Chapter 68

Chapter 68. Trading & Auction House

—

“Wow, I thought I was going to check out the trading & auction house, but it feels like I walked into a slave market instead.”

The scene was so bizarre that it naturally made me feel a mix of complicated and subtle emotions. But of course, it’s not like users would only trade and auction off “Superhumans.” As I scrolled through the auction pages, the scenes I was actually looking for started to appear.

—

– <Premium Resource Box x100, 150 Gold>

– <Premium Equipment Box x10, 12 Gold>

– <50,000 Minerals, 10 Gold, One-Time Payment>

– <3,000 Rare Resources, 50 Gold, One-Time Payment>

– <Unique Equipment Box x1, 320 Gold>

—

These were the scenes of “Resources” and “Equipment” trading. Unlike the “Superhuman” auctions, which were more like traditional bidding wars, resources and equipment were mostly traded in one-time payments, quick and simple.

And then, waiting for me in this cursed game, was one of its main features. It was something that couldn’t be missed—auctions and trades for “Ships,” alongside Superhumans, resources, and equipment.

—

– <Quattro-Class Missile Destroyer, Auction in Progress>

– <Celestia-Class Support Destroyer, Starting Bid: 1,500 Gold>

– <Guardian-Class Defense Cruiser, Starting Bid: 6,000 Gold>

– <Texas-Class Heavy Cruiser, Starting Bid: 7,200 Gold>

– <Kazemaru-Class High-Mobility Destroyer, Auction in Progress>

– <Jupiter-Class Electronic Warfare Cruiser, Bid Completed>

– <Raider-Class Pirate Ship x10, Starting Bid: 500 Gold>

– <Bruiser-Class Light Cruiser, Starting Bid: 4,300 Gold>

—

And not just any ships—these were ships that users couldn’t produce themselves. They could only be obtained through grinding by looting from AI or, alternatively, through pure “gacha” luck. High-tier ships were everywhere.

“Everyone’s got such good gacha luck. Meanwhile, some people are crying because they can’t even pull an S-tier ship.”

While I was browsing, I happened to spot a familiar face.

—

– <Overseer-Class Heavy Cruiser, Auction in Progress>

—

“Wait, isn’t that my Overseer?”

After successfully scamming it from some user in the past, thanks to this incompetent Commander (me) who never succeeded in gacha again, the “Overseer” was still serving as the flagship of my fleet. And now, it was up for auction.

Feeling a bit nostalgic, I clicked on the post to check the current price.

—

<Overseer-Class Heavy Cruiser, Starting Bid: 6,900 Gold>

<Current Price: 9,115 Gold>

—

“Wow.”

The disgustingly high price made my head shake involuntarily. Jessica, who was watching the auction house with me, looked puzzled by my reaction. But her confusion wasn’t about me—it was about something else.

“Commander? By the way, I have a question.”

“What is it, Jessica?”

“Where exactly do you get this ‘Gold’ resource from?”

“Ah.”

It was about “Gold,” the currency used exclusively in the auction house. Realizing that Jessica, who manages the base’s finances and resources, would naturally be curious about it, I was about to explain when I thought, “Why am I even bothering to explain this manually?”

Feeling like I was wasting energy on something unnecessary, I immediately clicked on the “Tips” button in the corner of the auction house window and pulled up the guide.

—

<Trading & Auction House Guide>

<To use this system, you will need the exclusive currency, 'Gold.'>

It’s a currency that can only be used here, different from the rare mineral ‘gold’.

After reading the guide that was spread out like that, Jessica eventually turned her sparkling eyes towards me and opened her mouth.

“According to this guide, if we have enough of this ‘gold’ currency… the Commander’s combat power can be greatly enhanced, right?”

“That’s correct.”

But right after that answer.

Seeing Jessica about to spread her imaginative wings, I lightly tugged on her perky rabbit ears to grab her attention.

“Jessica, but we don’t have any gold right now.”

“Of course, but since the Commander can obtain it later… doesn’t that mean this currency exists for a reason?”

“…Huh?”

“Huh?”

For a moment, I wondered what on earth Jessica was talking about.

But that was only for a moment.

Soon, I realized that Jessica was suggesting that we could obtain that ‘gold’ not through daily quests but through separate quests or events.

I immediately shook my head and explained to Jessica about the vicious auction house system.

“First of all, you know that gold is absolutely necessary to buy anything in the auction house, right?”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“So, where do you think we can get that gold?”

“Uh… from quests? Or maybe some event?”

“No, first of all, the only things you can list in the auction house are from the gacha… the Multi-Dimensional Fixed Causality Generator, as you can see.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“To get gold, the only way is to sell items from the gacha in the auction house.”

“…Huh?”

“Instead of selling to users, you have to dispose of them through the auction house itself, which is incredibly inefficient and has a terrible gold acquisition rate.”

“…”

“By the way, if you sell it that way, you won’t even get half of what you’d get from selling to users through auctions.”

A slight tremor could be seen in Jessica’s eyes as she listened to my words.

And for good reason, because to get items from the auction house, you need gold.

But to get gold, you have to list items in the auction house.

And not only that, but you don’t even get a fair price—it’s like the government selling off seized goods from debt collectors at half the price.

But right now, the only items we have in our fleet that can be listed in the auction house… meaning items from the ‘gacha’…

At this point, over six months in, the only SSS-class ship we have is the ‘Overseer-class Heavy Cruiser,’ which I didn’t even pull myself but looted from someone else.

And besides Ignis(!), that’s all we have.

“So, we can’t actually buy anything in the auction house right now?”

“That’s right, so I just treat it as window shopping.”

Seeing Jessica, who looked like she was facing the logical dilemma of the chicken or the egg, I couldn’t help but feel genuinely sorry.

Of course, if this were purely a game, the story would be a bit different.

No gold? Then just spend some real money, and that’s it.

Even without directly spending real money, unlike the reality I’m currently possessed in,

In the game, the rate at which users collect resources is several times faster.

And with that, you can roll the gacha many more times, so the number of ‘gacha results’ accumulated in the fleet is much larger.

This means you have more items to put into the auction house, so even without spending real money, using the auction house isn’t a big problem.

But our developers, true to their occasional stinginess, applied the same logic here.

So, someone like me, with hilariously bad luck, ended up unable to use the auction house at all.

Anyway, by this point, Jessica seemed to have grasped the situation.

She quietly turned her head away from the auction house screen and just glanced at me.

‘Well, there’s nothing more to see here anyway.’

Since I also felt there was nothing more worth seeing in the auction house,

I quietly closed the auction house window and decided to open the gallery window instead to enjoy some fun and exciting information-gathering time for the day.