Extra's Magic

[ …and now, ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the last item of our auction! ]

The auctioneer's voice boomed through the room, drawing everyone's attention. He snapped his fingers and a swirl of Mana surrounded him.

Click…

A cage materialized on the stage, its metal bars as thick as my arm. They were made of a special alloy that could channel Mana and strengthen its durability. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝒈

The guests rose from their seats, craning their necks to see what was inside the cage. The shadows obscured most of it, but then two red eyes flashed in the dark. A surge of Mana swept across the room, making some people turn pale with fear.

A black tail covered with scales whipped against the floor, producing a harsh sound that broke the silence. The spotlight shifted to reveal more of the creature in the cage.

It had a humanoid shape, but scales covered most of its skin. Its eyes were blood-red, filled with malice and anger. Two horns sprouted from its forehead and its hands had claws that could shred any ordinary metal.

It was not a monster or a human; it was a demon, and a powerful one at that. Even with the restraints on it, I could feel its Dark Mana weighing me down.

"Why would they bring a living demon?"

Oscar muttered his thoughts, but I only shrugged. I knew that some demons were captured alive for experiments, but I felt no pity for them. These creatures slaughtered and tormented anyone in their way, so I had no remorse watching one of them being auctioned off.

[ A C-Rank Demon, starting bid 500,000 Arcons! ]

The demon was expensive because of the valuable knowledge it could provide. In the future, a scientist would even manage to harness Dark Mana for human use, but that was still five years away.

I watched as the bids soared higher and higher, surpassing a million Arcons and then two million Arcons with ease.

The demon snarled and hissed, listening to the humans haggling over its price, but the guests ignored its rage, only focusing on the potential rewards from its body. Perhaps they could even extract a Demon Core, a rare formation of condensed Dark Mana that sometimes occurred in some demons.

Demon Cores were full of Dark Mana, which was denser and stronger than normal Mana. If purified, the core could increase its rank by two levels. So a core from an E-Rank demon could become a C-Rank core.

[ Room #1, 6 Million Arcons! ]

I shifted my head to the side, glancing towards room one. I could make out a silhouette of a single man, right near the darkened glass.

"..."

As no one else raised their bid, the demon was sold to the highest bidder and the guests began to disperse. Oscar and I stayed in the VIP room, waiting for our purchases to be delivered.

"My brother will be glad to hear that you didn't splurge on anything…"

Oscar said, but his smile faded a bit.

"You should have bought something pricier!"

I wasn't sure what kind of relationship Oscar had with his brother, but it seemed that they either had too much money and expressed their affection this way, or they were bitter rivals.

Thud... Thud...

There was a knock on the door and a staff member with red eyes entered the room, holding a Spatial Ring in his right hand.

"Here are your purchases, sir…"

He handed Oscar the ring and Oscar swiftly took it, sorting out the items and giving me another spatial ring that contained only G-Rank cores.

"I noticed that you don't have one of these, so consider it a bonus!"

I was pleasantly surprised by his generous gesture and felt a bit touched. It seemed that I had made friends with one of the nicest people in my second life.

"Of course, bonuses come with strings attached, so you owe me a favor!"

I felt a vein pop on my forehead as I heard his next words. Oscar somehow managed to ruin all my good impressions of him in just a few seconds. He is a generational talent.

"Let's go…"

I mumbled under my breath, putting on my mask and heading for the door. The staff member with red eyes bowed his head and vanished into one of the corridors, leaving me and Oscar alone.

As we walked towards the black limousine parked around the corner, I saw that Oscar was fiddling with his phone, a small smile playing on his lips.

"…"

I peeked over his shoulder and saw that he was reading some kind of article. The headline and the photo caught my eye.

[ ???????????????? ???????????? ???? ?? ?????????? ?????? ??-???????? ??????????????! ]

My eye twitched as I remembered that this event was supposed to happen a few days later. I was a bit worried about the sudden change in the future.

"Did you see this?"

Oscar noticed my gaze and zoomed in on the photo, showing a huge purple portal with various flames swirling around it. Every dungeon had an affinity and this one was fire.

Just a few hours ago, I've put all of my Arcons into Trygnomy company and my capital had probably already tripled if not quadrupled.

I was feeling a bit better about today, but then my phone rang and I took it out of my pocket. It was a message from an unknown number.

'Strange…'

I opened the message and quickly scanned the text. My face drained of color and then turned bright red.

"Hey, Aiden, are you okay?"

Oscar sensed that something was wrong with me and tapped my shoulder, glancing at my phone screen.

"No way…"

He tried to keep a straight face, but a small giggle slipped out of his mouth and he soon burst into laughter.

"I never thought you would get something like that…"

Pocketing my phone, I could only walk in silence as Oscar continued to tease me, until we reached the car.

"I can't believe you were invited!"

He muttered, trying to suppress his laughter.

Yes, the message was from an anonymous Rose Lunatic who said that he had witnessed my fight with the burly guy today and that I shared his passion for Rose. He invited me to join their club.

"These shitty Lunatics..."