouldn't exist in the world; very dark thoughts started to cloud his mind as he went on silently.
He was unaware that he was being affected by something; his mind was distracted towards a particular direction.
It became even worse when he started to find strange dead bodies one by one; all those corpses had signs of extreme torture being performed.
The corpses were rotting, but their state was beyond tolerable for the camper; he puked blood, yet strangely enough, he wanted to keep going, and he did. It was as if all of this around him was just another imagination.
The number of corpses he encountered started to increase, to the point that he could probably stack them up to form a small hill.
All of them had expressions of pain; it was clear that none of them had received a peaceful death.
The strange hallucinations in his mind intensified.
Scenes of an unknown cannibalistic tribe flashed through his mind one after another.
A tribe that was savage, cruel, and inhuman; they were demons or humans, he didn't know. They messed with something that they shouldn't have and it spilled their doom.
He soon reached a broken shrine, and in the middle of everything, he found the medal.
Whispers in his ears prompted him to take the medal, and he did, quickly leaving the area. But alas, he couldn't even leave the forest as he slowly died.
The medal clawed at his soul as he kept walking, unbeknownst to him; he was in severe pain, but his legs refused to stop, and he died at the edge of the forest, where people saw him and retrieved his belongings.
And thus, the medal was also brought out into the world.
Wherever the medal went, it brought misfortune, pain, and death.
It was cursed.
The souls of humans were like fuel to the artifact.
People would get intoxicated by the allure of its power only to die miserably in the end.
If that was it, then there was no problem, but the real problem was that every person who once owned this artifact caused irreversible damage to their surroundings.
Conducting mass murder, spreading blood, experimenting with torture… all sorts of inhuman acts were performed by the owners of this artifact.
It was not until a group of people called for an expert exorcist to help them…
The exorcist took the artifact in his hands and instantly felt the immense dark espera inside the thing.
He foresaw the danger it posed to both normal humans and exorcists and thus decided to seal the artifact and keep it in his home.
He didn't destroy the artifact; he believed as long as someone used it limitedly without being consumed by the strange artifact, they could use it against demons in the war.
The exorcist himself had participated in multiple wars and was thus not afraid of the curse within the artifact like normal humans.
But unfortunately, later the exorcist was killed by demons when they ambushed him in his home, destroying his village alongside him.
Since then, the sealed artifact was lost; it was nothing more than an ordinary medal to normal humans.
The exorcist, in his time, had only recorded what uses the artifact had; he never thought to write down the dangers associated at that time.
But over the centuries, those records became blurred and not believable.
And thus, people now only knew about what powers this artifact carried, not what dangers it had.
In fact, since most of them had never seen the artifact personally, no one believed it existed, and only thought it was just a hoax artifact crafted out of someone's imagination.
This was why Oliver wanted to trade this artifact for money; the risk associated was too great considering he was not even strong enough to handle a single use of this artifact.
"Well then. You can collect the money from the reception; she will add it to your card. Oh wait, do you even have a bank account to transfer the money?"
She asked curiously, to which Oliver shook his head.
"Then how are you going to access the money?"
She looked at him speechlessly.
Actually, he himself had not thought of this matter; he thought that at the time he purchased something from the auction, he could directly hand them the card to deduct the amount.
But having a personal account should ease things in the future…
He looked at the smirking woman and sighed.
No, he'd rather do it himself than ask her; she was a terrifying person, and having less contact with her would be better.
'And I don't even know her from the novel, so she must be a minor overpowered character.'
Oliver was sure that he did not want to mess with her lest he fall into serious troubles.
"I will see to it myself."
He said as he started to leave the room.
But before he could reach out to touch the door, his body froze.
He realized that his body could not move, no matter how much force he used; it was frozen still in place.
"Did I allow you to leave?"