Chapter 15
A Very Special Delivery (3)
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If you looked closely, there were quite a few people in Bennett City who each had their own circumstances. Kairus was no exception.
"Judging by the way you speak, you seem to have some level of skill."
"Yes, that’s correct."
In response to Kairus’s forthright answer, Cecilia replied in a somewhat chilly voice.
"Just how much skill you have. That’s what matters."
Cecilia slowly raised her left hand as she spoke.
"When the battle gear arrives, I’ll put a price tag on you. The price of the sword I asked you to bring was 700,000 Pyint."
Then, Cecilia extended three fingers on her raised left hand.
"If the price tag I put on you is over 100,000 Pyint, I’ll lease you the battle gear for a short term. If your price tag exceeds 300,000 Pyint, a long-term lease will also be possible."
Originally, Kairus should not have asked questions. However, for some reason, he had a feeling that this time it would be all right.
"May I know what the cost will be?"
There was no way Cecilia would simply give the battle gear to Kairus for free. Cecilia readily gave him an answer.
"Later, you’ll have to do a job for the Rose Garden. Depending on whether it’s a short-term or long-term lease, the difficulty of the request will vary."
He didn’t have money to pay, but since he had skills, it meant he could repay the value of the battle gear with his own labor. It was a perfectly reasonable proposal.
Kairus looked at Cecilia and spoke.
"Actually, I have two more questions. Would that be all right?"
At Kairus’s words, Cecilia nodded.
"I won’t count what you just asked as a question. I’ll answer sincerely, so go ahead."
Having received permission, Kairus asked the first question.
"What happens if my value exceeds 700,000 Pyint?"
At Kairus’s words, Cecilia gave a faint smile. Listening to him, it was quite an amusing question.
Hearing a voice that seemed convinced his own value could surpass 700,000 Pyint, Cecilia felt both absurdity and curiosity at the same time.
"If you like the sword, you can keep it, and in the same way, you’ll just have to take care of a task worthy of that price."
Now came the second question.
"By your standards, how much would a fortress cost?"
At Kairus’s question, Cecilia tilted her head for a moment. What kind of question was this all of a sudden?
"Assuming it’s a standard fortress with no defects, I’d put a price tag somewhere between 15 million and 27 million Pyint."
As if she had thought about it before, Cecilia immediately gave him an answer. Kairus nodded.
"Thank you."
If he could perfect the Cloud Seizing Art, it would be worth more than a fortress.
It was something Kairus had heard countless times while learning the sword from the elders of the family.
Although I had perfected the Swift Blade, I had yet to even find the first clue to learning the Cloud Seizing Art. Just how high a price tag would this representative of the Rose Garden place on me in my current state?
"Representative, here is the battle gear you instructed me to bring."
An organization member knelt down and respectfully offered the sword with both hands.
"Thank you."
Cecilia took the sword and slowly drew it from the scabbard. Even as the blade slid free, there was almost no sound.
That alone meant the sword had been crafted with extraordinary precision.
"Doesn’t it look just like the stained glass that decorates a church? That’s why the sword’s name is Stained Glass."
The sword Cecilia held shimmered in many colors, while at the same time remaining so transparent that one could see through the blade.
At a glance, Stained Glass looked terribly fragile. It seemed it would shatter the moment one tried to block an enemy’s strike. But I could recognize its worth immediately.
"It’s fine battle gear."
Stained Glass could not quite stand shoulder to shoulder with the masterpiece battle gear produced before mass production systems were established.
Even so, the price Cecilia named was no exaggeration. It was more than worth that much.
"If you accept this sword, I will test you and then attach an appropriate price tag."
Repeating what she had already said, Cecilia slid the sword back into the scabbard, then extended it toward me, scabbard and all.
"If you don’t have confidence that your appraisal will turn out well, apologize now."
I answered Cecilia’s words.
"If I apologize, does that mean this all ends with your forgiveness?"
Cecilia shook her head. Hollow apologies made with words alone meant nothing to her.
To her, rather than a sincere apology and remorse from the heart, a sufficient settlement tossed onto the floor along with an insult held far more value.
"I’ll sell you off to the mines. If I hand you over on the condition of five years of unpaid labor, I can at least recover the time and effort you’ve cost me."
Five years of unpaid labor. If I apologized now, that would be the extent of my punishment.
But if I accepted the sword here, determined to prove myself, the situation would change considerably.
"After you take this sword, if the price I assess for you falls short of 100,000 Pyint, that difference will immediately become your debt."
If I failed to repay that debt, or if she judged that I was incapable of repaying it...
"You will spend the rest of your life as a slave."
I made a vague expression.
"Do you really think my life is worth 100,000 Pyint?"
At my words, Cecilia let out a short laugh and nodded.
"If you make good use of a person’s life, it’s easily worth around 100,000 Pyint. Now, let’s see…"
Cecilia once again looked Kairus up and down before she began to speak. What she said next described everything that would happen to Kairus if things took a turn for the worse.
"At first, you’ll start with labor and prostitution. Later, when you’ve been overworked for so long that you can no longer handle any tasks, you’ll be made to beg. In the meantime, your hair will be cut periodically and sold to wig factories."
But merely doing that wouldn’t come close to making up 100,000 Pyint. Not even remotely. That sort of thing wasn’t where the true profit lay. Cecilia continued speaking.
"If the Rose Garden ever commits crimes of a certain scale, you’ll take the blame and be punished in our place."
In other words, he’d be used as a stand-in. Kairus would be forced to shoulder guilt for crimes he had never committed.
It was only at this point that Kairus would succeed in repaying most of the 100,000 Pyint debt he owed. But even then, it wouldn’t be over.
He’d have paid back most of it but not all.
"After you die, your corpse will be sold for dissection."
She said after you die, but in truth, Kairus’s lifespan would not exceed fifteen years.
"If you’re still alive after fifteen years, then I’ll have you killed. I can use you for crash testing the new car model that’s scheduled for release."
Testing with a living person rather than a mannequin would surely produce far more accurate data. In other words, even in death, Kairus would be earning money.
"Afterward, your identification will be repurposed for forging documents."
Only then, finally, would Kairus succeed in repaying all his debt. With a faint smile on her face, Cecilia spoke to him.
"Don’t underestimate a life. Your life holds much greater value than you think."
One hundred thousand Pyint. That was the minimum price tag Cecilia had attached to the concept of a human life.
No matter how worthless a life might seem, if you scraped and tore away at it down to the very bottom and wrung it dry, you could easily extract that much.
"If you’d skipped everything you just said and only delivered that last line, I think I might have been moved, at least a little."
I stretched out my hand and accepted the sword Cecilia was offering me. She lifted one corner of her mouth as she replied.
"There’s no reason for me to attach a price tag to your sentiment. Not yet."
Saying there was no reason to attach a price tag meant that, to Cecilia, my feelings held no value whatsoever.
Since I was neither her subordinate nor her collaborator, from Cecilia’s perspective there was no reason to bother owning any sentiment I offered.
"I’ve given you my warning. Even so, you chose to take the sword yourself. Whether you’re a fool coveting what you should not, or a man who stood proud because you truly have the qualifications soon enough, we’ll find out."
Cecilia once more called out to the subordinate waiting outside the door.
"Would you call Sarah down to the first basement level and have her prepare for the sparring? Also, tell her I’m sorry for making her work when she’s surely busy."
Then, still seated, Cecilia turned to Spring Parsley, who was fidgeting nervously.
"Spring Parsley, we’re done discussing what we needed to. Once you finish your meal, you’re free to return."
"Still, if it’s all right, I’d like to stay and watch. Just in case."
From Spring Parsley’s perspective, she was starting to feel that you never knew what could happen. This wasn’t some stranger’s warning this was a warning issued directly by Cecilia, the head of the Rose Garden.
And yet that fellow Kairus had taken the sword even after hearing it. It meant he was either truly confident in his abilities or unbelievably stupid.
Either way, it was more than worth observing.
"Yes, by all means. An architect with good judgment makes good choices, I see."
"Architect?"
What, was there some renovation work being planned for the mansion? Seeing the look on my face, Cecilia offered a simple explanation.
"They’re the people who draw up plans for operations."
Operations.
When a group gathered temporarily to pull off a big job like a bank robbery or a train heist and then split the profits before disbanding, that was called an operation. A kind of short-term project.
The term architects referred to those who specialized in planning and preparing such operations. They almost never showed themselves at the crime scene, and by the nature of their work, their identities were always kept thoroughly hidden.
"If you were to participate in this, you’d be a contractor."
Contractor. A word for those who carried out the crimes, moving according to the plans drafted by the architects.
"Representative, everything’s ready."
Perhaps she’d been in a fairly good mood, as Cecilia paused her explanation when she heard the knock and turned her attention to me.
"All right, then. Follow me."
Cecilia led the way out the door. Spring Parsley and I followed behind.
Cecilia’s mansion in other words, the Rose Garden’s headquarters had a basement that was far larger and vaster than any of the structures above ground.
Even though the mansion built on the surface was by no means small, the underground facilities were of a completely different scale.
Unlike the above-ground portion, which had been built with an emphasis on aesthetic sensibility, the underground spaces excavated beneath the Rose Mansion had an entirely different purpose from the start.
"Looks sturdy, doesn’t it?"
Despite appearances, the basement floor wasn’t simply an ordinary surface.
Between two plates, a honeycomb-shaped alloy framework was sandwiched, and above that, a special flooring material was laid down to absorb impact.
In this place, even if a group of elephants played volleyball, nothing would happen.
No sooner had I finished that thought than a giant who seemed at least three meters tall appeared, dragging behind her a warhammer that must have been two meters long.
"I didn’t mean you had to actually bring out an elephant."
That immense, towering figure belonged to Sarah, the woman Cecilia had summoned to test my abilities this time.
I looked up at the muscular woman, whose bulk surpassed three meters, and asked her a question.
"Your name was Sarah, right? What exactly did you eat no, what did you eat wrong to end up that big?"
Sarah set down her massive warhammer beside her with a heavy thud as she replied.
"Water."
The moment I heard her answer, I muttered with an incredulous look.
"Yeah, right. Like bamboo or something, sprouting two meters tall on nothing but water."
It wasn’t just her height. That woman’s body was something else entirely.
If those who dedicated their lives to building muscle and lifting ever heavier weights saw Sarah’s form like a sculpture carved from diamond they’d probably be struck blind with envy.
Not that any of that mattered to me.
What mattered was that I had to fight this woman, who looked as if she’d been molded out of steel.
"It’s called the Toothpick. What do you think impressive, isn’t it?"
Sarah spoke to me. Was she seriously calling that siege-engine-sized warhammer she had propped beside her a Toothpick?
"Almost as adorable as your name, Sarah."
That warhammer called Toothpick was, of course, battle gear.
Which meant, despite her body that looked as if it had no need to be any stronger… once the fighting started, this woman still had room to grow even more powerful.