At that moment, the three giant screens in the courtyard lit up.
A moment later, three faces appeared on them.
The most eye-catching one was Morgans. It was hard not to notice him when there were three heads on the screen and one of them was a bird.
Looking at the three figures, Kurogane Ren wasn't surprised at all. These were obviously the people behind the auction house.
Most likely, the three of them had built this place together.
Morgans was the first to speak.
"So, Mr. Kurogane Ren, what exactly do you want to put up for auction?"
Ren didn't answer right away.
Instead, he pulled out a black longsword.
At first glance, it looked no different from an ordinary blade. The only unusual thing was the dark layer coating its surface, as though the sword had been wrapped in a thin black shell.
Holding the blade in one hand, Ren turned to Harry.
"Do you know swordsmanship?"
"Huh?"
Harry was completely caught off guard.
After a brief pause, he shook his head.
"No, sir."
The moment he answered, Ren handed him the sword.
Harry stared blankly at the weapon in his hand, still trying to process what was happening. One second ago he had just been standing there. Now he was suddenly holding a blade.
Then Ren took out an iron rod.
It was thick—at least five or six centimeters across.
He tossed it in front of Harry and said, "Use all your strength. Cut that."
"Ah..."
Harry instinctively turned to the screens and looked at his three bosses.
All three nodded.
So, with no other choice, he gripped the sword, raised it high, and brought it down with all his strength.
Clang!
The black blade sliced cleanly through the iron rod.
The three men behind the screens all shot to their feet.
Even Harry froze.
He knew his own limits better than anyone. He wasn't weak enough to be helpless, but he was still just an ordinary man. There was absolutely no way he should have been able to cut through something that thick.
Very quickly, he realized the truth.
It wasn't him.
It was the sword.
He immediately lifted the blade and began examining it closely. Then he noticed the point of contact. There were only the faintest hairline scratches on the edge—so small they were almost invisible.
Without delay, he raised both the sword and the severed iron rod toward the screens so his bosses could get a better look.
Unlike Harry, Morgans and the others thought much further ahead.
They understood exactly what this meant.
In the world of swordsmen, being able to cut steel was a major threshold. It was the line that separated true swordsmen from mediocrities. Once a swordsman reached that level, their reputation would begin to rise. Before that, they were just nobodies waving sharpened metal around.
And Harry?
They knew him very well.
If he had possessed the strength of a steel-cutting swordsman, he wouldn't have been managing an auction house.
That meant the result came entirely from the blade itself.
Judging from the performance, this sword was at least on the level of one of the Grade Swords.
And that was enough to make anyone's heart pound.
Ren watched their reactions with a faint smile.
Everything was going exactly as he expected.
In truth, the blade itself wasn't anything special. It was an ordinary weapon—possibly even worse than what some skilled smiths could produce.
The real value was the carbon coating spread across its surface.
It was only a thin layer, but that thin layer had pushed the weapon's durability and cutting power to an entirely different level.
More importantly, it could be mass-produced.
As for whether selling something like this to the world would cause problems later, Ren didn't care.
The truly valuable stuff?
He hadn't shown any of that yet.
The members of his own crew didn't even use this level of weapon. His combat force used blades forged from Martha's memory metal, layered with multiple coats of carbon treatment. Those were the real treasures.
Besides, the carbon coating was consumable. Once it wore off, it needed to be reapplied.
And in the entire world, who could produce that coating?
Only him.
Once the coating was gone and their swords started breaking again, what would they do?
Buy more.
To Ren, this was the perfect business model.
A long-term, sustainable way to bleed the market dry.
Giberson narrowed his eyes.
"This sword is impressive, yes. But one sword alone isn't nearly enough to—"
He never finished.
Because in the next second, a mountain of identical black blades appeared out of nowhere and crashed onto the ground in front of them.
There were hundreds of them.
The three emperors of the underworld rose to their feet so fast their chairs nearly toppled over.
One Grade Sword was already valuable enough to stir greed.
Hundreds?
That was enough to drive men insane.
"Harry!" Giberson and Umit barked at the same time. "Check them! See if they're all the same!"
Harry snapped out of his daze and rushed over to inspect the pile.
At that moment, Morgans leaned forward and asked the real question.
"Mr. Kurogane Ren... how exactly did you produce all those swords out of thin air?"
Ren's lips curved into a smile.
That was the question he'd been waiting for.
He had chosen to demonstrate everything so openly precisely because he wanted them to ask.
And now Morgans had walked right into it.
The other two quickly realized the same thing.
They had been watching the entire time.
Ren had not brought hundreds of swords with him.
Which meant those blades had appeared from nowhere.
Ren lifted a ring.
"This is a storage ring created with my ability. It can store objects."
Then, without another word, he demonstrated.
The mountain of swords vanished.
Then, with a flick of his hand, they all appeared again.
The three rulers of the underworld stared at the display, stunned.
Only after letting them fully absorb it did Ren casually add one more sentence.
"Anyone can use this ring."
That one line made the breathing on the other side of the screens noticeably heavier.
But the moment Ren explained that the space inside the ring was only one cubic meter, Giberson and Umit's faces immediately fell.
After all, one was a shipping king and the other controlled massive storage networks. Their businesses operated on the scale of shiploads and warehouses.
One cubic meter was far too small for their needs.
Morgans, however, looked even more interested than before.
Though he was one of the emperors of the underworld, at his core, he was still a journalist.
And to a journalist, that ring was priceless.
There were many places where reporters couldn't openly carry cameras. In those cases, all they could rely on were written notes and verbal accounts, and those were never as powerful as real images.
But with a storage ring, everything changed.
His reporters could hide cameras inside it, pull them out only when needed, and store them again afterward.
Even if someone got suspicious, hiding a ring was far easier than hiding an entire camera.
After several hours of demonstrations, Ren didn't just convince the three underworld emperors to organize a massive auction.
He also walked away with three Den Den Mushi—one from each of them.
They were direct contact lines.
Given their status, Ren didn't refuse.
At this point, he was no longer just a guest.
He was an honored one.
At the entrance to the auction house, Ren looked at Harry and said, "That's far enough."
Harry bowed deeply.
"Yes, sir."
Then Ren added one more sentence before leaving.
"Tell your real master this: if he comes to buy, he's welcome. But if he comes to make trouble... I won't be happy."
Harry's heart skipped a beat.
On the surface, he worked for Morgans and the others.
But in truth, he answered to Doflamingo.
And that secret was only known to a tiny handful of people—high-ranking members of the Donquixote Family.
Could Ren really know that too?
Of course, Harry would never admit it.
He forced a smile and said, "You must be joking, sir. My bosses are Mr. Morgans and the other two. What real master could there be?"
Ren had already picked up Harry's little tells long before this. The moment he asked that question, Harry's heartbeat quickened and his blood flow spiked.
Lying.
Clear as day.
But as long as Doflamingo didn't interfere with his plans, Ren had no intention of digging deeper.
The warning was enough.
With that, he turned and left.
Now that he had openly appeared in public again, the major powers should already know he was in Sabaody.
All that remained was to see which unlucky fool would be the first to knock on his door.
Ren pulled out several Den Den Mushi, checked them one by one, and placed a call.
The most annoying thing about those snails was that they couldn't be stored inside his storage bag. It was becoming a real headache, especially now that he had more and more of them on hand.
"Hello? Xunian, where are you?"
"Captain? We're eating at a fancy restaurant in Area 24."
"Got it."
Ren hung up the call and glanced toward the distance.
His eyes sharpened slightly.
The auction was set.
The bait was out.
Now all he had to do... was wait for the sharks to smell blood.
[Author Note]
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