Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 70

The Duke was disinterested in everything, so when they left the second floor and entered the herbal trading area, he secretly sighed with relief.

This level had a certain technical barrier. Most were chefs from wealthy kitchens, along with apothecaries and mages—a group not only scarce in number but each more eccentric than the last. Everyone was somewhat wearing something to cover their faces, but all had an antisocial, silent, and gloomy temperament, meaning that despite wearing rabbit decorations, no one would approach them to strike up a conversation.

“I did quite well in herbology. While at school, I developed a very effective hair growth tonic, which made my first fortune,” the rabbit-headed shopkeeper mentioned.

He stocked up on some basic medicinal powders and some local raw materials here. While they looked ordinary separately, some non-magical materials could produce effects rivaling magic when mixed and processed by someone knowledgeable. This was why potion-making was one of the lowest barriers to entry in magical studies.

Watching him enthusiastically crouch down to pick through dried herbs, Dwight looked around impatiently and suddenly noticed something reflecting light in a pile of goods in front of an old man.

It was a stall selling animal materials, and the scruffy old man seemed utterly indifferent to his business. A worn-out cloth, indiscernible in color, was spread on the ground, haphazardly piled with broken bones, lizard tails, eyes from unknown animals, cockroach powder, and dried bats.

The Duke stepped closer—he saw it again. Something in that pile of dark, dried bats flickered, like the reflective eyes of an animal at night.

But undoubtedly, everything on this stall had long been dead.

Hasting, keeping an eye on the Duke’s actions, stepped forward to take a closer look too.

Although he couldn’t see anything special about these items, he still followed his master’s lead, shuffled through the small pile of dried bats, and then saw the Duke point at one particularly small dried bat.

Hasting: “……”

That meant he wanted to buy it.

No words could describe the turmoil in his heart at that moment, considering the proud Duke of Brandenburg was someone who could refuse to eat anything cooked by a chef he deemed unattractive.

Not to mention that the group of dried, shriveled animal bodies was unsightly, the stall’s scruffy owner, whose hair and beard were tangled together, was enough to make the well-acquainted Duke throw a significant fit.

Dwight saw Hasting not moving and nudged him on the arm to hurry him up.

Coming to his senses, Hasting spoke to the old man in the common tongue to ask for the price.

The stall owner, a drunk with a pungent smell of hangover, squinted through bleary eyes and couldn’t make out which item Hasting was pointing at. He simply took two copper coins and allowed him to take his pick.

The rabbit-headed shopkeeper had at some point come over and watched Hasting carefully wrap a dried bat in a handkerchief, somewhat surprised, but didn’t say anything.

It wasn’t until they left the building that the rabbit-headed shopkeeper asked the Duke if he planned to brew a potion—ordinary potions usually use processed powders or extracts, whereas magical potions might require whole dried animal carcasses.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dwight said. “I just thought there was something odd about it.”

Charlie pinched the rigid little claws of the dried bat, lifting it to inspect.

“I can’t see anything unusual,” he said.

Dwight hesitated for a moment.

At the herbal market, that dried bat indeed gave him a feeling akin to “being watched”, and it happened twice. He didn’t believe it was his imagination.

But now, closely examined under the sunlight, what the rabbit-headed shopkeeper held was indeed just a black, sun-dried dead bat.

“I can’t explain it,” the Duke said slowly. “Just now, I felt like it was watching me.”

Hasting exchanged a surprised look with Charlie.

“Then keep it,” Charlie decisively said. “Take it back and put it in water to test.”

Dwight glanced at him, somewhat surprised.

Originally, he thought Rabbit Head would use this opportunity to tease him about hallucinations or something.

Charlie fumbled in his shopping bag, trying to find waterproof parchment to wrap the dried bat for Hasting, but instead pulled out the two-colored flier they received upon entering. He couldn’t help but exclaim, “Ah!”

“We forgot the raffle,” the rabbit-headed shopkeeper said, holding the flier carefully. “Remember that wooden archway? We bought stuff… Well, maybe we could win a small bottle of bedbug juice.”

The Duke warned him, “We’re not going back.”

They had already walked quite a distance from that building, and Dwight was unwilling to return just for bedbug juice, especially since it was now the hottest part of the day and even a mask was cooler than a cloak.

The rabbit-headed shopkeeper blinked and had to compromise.

Dwight still wasn’t done. “A bottle of bedbug juice isn’t worth making such a fuss over.”

“Speaking of gems, there really are such things here.” Charlie suddenly remembered. “The antique and jewelry market.”

“What good can there be in such a place?” the Duke continued his lecture. “Nothing but the inheritance of country widows or poorly made jewelry. Please restrain your provincial demeanor.”

“Yes, you must have seen many fine things,” Charlie drawled. “But it’s our first time here. Maybe there’s some exotic treasure you haven’t seen?”

“I’m here for the first time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t own things from here.” The three arrived where carriages were parked, and the coachman, who had been waiting under the shade, quickly came forward to take their things and stack them in the luggage rack at the back of the carriage.

“Shivers’ scabbard material comes from Doran, made from the skin of a deep-sea monster that stretches freely, reducing the volume of a long sword to a third when sheathed,” the Duke said as he removed his mask and boarded the carriage, his expression somewhat aggrieved.

“No wonder I’ve often wondered where he keeps his sword,” the rabbit-headed shopkeeper mused.

Pennigra had only a small territory that touched the sea and was located at the far western edge of the continent, indeed farther from Lemena than from Doran.

“There are also the purest crystal potion bottles from Gantia, which preserve the potion’s properties without degradation for thirty years,” the Duke said languidly. “The dragon leather boots I wore when we set off also came from Doran.”

The rabbit-headed shopkeeper finally looked at the Duke with slight surprise.

Indeed, dragon leather boots weren’t actually made from dragon skin—dragons had been missing from the continent for over two hundred years, and even if these enormous creatures hadn’t gone extinct, they wouldn’t be something humans could simply skin.

“Dragon skin” was a general term for the highest quality of tough leather, probably because the most ostentatious nobles would rather not refer to their boots and gloves as “Polymountain Ironscale Four-legged Snakeskin Gloves” or “Deep Sea Cyclops Sharkskin Boots’.

Whichever it was, any leather product that could be called dragon skin was inherently expensive. What surprised Charlie even more was that many of the Duke’s possessions indeed came from Doran.

He was certain that before their time in Maplewood, this lord had never set foot outside the continent of Pennigra.

Charlie turned to look at Hasting.

The knight, who was sitting with his arms crossed by the window, originally didn’t want to speak but couldn’t resist the rabbit-headed shopkeeper’s unrelenting gaze and glanced at the Duke.

Dwight hummed softly.

“Brandenburg and White Bridge have a VIP agreement, and each year’s auction catalog is sent to Lemena in advance,” Hasting explained.

At the mention of “White Bridge”, the rabbit-headed shopkeeper paused.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of it.” Dwight raised an eyebrow.

Charlie adjusted his top hat. “Of course, I know. It’s a notorious lawless zone in Doran, the biggest den of vice.”

White Bridge wasn’t a bridge but a city—or rather, it couldn’t truly be called a city. A more fitting description would be a lawless zone. In White Bridge, no royal or rule could be enforced, and no armed forces were allowed, no matter who they were. Legend had it that fifty years ago, due to the sale of an elven slave within its limits, the elf’s tribe’s army besieged the city, but the conflict was extinguished as silently as a candle dipped in water.

It hosted the largest opium dens and banks, but it was more famous for an auction said to sell anything.

Give a beggar enough wealth, and he could buy a kingdom from White Bridge, becoming a king.

The Duke’s peculiar items likely came from the White Bridge auction.

Due to the area’s uniqueness, White Bridge didn’t accept jurisdiction from any empire or power. The Wolf family, one of the Black Gold Families, rose to immense wealth through these auctions, wealthy enough to rival nations.

The profit-driven Wolves were infamous. There was nothing they couldn’t procure if the price was right. If there was one place in the world where one could trade, it would be at a Wolf auction.

White Bridge was a true city that never slept, with auctions big and small running year-round, but the truly influential Wolf auction happened only once a year, drawing many attendees. Only there could one’s wildest imaginations of treasures and monsters be fully indulged.

Dwight had thought that, given Charlie’s way of doing things, he would be eager about the White Bridge auction—he even prepared to reject his whimsical suggestions outright.

But the rabbit-headed shopkeeper merely nodded, not continuing the conversation on that topic.

Even Hasting was surprised by this.

Though they hadn’t been together long, Hasting knew that the rabbit-headed shopkeeper possessed many quirky gadgets, as demonstrated by his enthusiasm in the general goods market.

The Knight Commander had once told him that this mysterious Mr. Rabbit had “an endless array of bizarre ideas”.

For someone like that to show disinterest upon hearing about possibly the world’s largest auction was indeed abnormal.

Hasting, being straightforward, voiced his inner question directly.

Charlie looked at both Hasting and Dwight—they were both watching him.

“It’s not that I dislike auctions. I just don’t like the name Wolf,” he said honestly.

“Do you have a history with them?” the Duke immediately asked.

“Not exactly a history.” The rabbit-headed shopkeeper shrugged nonchalantly. “Isn’t it natural for rabbits to dislike wolves?”

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