Chương 48

Yura's shock evaporated, replaced instantly by a chilling, razor-sharp focus. The polite, professional aura she normally projected to her millions of fans vanished. Dark mana began to bleed from her perfectly manicured fingertips, twisting around her obsidian wand like thick, black smoke. The swamp water beneath her boots started to rapidly boil and hiss. She was preparing a high-tier, localized area-of-effect curse. Something he couldn't just sidestep or resist with a flat defense stat.

Rudra tightened his grip on his ironwood staff, bending his knees. He was perfectly in range. If she started chanting again, he was fully prepared to deliver a left hook for the sake of equality. But before either of them could move, something shifted violently inside Rudra's heavy brown cloak.

"Squeeeek!" A tiny, half-gold, half-black head popped out of Rudra's collar. Kratos was wide awake, incredibly cranky, and demanding food immediately. When Rudra didn't instantly produce a piece of premium meat, the divine beast resorted to extreme violence. Kratos clamped his tiny, razor-sharp teeth directly onto Rudra's collarbone.

"OW!" Rudra yelped, completely dropping his defensive stance.

"Hey! No biting! Let go, you little gremlin!" Rudra entirely ignored the Rank 5 dark mage charging an ultimate spell right in front of him. He dropped his heavy ironwood staff into the mud with a wet thud and desperately started trying to pry the angry cub off his neck, hastily pulling a piece of leftover Fire-Seared Swamp Croc from his inventory to bribe him.

Yura stood there, her massive dark spell half-charged, watching the notorious 'Heretic' wrestle with a squeaking baby animal in the middle of a life-or-death battle. Her intelligent, highly analytical brain struggled to make sense of what she was looking at. His physical strength and speed completely eclipse standard warrior classes at this level, Yura thought, her dark eyes tracking Rudra as he forcefully shoved the cooked meat into the cub's mouth. My highest burst-damage spell barely scratched him.

Furthermore, he fights with completely unpredictable, utterly unrefined close-quarters combat. She gently touched her stinging cheek. And he clearly has absolutely no hesitation when it comes to striking a caster bare-handed. As a Black Magician, her defense was incredibly fragile. If that heavy ironwood staff connected with her body just one time, she would likely lose over half her health. Two hits, and she would be dead. It just wasn't worth the risk of dropping her high-tier equipment over a faction bounty.

Yura slowly lowered her wand. The swirling vortex of dark mana dissipated harmlessly into the humid air. She reached into the inner pocket of her tailored suit and pulled out a glowing silver parchment—an expensive [Emergency Return Scroll].

"You are an incredibly frustrating person," Yura sighed, the polite, composed tone returning to her melodic voice, though she couldn't entirely hide her bewilderment.

"You wear mage armor, but you have the strength of a vanguard knight and the manners of a tavern brawler. I admit, I completely misjudged this." Rudra finally managed to unlatch Kratos from his neck. He looked up, panting slightly as the cub happily chewed on the spicy croc meat.

"Are we still fighting?"

"Not today," Yura said, her slender fingers tightening on the scroll.

"I have no intention of risking my items against someone so completely unpredictable. I will make sure I am properly prepared the next time we meet. And Heretic?" Rudra blinked.

"Yeah?"

"I will remember the slap." Yura ripped the scroll in half. A blinding cylinder of silver light enveloped her elegant figure. A fraction of a second later, the Rank 5 dark mage completely vanished from the swamp, leaving nothing but an empty patch of scorched mud behind. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Rudra let out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief, dropping to his knees in the muck.

"Thank God. I really, really didn't want to fight a top-ranker to the death today." Elysia walked over, forcefully slamming her longsword back into its scabbard. She looked down at him with an expression of absolute, unadulterated disgust.

"You slap women," Elysia said flatly.

"It's a valid combat tactic!" Rudra defended himself, gently petting the divine cub in his arms.

"She's a mage! You don't let mages chant! What was I supposed to do, ask her politely to stop?" Elysia just shook her head, turning her back to him and marching toward the dry tree line.

"I am seriously questioning my choices in traveling companions." After another hour of walking through the increasingly shallow mud, the heavy, twisted trees finally gave way to a clear dirt road. In the distance, surrounded by rolling green hills and a sturdy stone wall, sat a bustling, fortified town. They had officially crossed into the Arc Kingdom's safe zone.

"Let's find an inn," Rudra said, feeling completely exhausted. The adrenaline from facing a top-five ranker was finally wearing off, leaving his muscles aching.

"I need a real bed, and I need to check the local market." They rented a quiet, spacious suite at the 'Silver Boar Inn' near the center of town. While Elysia took a happily snoring Kratos into the adjoining room to rest, Rudra immediately locked the main door, sat down at the sturdy wooden desk, and opened his interface. He pulled the heavy, dusty book he had gotten from Korag out of his inventory and set it on the table.

[Item: Rare Hidden Class Change Book] [Class: Alluring Charmer] He gently patted the leather cover. He didn't need it. His path was perfectly set on mastering the staff and uncovering the secrets of his twin titles. But there were millions of players out there who would literally sell their houses for a chance to obtain a Hidden Class. Rudra opened the Global Auction House. He carefully navigated the menus, selecting the option to list the item anonymously.

He didn't need top-tier guilds tracking his player name and hunting him down in the real world to force a private sale.

"Let's see just how crazy this market really is," Rudra muttered to himself. He placed the [Rare Hidden Class Change Book] into the virtual auction slot. He set the starting bid at a modest 10, 000 Gold to get the algorithm's attention, and set the auction timer for a standard 24 hours. He took a deep breath and hit 'Confirm.' There was no grand server-wide announcement. The system didn't broadcast it to the sky. But in Satisfy, it didn't need to.

Every single major guild in the top 100 employed dedicated "Market Watchers"—players whose entire job was to sit in the capital cities and refresh the auction house interface 24/7, filtering for keywords like "Epic," "Unique," and most importantly, "Hidden Class." Within exactly three seconds of Rudra hitting confirm, alarms started blaring in private guild chat channels all over the world. The absolute chaos erupted behind the scenes. Ten seconds in, the current bid jumped from 10, 000 Gold to 500, 000 Gold.

Thirty seconds later, it hit 2, 000, 000 Gold. Across the globe, in massive, sprawling guild halls and deep within top-tier raiding dungeons, the leaders of the top ten guilds completely abandoned whatever they were doing. Rank 2 Zibal dropped his sword in the middle of a boss fight to scream at his interface. Rank 3 Chris started frantically messaging his guild's financial officers, ordering them to liquidate their virtual assets immediately to gather more capital.

A Rare-rated Hidden Class was a strategic guild asset; whoever bought it would instantly gain a powerhouse player. Sitting alone in the quiet inn room, Rudra watched the numbers on the auction house screen climb higher and higher. The gold counter was spinning so fast it became a literal blur of zeroes. 4, 000, 000 Gold... 7, 500, 000 Gold... 10, 000, 000 Gold... Rudra leaned back in his wooden chair, his heart hammering violently against his ribs.

He quickly pulled up the game's official real-world currency exchange rate on a secondary window to double-check his math. The exchange rate fluctuated slightly, but the standard baseline was universally known: 1 in-game Gold was equal to roughly $1 USD. Rudra stared blankly at the screen. At ten million gold, the bid was already sitting at ten million real-world dollars. And the auction still had twenty-three hours and fifty-eight minutes left. The top guilds were just getting started with their bidding war.

Rudra's hands started to visibly shake. He pulled off his dark leather mask and ran a hand through his hair. For the past few years, he had been trapped in a corporate IT job he absolutely despised, dreading every single morning, just to prove himself. A slow, massive, entirely genuine smile spread across his face. The crushing weight of real-world financial anxiety that he had been carrying for his entire adult life completely vanished in an instant.

"Mom," Rudra whispered to the empty room, wiping a single, stray tear from his eye as the bid effortlessly crossed the fifteen-million gold mark.

"I think I'm officially a professional gamer."