Chapter 115: Stage Changes
The Celestial Dragons were as tyrannical as ever.
Axel had known that already. Their way of thinking had never been complicated. The world existed for them. Rules existed beneath them. Everyone else breathed only because they had not yet become an inconvenience.
Even so, seeing an entire auction restart simply because they had arrived late was enough to sour the mood.
The first sale had already ended. Money had changed hands. A person had been sold. Yet with one lazy sentence from Saint Rosward, all of that vanished as if it had never mattered.
Not even the nobles dared complain.
They only lowered their heads, swallowed their resentment, and pretended it was natural.
Eli's face had gone pale. Sitting in the sixth row, he leaned closer and whispered in a voice so low it almost vanished under the noise of the hall.
"Maybe… we should come back another time."
His suggestion was not cowardice alone. With Celestial Dragons present, any disturbance would become a disaster. If these people made a move now, it would not simply be a matter of freeing slaves or destroying an auction house.
It would mean offending the World Nobles directly.
"No," Issho replied.
Eli's face twisted as though someone had forced him to bite into a lemon.
"Your goal is to rescue the victims and destroy the human trafficking base, right? Then there's no need to clash with the Celestial Dragons head-on. We could go around to the back, save whoever we can, and come back another day to deal with the auction house."
No one answered immediately.
Mistaking that silence for hesitation, Eli hurried on.
"Right? That would work. We leave first, wait for a better chance, then—"
"No," Issho said again.
The answer was calm.
Unshakable.
Eli nearly groaned. "Why?"
He tried to keep his tone respectful, but desperation still leaked out. "Just give them some face for now."
Issho's cloudy eyes seemed to turn toward the front row.
"Why should I give them face?" he said. "I have a face as well."
Eli opened his mouth, then froze.
Issho continued, his voice slow and heavy. "More than that… I wish to know what people with such darkness in their hearts will do next."
When Issho used Observation Haki to sense others, most hearts contained some shadow. Greed. Cowardice. Envy. Anger. Even kind people had flaws buried somewhere inside.
But the Celestial Dragons were different.
There was no warmth.
No pity.
Not even the faintest trace of shame.
Their hearts were like wells poisoned long ago, and Issho wanted to hear what kind of sound would rise from such depths.
Eli had no answer.
If it had been the old him, he would have abandoned them and run without looking back. But after seeing Issho's justice, after witnessing the destruction of the Peterman Base, after watching slaves walk free for the first time in years, something inside him had begun to waver.
Fear urged him to flee.
Something else urged him to stay.
In the end, he clenched his teeth and stayed seated.
Axel, meanwhile, was also weighing the situation.
Reason said they should avoid this.
His current strength was respectable, but "respectable" meant nothing before a Marine Admiral. If this escalated, the Navy's highest fighting force would come. Throwing himself into that storm was no different from smashing an egg against a cliff and expecting the cliff to apologize.
And yet…
At some point, he had stopped fully understanding himself.
A heat had been stirring deep inside him. Not anger alone, not justice alone, but something rawer, more instinctive. It rose from his blood and bones like thirst. Like a vampire catching the scent of blood.
Once, he might have pushed it down with logic.
Now, reason could still restrain it—but not silence it.
The auction resumed.
The host adjusted his smile, raised his microphone, and forced his voice back into its cheerful pitch.
"Now then! Once again, let us admire our first item of the day—a beautiful young woman, Brenda!"
Brenda was brought back onto the stage.
She looked dazed.
Had she not already been sold?
No one explained anything to her. The staff merely dragged her forward in her shackles, forcing her to walk across the same stage again.
For many women, the most beautiful walk of their life was down an aisle in a wedding dress.
For Brenda, the cruelest walk of her life was across an auction stage in chains.
And now, she had to suffer it twice.
The moment she lifted her head and saw the new figures sitting in the front row, the blood drained from her face.
Celestial Dragons.
She understood everything.
Her first instinct was to lower her head. She shrank in on herself, desperately hoping not to be noticed.
Being bought by a noble was hell. She might become a plaything, a servant, or a piece of furniture dressed in human skin.
But being bought by a Celestial Dragon was worse.
Slaves taken by the World Nobles rarely lived long. Their deaths were not accidents. They were entertainment.
For the first time, Brenda prayed that the ugly man who had bought her earlier would buy her again.
Even he was better than a Celestial Dragon.
That fragile hope shattered almost immediately.
Saint Charlos's gaze crawled over her.
The host, sweating beneath his smile, hurried through the introduction and announced the start of bidding.
Before anyone else could speak, Charlos raised his hand.
"Five million Berries!"
The hall fell silent.
It was rare for an ordinary human slave to reach one million Berries. Five million was a ridiculous price, the kind that might only appear once in a very long while.
But since Saint Charlos had spoken, no one dared compete.
No one wanted to win against a Celestial Dragon.
No one wanted to be remembered by one either.
"Charlos," Saint Rosward said with mild displeasure, "you are bidding recklessly again."
"Recklessly?" Charlos tilted his head, mucus hanging from his nose. "I've decided. She'll be my third wife."
He sniffed, then casually reached under his bubble helmet to pick his nose, looking so stupid that, for a moment, it was almost difficult to connect him with the horror he represented.
Almost.
Brenda bit her lip until it nearly bled.
Her value had risen from 430,000 Berries to five million.
There was no joy in it.
The higher the price, the deeper the despair.
"Then item number one goes to Saint Charlos for five million Berries!" the auctioneer announced at once.
He did not need to check the guest list. Anyone who worked in this auction house had to memorize the names and appearances of every Celestial Dragon who might visit. Even their children.
Forgetting a noble's name might cost him his job.
Forgetting a Celestial Dragon's name might cost him his life.
Saint Charlos was already impatient. He stared at the woman he had just purchased and rose from his seat.
"Father, I've bought what I wanted. I'm going back first."
Saint Rosward frowned. "Fine. I will return after buying a slave for Shalria."
Charlos waddled toward the stage, his bloated body bouncing with every step.
No one stopped him.
No one told him buyers had to wait until the end of the auction.
Celestial Dragons did not follow rules. They were the rules.
The closer he came, the more Brenda's body trembled.
When that repulsive face loomed before her, she turned away by instinct.
Charlos circled her once, then hopped clumsily from side to side as if showing off a toy.
"Father! Father! My taste is excellent, isn't it?"
Saint Rosward gave a careless nod. "Train her properly this time."
"I know, I know," Charlos muttered. "The first two were clearly useless. How can you say I trained them badly?"
Then he turned back to Brenda.
"From today on, you are my wife," he said. "You belong to me."
His hand reached toward her.
Brenda recoiled in horror.
"No!"
The cry escaped before she could stop it.
The instant it did, she knew she had made a mistake.
Her face went white.
Saint Charlos's expression twitched.
He had just promised his father he would train this one properly, and now this lowly commoner had embarrassed him in public.
"You were bought by me!" Charlos shrieked. "You are my slave! Your life and death are mine, do you understand, you filthy commoner?!"
He lifted his foot and kicked toward her.
Brenda squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blow.
It never came.
A cane-sword blocked Charlos's foot.
The stage went silent.
A tall figure had appeared between them without a sound, smiling gently, his blind eyes calm beneath the scars across his face.
.....
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