19
Chapter 19
In any era, in any world, there is one absolute, unchanging law.
Money is always right.
It might sound like something a philistine would say, but what can you do?
It's a fact that no one can deny.
I wore a satisfied smile as I looked at the object resting in my hand.
An Elixir shining with a brilliant silver light.
It was an item that had also appeared in the previous game.
I hadn't received it as a quest reward, nor had I cleared a dungeon, yet the reason I had such an item in my hands was simple.
Rubia bought it for me.
'Does she have some kind of nice guy complex?'
It was to the point where I wondered how a person could be that kind.
If I ask for money, she gives it.
She even gives it without asking what I'll use it for.
I was the one who should have been paying for the repairs after breaking her mansion, yet I was the one receiving financial support.
Furthermore, she willingly allowed me to stay at the mansion.
It seemed she was telling me I could stay as long as I wanted.
Honestly, the polite thing to do would be to refuse such an offer... but I ultimately couldn't resist the temptation.
In a way, it was to be expected.
Right from the start, I was sent off to be a slave at the Mining Site, and then I had to sleep rough after making a round trip to some faraway mountain.
When would I have ever had the time to take a comfortable rest in the midst of all that?
But this place was practically heaven.
To be honest, if we're just looking at the facilities, this place was much better than the house I used to live in.
It completely overwhelmed my place in terms of design and scale, and most of the facilities were implemented through magical engineering.
Putting everything else aside, I hadn't even had a proper shower in months. How could I possibly refuse such a sweet offer?
In the end, I had no choice but to accept Rubia's offer.
Besides, the first time is always the hardest, and once you do it, the resistance fades away.
I ended up spending Rubia's wealth as confidently as if it were my own.
'...Looking back at it, I really am a piece of trash.'
Well, what can you do?
It's not like I'm doing this just for my own benefit.
I'm doing this to save the world.
For everyone's sake, I was simply setting aside my conscience on their behalf.
If anything, shouldn't I be praised for that?
Besides, if I use my knowledge from the previous game to introduce her to a good way to make money later, everything will work out perfectly.
After quietly rationalizing it to myself like that, I looked back down at the small Elixir.
Maybe my Status Window was actually broken, as the item description didn't pop up. But whatever.
What kind of gamer can't memorize a single item description?
Since it was a potion from the previous game, I roughly remembered its effects.
'Mana +1, Physical +0.5'
Naturally, taking just one of these wouldn't suddenly turn me into an Archmage.
Still, it was a value that let me definitely feel myself getting stronger.
I quickly tossed the Elixir into my mouth.
Instantly, a squirming sensation washed over me.
The energy infused within the potion was stirring up my insides all over the place.
I tried to quickly stabilize that energy... but failed. I felt the energy scatter pathetically.
Well, it was an obvious outcome.
It wasn't like I was some martial artist.
How much experience could I possibly have with taking Elixirs?
'It's a bit of a waste.'
In the previous game, situations like this were implemented as a minigame whenever you consumed Elixir-class items.
It was a simple process of just clicking at the right time, but now that it had become reality, the difficulty had spiked drastically.
I probably didn't even get to enjoy half of the potion's efficacy.
'But still...'
What did it matter?
I immediately grabbed the next Elixir and swallowed it.
And then once again, and again, multiple times.
Gathering just two of them would be enough to buy a building, though.
Even counting conservatively, I had over 50 of them, so there was no need to hold back.
Money really is great.
Why even bother looking for hidden pieces?
I could just find a generous financial backer like this and solve everything by brute-forcing it with cash.
'Well, normally I wouldn't have done something like this either.'
That was a given.
Seriously, there was no way anyone could get infinitely stronger just by consuming this type of Elixir.
Naturally, there was a limit to how much one could consume. Exceeding that limit would not only damage your body from being unable to handle the energy, but it could outright kill you.
But I had the Healthy Body passive.
Naturally, Elixirs were not treated as poisons within the game's system.
In other words, I could simply ignore most side effects through sheer grit.
It was essentially a kind of loophole.
A smile naturally formed on my lips. What gamer in the world would hate a loophole like this?
I continued to devour those Elixirs as if I were snacking on popcorn.
The more I ate, the more accustomed I became to controlling the energy. Towards the end, I was able to absorb the potion's efficacy into my body without wasting a single drop.
'...This is.'
And the moment I finished the job, I could definitely feel it. The change that had occurred within my body.
It was obvious.
This was the first time in my life that I had ever come into contact with Mana.
I could feel the energy flowing through my body. I could even move it freely.
If I used this to construct a Magic Formula, I would probably be able to cast real magic.
As a gamer and an avid reader of web novels, there was no way I hadn't dreamed of a situation like this.
I smiled naturally at this romantic situation... before suddenly realizing something.
'Why couldn't I feel this until now?'
Well, now that I thought about it, it was a bit strange.
Even if I was an early-game character with low Mana, that didn't mean it should be completely nonexistent.
I should have at least been able to feel a faint, similar energy.
Until now, I had just assumed I was so horribly untalented at Mana control that I couldn't feel the Mana inherent in my body.
But since it was working so well now, it didn't make sense for it to have been impossible before.
'Was my Mana at 0 when the character was created?'
That seemed a bit unlikely.
If one was human—no, even before that, if one was a living creature—they were bound to be born with at least a small amount of Mana.
Wondering what exactly was going on, I opened my Status Window for a moment, only to...
[Resetting Destiny Path.]
I received that macro response again and was rejected.
When exactly was this piece of trash going to disappear?
It was at the point where I felt it would be better if it didn't exist at all.
It was absolutely no help in my life.
'Well, it doesn't matter since I'm doing fine on my own even without the Status Window anyway.'
Even without them setting goals or giving me quests, I was moving along just fine on my own.
I recruited Ciel and Rien as companions, gained Rubia as a backer, and even got stronger by taking care of my stats like this.
Perhaps devouring 50 Elixirs in a single day was a bit too much, as I stretched to relieve my slightly stiff body.
Black Market.
Three days until the black market opened.
Fortunately, I had time to prepare this time.
So, let's work hard on building up my strength in the meantime.
*****
Rubia felt like she was going to go crazy at any moment.
In a way, it was to be expected.
A secret organization had latched onto her mansion—her own personal, cozy place of rest.
And the strongest secret organization in the Empire, no less.
Somehow, even Rubia had ended up joining them.
'That much was fine.'
After weighing the pros and cons to some extent, she had determined that there was definitely merit in joining.
She didn't regret joining all that much in itself.
However, the problem was what came next.
'How is it that every single one of them is a monster?'
The black-haired girl, that child named Ciel... she didn't even want to think about her.
She had noticed that Rubia was hesitating until the very last moment over whether to accept the man's proposal that day, and had kept her eyes fixed on her with a gaze full of Bloodlust.
There was a limit to how twisted one's way of thinking could be.
She actually took offense, saying that Rubia had dared to weigh the pros and cons instead of gratefully accepting the Leader's proposal.
She was a lunatic who genuinely believed the world revolved around a man named Ian.
The white-haired girl was at least a bit friendlier.
However, she was the very person who had destroyed Rubia's mansion.
Besides, how should she put it... she had a kind and gentle personality, but something about her gave off a subtly eerie feeling.
To the point where just being next to her made my body instinctively shrink back.
And finally, the Leader.
He was the main culprit driving Rubia crazy.
Admittedly, going purely by his outer appearance, he was completely normal.
His way of speaking was also polite, and he always treated her respectfully.
However, she remembered.
-Should I kill you? I pondered that for quite a while.
The image of the man saying those words.
The sight of him wearing the most beautiful smile in the world right to her face, while telling her he had debated whether to kill her.
Just thinking about it made her hands and feet tremble.
The fact that she was currently heading to see that Leader, the enigmatic boy named Ian, only made it worse.
But she couldn't stop just because she was scared.
'If things keep going like this, I'll actually go bankrupt!'
She had to ask him somehow. To please cut back on his spending just a little bit. To stop making unreasonable demands.
With those thoughts in mind, Rubia carefully and cautiously opened the door.
And... a completely incomprehensible scene unfolded before her eyes.
A silver Elixir.
It was the sight of the man tossing the top-grade pill—which Rubia had struggled to obtain and was hard enough to secure even one of—into his mouth without a moment of hesitation.
Rubia's jaw naturally dropped.
In a way, it was only natural.
Elixirs like that were things you'd struggle to properly absorb even one of in a day.
However, this man was recklessly swallowing them down as if it were nothing, like he was snacking on treats.
It was a situation where it wouldn't be strange if he ended up a cripple.
Yet, the man's expression remained perfectly fine.
This situation pointed to only one answer.
......That much didn't even affect him in the slightest.
Even the energy of the Elixirs, which would be overwhelming for anyone else,
was nothing compared to the unfathomable power the man possessed.
Rubia had no choice but to be certain.
That boy was no boy.
Perhaps he might not even be human.
No, beyond that, it was certain he wasn't human.
"Ah, did you need something?"
The monster had spoken to her.
That it was unreasonable to ask her to get a VIP Entrance Ticket for the Black Market with only three days left until it opened.
Or that he should at least try to consider her circumstances a little.
Those words never left her mouth.
There was no way they ever could.
Because of that, Rubia forced back the tears threatening to spill and spoke.
"No, it's nothing...."
......If she wanted to live, she had to somehow get her hands on that Entrance Ticket.