004 – The Genius of Grinding #4
A severed head, clutched in a headless body’s hand.
That ghastly face opened and closed its mouth.
【Offer me aether. Then, in return, I shall bestow my blessing upon you.】
Even I, who’d been through all sorts of things, had never been offered a deal by a dead guy before.
So naturally, suspicion was the first thing that came to mind.
And on top of that, he wanted me to offer up the aether I’d earned with my literal blood, sweat, and tears?
“What makes you think I’d trust you enough to give you my aether?”
I was watching for a chance to pounce on him as I said that.
The severed-headed monster clicked his tongue.
【A suspicious one, are you? Kehehe, good. Suspicious fellows survive a long time. I, too, would rather not have the one I bless die and flop over too soon.】
The monster struck the staff he held in the hand opposite the one gripping his head.
Then words appeared before my eyes.
「Star Key Lv.1」
「If there is a hole for a key to enter, there is a low chance of unlocking it.」
「Black Feet Lv.1」
「Completely eliminates your footsteps for a set period of time.」
「Schemer’s Blade Lv.1」
「When attacking an enemy from behind, the chance of inflicting a fatal wound increases.」
【Offer me 100,000 aether. And if you promise me one percent of all aether you gain from now on, I shall bestow upon you one of these blessings!】
100,000 aether.
And one percent of all the aether I’d earn in the future.
In other words, the monster before me wanted a long-term contract.
If I used these strange abilities to earn a mountain of aether, this decapitated monster would profit from his one-percent share too.
The revenue structure was clear.
“Is that all?”
For some reason, I ended up speaking politely.
At my question, asking if he was hiding some other card up his sleeve, the headless monster clicked his tongue again.
【I have shown you plenty as it is! Of course, some blessings only reveal their true worth when you offer more aether!】
It didn’t seem like he was hiding anything.
Anyway.
All of them seemed useful in their own ways, so I was torn.
First, let’s think about “Star Key.”
「Star Key Lv.1」
「If there is a hole for a key to enter, there is a low chance of unlocking it.」
Mr. Hammer had said he expected me to play the role of a “thief,” hadn’t he?
That I’d have to pick locks and disarm traps.
I’d told him I lacked experience with that sort of thing.
But Mr. Hammer had said I didn’t need to worry about it.
He hadn’t explained in detail afterward, but maybe he’d expected that a deal like this would happen?
I don’t know the principle behind it, but it sure is miraculous.
Then what about “Black Feet”?
The effect of completely eliminating my footsteps for a set period of time.
If I’d had an ability like this earlier, I’d have had a few fewer priors.
Last was “Schemer’s Blade.”
It increased the chance of inflicting a fatal wound when attacking an opponent from behind.
Should I think of it as something like landing a critical attack in a game?
It didn’t seem immediately useful.
“I’ll take 「Star Key」.”
【Kehaha! An excellent choice! In this land of night, there are plenty of tightly shut doors, safes, and secrets! Whatever is closed belongs to the one who gets their hands on it first!】
“Ooh!”
It had been a long time since anyone praised me for my choice.
I’d misunderstood him as a suspicious monster, but maybe he was actually a pretty good guy.
【I am Ashibar of the Black Star. My blessed one! Survive for a long, long time and bring me much aether! If you need to trade, seek me in the land of night!】
Ashibar?
His name sounded oddly like a curse.
Soon, he approached me and tapped my forehead with his staff.
Rather than hurting, it startled me, and the moment stars flashed before my eyes—
Shushushushushuk—
Just like when I had entered this place, I felt as though black mist was wrapping around me.
When I came to my senses, I was back in the room with the wooden table engraved with a map.
“Hey, newbie! You’re alive! What the hell happened!”
The armored oddball, Mr. Hammer, came toward me, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me wildly.
I couldn’t see his expression because of the armor, but he seemed to be demanding an explanation, so I told him everything that had happened.
“That’s how it went.”
“Two hundred eighty thousand aether? Did you just say you earned 280,000 aether in twenty-seven hours? And out of that, you offered 100,000 to some monster named ‘Ashibar’ and received a blessing?”
Clank. Rattle, rattle.
Hammer’s armor trembled.
“Hermit, have you ever heard that name? Ashibar of the Black Star. Sounds like some kind of curse.”
“Ashibar… It’s my first time hearing it too. I don’t think he’s a famous idol. He’s probably a fallen thief-type idol from the Night War. If he’s handing over a blessing for a mere 100,000 aether, he might not be all that impressive.”
Judging from the situation, it didn’t seem especially rare for strange beings to appear and hand over blessings.
So they were called idols.
And apparently, the 100,000-aether price Ashibar had named was rather shabby.
“Mr. Hammer, how much do blessings usually cost?”
“It differs from idol to idol, so I can’t say for sure, but normally they charge at least several million aether. The better the blessing, the higher the price. On the other hand, cheap blessings often have crude effects.”
My Star Key had cost only 100,000 aether.
Of course, he had also demanded one percent of my future earnings.
Even so, compared to a figure like several million aether, it felt small.
That Ashibar bastard.
His tone was so arrogant I thought he was some incredibly great being.
But maybe not?
Well, anyone could exaggerate when selling something.
“Yor! It might be a nothing-special blessing, but don’t get too discouraged! As far as I know, you’re the first guy to go out on his first sortie, hunt only Nightlings, earn 280,000 aether, and even come back with a blessing! You’re completely insane!”
“Agreed.”
Hermit shook her head.
Then she raised a hand and pinched her nose.
“By the way… when was the last time you washed?”
Uh…
Suddenly, I felt incredibly embarrassed.
I fidgeted.
When I couldn’t answer, Hermit grabbed my wrist.
“Just follow me. I’ll show you where the bathhouse is.”
# # #
The bathhouse facility was, no more and no less, a bathhouse.
It reminded me of public bathhouses I’d visited a few times in my previous life.
Honestly, even that much was probably an amazing facility in this world.
“Huh?”
But as I was taking off my clothes, I noticed something strange.
There was a key-shaped tattoo engraved on the back of my left hand.
「Star Key Lv.1」
「If there is a hole for a key to enter, there is a low chance of unlocking it.」
“Ooh, ooooh!”
So what happened with Ashibar hadn’t been a dream.
Was this the “blessing”?
In other words, I’d gained something like a superpower.
How did I use it?
I wanted to test it out as soon as possible.
“Yor! You bastard, now that you’re clean, you finally look somewhat human. I was even thinking of scrubbing your back for you!”
While I was changing in the bathhouse dressing room, Mr. Hammer approached and thumped me on the back.
Judging from his tone, he seemed to be in a better mood than when we’d first met.
“I thought you’d be another slacker like your predecessors, but you turned out to be one damn gutsy bastard! I can’t stand punks or thugs, but I’m seeing you in a new light!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! To keep up that repetitive work for twenty-seven hours. That’s not something you can do with ordinary grit. Usually, they only manage to gather about 5,000 aether after three hours.”
That was surprising.
It took three hours to gather 5,000 aether?
Just how lazy were the people of this world?
If you grinded like that in my previous life, you’d obviously lose money just from the electricity bill for the computer.
As I was finding that strange, Mr. Hammer slung an arm around my shoulders.
“That Hermit didn’t say it either, but she probably thinks better of you now too! If that lazy girl personally showed you where the bathhouse was, then I’m sure of it.”
“Ooooh!”
At the name Hermit, I recalled the girl in the pointed hat from earlier.
She seemed about my age.
Her face had been hidden by her hat, so I couldn’t see it well, but I thought her voice had been kind of cute.
She thought well of me?
If things went well, maybe I could make her my girlfriend.
It was the first time I’d ever heard that a girl had a good impression of me, so my heart started pounding.
Soon, Mr. Hammer warned me in a low voice.
“That doesn’t mean you should get too friendly with her. Hermit hates thieves for a lot of reasons. That’s true in any unit, but our unit is especially like that. Anyway!”
Mr. Hammer led me somewhere.
“Now we’re going to settle the aether you earned. You acquired a total of 180,000 aether, so half of that—90,000 aether—has to be offered to His Majesty. So put the aether into this cart!”
Clang!
It felt like I’d been hit in the back of the head with a lump of iron.
“…Pardon? Offered?”
I was supposed to offer my aether to whom?
As I stood there with my mouth hanging open, Mr. Hammer placed a hand on my shoulder.
“You really don’t know anything, do you?”
“No, sir!”
“Do you know how this barrier is maintained? It’s thanks to the power of His Majesty the Emperor, who fought the demons of the night and emerged victorious. However, even that power isn’t free. It requires aether.”
I had wondered how such a massive barrier could be maintained without any proper upkeep.
It seemed a blessing or magic involving aether was related to it.
“His Majesty has sat upon the throne for hundreds of years, devoting all his strength to holding back the forces of night. Helping His Majesty the Emperor is the duty of us imperial citizens. And at the core of that duty is ‘aether.’”
I didn’t really understand.
But I did understand that this Emperor person had been sitting on a chair for hundreds of years, working hard to save the world.
But was it possible for a person to live for hundreds of years?
Was he even human?
I had to hand over half of the aether I’d worked so hard to earn to someone whose face I’d never even seen.
Was this what national pensions and taxes felt like?
Jingle, thud!
Half of the money bundles I’d worked so hard to earn were loaded onto the cart.
The hours I’d suffered to earn that flashed through my mind, but if those were the rules, what could I do?
“Yor, don’t look so gloomy! Once the aether you’ve dedicated to His Majesty exceeds a certain amount, your position within the Empire will become quite impressive too! You could even become a noble!”
“I could become a noble?”
“Yeah. That’s all thanks to His Majesty the Emperor’s grace. If you trace their origins, all the nobles in the Empire were blessed ones. Why couldn’t you become one?”
Me, a noble!
Suddenly, I felt better.
The nobles I knew possessed tremendous authority.
Enough that they could lock up an innocent person in prison and beat them to death without a second thought.
Right, now that I thought about it, I was someone who might have died in prison just like that.
And now I could earn aether and rise all the way to nobility?
“—Long live His Majesty the Emperor.”
“You bastard, you know what’s what! The previous thief was no good at all, but I think I can talk to you!”
From now on, His Majesty the Emperor and I were one body.
I’d never seen his face, but respect welled up within me.
My respect for His Majesty the Emperor ranked second.
First was Mr. Ezekiel.
Second was His Majesty the Emperor.
Of course, this ranking might change depending on the occasional patch note.
“Now then, you’ve made your offering. The remaining 90,000 aether is entirely yours.”
“Ooh! Mine! So what can I do with aether? Is paying taxes and buying blessings all there is?”
“Haha! If that were all, do you think we’d charge into the land of night like our lives depended on it to gather aether?”
“There’s something more!”
“Then let’s go! I’ll teach you how to use aether. We also need to hold your transfer ceremony. You should know who your comrades will be, shouldn’t you?”
Comrades? I’d never done anything like teaming up before.
Mr. Hammer laughed cheerfully and patted my shoulder.
“For reference, don’t ask about your predecessor, the ‘thief.’”
“Why not?”
“Because he died by our hands. The number one cause of death for thieves in blessed-one parties is execution by their comrades.”
…Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
A chill ran down my spine for no reason.
“Still, I hope we last a long time with you. 「Star Key」 is a blessing I’ve never seen before, too! Don’t worry! They’re all good people, so they’ll welcome you. Probably—”
—Probably?
That left an ominous aftertaste, but it was fine.
Because I had a trump card that would let me get along with everyone in no time.
An unlikeable guy couldn’t even scam anyone.
You couldn’t even get a conversation started!