I Only Summon Villainesses

Chapter 321: Fulfillment Of A Merchant

Since my mind was not going to keep quiet about what was and what wasn’t, I sought to find the answer myself.

”Uhm, is this... the Night Auction?”

What I was currently seeing was nothing but a night market. People walking about, browsing stalls, haggling over items like this was any other evening in Recimiras.

She chuckled.

”What were your expectations for the Night Auction? Glamorous halls with glittering gold lights, the elites of the elites sitting with raised number signs as they bid silently?”

I managed a shameful giggle.

’She caught me...’

She looked up.

”There... beyond the dark skies is where the Night Auction truly is... everyone and everything here is rudimentary at best.” She looked at me and smiled, slow and deliberate, the kind of smile that was doing something on purpose. ”Now tell me about those items of yours?”

’She wants to see the items? Fine.’

I was more than willing to oblige. After all, that was the whole reason I was here in the first place. Making money, not defending some ruins for twelve hours while my essence bled dry, and certainly not attending some night market dressed like I belonged.

I opened my inventory.

The first thing I pulled out was a thick, white pelt with a bluish sheen that caught the torchlight and bent it cold. Blizzard Mauler Pelt. I had six of these, so I laid one across my palm and held it out to her.

”I’ve got a few of these.”

Lady Hue received it with both hands, and the moment her fingers touched the material, a small crease appeared between her brows. The area around her eyes tightened.

She ran her thumb across the surface, pressed it, held it up to the faint glow of the lanterns lining the stalls around us.

”This is genuine Blizzard Mauler Pelt.” She looked at me. ”High-grade cold resistance material. Where did you get this?”

”Killed the thing it came from.”

She studied me for a moment, then looked back at the pelt.

”You don’t just kill...” She sighed. ”Forgive my manners, I shouldn’t put my nose around your businesses. These sell for between three to five hundred gold crowns apiece depending on condition.”

She folded it carefully, like it deserved more respect than I had given it.

”You said you have a few?”

”Six.”

Her hands paused on the fold.

”Six.”

I nodded and pulled out the next item before she could settle. A curved, translucent fang about the length of my forearm, laced with frost veins that pulsed faintly even removed from the beast. Permafrost Fang.

”Got three of these too.”

Lady Hue took it with noticeably more care than the pelt. She turned it slowly, letting the torchlight pass through its semi-transparent body, and when it did, the frost veins inside caught the glow and scattered it into pale blue threads.

”This is an Epic-grade spirit weapon component.”

Her voice had dropped. The casual, probing tone she’d been using since we started walking was gone.

”A Permafrost Fang. A single one of these is worth more than what most of the merchants in this entire market will earn tonight combined.”

’Now that’s the kind of comparison I like to hear.’

I pulled out the next one. A crown-shaped crystal formation, pale white with a core that pulsed faintly like a slow heartbeat. Patriarch’s Ice Crown. I set it gently in her waiting hands, and I say gently because I had seven of the damn things and dropping one would have been an insult to my wallet.

The moment she received it, her composure cracked.

Her lips parted. Her eyes widened by a fraction, then narrowed as if she was trying to force herself back into control and her face wasn’t cooperating.

”This is a Patriarch’s Ice Crown.”

She whispered it.

In the middle of a crowded night market, Lady Hue of the Valatian House was whispering like she was afraid someone would hear.

”These are used to craft frost aura equipment. That equipment only reaches market once every few years because no one can reliably obtain them.”

”I have seven of those.”

She looked up at me and for the first time since I’d met this woman, she didn’t seem to have a response ready. Just her face doing what faces do when the brain behind it is trying very hard to keep up.

I decided not to let it keep up.

I pulled out the Ancient Mauler Heart next. A dense, fist-sized organ preserved in crystallized spirit essence, cold enough that frost formed on my fingers when I held it. Alchemy ingredient for cold-immunity potions. Only had one of these, but the way her hand trembled when she took it told me one was plenty.

Then came the Gorewraith Bone Plates. I pulled one out, pale and surprisingly light for something that looked like it had been ripped off a creature designed to survive getting hit by mountains.

”These are lightweight but strong. Armor crafting material, I believe.” I shrugged. ”Got eight.”

She set the Bone Plate down on the cloth she’d been unconsciously spreading across a nearby stall counter, her hands moving with the practiced urgency of someone who handled precious goods for a living. But her breathing had changed. Shorter. Faster. Like each item I produced was making the air thinner.

”What else?” she asked. And the way she asked it wasn’t casual anymore. It was the voice of someone standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down, not sure how deep the fall went but unable to stop leaning forward.

I pulled out the Cratakiti Hook-Barbs. Small, vicious little things, curved like fishhooks but made of something that looked like solidified venom.

”Fourteen of these.”

She barely glanced at them. Not because they were worthless, but because by now she understood the scale of what I was carrying, and the Hook-Barbs were simply the furniture in a room full of paintings.

The Leviathan Spine Segments came next. A flexible, almost liquid-looking length of material that bent and flowed like water when I moved it. She took it with the caution of someone handling a living thing.

”This is...” She trailed off, turning it over. The segments shifted, catching light like oil on water. ”This is Legendary-grade material.”

”Just the one.”

Her jaw clenched.

I could have stopped there. Honestly, that would have been more than enough to make my point. But the businessman in me had been waiting his entire miserable life for a moment like this, and he wasn’t about to let it end early.

I pulled out the Stalker Spine Shard. A dark crystal that hummed faintly in my hand, void-attuned, the essence inside it swirling like smoke trapped in glass. The air around it seemed to bend slightly, as if the light itself wasn’t comfortable being too close.

Lady Hue didn’t take it. She stared at it. Her hand came halfway up and stopped.

”That is a void-attuned essence crystal.” Her voice was barely controlled. ”How did you get it for fuck’s sake...”

She caught herself a beat too late, took a half-step back, and pressed a hand to her mouth as though proximity to me was corroding her manners.

’There it is.’

Lady Hue of the Valatian House, composed and deliberate and so very in control, had just sworn at me in the middle of a night market.

I had to admit, for a while I’d been worried. The items coming out of my broken system had seemed almost too strange to be real, especially after the blacksmith couldn’t identify half of them. I’d carried the doubt quietly.

But watching this woman’s composure come apart one item at a time, watching her hands tremble and her voice drop and her professionalism dissolve into profanity...

’Turns out the coin was gold after all.’