Night fell.
After wandering around aimlessly the whole day, Orsaga had more or less figured out the basic structure and layout of the city using his innate abilities.
Along the way, he also sampled most of the local street food. After all, he wasn't about to treat himself poorly.
The food tasted decent for the most part.
Thanks to the influence of supernatural powers, the variety of seasonings here was actually a bit richer than what Earth had to offer.
Some of the snacks even had mildly hallucinogenic effects just for the thrill of it—though only because the various races in this world had far more robust physiques than humans from Earth. Otherwise, you'd be looking at a population of malnourished, sickly ghosts.
After a lazy yawn, Orsaga finally started making some vague plans for the future.
As he had decided earlier, while he didn't intend to stir up too much trouble and attract enemies from all directions—people chasing him down wherever he went—he still needed to earn some extra income. Any easy profits were absolutely not to be missed.
Techniques like Bloodflame were far too flashy for low-key evil acts, so the tried-and-true method of plague-spreading was much more suited to the occasion.
As a seasoned plague specialist with a solid background in biochemistry, Orsaga wasn't limited to just manufacturing biological crises. He could make all kinds of stuff—from the common cold to the Black Death—with his bare hands. If he felt like it, he could even put together a contagious form of cancer.
His plan was simple: enrich this world's catalogue of common diseases.
He'd create and spread a few dozen illnesses. No need for high lethality—just something on par with your average flu.
As long as they were disguised well enough as ordinary diseases and the death and severe illness rates were kept within acceptable bounds, no one would notice anything unusual, and they could spread on a massive scale under the radar of the local authorities.
The initial payoff might not be much—nine out of ten infected would barely feel a thing, and the healthier ones would recover like they just had a cold.
But once these diseases fully took root and became part of the world's regular health problems, with this world's enormous population base, even a slow trickle of deaths among the old, weak, and sick would let Orsaga lie back and passively rake in the profits.
No need to work like other demons who spent their days plotting blood rituals just to bring a little color to their bleak existence.
He called this plan: "Multiverse Plague Inc."
It was practically flawless and aligned perfectly with his personality. Better yet, it wasn't just usable here—it was universal.
Simple to operate, low-risk, and low-maintenance.
Just find a few lucky random citizens, and you could kick off a massive contagion. No need to worry about anything else.
Put in a few days of hard work up front, then coast for the rest of eternity.
All he needed now was to continue surveying the average physical constitution of the different races in this world, along with a general understanding of the state of medical care. Based on that data, he could tailor dozens of diseases with just the right balance of infectiousness and lethality—always staying under the radar of the local strongmen.
By his estimate, collecting all that data would take about a month. Getting info on every race was a pain, and he figured he'd have to settle for just the major ones. The rarer races were too scattered and not worth the effort.
But that was fine. Those fringe populations were tiny anyway, hardly worth the slow grind. If he could infect the mainstream, that was enough.
In short, Orsaga's little scheme was like secretly pulling the roots out from under the feet of this world's inhabitants.
If the local powerhouses ever found out, they'd definitely band together to take him down like a world boss—no matter the cost.
As long as he lived, he'd be a walking, talking threat.
Letting him sneak into this world was nothing short of their ancestors' graves belching smoke.
Honestly, it was just plain bad luck.
And Orsaga? He had no self-awareness whatsoever. His mind was filled with nothing but mischief and dreams of an easy, carefree life.
He never once thought of holding back from the very beginning.
---
Standing outside a massive plaza, Orsaga looked around at the surging crowd and the countless street vendors peddling their goods. He was a bit surprised.
Just a rough glance told him there were hundreds of thousands of people here.
This didn't feel like a simple auction—it looked more like a massive public event.
He looked at the crowd, then at the building at the center of the plaza, and couldn't help but frown in confusion.
"How the hell is anyone supposed to get in there?"
By his estimation, the building would have to be expanded several dozen times over to accommodate this many people.
'Could it be... an outdoor auction?'
With that thought in mind, he pushed his way through the crowd to get a closer look.
After a bit of observation, he finally understood how the auction was set up.
There were two categories of participants: inside and outside the venue.
Those outside were just spectators, only allowed to watch via magical screens floating overhead. They were basically just there for the spectacle.
That explained all the vendors—plenty of customers to target among the onlookers.
As for actual participants with bidding rights? There were only five thousand—a tiny number compared to the hundreds of thousands present.
Those five thousand entry slots were partly distributed as fixed quotas among various powers, while the rest were auctioned off live at dozens of ticket booths.
Which meant: if you wanted to join the auction, you had to cough up some serious cash before you even walked through the door.
A ruthless money-grabbing scheme, no doubt.
But still, it made a certain kind of sense. By setting a high bar for entry, they filtered out the cheapskates and casuals right off the bat.
An effective way to pre-qualify the real customers.
And the fact that the organizers hadn't yet been beaten to death for running things this way suggested that the auction items were probably worth the price of admission.
Otherwise, this event wouldn't have grown to such a scale.
So, Orsaga didn't hesitate. He walked straight up to the nearest ticket booth, ready to bid for an entry slot.
---
"Entry ticket number 1147, starting bid: 200 gold coins. Bidding starts now!"
As the auction house staffer in a neatly tailored uniform called out from atop a small platform, voices began shouting out bids.
"220 gold!"
"230!"
"235…"
Listening to the slow, messy bidding, Orsaga casually dug at his ear, looking thoroughly bored.
Then, raising his hand, he calmly said, "1,000 gold coins."
Though he didn't shout, his voice cut through the noise like a knife, reaching every ear in the vicinity.
"..."
The abrupt jump in price stunned everyone. Even the auction staffer, who had seen plenty in their time, froze in disbelief.
The crowd went silent.
After a beat of awkward silence, the staffer licked his lips and asked cautiously, "S-Sir, did you just say… 1,000 gold coins?"
His voice was full of uncertainty and respect.
You had to understand—normally, the highest a ticket would go was around 300 gold coins. That was already a fortune for the average person—enough to buy a decent house in the city.
Spending 1,000 gold just to get in the door? He had never seen anything like it.
Even wealthy nobles wouldn't burn money so casually.
Without even glancing at the staffer, Orsaga casually tossed him a gemstone. "Here, you set a price."
Catching the clear, radiant gem, the staffer only needed one look to realize it was worth far more than 1,000 gold.
Swallowing hard, he said in a low voice, "Please wait a moment, sir. I'll have someone appraise it for you."
With that, he darted off the platform and ran into the back.
Orsaga didn't stop him, letting the man carry the gem away without a second thought.
Soon, he returned with an old man whose hair was white as snow.
Cradling the gem in his hands, the old man bowed respectfully and said, "Sir, this is a Molard Crystal of very high purity. Based on market value, it's worth around 1,700 gold coins. If you'd like to use it to bid for entry, we can offer you change."
"Sure. Use that price," Orsaga replied casually.
Then he turned to the others and said, "I'm bidding 1,700 gold coins. Anyone want to beat that?"
Hissss—
Even the old man drew in a sharp breath.
He'd never seen someone throw around money like that.
Didn't even care about the change.
The crowd quickly realized they couldn't compete with this level of wealth. No one dared raise a hand.
A few questions later, Orsaga easily secured his entry ticket with an overwhelming bid.
Under the awe-struck stares of everyone around him, he was led into the venue by one of the auction staff.
___
🎉 Big Shoutout to Ruminker! 🎉
A heartfelt thank you to Ruminker for joining my Patreon and supporting this translation journey! 🙏✨
Your generosity truly makes a difference and helps bring chapters out faster for everyone. 🚀
Welcome to the VIP family, Ruminker—you're awesome! 💎🙌