Special auction rules

Azshara didn't leave. She chose to stay and sat down beside Dimon, then crossed her legs and said nothing more.

Another half hour passed, and fewer people came in. By then, roughly two-thirds of the venue was full.

Dimon estimated there were around three hundred people, including richly dressed wealthy people, bounty hunters who radiated menace, and quite a few pirates.

Only a minority were disguised like him. Dimon sensed a familiar presence among a group of masked people.

[Master, that's Mammon.]

Ain's voice rang out in his mind.

The Marines had indeed come.

Dimon observed them discreetly. Besides Mammon and Ed, they had three companions, making five Marines in total.

According to Mammon's intelligence, the Marine in charge of the auction was Headquarters Vice Admiral Shuga, an expert in hand-to-hand combat.

Seemingly noticing someone watching him, Vice Admiral Hyuga, who wore a monkey-face mask, suddenly turned his head and briefly met Dimon's gaze.

Dimon merely smiled faintly and looked away.

"That man has ill intentions."

Shuga spoke in a low voice.

Ed paused, then followed Shuga's gaze to Dimon. "Vice Admiral, how can you tell?"

"Intuition."

Vice Admiral Hyuga was a man of few words. He had already mastered Observation Haki, but his was unusual: it allowed him to faintly sense the malice of others.

Mammon said calmly, "It's only natural for people who come to an auction like this to harbor malice toward one another, Vice Admiral."

When speaking to Mammon, Shuga's tone became a little warmer.

"You're right."

More words sounded warmer than fewer. Nothing wrong with that.

After that, Shuga paid Dimon no further attention. He closed his eyes and rested, waiting for the auction to begin.

More than ten minutes later, at exactly ten at night, the lights in the hall suddenly dimmed. Immediately afterward, two spotlights shone on the center of the stage.

A man wearing clown makeup had appeared onstage at some point.

His movements were comical, bold and exaggerated, with an unmistakably theatrical air. He held a microphone Den Den Mushi in his right hand, and after the Den Den Mushi picked up his voice, it was broadcast throughout the vast venue.

"Welcome, esteemed elites of the world of light! I'm the host of this black-market auction, Mr. Amanchi the Joker. Clap, clap!"

The Joker host clapped his hands while providing the sound of applause with his mouth.

But the audience's response was lukewarm. No one joined in.

The Joker's face immediately fell, and he said dejectedly:

"Hey, hey, hey, give me some kind of reaction! You're making me look like a clown. Huh? I am a clown, so never mind! Hee hee hee!"

The Joker host kept cackling, putting on a one-man show onstage.

A richly dressed businessman in the audience snorted and called out:

"Get on with it. We have to watch your monkey act every time, and I got sick of it long ago."

"Tsk, how rude. You'd better watch yourself when you leave the auction. I'll rip out your tongue and have a taste. Don't worry, I'll leave you your eyes and nose!"

The Joker host snarled viciously at him, then switched back to a smile the next second.

"Now then, enough nonsense. Let's begin."

"First up, we're bringing out something big to kick things off!"

"I know a lot of you came for a Devil Fruit, right? Well, we'll give you what you want!"

As soon as he finished speaking, another spotlight shone on the stage.

A sexy woman wearing a half mask pushed a cart to the center of the stage.

The Joker host whipped off the red cloth, revealing a Devil Fruit beneath it.

"Everyone, take a look. This is a Paramecia Devil Fruit, and its name is-"

"The Storyboard Fruit!"

Chapter 32: Special auction rules

The Storyboard Fruit?

Dimon had never heard of it. It hadn't appeared in the story of the Pirate King, and he had no idea what powers it possessed.

Most of the bidders in the audience were like him and knew very little about the fruit.

Gaze after gaze settled on the Devil Fruit onstage as everyone silently studied it.

It was a tomato-shaped fruit with black-and-white stripes on its skin, making it look like a roll of movie film.

"Oh my, it seems you don't know much about this fruit?"

Onstage, the Joker host chuckled. "Did you think I was going to tell you about it? No, what I'm going to explain next are the auction rules."

Unlike the bidding rules at an ordinary auction, the black-market auction's rules were more "interesting."

"To all the bidders present, some of you have attended before, but please don't interrupt. I'll only explain the rules once, so don't blame me if you don't understand."

Grinning, the Joker host rattled off the rules at breakneck speed, as though afraid someone might understand them.

"First, there are five rounds of bidding, conducted by sealed bid."

"The armrest beside each of your seats can be lifted. Inside, you'll find paper and a pen. Please write your bid on the paper."

"When the time comes, our lovely auction ladies will collect your slips, and I'll announce the exact amounts of the top three bids."

"Now for the important part..."

"If the highest bid is at least twice the second-highest bid, the auction will end immediately, and the highest bidder will receive this Storyboard Fruit beside me."

"If the highest bid isn't twice as much, we move on to the second round!"

At that point, the Joker paused.

A child's hand went up in the audience, instantly drawing everyone's attention.

Seeing everyone looking at him, "Evil Child" Knox scratched his head sheepishly and spoke in a childish voice:

"Um... isn't it a bit much to require a bid twice as high?

"Suppose something is worth a hundred million, but you have to pay two hundred million to buy it. Even if you want to make money, you can't do that, can you?"

"'Evil Child' Knox Jessup, the top pirate Supernova this year, with a bounty of 175 million Beli and the powers of the Paramecia Child-Child Fruit!"

The Joker host revealed his identity in an icy tone, making Knox's expression change slightly.

"Are you that proud of your strength and status? Who gave you permission to question our auction's rules?"

"..."

Knox lowered his head like a child being scolded by an adult, looking nervous and frightened.

Dimon was a little surprised. The Joker seemed quite forceful, showing no deference even to a rookie with a bounty over a hundred million.

"Don't let that kid fool you," Azshara suddenly whispered. "That's Evil Child. Do you know what he did before? Before he became a pirate, he slaughtered everyone in his hometown, including his adoptive parents."

After a pause, she added, "But this is the first time I've heard the name of his fruit too."

Pirates might not be good people, but they generally weren't cruel enough to turn on their own family.

Dimon had no interest in delving into someone else's inner world. He was only interested in the Child-Child Fruit, which sounded somewhat similar to the Hobby-Hobby Fruit he knew.

Just then, the Joker host abruptly changed his tune. Like someone with a split personality, he once again wore a strange grin.

"Hee hee hee, pardon me, everyone. I'll continue explaining the rules."

As if nothing had just happened, he continued, "In the second round, the highest bid only needs to be 1.6 times the second-highest to win. In the third round, it's 1.3 times, and in the fourth, it's 1.1 times... As for the fifth and final round, as long as you bid one Beli more than the second-highest bidder, you win!"

"What if the top two bids are the same?"

This wasn't a question from a bidder in the audience, but the Joker suddenly playing a part and talking to himself. "Why, we go into extra rounds, of course! The people who bid the same amount go on to the sixth round, the seventh, the eighth... until we have a winner!"

The rules sounded simple enough, but they were actually quite insidious.

Dimon thought for a few seconds and immediately realized the problem: they forced everyone to pay more than an item was worth.

If someone wanted to win decisively in the first round by bidding twice as much, they would have to make an extremely high bid.

If they succeeded, that was that. But if they failed and the auction entered the second round, everyone who wanted to bid would be forced to raise their prices, each stepping on the other's feet until the organizers maximized their profits.

Compared with ordinary sealed bidding, these rules would make the price battle even more brutal.

"Now that you're done, hurry up and start."

The speaker was the wealthy businessman the Joker had threatened earlier. He paid the threat no mind, instead sitting with his legs crossed in a relaxed pose.

"Hmph, don't leave after the auction!"

The Joker cursed viciously, then announced the start of the auction. "Five minutes for the first round of bidding!"

As soon as he spoke, many people opened the armrests beside them and took out paper and pens.

Dimon did the same, took the paper and pen, and casually wrote down a number.

With the cash he had on hand, there was no way he could win. He was just joining in for the fun of it.

Azshara glanced over instinctively and was stunned when she saw the number.

"Don't you want a Devil Fruit? What's with 2.5 million? That isn't enough to buy even a piece of its skin!"

"It isn't time for me to make my move yet."

Dimon wasn't about to admit he was broke. In a perfectly calm tone, he said, "Let them fight it out for the first few rounds. I'll make my move in the fifth."

"What if someone wins it with a high bid? You should at least make a defensive bid, shouldn't you?"

The idea of a defensive bid was easy to understand.

If someone bid a hundred million, a bid of fifty million and one Beli would be enough to stop them from winning in the first round.

Dimon couldn't be bothered to explain. He couldn't very well say he hadn't planned on bidding to win.

Seeing that he didn't want to say more, Azshara felt rebuffed and immediately fell silent.

Soon, the first round of bidding ended, and several scantily dressed auction ladies went around collecting the slips.

Once they had gathered them all, they handed them to the Joker host.

"Let's see..."

Joker opened them one by one, his expression shifting between disdain and amazement. He finished reading more than a hundred slips in moments.

"I'll now announce the results of the first round. First, unfortunately, I have to say I look down on you."

He paused before announcing the results.

"First place, 300 million Beli."

"Second place, 300 million Beli."

"Third place, 300 million Beli."

"Oh, and by the way, five people bid 300 million."

At those words, the expressions of many bidders in the audience changed abruptly.

Ed was shocked. "Three hundred million right from the start," he whispered. "Have they all gone mad?"

Vice Admiral Hyuga frowned deeply. The 500 million the Marines had prepared didn't seem to be enough!

If the bidding continued, the price would keep rising. They had to think of something.

"Now we enter the second round. You have five minutes again."

Joker chuckled.

Dimon looked thoughtful. He picked up his pen and wrote a number on the paper.

Before long, the second round of bidding ended.