Chapter 17

***

Stepping out of the smoothly halting sedan, Lino double-checked the address standing before a remarkably unremarkable gray building.

There’s absolutely no one here?

Situated right on the boundary where the commercial district bled into the residential area, the four-story structure looked thoroughly dilapidated, its gray walls plastered with faded advertisements and graffiti. Since a highly illicit black market was undoubtedly thriving inside, it was only natural they had selected such an inconspicuous, pathetic-looking location to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Yet, not a single guard was visible at the entrance. Lino verified the address on his phone once more to ensure he hadn’t made a catastrophic navigational error.

Zetina Ebek District 4, Number 23-8. He was exactly at the right place.

Perhaps they’re stationed inside because having heavily armed guards openly patrolling the exterior would look far too suspicious? That logic made sense. There was no way the estate driver had dropped him off at the wrong location. Since Enoch had mentioned the underground auction was held on the third basement floor, Lino decided to simply head inside and make his way down.

Grasping the metal handle, Lino pushed the heavy door open, his mind occupied with the deliberate absence of exterior security. The freezing metal clung fiercely to the palm of his hand. He had assumed his fever had finally broken, but it seemed he was tragically mistaken. The lingering lethargy and suffocating mental fog hadn’t been the fading side effects of the cold medicine; it was the raging fever itself.

Unlike the slightly muggy, humid summer air outside, the building’s interior was bone-chillingly cold. The sudden, violent drop in temperature caused a massive shudder to ripple through his entire body, making him belatedly realize he was absolutely drenched in a freezing cold sweat. His physical condition was significantly worse than he had anticipated.

Huuu. Taking a deep, ragged breath, Lino violently shook his head to clear the swirling fog. He couldn’t turn back after coming all this way. No, he absolutely refused to fail such a simple retrieval mission. Desperately forcing himself to believe his sluggishness was merely because the medicine hadn’t fully kicked in yet, he stepped onto the concrete stairs leading deep underground.

The first basement floor was much further down than he had expected. He had to traverse two rough, heavily scarred landings just to descend a single floor. Suspicious. Incredibly suspicious. Reaching the third landing, he finally detected the distinct presence of people waiting further down. Ah, so this is the first floor.

Lino unfastened the rigid double-breasted buttons of his uniform to retrieve the admission ticket and identification papers tucked securely inside his inner breast pocket. Releasing the tight buttons instantly alleviated a fraction of the suffocating pressure he had felt since riding in the car. He realized the stifling sensation had been caused by the aggressively tailored uniform clinging to his body without a single millimeter of breathable slack. He desperately wanted to leave the jacket hanging open, but knowing he couldn’t appear before the Duke looking utterly disheveled, he meticulously fastened every single button back up to his collar.

“Who goes there?”

Sensing Lino’s approach from the landing, two massive guards stationed at the B1 entrance stepped forward, their stances dripping with lethal hostility. Judging by how both men kept their hands buried deep inside their coats, they were fully prepared to open fire at the absolute slightest provocation.

Hey, I’m completely unarmed here, cut me some slack.

Lino had been a notoriously skilled and ruthless brawler in the slums, but in the face of loaded firearms, being a seasoned street fighter meant absolutely fucking nothing; dropping flat on your stomach and begging for mercy was the only viable survival strategy.

“Thank you for your hard work in this heat,” Lino greeted, bowing his upper body with a painstakingly crafted, aggressively good-natured smile plastered across his eyes and lips. The vicious-looking guards swept their clinical gazes over Lino from head to toe, their aura instantly turning exponentially more murderous.

“Where are you from?”

Startled by the sudden, terrifying spike in their hostility, Lino swallowed hard. Usually, bowing deeply and smiling submissively caused guards to lower their defenses, but this reaction was entirely backwards.

“I am, well, with the Du—”

“Fuck, are you a public official?!”

The absolute second the words left his lips, a chilling clack echoed as a pitch-black muzzle was leveled directly at Lino’s face.

“Excuse me?! Wh-Whaaaat? A public official?!”

Seeing a loaded gun aimed directly at his head for the first time in his life, Lino experienced the horrifying, visceral sensation of his heart plummeting to the floor and violently ricocheting back up into his throat. He could somehow manage a knife fight, but a fucking gun was entirely out of the question!

Terrified that a muzzle flash would erupt and blow his brains out at any given second, his freshly recovered heart instantly shriveled in pure terror. One of the guards barked a rapid-fire, aggressive interrogation.

“What’s your affiliation? The Royal Family? The Ministry of Justice? City Hall?!”

“I am affiliated with His Highness the Duke!”

“The Du—what? His Highness the Duke?”

“Here, right here.” Lino frantically shoved his admission ticket and identification papers toward the interrogating guard, praying his trembling hands wouldn’t trigger a fatal misunderstanding.

“Hands behind your back. Face the wall.”

“Y-Yes, sir…”

Following the guard’s uncompromising order, Lino clasped his hands behind his back and spun around. Pressing his feverish forehead against the freezing concrete wall, the biting chill seeped beautifully into his skin. Ah, I can finally breathe. He was already exhausted, but having a gun shoved in his face had completely scrambled his fever-addled senses.

“Holy Knight Lino Cliff?”

“Why the hell is a lowly holy knight coming here?”

“Didn’t he say something about a Duke earlier?”

“The Duke… ah, that guy who walked in earlier with that exceptionally pretty little thing on his arm?”

“Considering he brought a ticket, it looks legitimate. It’s even stamped with their official seal.”

“Should we let him in, then?”

“Hold on, let me verify.”

Despite handing over his ticket and official ID, the two guards refused to drop their lethal suspicions. Bzzzt— The sharp crackle of a radio echoed, but perhaps intending to keep Lino from eavesdropping on the security protocols, the guard holding the transceiver descended to the lower floor. Lino could hear the muffled hum of an intense conversation, but the high ceilings severely distorted the acoustics, making it completely impossible to decipher the exchange.

After a lengthy radio conversation, the guard trudged back up to the third landing where Lino was still staring submissively at the wall.

“Identity verified. Go inside.”

“Thank you so much. But could you possibly tell me where His Highness might be—”

“Do we look like your personal tour guides? We don’t know the interior layout either, so find him yourself.”

“Ah, yes…”

Taking back his ID, Lino folded it roughly a few times, shoved it deep into his trouser pocket, and stepped through the heavy metal door the guards held open for him.

“Watch your back in there. There’s a lot of highly dangerous shit,” one of the guards snickered ominously just before the door clicked shut. Lino desperately wanted to turn back and demand to know exactly what he should be watching out for, but the heavy iron door had already sealed completely shut behind him.

Is there even a single safe thing inside a place like this? The very existence of a black market auction is a massive felony. 

Deciding that turning back to ask questions would be an utter waste of time, he concluded the most rational course of action was to locate the Duke and Yuneria as quickly as humanly possible and escape this wretched hellhole.

Living up to its title as a black market, the lighting was deeply, suffocatingly dim. Several individuals with completely obscured faces roamed the corridor, which was barely wide enough for three people to walk shoulder-to-shoulder. Rooms lined both sides of the hallway, their entrances concealed not by solid doors, but by heavy velvet blackout curtains, allowing patrons to drift in and out with absolute freedom.

Enoch explicitly said the third basement floor. But did he mean their ultimate destination is the third floor, or that they are currently situated on the third floor? 

If it were the former, he could simply head straight down, but since it could easily be the latter, Lino had no choice but to meticulously scan the floors on his way down. Following the illuminated arrows painted on the walls, he moved quickly toward the lower levels. Because patrons occasionally burst out of the curtained rooms without a single shred of warning, his nerves were stretched taut to avoid any disastrous collisions. Even though he successfully dodged them, the shifting curtains inevitably granted him brief, highly unwanted glimpses into the rooms.

Ah, fuck. What is profoundly wrong with these people’s tastes? 

He bit down hard on his lip to swallow the visceral curse that threatened to spill out. Based on the fleeting, horrific glimpses into a few rooms, the first basement floor was exclusively dedicated to selling grotesque sex toys. However, these weren’t your standard, mundane dildos, lubricants, or bondage gear. Honestly, if it had been that kind of standard merchandise, he might have actually enjoyed the bizarre window shopping.

Instead, the rooms were bathed in oppressive, bloody red light, featuring elongated glass display cases lining the walls. Inside the cases rested horrifying masturbation devices meticulously molded to resemble severed human body parts. Even from a passing glance, their sheer size and hyper-realistic, fleshy appearance were thoroughly repulsive. Some of them were even visibly writhing and violently twitching on their own, sending a massive shiver of revulsion down his spine. The technological engineering seemed highly advanced, but he couldn’t begin to fathom why anyone would ever use something so profoundly horrifying.

Rubbing the goosebumps violently erupting across the back of his neck, he hurriedly descended to the second basement floor. There were four massive, grueling landings between B1 and B2. He genuinely questioned the absolute sanity of the architect who designed this building. Maybe the Baron Merchant Guild actually built this place themselves? 

A normal architect wouldn’t have wasted this much time and astronomical funding digging deep enough to breach the earth’s core.

The second basement floor was even darker and vastly more oppressive than the first. Unlike B1, where visibility was relatively unimpaired despite the dimness, this floor relied entirely on faint, recessed lighting embedded directly into the corridor floor. Even those lights were spaced so far apart that visibility was restricted to merely avoiding collisions with oncoming pedestrians.

It’s so quiet it’s actually terrifying. 

B1 had been partitioned by flimsy temporary walls with open ceilings, allowing the muffled hum of depraved conversations to bleed out into the hall. Here, however, the only sound was the hollow, echoing thud of approaching footsteps. The room entrances were sealed with heavy, impenetrable iron doors rather than curtains, and throughout his walk down the corridor, Lino hadn’t seen a single door standing open.

If the soundproofing is this absolute, there’s no point checking B2. I need to get down to B3 immediately. 

Such extreme, flawless soundproofing definitively implied that whatever was transpiring behind those iron doors could absolutely never be leaked to the outside world. It was either for discussing highly classified, top-secret political intelligence, or indulging in wildly illicit, unspeakably depraved private affairs.

There’s no way anyone comes to a disgusting place like this to discuss state secrets. It has to be the latter. 

The oppressive, nauseating silence felt exactly like being sealed inside a forgotten tomb, making his ears ring uncomfortably. Yet, the true horror wasn’t the silence; it was the smell. A potent, pungent, agonizingly sweet aroma that felt like it was violently churning his insides into mush.

Aphrodisiac incense.

Recognizing the sickeningly familiar scent he hadn’t encountered in years, Lino scowled deeply and hastily covered his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his uniform. However, because the uniform’s sleeves were tailored aggressively tight to his wrists, they lacked the excess fabric required to properly filter his breathing. He desperately tried to take shallow breaths, but the aphrodisiac that had already infiltrated his lungs rapidly began seizing control of his already severely compromised, feverish body. To make matters worse, his constitution—which was frustratingly highly receptive to any drug—violently betrayed him.

If I pass out here, they’re definitely going to drag me into one of those rooms. 

No matter how impenetrable the soundproofing was, it apparently couldn’t contain the revolting, toxic stench seeping out from under the iron doors.

His mind, which had remained relatively sharp on the first floor, instantly turned into a hazy, swirling mess the absolute moment he hit the second. Every breath felt as though someone had reached a hand into his skull and was violently stirring his brain with a spoon. The fever that had slightly subsided flared back to life with a vengeance, his limbs turned to lead, and his legs began to tremble uncontrollably. To avoid collapsing pathetically onto the floor, Lino dragged himself forward, heavily leaning one shoulder against the cold wall.

This wasn’t the cheap, garbage aphrodisiac used by the scumbags in the slums. Those destitute thugs typically used cheap powders that absorbed directly through the mucous membranes, not highly inefficient, obscenely expensive incense sticks. The upper class vastly preferred incense sticks because they carried a significantly lower risk of severe addiction and debilitating aftereffects compared to the powders. Though they called them “aphrodisiacs,” they were inevitably laced with heavy narcotics, meaning anyone using them had to endure a significant level of physical risk. The only difference was whether they wanted a slow, lingering burn or a short, explosive high; either way, it was entirely toxic to the human body.

Regardless, terrified of the unspeakable horrors that would befall him if he lingered on the second floor any longer, Lino commanded his trembling legs to move with every ounce of his remaining willpower. Why is this dark corridor so unbelievably long? It was likely identical in length to the floor above, but it felt three or four times longer.

Drenched in a freezing cold sweat and desperately dragging himself along the wall, someone suddenly called out from behind him.

“Excuse me… are you alright?”

It was a highly polite, yet incredibly unwelcome voice. Had this not been the Baron Merchant Guild’s highly illegal black market, Lino might have actually thought it was an exceptionally pleasant voice. That was how clean, gentle, and refined the man’s tone was. The catastrophic problem, however, was that they were currently in a terrifyingly dangerous environment where that very same man could easily snatch him by the nape of the neck and drag him into the abyss at any given second.

In the first place, no sane, decent human being would ever set foot in a place like this. And Lino didn’t exempt anyone from that rule; he firmly believed the Duke, Yuneria, and this bastard were all the exact same breed of perverted degenerates.

“Excuse me? You look incredibly unwell…”

Lacking even the mental energy to properly reject him, Lino ignored the man and kept walking, but the stranger closed the distance and pressed further. Without even turning around, Lino lifted the hand that wasn’t supporting his weight against the wall and waved it dismissively. It was a clear, unambiguous signal: No, I’m fine, go your own way.

Just a little further. Despite the crushing darkness, he could finally see the end of the corridor. A few more agonizing steps and he spotted the round doorknob. Opening that would reveal the staircase leading down to the third basement floor.

He desperately wanted to locate the Duke and Yuneria and drag them out of this wretched shithole immediately. He wanted to rip off this suffocating, restrictive uniform and submerge himself in a tub of scalding hot water. Terrified that the aphrodisiac seeping deeply into his lungs was going to permanently pickle his brain, Lino bit down on his lip with punishing force.

However, the man did not comply with Lino’s silent request. As Lino lowered his waving hand to brace himself against the wall again, the man roughly snatched his wrist and yanked him backward with surprising violence.

“What the hell…!”

“I will assist you.”

Or perhaps the man had actually understood Lino’s intent perfectly well. After all, he had clearly been eager to “assist” Lino from the very beginning.

“I said I’m fine.”

Lino violently twisted his captured wrist, wrenching it free from the man’s grip. He lacked both the mental clarity and the time to lift his head and inspect the man’s face. From the corner of his eye, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a pristine white mask. Makes perfect sense. No one would wander around a highly illegal, dangerous place like this with their bare face exposed. Even if he saw the man’s face, there was nothing he could do about it anyway. I just need to get the hell out of here.

Lino desperately wanted to flee down to the third floor. Yet, the man’s cloying, repulsive persistence refused to snap.

“Why don’t you come rest in my room for a while?”

“Are you craz—”

“It isn’t far. My, your body is burning up with fever. Drinking a cold beverage will surely bring your temperature down. You can take a nap, or… there are other, far more enjoyable methods as well.”

“I am here to find my companions. Take your hands off me.”

Lino stared at the floor, his vision swimming dizzily in a nauseating blur. He could see his own legs struggling to hold his weight against the carpet. Clenching his jaw, he bit down on his lip even harder. The sharp spike of pain forced his hazy consciousness to clear slightly. His unfocused gaze locked onto his feet—specifically, the heavy combat boots he was wearing.

Right, there’s a dagger hidden in the sole of my boot. He belatedly recalled the assassination demonstration Enoch had personally given him before he left the estate. Naturally, this memory sparked a vivid, bloody fantasy of whipping out the blade and threatening the bastard blocking his path.

Should I just… slice him open?

Entirely oblivious to Lino’s bloody fantasies, the man closed the distance, his demeanor becoming increasingly sticky and vile. Having initially attempted to win Lino’s favor with polite concern, his attitude rapidly deteriorated into something slimy and repulsive the absolute moment he realized Lino was bluntly rejecting him.

“In this condition, you’ll likely collapse before you ever find your companions. It would be in your best interest to obediently follow my lead.”

“Hah…”

A heavy, exhausted sigh escaped Lino’s lips. What absolute bullshit… His tone was soft, but the words were a blatant, thinly veiled threat. The wrist he had just freed was violently snatched again. This time, he wasn’t just grabbed; he was forcefully yanked. Barely able to stand under his own power, Lino’s weakened body was effortlessly dragged toward the man.

Fuck, this is really pissing me off.

Lino pulled his teeth back, hiding them behind his lips, and viciously bit down on the soft flesh inside his cheek instead. Instantly, a searing, white-hot agony exploded in his mouth, filling it with the metallic taste of blood. The violent shock of pain instantly obliterated the aphrodisiac-induced haze scrambling his vision and mind. The clarity wouldn’t last long, but it provided exactly enough time to launch a devastating counterattack.

With his suddenly hyper-focused mind, instead of struggling to pull away, Lino threw the entire weight of his staggering body forward, launching himself directly into the man’s embrace.

Thrilled by Lino’s sudden, seemingly compliant surrender, the man eagerly opened his arms to catch him.

“Oh, you finally understand my inten—ughk…!”

The man’s triumphant gloating was violently severed by a choked, agonizing gasp. Utilizing the momentum of his faux-surrender, Lino had twisted his body at the absolute last millisecond, driving his hard shoulder directly into the man’s solar plexus with crushing force.

Having successfully rammed his shoulder into the man’s chest, Lino effortlessly ripped his wrist free as the man staggered backward in shock. Rolling his aching wrist, Lino watched the man spit a string of vulgar curses and lunge forward to grab him again. Lino’s gaze snapped back down to his boots.

Should I just fucking stab him?

Normally, Lino absolutely loathed the idea of harming another human being, but his body was currently a toxic disaster zone of fever, cold medicine, and highly potent aphrodisiacs, severely compromising his rational judgment and turning him highly unpredictable. The only saving grace was that a tiny fraction of his brain still logically calculated that this man was likely a high-ranking aristocrat.

“You… what House do you belong to? Judging by your attire, you’re a knight. Dikna? Jeyron? Or are you affiliated with a merchant guild?”

The man, having remarkably recovered his balance in an instant, interrogated Lino. To move with such elegant, effortless fluidity despite taking a direct hit to the solar plexus proved the man possessed exceptional martial training, cementing Lino’s absolute certainty that he was a high-ranking noble.

Ah, dammit. If a commoner assaults a noble, the sentence is brutally multiplied. Fighting through the rapidly returning fog in his mind, Lino desperately tried to calculate a legally safe method to escape this colossal clusterfuck.

However, his agonizing internal debate was cut violently short. Seeing Lino standing motionless while lost in thought, the man lunged at him. With his body feeling as heavy and sluggish as waterlogged cotton, Lino couldn’t dodge in time. Instead, as he shoved the man’s upper body away, he reflexively brought his knee up in a defensive strike.

“Kuughk!!”

Due entirely to the specific height difference between them, Lino’s rising knee connected flawlessly, with devastating, pinpoint accuracy, directly into the dead center of the man’s crotch. It was a complete, agonizingly perfect accident; Lino hadn’t intentionally aimed for the jewels. While successfully neutralizing the man’s immediate lust was a massive victory for Lino, physically feeling the grotesque, sickening sensation of testicles crushing violently against his kneecap was a profoundly horrific trauma for both of them.

THUD.

With a final, strangled death rattle, the man’s body toppled backward like a felled tree. Having experienced a surge of agony that spectacularly shattered the human pain threshold, his consciousness completely flatlined. He collapsed onto the corridor floor without letting out even a single pathetic whimper.

Noble… what was the maximum sentence for assaulting a noble again?

Leaving the comatose man behind, Lino trudged down the corridor, mentally calculating his potential prison sentence. The phantom, nauseating sensation of crushing testicles still lingered heavily on his kneecap, causing him to shudder violently, but the sheer visceral shock of the encounter had successfully jolted the remaining aphrodisiac fog from his brain.

Shortly after, Lino finally reached the staircase leading down to the third basement floor.

B1 was a marketplace for grotesque sex toys. B2 was undoubtedly a labyrinth of private rooms dedicated to highly secretive, unspeakably depraved sexual encounters—likely offering both the venue and the partners. And B3 was the actual auction house, a massive arena where anything and everything under the sun—from the dead to the living, to abominations trapped somewhere in between—was sold to the absolute highest bidder.

Lino had naively assumed he would easily spot the Duke and Yuneria the absolute second he stepped onto the third floor. However, the security surrounding the auction house was far more heavily fortified than he had anticipated. The moment he pushed open the heavy doors to B3, he was greeted by a swarm of heavily armed guards barking constantly into their radios. As Lino stepped into the room, dozens of pairs of eyes instantly snapped toward him.

“Who are you?”

The man who appeared to be the captain of the guards demanded, his tone perfectly polite yet radiating oppressive, suffocating authority.

“My name is Lino Cliff. I am here to retrieve my employer.”

“…Your employer?”

The captain glared at Lino, his eyes brimming with profound suspicion. Behind him, several guards began whispering urgently into their radios, clearly demanding intelligence on this sudden intruder from the guards stationed on the upper floors.

“Captain, he claims to be the escort for Duke Grondil,” a guard whispered after receiving confirmation over the radio.

“Duke Grondil? I didn’t see that name on the auction participant roster.” Though the captain directed the question at his subordinate, his piercing gaze remained entirely locked on Lino. It was a silent, lethal demand for an explanation.

Hearing that the Duke wasn’t on the list, Lino suddenly remembered that Yuneria had been the one to aggressively drag the Duke here in the first place.

“Hmm… is Sir Yuneria Ganel Disson on the roster?”

“Ah, the Marquis’s second son?” Fortunately, acknowledging Yuneria’s name, the captain nodded in confirmation.

“We have been expecting you.”

“?”

What… what do you mean you’ve been expecting me?

“Please, step inside. We will escort you.”

“…Excuse me? Ah, hmm. Alright.”

The captain issued a curt, clipped order to the guards behind him: “Escort him.”

“Please, follow us.”

The guards immediately closed in, forming a tight, inescapable perimeter around Lino, and began leading him forward. However, they weren’t heading toward the designated auction participant seating area.

What is going on…?

Unable to grasp the flow of the situation, Lino scowled deeply in confusion. Escorting him logically implied taking him directly to where the Duke and Yuneria were seated. But the captain’s preceding statement—We have been expecting you—felt bizarrely incongruous with the current scenario.

If they knew I was coming in advance… that means someone explicitly ordered them to escort me upon my arrival. But who? The Duke? Yuneria? Enoch?

Since radio signals didn’t even reach the estate, it was highly unlikely Enoch had called ahead after Lino departed. And the idea that the Duke—who had treated Lino as less than dust for over a month—would suddenly go out of his way to arrange a distinguished guest escort for him at an illegal black market auction was absolutely laughable.

Then the only option left is Yuneria…

But this also made absolutely zero sense. Unless his intentions were entirely malicious.

If it’s that bastard, he might have literally ordered them to throw me onto the auction block.

Knowing Yuneria, that was a highly terrifying, incredibly plausible reality. Vigorously rubbing the goosebumps erupting across his forearms, Lino intentionally slowed his pace to a crawl, desperately scanning the sprawling expanse of B3 to locate the Duke and Yuneria. Regardless of where the guards were trying to drag him, the moment he spotted the Duke and retreated to the estate, this entire nightmare would be over. He desperately just wanted to get out of this hellhole, scrub himself raw in the shower, and collapse into bed.

However, much like the second floor, every single patron on the third floor was wearing a mask, making visual identification practically impossible.

He was technically following the guards as instructed, but the destination felt deeply, undeniably sinister. The Duke and Yuneria were undoubtedly seated in the participant area, yet the guards were steering him directly toward the main stage instead.

Come to think of it… compared to this, the first basement floor was an absolute paradise.

That was Lino’s grim assessment as his eyes locked onto the auction stage. The “item” currently being auctioned was a beastkin. No, more accurately, it was a grotesque, surgically mutilated human counterfeit designed to mimic a beastkin.

The male specimen on display possessed a severely emaciated, sickly frame that radiated profound illness. The animal ears attached to his head and the tail protruding from his lower back undeniably belonged to an actual beast, but upon closer inspection, the crude, horrific surgical sutures were glaringly obvious. While the ears were partially concealed by his hair, the base of the tail was surrounded by violently inflamed, angry red flesh.

Tsk, absolutely revolting.

He genuinely preferred the horrors of the second floor, including the masked aristocrat who had tried to sexually assault him. The only microscopic silver lining here was that, due to the high-stakes nature of the astronomical bids, the environment was devoid of the mind-altering, libido-spiking incense that threatened to shatter his sanity.

To think I have to consider that a silver lining.

Running his tongue over the bitter inside of his mouth, Lino slowly and meticulously scanned the surrounding area. True to its reputation as an exclusive playground for the obscenely wealthy elite, the interior was overwhelmingly opulent. The deep emerald carpet covering the entire floor featured a pattern so exquisitely beautiful it felt like a desecration to walk on it with dirty shoes. It looked like a priceless tapestry that belonged framed on a museum wall, rather than a sound-dampening floor covering.

They have to be here somewhere. But I can’t find them if I can’t even see them.

The club chairs occupied by the auction participants and spectators were incredibly deep; if someone leaned all the way back, they were entirely swallowed by the upholstery, completely hidden from view. Still, Lino desperately hoped that given the Duke’s massive, towering frame, at least his head would be visible over the backrest, prompting him to crane his neck and search frantically.

Oh, is that him?

“Wait a moment.”

Lino abruptly halted his forced march and waved his hand enthusiastically toward the man he suspected to be the Duke. He desperately wanted to scream, Over here! at the top of his lungs, but having zero desire to draw the attention of the surrounding degenerates in this perverted hellscape—especially after the traumatizing incident on the second floor—he simply wanted to quietly retrieve his targets and vanish.

However, exactly like everyone else in the room, the man was entirely fixated on the mutilated counterfeit beastkin suffering on the stage. Is the distance too great for him to see me? He waved his arm in wider, more frantic arcs, but the suspected Duke refused to tear his gaze away from the stage.

Left with no alternative, Lino opened his mouth to call out his name.

“Duke Grondil—Mmph?!”

“You cannot.”

His shout was violently suffocated by the guards. The arm he had been waving frantically toward the Duke was ruthlessly seized and wrenched agonizingly behind his back. Before he could even scream, What the hell are you doing?! a rough, foul-tasting wad of cloth was brutally shoved deep into his mouth, reducing his protests to muffled, desperate grunts.

What the hell is this?! Why is this happening suddenly?!

Eyes blown wide with absolute shock and terror, Lino stared at the guards restraining him. Yet, their expressions remained completely blank, terrifyingly apathetic, as if violently subduing a desperately confused man was merely a mundane part of their daily routine.

“Mmph! Mmmmph!”

As Lino violently thrashed his body in a desperate bid to break free, a sharp tsk of annoyance echoed near his ear. Immediately, one of the guards retrieved a small glass vial from his pocket and thrust it directly under Lino’s nose.

With his mouth violently gagged and his body engaged in a frantic, exhausting struggle, Lino was naturally breathing heavily through his nose, making it physically impossible to avoid inhaling massive lungfuls of the unidentified vapor pouring from the vial.

Ugh… what a putrid stench.

A sickening, acrid odor of rotting grass invaded Lino’s nasal cavity, violently striking his sinuses. The moment it hit, a devastating wave of dizziness crashed over him. His vision flipped violently upside down. The disorientation was so profound and absolute that his mind entirely shattered, unable to discern whether the building had inverted or if he himself was falling. His physical body crumbled completely. He could faintly feel the guards’ brutal, unyielding hands seizing his arms and waist to keep him from hitting the floor.

Fuck, I’m dead. Yuneria, you absolute fucking bastard.

Driven purely by survival instinct, Lino instantly deduced that Yuneria was the sole mastermind behind this horrific betrayal, but that realization was his final thought. Lino’s consciousness was forcefully and entirely extinguished.