'So, this is the city…' Nathan raised his head, staring at the tall city wall. 'Even though their pockets are bleeding because of the current situation, they are still participating in an auction.'

When Nathan entered the city, he casually looked left and right, noticing that the state of this city was actually much better than he originally expected.

'Hmm… Does the auction have that much impact?' Nathan frowned. 'Maybe I was wrong.'

A lot of people were working around the city. Although it was true that the situation was quite bad because of the ash cloud, this place wasn't as hopeless as other cities.

The road was kept clean. Rather than sitting around and waiting for the ration, they worked hard.

The answer came when he saw another carriage passing by.

'Hmm?' Nathan raised his eyebrows. There was a carriage. It didn't look shabby, but it didn't seem to be a noble carriage.

Another one appeared, then another one. From the number of carriages, he realized something.

'Don't tell me, nobles or rich merchants love to keep their appearance. This city, which is near all six nobles, becomes a sort of hub. To maintain that appearance, they make the people work to keep it clean. It creates temporary jobs during the disaster, which keeps the money circulating.

'I was wrong.' Nathan was astonished. 'By keeping it clean, the auction house or other merchants can still do it.

'Well, the merchants might cause a lot of problems as well, so I don't know what will happen when the cloud-repelling device is in circulation.

'It might reach a different conclusion than Gratzel, so I'm kind of looking forward to it.'

Nathan's carriage continued moving toward an inn. After settling his accommodations, he asked Jinwu to patrol the area and changed Fenrir to Mae.

Mae was one of the two familiars with a form that wasn't a weapon. Her ability revolved around illusion, so he knew a gun was not suitable for it.

For an illusion, it was better to be secretive. Hence, Mae's form was actually a ring. Of course, Nathan had low-level control over illusion because it wasn't his focus. In fact, most of the time, he relied on the familiars themselves to use their special abilities and incorporate them in his bullets.

But Mae didn't have bullets, so just like Qilin, who was activating the trigram on his behalf, Mae activated the illusion on him and kept it controlled with her divinity so that no one could find it.

The first place Nathan visited was none other than the auction house that was said to be holding an auction in three days.

"Welcome to Naruda Auction House. How may I help you, Miss?" A female staff walked toward Nathan. Of course, with Mae's illusion, there was no need to exchange the shapeshift ability anymore. She could manage it just by applying an illusion.

"I heard there will be an auction in three days. Is that correct?" Nathan asked.

"Yes."

"If I want to participate…" Nathan squinted his eyes.

"If you would like to participate, you have two ways. The first way is to receive an invitation from the auction house or its associates. The second one will be a direct deposit. In that case, if you don't buy anything, the auction house will receive 10% of the deposited amount, with a maximum of 1 million Zel."

"So, you only need to deposit 10 million?" Nathan raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, would you like to register?"

Nathan thought for a moment. "I was told to come here to participate, but I was far from here. Is there anything else the auction house offers?"

"Of course. There are a lot of things. We also have our own stores. Would you like to see it?"

"Sure." Nathan nodded.

"This way, please."

Nathan was a bit curious about what kind of items they would sell. On Gratzel, they advanced on a lot of things. So, he could see artifacts, magic circles, books, and so on.

On the other hand, this continent didn't have that kind of development due to its overreliance on crystal weapons.

So, he wondered about the types of items they sold.

To his surprise, it was more amazing than he had originally imagined.

They arrived at the store. On one shelf, he could see a variety of cores. On another shelf, there were a lot of jars filled with pastes or liquids, most likely medicines. He could see a lot of minerals as well.

Since a summoner could form their own weapons and armor, they didn't have them in shops. Instead, they sold all kinds of minerals, so finding minerals was easier on this continent.

Obviously, there were herbs. Due to the lack of advancement in weapons and armor, they focused on potions instead. Either for recovery or something else.

'Now that I think about it, everything related to the dwarf race is cheap. In fact, dwarves are looked down upon. On the other hand, potions and herbs are quite expensive. If my gardens can be sold here, I don't know how expensive they will be.

'Though, there are still a few manuals on the shelves as well…'

Nathan examined a lot of the items and noticed that most of the quality was not to his liking.

"Is this all? Do you have anything better than this?" Nathan asked.

"There are, but…" The staff started to doubt Nathan. He asked about the auction but didn't register. When he asked about stores, he didn't buy anything.

So, the staff wondered if he was going to buy anything at all. However, the world was a mess. She would be out of a job if she made the wrong decision.

Since Nathan was wearing good clothes, she thought Nathan had clothes, so she nodded her head. "Please, this way. I will guide you there."

Nathan followed her to a deeper section. As expected, the quality of this place was different. Although the quantity was lower, he would be happy to purchase a lot of things here.

However, it would be too suspicious if he bought everything right away. Hence, Nathan pointed at a few manuals and the minerals. Pack all of them for me."

"!!!"

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