Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 31 (Patreon)

The truly wonderful thing about unlocking the Charisma stat was how easy it made clean up after a battle. A bandit had exploded, and the merchant we saved was covered in gore. And yet Myrina cleaned herself up to near-perfect condition by simply pouring a flask of water over her own head.

The blood and viscera flowed out of her hair and onto the ground as if it didn't dare spoil her flawless features. She passed the flask to me and I discovered it did the same for me, though not quite to the same degree.

Cleaning up the merchant we'd saved was a lot harder. One flask of water wasn't going to do it. Heck, ten flasks of water wasn't going to do it.

In the end, Myrina stuffed her broken wagon, complete with all its packages, into her dimensional storage item. Then, the two of us tossed the merchant off the bridge and into the river. After sputtering and floundering in the deep pool under the bridge, she was clean enough that she could enter Valkyrie's Watch without offending everyone in the city.

"I'm still not sure whether I've been captured by bandits or not..." the merchant groaned.

Myrina laughed a little more manically than was probably normal. "Don't worry, valued citizen, you're safe with me!"

I shook my head. Merchants talked, and if Myrina didn't already have an eccentric reputation, she would soon.

"Let's get you back in the city and into an inn,” Myrina continued. “Then you'll be feeling better, right?"

The merchant brightened after that. I wasn’t sure if it was at the thought of an inn, or getting away from Myrina. Our return to the city was peaceful, and we were let through the gates without hesitation or fee as soon as Myrina showed her face.

We led the merchant to a nearby inn. “Put it on the Samhain Clan's tab!" Myrina announced.

"Of course, lady Myrina," the innkeeper bowed.

Myrina and I made our escape and Myrina waggled her eyebrows at me. "Pretty neat, huh? Ever since I went broke, I figured out that I can get mom to pay for things by just telling everyone to go to the castle for payment."

I shook my head. "That seems like the sort of thing that could get a lot of people mad at you sooner or later. We should hurry up and head to the auction house to sell off our loot so you can get some money in your pouch."

Myrina brightened. "Splendid idea, Carter! My trick already failed at the alehouse once, so I really do need a bit of gold in my pouch again.”

Together, we made our way to the auction house. Once again, the auctioneer from before pulled Myrina away for special treatment the moment we poked our heads through the doors. I didn't mind. I needed to see Misa, the assistant I'd made a deal with to keep my Mana Bombs a secret.

"You're back!" Misa said when I tapped on her shoulder.

She quickly combed a hand through her brown hair, undoing the ponytail she’d had it in and letting it fall over her shoulders before standing a little straighter. "I was wondering when—"

I held my finger to my lips to shush her.

"Right,” she said, and then nodded. “Right. Let's go back to one of the private booths."

Misa led me around the corner and into a curtain covered alcove. I took a seat in a private cubical just large enough for the two of us, a table between us.

"So... have you brought something for me?" Misa rubbed her hands together.

"I did indeed. More Mana Bombs. I want to sell them for maximum profit. You remember our deal?" I asked.

Misa licked her lips as I filled the table with Mana Bombs. "Oh, I remember. And sure, I can fence these for you. I'll make sure they're entered into the next auction anonymously. There looks to be a bit over a hundred? I'll space them out across multiple lots. That'll help us get the maximum price."

I shrugged. "You're the expert on how these auctions work, not me. But, of course, try and get the best price you can. But don't let anyone know where you got them. If I'm found out, odds are this deal comes to an immediate end."

Misa nodded vigorously. "Your secret is safe with me! This auction alone will probably double the size of my coin chest. I'd be a fool to do anything that would jeopardize our deal."

We quickly hashed out the details. With Misa working with me, I was confident I was getting a good price—assuming she was splitting the money fairly, that is. I would have to convince Myrina to stick around for the auction so I could see what they finally went for.

Last time, my Mana Bombs had fetched a few hundred gold each. But now that people had seen them in action, they'd probably be worth a whole lot more. Fortunately, Myrina was keen on the idea.

"That’s funny,” she said, “I was going to ask you the same thing. Of course we'll stay for the auction. After all, I've got money burning a hole in my pouch!" Myrina slapped her pouch full of gold.

"I would brag that I'm the one with the big, hard bundle of gold this time, but half of this is yours. We’re splitting the loot off those bandits and monsters, after all."

"Let's get to your family's auction booth,” I said. “We can divvy up the loot when we're seated."

Myrina must have been feeling rich, because she ordered us drinks while we watched the auction. And she had been about to order a massage, too, though I managed to stop her.

"Why does the auction house offer massages?" I asked.

"They contract it out to one of the shops in the city." Myrina shrugged. "I can't believe you didn't want a massage. Who skips their daily massage after a hard day of fighting?"

"Daily massage?" I choked back a snort. "I’ll tell you who skips their daily massage… someone who hasn't ever paid for a massage, let alone received one daily."

Myrina sighed. "Our loss… though I suppose it will mean I'll have enough coin left over to actually buy something."

Several items came up for auction, but I only paid partial attention to them. Armor, weapons, none of it really mattered. I was waiting for my Mana Bombs to make an appearance.

Myrina bought a few things—mostly a new sword and helmet, a stylish red cape, and a few other odds and ends. I was already comfortably outfitted. While I had spare fingers for magic rings, belts, and other items, this wasn't the best world to acquire magical equipment.

Perhaps when my horizons expanded a little further, I'd travel to a world that sold such items.

In the meantime, I realized Sakura's leatherwork would likely be quite well received here. These Amazonians seemed rather fond of their magical leathers. Well treated furs and hides from monsters and beasts were a way to gain magical effects without the need for specialized enchanters or runesmiths.

While such crafters could certainly make a fair living on Themyscyra, I'd gotten the distinct impression that few families who could afford the kind of training that took wanted to dedicate their children's potential to jobs—not when that same potential could be spent learning to be a great warrior.

Eventually, my Mana Bombs came up for auction and I sat up straighter in my seat.

"Last but certainly not least, we are pleased to announce that we have acquired another shipment of Mana Bombs! We'll be selling them in lots of ten this time," the auctioneer announced. She smiled to the crowd as she stepped back to reveal ten neatly organized piles, along with one final pile strategically positioned in the center.

I recognized those immediately. Those were my Mega Mana Bombs. Apparently they were going to be a surprise, and likely saved for last.

"Carter! Carter!" Myrina tugged at my sleeve. "Those are the things my mom wants!"

"I see them," I acknowledged.

"You think they were in the packages we just saved from bandits? I bet they were. A lot of those packages went to the shops around here, including the auction house. If I'd known these things were in there, I would have stolen them myself!"

"I thought you said the Samhain Clan doesn't tolerate thieves?" I asked, eyebrow raised.

"Shh, Carter. When you make the rules, you get to break them." Myrina's tone took on the cadence of her quoting something that had been drilled into her head as a child. "When we Samhain steal stuff, it's not stealing. It's confiscating."

"Starting bids at one hundred go—" the auctioneer didn't even get to finish her sentence when someone in the crowd shouted out their bid.

"Eight hundred!"

Bids flew in after that, some of which came from Myrina sitting right next to me.

"One thousand!" Myrina shouted.

The auction house exploded in a flurry of activity. Almost immediately, a tall woman at the opposite end of the hall countered Myrina's bid.

"Two thousand!"

Another woman shouted from one of the booths near ours, "Three thousand!"

"Damn it!" Myrina pounded her fist into her armrest and grumbled. "How dare they bid against me..."

I patted Myrina on the arm. "There are more Mana Bomb lots to be had. Besides, last time your guards ended up buying most of the lots."

"You don't understand, Carter," Myrina protested. "These things are perfect for fighting the Shadefall Clan's specters! It's like they were designed to turn the tide of battle for us. We desperately need them. No matter the price."

I let my arm linger on Myrina's arm. "I have a feeling your clan will get a bunch of these, one way or another..."

I did my best to keep my smile off my face. My first set of Mana Bombs had gone for several years' worth of wages in gold. But that had been before anybody understood their true value.

Here? Now? Most of Valkyrie's Watch had seen the Samhain Clan use them in battle. And those in the know knew that the matriarch of the Samhain Clan was looking for more of them. I couldn't be sure what the exact motives of everyone present were, but Myrina seemed to think that most of the people bidding were doing so in the hopes of gifting them directly to her mother and thereby acquiring favor with the Samhain Clan.

Too bad I'd already beaten them to the punch on that front.

Myrina rapidly ran out of funds in the bidding wars that followed, but that didn't stop her from trying. Midway through the auction of my Mana Bombs, we were joined by Cyra in the Samhain Clan’s private booth.

"I'm here! They said there were more Mana Bombs?" Cyra panted.

At her level, it took an awful lot of running for her to look so exhausted. Just how far had she run?

"Big sis!” Myrina cheered. “You're back in the city already? I thought you weren't due back until tonight."

Cyra shook her head, still struggling to catch her breath. "I wasn’t. I was at the base of the mountain when I heard about the Mana Bombs. I got here as fast as I could."

That would do it, I supposed. Even with supernatural speed and endurance, climbing the mountain Myrina and I had just spent the entire morning hiking up in only a few minutes put Cyra roughly on par with a helicopter for ascent speed.

With Cyra's arrival, the bidding grew even fiercer. She'd missed the first four lots of Mana Bombs, but that just meant that she could bid more on the next several lots.

I would have thought that people would start running out of money by now, but knowledge  of the Mana Bombs’ presence had rapidly spread through the city. Suddenly, I realized why the Mana Bombs had been placed at the end of the auction, and why the Mega Mana Bombs had been saved for last.

The auctioneer knew that word would spread.

The hall was already twice as full as it had been when I'd arrived, and each new lot of Mana Bombs was selling for even more than the previous one. It was like the Auction House was full of starving sharks, and my precious Mana Bombs were the cause of their feeding frenzy.

"One hundred thousand gold!" Cyra shouted from the booth, instantly silencing the crowd.

"Once, twice, and sold! Sold for one hundred thousand gold to Lady Cyra Samhain," the auctioneer gestured to Cyra as the crowd gawked in awe and fear at the amount of money she'd just spent on a single lot of items.

Myrina folded her hands behind her head and basked in the attention. "Ahhh, now this is what an auction is supposed to feel like."

I shook my head. "I'm starting to understand why you don't have access to clan funds."

Cyra bid just as high on the next few lots of mana bombs. The exuberance of the crowd faded, knowing that a Samhain Clanswoman with a full purse had arrived and was claiming every Mana Bomb available. This remained true right up until the Mega Mana Bombs made their appearance.

"Last, but certainly not least, we have something new to show off for you!"

The auctioneer’s words hushed the crowd, playing into their excitement and wonder. They'd all seen the stand in the center of the room stacked with Mana Bombs that looked slightly different from the rest.

"The maker of these Mana Bombs included something fresh and exciting. This is a new type of Mana Bomb, far more powerful than those you've seen before! These Mega Mana Bombs are capable of causing three times the damage to spectral entities as the normal variety. With a handful of these, you can make short work of D-Grade specters, and even deal damage to powerful C-Grade specters!"

"One hundred thousand!" Cyra bid again, instantly bringing the lot of Mega Mana Bombs up to the final value most of the other lots had gone for.

But this time, the crowd wasn't intimidated. Bids flew one after another, and soon the final lot of Mega Mana Bombs hit two hundred thousand. Then three hundred.

"Uh, Cyra... do you have that much on you?" Myrina asked nervously.

Cyra turned to Myrina. "Not all of us blow their entire fortune bringing their friends over from newly integrated worlds. Besides, mother will reimburse me for these."

Cyra was not dissuaded by the high bidding. Eventually, she won the Mega Mana Bombs for half a million gold. I let out a low whistle, fighting to keep a smile off my face. With this kind of gold, buying something like the Arcane Blade skill book wouldn't be a problem for me at all.

Hell, I'd be able to start picking up skill books for Sakura and Bridget. Maybe I’d even get skill books for the rest of my companions on Earth, as well.

"Wanna watch Cyra hand over enough gold to fill a room?" Myrina elbowed me in the side.

I shook my head. "You two go on ahead. I want to look at what other items will be coming up for auction these next few days. Maybe I can get something else like Arcane Blade?"

Cyra and Myrina went right up to the auctioneer. Meanwhile, I ducked into a side room with Misa.

"I'll be receiving your physical gold soon enough, but let me just say that it is going to be a truly enormous amount. A normal bag of holding isn't going to hold it," Misa explained.

"What do people normally do in this situation?" I asked.

Cyra had a much better bag of holding than I did. Surely it couldn't be that much bigger? She was still D-Grade, like me—though much closer to level 100 than I was.

"Normally, someone with a great deal of money simply opens an account with us. This auction house is not our only one, so your gold is directly redeemable at any obelisk in several of the nearby cities, and your funds are guaranteed by the System. You won't be cheated, and you can swap the points for local currency wherever you travel on Themyscyra," Misa explained.

"I'll do that with half of my earnings, then. Could I ask you a favor?"

Misa raised her brows.

"There are a few skill books or items I'm looking for, and I may be out of the city when they come up for auction. If any of them do come up for auction, can you as my agent use my funds to acquire them?”

She nodded.

“Don't overpay… by much… but these are things I really want and I'd appreciate you getting them for me."

Misa smiled. "Of course. That's what an agent is for. Name your items of interest and I'll do my best to acquire them for you should they come up for auction here or at our neighboring branches."

I quickly listed off all the skill books Marol had suggested I pick up, as well as any magical items that would be useful for my class or my race. When I realized I probably wanted new crafting materials for my job, too, I asked Misa to pick those up for me, as well.

"Oh! And bags of holding… two of them, please. These things are useful."

Bridget and Sakura each needed one of their own.

"All noted and recorded," Misa replied, a wide smile on her face as she held out her hand. "I hope we have many more days like this one."

I grinned as we shook. "Plan on it."

<Note>

So let's try 5 chapters a week. Usual time, but chapters go live ever day except for Tuesday and Thursday.