PVMC 28

Chapter 28

‘It’s bigger than I thought.’

It didn’t smell much, either. Maybe because it hadn’t been used in a long time—the inside of the exhaust duct was dry and stale, without any clammy spots.

The only problem was that I occasionally coughed because of ash dust.

‘I just keep going straight like this, right?’

According to the blueprint, if I kept moving straight ahead, I would reach the basement where the auction items were stored.

Lightly feeling my way along the wall, I strode through the pitch-dark interior. It was a bit scary in this ink-black darkness, but… still, it was better to endure it now than to light a fire and get caught.

‘Is that it?’

Fortunately, once I went in deep enough, I saw a faint light at the far end.

‘Ugh, this is suffocating.’

After finally reaching the end, I stifled all sound for a moment.

Luckily, I didn’t sense any presence. I hopped down from beneath the high-lipped exit and immediately scanned my surroundings.

Thanks to the candles placed at regular intervals, the basement interior was relatively bright.

But that also meant the risk of being discovered was high, so I had to move while suppressing my presence as much as possible.

‘It should be around here.’

In the original story, the place mainly used to store the auction goods was the basement—this very place I was standing in now.

However, it was only described vaguely as being “around here.” The exact location wasn’t specified, so I had to check one by one.

First, I hid myself in a corner beyond a bend and decided to roughly deduce where the auction items might be.

‘They wouldn’t put them too deep inside.’

The innermost room required going up and down stairs, which made it inconvenient for transporting goods.

But rooms too close to the front were adjacent to the entrance, making it difficult to open the doors properly.

‘So in the end, what’s left is…’

The two rooms in the middle.

Those were the most likely.

‘Then now…’

The key issue was how to open the door.

‘Do I really have to catch one of them?’

It’s not like I’d ever picked a lock in my life. The reason I’d asked Madam for a tranquilizer gun in the first place was, honestly, to catch one guy and cleanly confiscate his key.

That was the most normal method, after all.

“Damn it.”

“…!”

Creeeak—

Just then, along with the sound of metal scraping, I sensed a presence. I hurriedly covered my mouth and listened as hard as I could.

“Why do they make me move this stuff? Such a pain.”

The grumbling voice was overflowing with discontent. While secretly eavesdropping on that irritation, my eyes rolled around.

‘Wait.’

“Ha, shit. When am I supposed to move all this upstairs?”

Well, well…

“No matter how much I haul this, I won’t get a single coin from the auction. I should take a break first.”

This is getting easier.

Perhaps because the auction was in full swing, the guys carrying the auction goods began coming down to the basement one by one. Of course, I didn’t deal with all of them.

“Guh—!”

I picked out just one guy who was trying to slack off and shot him with the tranquilizer gun.

After neatly placing the heavy guy in the corner where I’d been hiding earlier, I straightened my back and put the tranquilizer gun back into my pocket.

Even though he’d only been hit once, he was sleeping as if completely knocked out.

‘Damn.’

I was kind of badass just now.

The thrill of putting someone to sleep was more exhilarating than I’d expected.

‘First, grab the key bundle.’

It would’ve been nice if there were only one key for easy searching, but the other room keys were all mixed in together.

It was a bit of a hassle, but I had no choice except to try them one by one.

After efficiently collecting the dagger the guy was carrying and even the axe shoved into the corner, I peeked back outside the bend.

‘I need to move quickly.’

Once they realized someone was missing, it would get noisy fast.

Having decided to act swiftly, I headed for the middle room I’d predicted earlier.

But—

‘Why doesn’t any of them fit?!’

Starting with the left room, I tried every key, turning them one by one, but all were duds. Even after trying all ten or so keys, the door wouldn’t turn.

‘Damn it, there’s no way there isn’t one, right?’

Growing uneasy, I checked the remaining room on the right.

If it really was an empty room with nothing in it, that would be a big problem. I needed to secretly slip the prepared jewel into the auction goods and use it as bait. If that failed, the whole plan would fall apart.

With that anxiety weighing on me, I cautiously headed toward my last hope—

“…We’re screwed.”

Amazingly, every attempt failed.

‘That’s strange. I definitely searched everything.’

There was nothing. And these were the only keys he had.

‘Did I fall into a trap?’

No, probably not.

Even if I had, they would’ve swarmed out to catch me the moment I appeared like this.

It made no sense that they’d stayed quiet all this time.

‘Or else…’

Did this bastard get completely screwed over…?

You know how in movies, organizations sometimes deliberately give false information to dispose of someone they’ve abandoned.

‘That would be even more screwed.’

So, is that really the only way?

‘I didn’t want to do things the stupid way, but…’

I roughly tossed the bundle of keys onto the floor and picked up the axe I’d brought with me.

And then—

Bang—!

I slammed it down mercilessly on the handle.

Fifteen minutes later.

When the guy who had gone in first didn’t come back up, another colleague clicked his tongue and headed down to the basement.

Since the guy was always complaining about work and slacking off anyway, he probably thought the man had stretched out somewhere to rest before coming back up.

Swallowing his irritation, the colleague entered the basement and looked around.

Just as expected.

There was no sign of him anywhere.

“Hey!”

He shouted roughly, but there was still no answer.

‘Damn it. He’s definitely sprawled out asleep somewhere again.’

It was obvious without even looking.

“Hey!”

Eventually, the colleague went deeper inside and raised his voice.

By now, there should’ve been some kind of response. But no matter how long he waited, there was only silence. That was when he finally sensed something was wrong.

As his footsteps down the corridor gradually quickened—

“…!”

Spotting the handle fallen on the floor, the colleague’s eyes widened like lanterns. After also noticing the axe lying beside it, he reflexively lifted his head.

Creee—

The door, its handle completely torn off, opened limply.

Beyond it, the auction goods that were about to be brought onto the stage were visible.

A chill ran down the colleague’s spine, and his body trembled.

Unconsciously taking a few steps back, he moved his quivering lips.

“A—assemble! Assembllle!”

An intruder—an intruder has gotten in…!

“Ah?!”

The moment I came out of the narrow ventilation shaft, my body slammed into the floor. Landing hard on the stone ground, I let out a small groan.

After roughly rubbing my throbbing backside, I looked around and saw a long corridor stretching out ahead.

‘Looks like I came the right way, more or less.’

I gathered the items, crawled through the room’s ventilation shaft toward the light, and seeing the red carpet laid out, it seemed I’d found the path correctly.

‘If this is laid out instead of marble…’

At the very least, this didn’t seem like the entrance. It had to be the floor with the opera hall.

‘I should rejoin them soon.’

I’d already recovered all the jewels that Xavier had siphoned off and completely replaced them with fakes.

Out of all the many items, the accessory box stood out the most, so finding the same one hadn’t been too difficult.

But just as I stepped on the surrounding boxes, went back to the ventilation shaft, and barely managed to fit the cover back on—

“H-Hey, who’s there?!”

The quick-footed guys rushed into the corridor.