Chapter 182
Immediately after the Third Night ended.
All the merchants summoned to the Devil Syndicate gathered in one place.
“Is it true that Master of the Moon Ahetta went bankrupt?”
“What about the payment? Are you saying everything we invested in the Third Night has gone down the drain?”
Questions poured out.
They, too, had heard the news that Ahetta had gone bankrupt and vanished.
But it was simply unbelievable.
Ahetta, famous for possessing countless treasures, going bankrupt after just the Third Night?
The problem wasn’t just that.
The Night Shop had been prepared through the Merchant Association’s best efforts.
Merchants with extensive experience and high rank had been selected to display and sell the finest goods.
Naturally, it was common practice to settle payments after the Night ended.
However, because of Ahetta’s bankruptcy, the Merchant Association hadn’t received a single coin.
“I heard the other devils who invested got their coins back?”
“We were lower priority.”
“They think they can take the Merchant Association lightly!”
“Damn it!”
The creators who invested and the participants who joined the Third Night.
It was only natural that they would be compensated first.
In the process, even the proceeds from auctioning off all of Ahetta’s assets had been exhausted.
It was a heartbreaking situation.
That was how enormous the Merchant Association’s losses were.
The merchants simply couldn’t understand.
“…So even with all those treasures and 1 million coins, he couldn’t complete the compensation.”
“What on earth happened inside?”
“Tell us the details!”
The question was thrown to the merchants who had participated in the Night Shop.
The news of Ahetta’s bankruptcy had spread throughout the Abyss in an instant, but no one knew what had actually happened along the way.
Bibola stepped forward.
“Master of the Moon Ahetta tried to invalidate the entire game by killing everyone inside. He even manifested himself directly.”
“Invalidate? Are you saying he tried to kill all the merchants too?”
“Yes.”
“Ha!”
A sigh escaped involuntarily.
Even if the merchants were easy targets, this was too much of a breach of commercial ethics.
It was an act of completely disregarding the Merchant Association.
If Ahetta hadn’t gone bankrupt, he would have become their mortal enemy.
“Wait. Are you saying the Master of the Moon actually manifested himself and still lost?”
At that moment, the chairman of the Merchant Association stepped forward and asked.
It was taboo for a creator to manifest in their own Creation Abyss.
It meant he had been desperate enough to try to invalidate the game, even at the cost of breaking that taboo.
However, that should have been absolutely impossible for humans to overcome.
The merchants were quite familiar with the level of humans.
The average human’s martial prowess didn’t even reach that of a low-ranking devil.
Bibola nodded.
“We don’t know the full details. But it’s certain that someone drove Ahetta into a corner. In the process…”
Bibola glanced at Dagon with a strange light in his eyes.
Dagon.
The simpleton, the devil dismissed by everyone as lacking the qualities of a merchant.
They had thought his first-place finish in the Second Night was just luck.
‘It wasn’t just luck.’
The eye to read the game and the ability to execute.
He knew what actions to take for his own benefit.
Had he been certain that Ahetta would go bankrupt?
Dagon had quickly made contracts with the humans and handed out the shop’s equipment like a madman.
It was an act that ran contrary to the contract with the creator.
An act no merchant should ever take.
So, while the others had inwardly cursed and clicked their tongues, Dagon had turned out to be right.
If Dagon hadn’t acted, all the merchants who participated in the Third Night would have died.
“Dagon made numerous contracts with the humans. He properly converted the value of the items in the shop and sold them. He received the lives and souls of over a thousand humans, and everything else they had, as collateral.”
“What?”
“Over a thousand humans’ everything…?!”
“As collateral?”
The surrounding merchants stirred.
Although the transactions had been done in the form of collateral, seizing everything a living being possessed was considered an extremely high value.
If the corresponding value wasn’t repaid within the set period, they would gain ownership of all that human’s rights.
If Bibola’s words were true, it wasn’t a bad thing for the Merchant Association.
“What’s the duration of the collateral?”
The chairman asked, looking at Dagon.
Dagon maintained a composed expression.
“One year, Chairman.”
“Hmm. The duration isn’t bad. If the humans have to pay for all the items from the Great Shop, it’s not a loss for our Merchant Association.”
The target of the payment wasn’t Ahetta, but the humans.
That was the most pleasing part.
Even if Ahetta went bankrupt, it had nothing to do with the humans.
Over a thousand humans had to repay the value of the items they had purchased from the Great Shop within a year.
Naturally, Dagon and the Merchant Association would split the settlement of those payments.
If they couldn’t repay, those humans would become slaves of the Merchant Association.
They would be worked to the bone for life, and even their souls would be harvested when they died.
Only then did the chairman, relieved, ask again.
“Dagon. How did you secure so many humans as collateral?”
“Ahetta tried to overturn the game, so I did the same.”
“You overturned the game together?”
“Yes. If we were going to die anyway, shouldn’t we at least struggle? I simply traded with the fleeing humans and fought alongside them.”
“Huh, you rebelled against the Master of the Moon with the humans? But if he hadn’t intended to invalidate the game and hadn’t gone bankrupt, you wouldn’t have avoided severe punishment.”
It was a dangerous gamble.
A merchant opposing a creator.
A catastrophic notion that shouldn’t even be entertained.
Having his merchant qualification revoked would have been the bare minimum.
Even if Dagon’s father held a key position in the Merchant Association, Dagon would have been severely punished.
Furthermore, it wouldn’t have been strange if he had been beheaded.
That was why it was so remarkable.
Bibola and the other merchants had approached the situation with the naive thought that ‘Ahetta wouldn’t kill the merchants.’
Only Dagon had grasped the full situation and placed a risky bet.
And he had succeeded.
“I was certain that Ahetta would go bankrupt.”
“…On what basis?”
“Gut feeling.”
“Gut feeling… a gut feeling, huh.”
The chairman nodded.
Gut feeling was a very important factor for a merchant.
A merchant without intuition couldn’t succeed.
Moreover, look at those confident eyes.
He had been certain of his judgment.
Of course, Dagon himself had only trusted Sephiro.
‘He’s changed.’
The chairman and the other merchants, unaware of that fact, now had an opportunity to see Dagon in a new light.
Everyone had thought Dagon lacked the qualities of a merchant.
They believed he had barely become a merchant thanks to his father’s influence.
In fact, Dagon tended to shrink back in front of actual merchants.
He wasn’t good at making deals or securing contracts.
But now—
Standing at the center of all the merchants, Dagon was shining on his own.
If it hadn’t been for Dagon, the Merchant Association’s damage would have been catastrophic.
Most of the items in the shop had come from Ahetta’s treasure vault, but the Merchant Association had to pay 20% of their value upfront to display those treasures in the shop.
It was a kind of deposit.
When sold, the Merchant Association only received 30%, so the profit margin was about 10%.
Unsold items were returned to Ahetta when the Night ended, and the deposit was refunded.
‘If it hadn’t been for Dagon, the Merchant Association would have faltered.’
In short, Dagon was a hero of the Merchant Association.
In a situation where they couldn’t recover the deposit at all, Dagon’s quick thinking had covered their losses.
The chairman said with a smile,
“I will promote Dagon to a special-class merchant.”
“S-Special-class merchant!”
“Isn’t it too early?”
The merchants stirred once more at the chairman’s words.
It was an unprecedented promotion.
Special-class merchants were the powerhouses of the Merchant Association.
They were also granted the privilege of exclusively monopolizing items that first flowed into the Merchant Association.
Since they could sell the best items at the highest value, it was a position any merchant would covet.
“Dagon has proven his worth in the Second and Third Nights. Has there been a merchant who has achieved better results in that time?”
The chairman’s will was firm.
Since Dagon had succeeded in a gamble that risked his life, he deserved a reward commensurate with that achievement.
None of the merchants could refute him.
“I will begin preparations for Dagon’s celebration. And Dagon, if there’s anything you want… hmm?”
The chairman, who had been speaking, blinked.
“…Where did he go?”
Because Dagon had suddenly vanished.
At this perfect moment, as if he had evaporated.
—
Dagon looked around.
A dark, gloomy cavern.
A place where countless Golems were scattered everywhere.
‘W-What is this place?’
It was definitely where his contractor was.
However, he hadn’t been forcibly summoned.
This time, Dagon had moved of his own will.
He had come to tell his contractor first that he had been promoted to a special-class merchant.
He had moved as soon as the chairman finished speaking.
But something was off.
He had clearly expected his contractor to be on Earth, yet he had arrived in a completely different place.
“Dark Guardian, Death Golem, that’s… a Nightmare?”
But his confusion was only brief.
Dagon stared at the Golems in horror.
Though not in perfect condition, the value of each one was enough to buy an entire city.
In particular, the Nightmare was an invaluable treasure that could only be seen in territories at the level of a demon king or above.
He couldn’t help but be shocked that nearly a thousand treasure-level Golems were lying here and there in a broken state.
“Ah…! Contractor-nim!”
At that moment, Dagon spotted his contractor among the Golems and cried out in delight.
But his contractor’s condition was far from good.
He was lying on the ground as if he had fainted.
“W-What happened? Why is he suddenly…!”
-Are you our master’s friend?
The Dark Guardian standing behind Park Chanwoo asked.
Dagon swallowed hard.
‘The Golem spoke?’
Insane.
A Golem with a self!
If he took it and sold it, he could get at least ten times the price.
Dagon forced himself to remain calm and said,
“I-I’m a merchant who made a contract with this person. Why is he collapsed here?”
-He collapsed while repairing us.
“Collapsed…?”
-It seems he fainted because he used too much blood.
“…Blood?”
The Golem was speaking with a self.
The intact Dark Guardians standing behind it were clearly unusual.
Their entire bodies were laced with red lines like veins of blood. Was all of that his contractor’s blood?
‘At least fifty of them…’
Even with excellent regenerative abilities, it was strange that he hadn’t died after using that much blood.
His skin was ghostly pale.
He must have been exhausted from the ordeal of the Third Night as well.
‘Why is he doing something so reckless…!’
This was beyond the matter of conveying news of his promotion.
“P-Please wait a moment!”
Dagon returned to the Merchant Association.
Then he spoke to the chairman.
“I need Arkham’s Life Water! Immediately!”
“…Arkham’s Life Water? You know that’s a rare item, and we only have one in the entire Merchant Association, don’t you?”
“Yes. You don’t have to promote me. The Merchant Association can take all the value of the thousand humans I seized as collateral. Just give me Arkham’s Life Water…!”
(T/N : Dagon coming in clutch again! )