And so it continued.
Next up for auction was a musician from the North Blue. He had long, wavy hair and was dressed in a tailcoat, exuding an air of exceptional elegance. Even with a slave collar locked around his neck, he showed no panic, calmly observing the crowd.
But this very composure only served to inflame the merchants' desire for conquest.
In the end, the musician was sold to a lavishly dressed noblewoman. The woman wore a tight corset that accentuated her figure and a massive, velvet-adorned hat. The only contrast was her obese frame and a face that, despite heavy makeup, looked aged and worn.
The final price reached 680,000 Belly!
"Next up is our third item of the day!" Disco slid on his knees to the front of the stage, tilting his head back to shout into the microphone. "A master coating artisan from Grove 13! With decades of experience, he's a true veteran."
As Disco spoke, the spotlight overhead remained fixed on him.
"The bidding starts at just 50,000 Belly!"
Disco shouted, rising to his feet as the spotlight instantly shifted to the center of the stage.
There, a handsome old man with a full head of white hair, clutching a bottle of liquor, was raised onto the platform.
Facing the crowd's scrutiny, Rayleigh was utterly unfazed. He casually took a swig from his bottle and let out a satisfied belch.
"What's this? Some decrepit old man?"
"No wonder the starting price is only 50,000 Belly."
"I have no use for a useless old geezer!"
The murmurs from the crowd were mostly dismissive. After all, the prime choices for slaves were the young and healthy. Who would bid on a worn-out old man?
*I knew it would be like this. If only this guy didn't owe our casino hundreds of thousands of Belly...* Disco thought to himself as he heard the crowd's reaction, his eyes glancing toward a specific spot in the stands.
"I'll take him! 60,000 Belly!"
A man in the stands signaled and called out a price.
He was clearly a shill planted by Disco.
"Captain, that... isn't that the Dark King, Rayleigh?" Nami exclaimed in disbelief, gripping Ryuuto's arm tightly.
"Hahahaha, it's Rayleigh, alright!" Ryuuto couldn't help but laugh at the sight. It was a truly iconic scene: the first mate of the Pirate King, Silvers Rayleigh, being sold at a slave auction.
"How interesting!" Ryuuto murmured, his gaze fixed on the stage.
In that instant, Ryuuto's eyes met Rayleigh's. A smile simultaneously touched both their lips as they sized each other up with keen interest.
"What a fateful encounter!" Rayleigh chuckled, a look of genuine curiosity on his face.
"80,000 Belly!" a rough-looking man finally shouted his bid after some hesitation.
Disco breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wouldn't be stuck with him. He scanned the audience and, seeing no other bidders, immediately brought the microphone to his lips, ready to declare the sale final.
"I bid 100 million Belly!"
Suddenly, Ryuuto shot to his feet and yelled the offer at Disco.
"What... 100 million Belly?!" Disco was completely thrown by this move, freezing in stunned silence.
"Is this guy insane?"
"Bastard! Stop causing trouble!"
"Get the hell out of here!"
The wealthy merchants, gangsters, and pirates in the stands clearly didn't believe Ryuuto was serious. They all assumed he was just there to disrupt the auction.
"Hahahahahaha..." Watching Ryuuto, Rayleigh let out a knowing laugh and drained the rest of his bottle in one go.
*Crunch~*
Ignoring the crowd's jeers, Ryuuto walked straight down the aisle toward the stage.
*It's finally time to raise some hell!* Nami thought to herself, her eyes fixed on Ryuuto's back.
"Huh? Captain Ryuuto is here too?" Porche exclaimed to Foxy beside her, her voice filled with excitement.
"You bastards! How dare you speak to Captain Ryuuto like that!" Foxy leaped from his seat, shouting at the surrounding crowd. His hands were already balled into fists, ready to attack at a moment's notice.
"Get him out of here! He's just a troublemaker!" Disco finally snapped out of his stupor and yelled at the bodyguards on either side of the stage.
As Disco's voice faded, more than a dozen large bodyguards emerged from behind the curtains, surging toward Ryuuto.
"Congratulations, you guessed right!" Ryuuto said lightly, continuing his slow, deliberate walk down the red carpet toward the stage. "Too bad there's no prize!"
With a Supreme Grade Sword strapped to him and the white-hilted Yubashiri at his waist, Ryuuto's upright figure advanced like an insurmountable wall, exuding an immense pressure as he slowly approached the stage.
As the dozen or so bodyguards got closer, a growing panic began to grip their hearts.
None of them dared to take another step forward.
*Thud... Thud...*
The sound of his footsteps on the carpet was like a heavy drumbeat, pounding against Disco's chest.
"What is going on?!" The thought of turning and running had already crossed Disco's mind.
"Let the show begin!" Rayleigh adjusted his glasses and sat down, calmly watching Ryuuto.
*Shhhhaaa—*
Ryuuto's gaze hardened, and in an instant, an immense wave of black-and-red Haki erupted from him.
The entire auction house trembled!
An incredibly powerful pressure enveloped the entire venue. The people in the stands, Disco, and his bodyguards immediately felt a sharp ringing in their minds as an irresistible sense of dread washed over them. Their eardrums roared, their hearts pounded violently, and their vision began to blur. It felt as if the very air had been sucked out of the room, making it almost impossible to breathe.
*Voom...*
In a single moment, nearly everyone in the auction house was knocked unconscious.
Of course, thanks to Ryuuto's deliberate control, Nami, Foxy, and Porche remained conscious.
Gazing at the now-silent auction house, Ryuuto nodded in satisfaction and finally walked over to Rayleigh's side.
"It's been a while, Mr. Rayleigh!" Ryuuto said with a light laugh, looking at the seated Rayleigh.
"I believe we just saw each other the day before yesterday." Rayleigh casually crushed the collar around his neck with one hand and stood up, a playful look in his eyes as he watched Ryuuto.
"What? How could he crush one of those collars so easily with his bare hands!" Foxy cried out in astonishment, watching Rayleigh on stage.
"Are those collars really that strong?" Nami asked curiously, standing beside Foxy.
"It's impossible to open them without the key! And if you try to break them with brute force, you'll disrupt the internal mechanism and trigger an explosion!" Foxy explained patiently to Nami. He had already seen slaves outside the auction house die because of those collars. That was why he'd made a point to learn about them.
"They're that dangerous? Then how did Mr. Rayleigh make it look so easy?" Nami glanced from Rayleigh to Foxy in bewilderment, completely unable to understand what was going on.