I Only Summon Villainesses

Cressida was right, but it still bothered me.

“You’re saying that men, hundreds of men, will be fighting to the death outside just to buy the ones inside the auction house more time to place their bids.”

Cressida nodded, eating yet another piece of bread.

I shook my head.

“Laws indeed. The laws of Recimiras are interesting. However, can’t one person simply step out and destroy the whole army of the Night Fall Order?”

“And lose the opportunity to bid for something they genuinely need?” She brushed crumbs from her fingers without looking up. “If they wanted to fight, they know where to go. No matter how brutal the war is or will be, you have to understand that to these kind of people, they only see it as normal. They are not bothered. We are talking about people on the caliber of Sky Generals. Why should they be bothered by the death of a few thousand men?”

“But I have met someone who was…”

She looked at me deeply and gave a coy smile that insinuated something.

“I’m not surprised.”

I chuckled slightly and leaned back.

We were both silent for a few seconds. The noise from the inn below us felt distant, muffled by the walls and by the weight of what she had just laid out. Then I leaned forward again and squinted my eyes.

“I’m getting an idea, Cress.”

She had finished with her bread and was squeezing the paper bag into a tight ball. She brought her gaze up to meet mine.

“Hmm?”

“I’m thinking, how about we also join the auction? How about we join?”

Cressida gave me a strange, bleak look. Then she shook her head a moment later.

“You really have high standards, but the Night Auction cannot be entered by someone of your caliber. Do you even know who House Valatian are? If you did, you wouldn’t be asking so simply.”

I shrugged.

“I mean, I don’t know anything about a lot of things, and when has that ever stopped me from doing what I need to do?”

I fixed her a dour look.

“I want to join the Night Auction and I intend to find every possible means. I think I should be able to make more money selling these materials than we would need from fighting a twelve hour battle.”

Cressida was thinking about it. She looked at me and nodded with a little light of acceptance.

“You do make some sense, but being a guard for the auction is most likely the only thing that will get us close. The location is always undisclosed and only the important people who have been invited can know where it truly is. So if we decide not to work as guards, we won’t be anywhere near the Night Auction.”

’And if we decide to work as guards, I have to fight a twelve hour battle… when I could be making real money.’

Cressida and I sat in graveyard silence for a couple of minutes before she eventually spoke.

“But I have an idea…”

I raised my head and looked at her with light of hope shining in my eyes.

Cressida shared her little plan with me, and eventually we had to rest and prepare for the Night Auction. No matter what we had planned, it still involved us being a part of that battle, so we were going to need all the rest we could get.

At some point we got served trays of food, which Cressida ate a generous amount of. After that we drifted off to sleep, me on the couch, Cressida on the bed.

A knock on the door woke me up after a few hours. I stood up grumpily to check who it was. The Innkeeper stood on the other side, staring at me with a tired, sleep-heavy set of eyes.

“You guys had enough rest?”

I nodded.

“I’ll get Cressida…”

The man sighed and turned away.

“Meet me downstairs.”

I went back quickly and woke Cressida. It took a few dozen minutes, but we eventually made it down. When we arrived, there were very interesting new faces to see.

The initial crowd that had filled this place during the day was nowhere to be found. The maidens who worked here were gone too, and everyone present now were the guards in black armor along with a handful of typical mercenary-looking people, though there were some outstanding few among them.

There was a guy with deep green hair and a scattering of little scars like scratches across his face. A dark-haired lady with sharp upturned eyes that were closed, as if she were asleep sitting up. And another one wearing a band across his forehead, right underneath his dark bangs.

Everyone was dressed in different attires, all light and fitted for easy movement. None wore metal armor… I think.

After a few moments, the Innkeeper walked to the front of the room with a tall, voluptuous lady behind him, holding a book. The mercenaries were all seated around the lounge in different sections of tables, so in order to enter everyone’s view the man stood right in the center, in front of the lift pillar.

He glanced around everyone. As he did, several of his guards moved through the room, dropping black cloths in front of us. Some people picked them up and inspected them with curious expressions.

I did the same.

’A blindfold?’

At once someone shouted.

“What the hell? What’s this blindfold for? We signed up for a mercenary job, we didn’t ask to be kidnapped!”

It was the green-haired mercenary. He had stood up, chair scraping behind him, finger jabbing toward the Innkeeper.

The Innkeeper said nothing. It was his secretary, or whoever she was, who responded.

She adjusted the glasses on her face and let them settle right above her nose, peering through them to inspect the man with a gaze that felt closer to a threat than an observation.

“And you need to be blindfolded to reach the job that you were accepted for. I’m fairly sure you agreed to the terms of discretion when you accepted this job and the money we would be paying.”

The man glared at her and gritted his teeth.

“And if I refuse to be blindfolded?”

The lady shrugged. Her expression could have been carved from stone.

“You can just leave.”

She turned to the rest of us, speaking from behind the Innkeeper.

“The location of the Auction House cannot be let known to any common individual. This is the gathering of the most esteemed individuals not just in Ashara or Solarium, but from the Northern Forgelands, the Twilight Frontiers, the Western Archipelago, and the Eastern Verdant Realm.” She let that settle before continuing. “This is the most dangerous and most vulnerable place in the world tonight. Not even you can bear the consequences of knowing the location of such a place.”

Her gaze ran through everyone as she spoke with finality.

“You will wear the blindfolds and follow every single one of our instructions. The only time you will be removing the blindfold is when we ask you to.”