“Twenty-five gold!”

“Thirty gold!”

The price continued to surge. I knew prices were up, but come on! And for a fake?! Even if we did find the real thing, there was no way I would be able to afford it.

“Fehhh . . .”

“Mr . . . Naofumi? I think your face is probably even paler than mine.”

“Uhhh . . . yeah . . .”

It got worse. The dud slave currently being bid on was considerably emaciated. We could try waiting until the trend had run its course and prices dropped, but if they were all in this kind of shape then the real Lurolona slaves might very well be dead by then.

But wait, this slave might have received special care thanks to the price surge, and yet it still looked frail. It wasn’t unthinkable that one of the real ones might be treated carelessly and end up dead. Not to mention, it was highly likely that they had been abused, considering the condition that Raphtalia, Keel, and the other slaves had been in.

In all honesty, the situation looked really bad. We probably needed to recover the slaves as quickly as possible. But damn . . . Solving this problem with the money we had just wasn’t realistic, and the queen of Melromarc made it clear that providing monetary aid wouldn’t be possible at the moment. With the reconstruction efforts after such extensive damage, the funds just weren’t there.

“Even if we can tell the real ones apart from the fakes . . . this . . .”

The thought of giving up crossed my mind, but Raphtalia and Raph-chan were both looking at me expectantly. I couldn’t say no to those eyes.

“We need to figure out a way to make some quick money and buy up the slaves fast.”

Should we buy them one at a time using the money we made from peddling? No, that would take too long. Besides, the amount of money we needed was on a completely different level. We’d also needed to be here at the underground auctions every night to look for the real slaves, and even if we went the route of negotiating with the merchants that purchased them, we would need to prepare enough money to match the purchasing price at the bare minimum.

Maybe I could take advantage of my position as the Shield Hero? No, that wouldn’t work. The prices were already skyrocketing. If news spread that someone famous wanted the slaves, prices would surge even higher. Perhaps we should break into the homes of the merchants that bought them and confiscate the slaves? That wouldn’t work, either. The slave curse could be set to kill, so that was too dangerous. What about crashing the bubble by spreading nasty rumors about the Lurolona slaves? That would take too long even if it did work.