There is a very famous adage in the stock market.
‘Buy on fear, sell on euphoria.’
When everyone is fleeing and won’t even look at the despairing market bottom—buy.
When everyone rushes in frenziedly—get out without hesitation.
Most common people fail because they cannot abide by that simple principle.
But I am different.
Dragged into an other world of unknown origin, wallowing in the dirt for several years.
I realized I possess a fraudulent cheat ability called [Foresight], which lets me steal a glimpse of another person’s future, albeit for a very brief moment.
‘With this ability, I too can become filthy rich in this shitty other world!’
I can do it! If it’s me!
And so, brimming with confidence, I scraped together every coin I had earned like a dog over the years in this other world and invested it all into a shabby merchant whose future of ‘sitting on a pile of money’ I had seen with my Foresight…
And my ability was astonishingly accurate.
Because that bastard of a merchant took all the money invested by me and other suckers, crossed the border, and is now living stinking rich.
…
Fuck!! He got rich with my money!
…Anyway. Shedding blood-tears as I paid that expensive tuition fee, I learned a painful lesson.
Believing in an ability that only shows a fragmentary, fleeting moment,
blindly investing in another person’s uncontrollable business is madness.
So I took the few remaining coins in my possession
and decided to make a direct value investment in a ‘human product’ that I could control as I pleased.
***
“350 gold!”
“500 gold! I’ll buy her!”
A slave auction house secretly nestled deep underground.
I’d heard that even in this world, slave auctions outside designated areas are illegal.
But look at the Chief of Public Security and the Captain of the Guard sitting in the VIP seats.
Aren’t they openly scrutinizing the ‘products’ on the podium, calculating costs and benefits?
A precarious tightrope between legal and illegal, or simply a rotten lawless zone where the law lies prostrate before money—one of the two.
“Current highest bid, 500 gold! Any further bids!”
A blood-spattering bidding war among potbellied nobles with swaying, greasy guts and foreign merchants. I sat in a corner with my legs crossed, watched the spectacle, and clicked my tongue.
‘Fools.’
To climb onto peak merchandise whose value has already soared to the zenith.
No matter how rare or pretty the elf, at 500 gold the capital recovery rate is truly the worst.
A true merchant—no, a ‘value investor’—wouldn’t even spare a glance at frothy meme-coin merchandise like that.
“Now, now, the next product… has been handled a bit roughly, one might say… but I believe there may be some among you who find that even more to your taste. The name of this item is one you all know well.”
Then, along with the auctioneer’s voice, a splendid curtain was drawn back. What was dragged onto the stage was none other than a rusty iron cage.
In that instant, icy water was poured over the fervently heated interior of the auction house.
“Ugh, what is that?”
“It reeks of rotting corpses! You’re putting something like that up for auction?”
Inside the cage crouched a figure so broken it was hard to call a person. Its hair was matted with filth and blood scabs, turned ashen, and its emaciated limbs, stark with exposed bone, were covered in terrible torture marks.
It was at that moment. My [Foresight] pierced through a fleeting gap.
Superimposed over the heap of ashen filth, a brilliant silver flash dazzling enough to blind the eyes.
A fishy smile tugged at my lips as I confirmed that overwhelming ‘future value.’
‘Found it. The undervalued blue-chip stock that will reverse my life.’
“You all know her. A few years ago, the eldest daughter of the Valentine Count’s household, which was exterminated for treason… Camelia Valentine.”
The moment the auctioneer’s words ended, fierce boos poured forth.
“Madness! What would happen to you if you bought a treasonous wench!”
“Even without that, she looks ready to drop dead any second! Remove her! I couldn’t even use her as a plaything!”
No one bid.
A perfect delisting.
If it went unsold like this, she would eventually die after being treated worse than a beast.
But in my eyes, it was different. Dirty? Wash her. Malnourished? Feed her meat and let her sleep, that’s all.
The label of ‘bloodline of a traitorous house’ was the worst risk to shoulder, but at the same time, an opportunity for a competition-free bottom purchase.
Amid the pouring ridicule, the auctioneer raised his gavel, sweating cold sweat.
“Ah, if there are no bids… it will be a no-s… passed in…”
“One silver coin.”
At my voice breaking the silence, the auction house’s gazes converged.
Cheaper than a single night at a cheap inn.
The worst negative news of a ‘traitorous family’ had driven her current price through the floor into the basement.
“Th-that madman. Why buy scrap like that?”
“Isn’t that Nasus? I heard he got scammed out of his entire fortune by that scrawny merchant bastard; guess the shock finally drove him crazy!”
Contemptuous gazes and murmurs from all around.
But I hid my expression leisurely and cheered inwardly.
‘Stupid bastards. You lot can stay stuck buying at the peak and wash dishes for life.’
Because even if only for a fleeting instant, I had clearly seen how brightly her future would shine.
“Y-yes! S-sold! Sold for one silver coin!”
The auctioneer hurriedly struck his gavel as if he had just disposed of a troublesome burden.
****
The metallic sound of the cage’s lock being opened echoed through the terribly cold underground chamber.
Camelia slowly raised her head with unfocused eyes.
‘Ah… it’s over.’
Her parents’ heads rolling before her eyes.
Since that day, only two things remained in her memory.
Screams.
And the never-ending torture.
She who had once been the envy of all was now an existence worse than the filth on the roadside.
That man who had bought her for a single silver coin was obviously the same.
Surely he would abuse her to fulfill his perverse desires, turning her into a lowly plaything while mocking her family name.
But it didn’t matter.
She was already no different from a dead person.
She tried to rise, but with her broken legs she couldn’t even stand.
Camelia lay defenselessly on the cold stone floor, gazing at the toe of the approaching man’s shoes.
‘If you’re going to hit me, hurry up. And please… kill me quickly.’
It was the moment she squeezed her eyes shut, trembling violently.
-Flap
Something heavy and warm covered her back.
Not a whip, nor a kick,
but a leather overcoat that still held the man’s body warmth intact.
“……?”
Camelia looked up at the man with blank eyes. The man looked down at her, furrowing his brow.
“You look terrible.”
“……Please, just kill me.”
A cracked voice escaped with difficulty.
Then the man spoke, quirking the corner of his lips into a crooked smirk.
“I can’t do that. From now on, you have to… do a great many things for me.”
‘Can’t let the product die right after purchase. I’ll fix her body up completely, make her skyrocket, and cash out with thousands of times the profit!’
The man, as if deeply moved by his own grand plan, smiled as gently and warmly as he could.
But. Facing that smile, an icy chill crept all the way up Camelia’s spine.
‘…A devil.’
The man’s smile reflected in her blurred vision was incomparably dreadful.
She was a worthless slave, a traitor’s bloodline, with broken bones and torn flesh who could drop dead tomorrow without it being strange. Yet he had bought her for a mere single silver coin and wore such an expression of pure joy?
Even the warm heat of the leather overcoat disgustingly gave her the chills.
He was without doubt either a cruel and terrible sadistic pervert who couldn’t be satisfied with ordinary torture, or an evil black sorcerer.
‘A great many things from now on…? Just what is he planning to do to me?’
Camelia’s body, plunged into despair, trembled like an aspen tree.
She wished her heart would stop instead. Better than being torn to shreds by that man’s hands, death would be the only mercy and salvation.
****
A rugged dirt road through the slums.
The entire time I climbed the steep slope, the bundle slung over my shoulder was chillingly light.
Skin and bones that seemed ready to crumble.
This penny stock I’d picked up for a single silver coin was so precarious that it wouldn’t be strange if her breath stopped right this instant.
-Creak
Opening a wooden door that looked ready to break at any moment, I entered and dropped her with a thud into a corner of a narrow room where not a proper ray of light entered.
And I reflexively covered my nose tightly and stepped back.
In an instant, a terrible stench spread through the narrow corner. Filth, hardened blood scabs, and the smell of festering wounds bursting with pus. This was not the smell of a person.
‘No matter how much of a bottom-buy this is, she’s too broken!’
Her condition was such that if left like this for just one more night, sudden death from septicemia wouldn’t be strange at all.
I couldn’t let this undervalued blue-chip stock, into which I’d scraped together and invested my precious capital of one silver coin, get delisted on its first day.
‘First, strip off those rotten rags and run an intense full-body disinfection. Otherwise she’ll really die.’
I delivered the first management order to my precious stock(?) in as firm and businesslike a voice as possible.
“Take them off.”
“……!”
At my firm single word, the shoulders of Camelia, who had been crouched on the floor, flinched violently.
Her ashen eyes, like those of a dead fish, shook frantically and wandered about.
She clutched the rags hanging on her body with trembling hands. Biting her bloodless lips, she desperately tried to push herself as far back as possible.
…
‘Why isn’t she taking them off? Don’t tell me she doesn’t even have the strength to undress?’
Do I have to wash her myself like a pet?
Well, asking a penny stock that was nearly delisted the moment I bought it to produce its own performance is probably too much.
“It can’t be helped. Stay still; I’ll strip them off for you.”