More Precious Than Gold (1)
About thirty minutes later.
"I mean, I guess it's possible."
That was the first thing Noah said, having just failed to erase her own memory by slamming her head against the wall.
"The world is full of stranger things than this. It's my own fault for assuming my oh-so-reliable older brother would always live a safe, boring life."
"Uh... Noah?"
She sank onto the sofa, her voice carrying the eerie calm of someone who had simply cast every last worry to the wind.
"So the lost saint of the continent's most powerful religious order, a princess who's spent fifteen years in seclusion, and a dragonewt noblewoman from a fallen house are all living together at my brother's place. Sure. Why not."
Immaculate summarization.
No one could call her anything but a merchant, with how fast she processed and organized information.
There was one thing I still hadn't told her, though.
That Mnassil wasn't a dragonewt but an actual dragon — and the master of a volcano, no less.
No need to bring that up, really.
I had no interest in watching the poor girl, who had only barely clawed her way back to sanity, lose it all over again.
So I said it as gently as I could, like delivering a sermon.
"Noah. Now you understand why I put you under a seven-year oath of secrecy, don't you?"
Understand that I had no other choice.
If word got out that even one of these people was here, it would be a disaster — and of all people, it had to be my merchant sister who found out.
Which left me only one option.
Feed her more secrets and seal her lips for good.
But Noah shook her head.
"No. Honestly, the oath was never even necessary in the first place."
"What's that supposed to mean? Obviously—"
"Look at this situation right now."
She gestured at the three women.
"Do you actually think any of this adds up?"
"...What do you mean?"
"Try to picture it, oppa. A penniless commoner civil servant with no power, no connections, who ran out of his parents' house with nothing but the clothes on his back — and somehow major players of this caliber all end up living under one roof with him. Who on earth would believe that?"
"Ouch. Right between the ribs, little sister."
That's family for you. No mercy in their words.
"This is information so unbelievable that even if a foreign intelligence agency announced it, nobody would buy it, you middle-aged man. I couldn't even sell it as gossip. It'd be less credible than the story about our guild's grumpy old bachelor coachman, who claims he used to be quite the ladies' man in his day."
Cruel — but fair.
Even I had to admit the situation was genuinely absurd.
Noah let out one last long sigh.
"Well, that's a relief, at least. So everyone had their own circumstances and needed a place to stay. I was about to start thinking something really weird."
"What weird thing?"
"What do you think the world would say about a young man living with two young beauties and a noble widow?"
"..."
"No, actually, that doesn't make sense either."
My sister burst into hollow laughter.
Even she found the thought ridiculous, waving her hand dismissively in the air.
"A clueless fool like you, who does nothing but whatever work gets dumped on him? There's no way you'd have any interest in that sort of thing."
"I'll grant you half of that."
"And besides, it's just as strange that these ladies would like you. What's there to like, anyway? Right, everyone?"
She fired off the question with absolute conviction.
But no answer came.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Silence.
"Um... hello?"
All at once, everyone looked away from Noah.
"Ahaha..."
"Uuu."
"Hmm, that one's rather difficult to agree with."
Three women, three very different ways of dodging the question.
"...Oppa."
Noah's expression was turning uglier by the second.
Before she could sink her teeth into me again, I rushed to speak.
"L-ladies! If you don't back me up here, this officer will be in serious danger. Erzena?"
"Hm? Ah. Right, of course. Yes. Um. I had no... choice. I had to live with him. N-not that it was unpleasant! Noah, dear, Nathan is a truly wonderful man... officer, I mean! A wonderful immigration officer!"
Erzena's answers kept careening mid-sentence in entirely new directions.
Unable to even meet her eyes, fidgeting with her hands — Noah's gaze narrowed to slits.
"...Hmm."
"E-Elaine. Would you say something as well, please?"
Redirecting the arrow, this time toward the princess.
Those green eyes slid conspicuously toward the wall.
"Uu... uuuuuh."
She was mumbling — how does someone mumble and stutter at the same time?
Then four word cards floated up into the air.
- MY ONE. CONFIDANT. BELOVED. MAN. -
"Beloved... man?"
"...!!! Uuuuuh!!"
Startled, Elaine forgot she even had telekinesis and frantically reshuffled the cards with her bare hands.
- MAN. MY ONE. CONFIDANT. BELOVED. -
But it was already too late.
"Hey. Nathan. What's this supposed to be?"
"L-Lady Mnassil! Please, say something!"
I cried out, clutching at straws.
Surely you, of all people, had the tact to smooth this over.
The master of the volcano chuckled softly and spoke.
"Fear not. I hold only the Central Officer's unwavering resolve and conviction in high esteem, nothing more."
Oh. Thank goodness.
At least she was being tactful about it, circling around the truth.
And they say dragons aren't good with words.
That was the exact moment I thought it, anyway—
"However, I find I cannot deny that he is a truly magnificent male. Noah, was it? You should take pride in calling such a splendid specimen your brother. After all, he granted me a night I shall never forget."
That crimson dragon just slammed the confirmation hammer down.
"...Nathan Kell."
Noah's voice was frigid enough to freeze hell over.
- Grab.
Before I could react at all, she seized me by the collar and shrieked.
"You insane womanizer! Weren't there plenty of women you were allowed to touch?!"
"Gah! I-I didn't do anything!"
"And you expect me to believe that?! When she said THAT?! You expect me to believe that?!"
"Hrk! It's the truth!"
"Then can you look me in the eye and tell me nothing ever happened between you and these three?!"
Now that was a loaded question.
"Well, obviously—"
Wait.
Let's review the records, shall we?
Had anything really not happened?
Erzena had involuntarily seen me naked back in the sow incident, and living together came with its share of small mishaps besides. There were more than a few nights when work had drained me so completely that I'd fallen asleep on the same sofa as her.
As for Elaine — she had outright wept in my arms, and even now, the moment she suspected I'd sustained so much as a scratch, she'd hoist me into the air with telekinesis and smother me in overprotection. Sitting pressed against my side at every meal was simply her daily routine.
And Mnassil... she had proposed sharing my bed as payment for guarding her egg. Just yesterday, in fact, I distinctly remembered her saying, 'The offer still stands.'
All of it was true.
"Well? Can you say it or not? Answer me, oppa."
"..."
If I said that out loud, I was a dead man.
Look at those eyes. They were ready to eat a man alive.
So, feigning as much nonchalance as I could muster—
"N-nothing happened."
I looked away and delivered the line with an exaggerated shrug.
And there was no way my sister — a merchant who had reached the very summit of the profession — would fail to see through that.
"You absolute idiot, you're supposed to touch the women you're ALLOWED to touch!!!"
- CRACK!
My second line of mental defense collapsed, and Noah's palm found my cheek.
*****
The next morning.
Massaging the cheek that Erzena's holy power had only barely deigned to un-swell, I called out to the crowd.
"Once more for those in the back! Arriving travelers, please line up on the left! Departing travelers, on the right!"
Noah's arrival hadn't changed the Bureau's operations all that much.
The Gold Rush hadn't finished its aftershocks yet.
No — if anything, this was only the beginning.
"All westbound arrivals, please proceed to the open lot! Travelers bound for other borders will be processed inside!"
Another day of bracing for the human tide crashing down on us like a wave. Just the opening move of an endless job.
But there was exactly one thing that had changed...
"Come one, come all, travelers! Water and snacks for sale here! Guidebooks too, for anyone unfamiliar with the entry regulations! Everything priced at a mere ten percent above market value!"
...The fact that Noah had set up an outright merchant stall in the lot in front of the Bureau.
"Ice to beat this sweltering heat! Word quizzes to cure your boredom! Even storybooks for the children!"
About thirty minutes earlier.
The moment Noah laid eyes on this chaotic, ramshackle, hopelessly congested Bureau, she went still for a beat — then her eyes ignited, and she muttered:
Then she bought three passing empty wagons with cash on the spot, sprinted straight to the market, swept up nearly everything in sight, and started selling it right there.
The results were, frankly, staggering.
"Water and cookies over here, please!"
"I need firewood. Charcoal, if you have it."
"I'm nervous about contraband restrictions. I'll take a guidebook."
I witnessed a miracle: three wagonloads' worth of merchandise completely sold out in under thirty minutes.
Faster than the water business I'd run in the desert back in my academy days.
"Thanks to your blazing enthusiasm, we are SOLD OUT, sold out, and sold out!"
Declaring total sellout, Noah cried out in pure bliss.
"So THIS is the Gold Rush!!!"
You've got gold coins literally falling out of your eyes right now, little sister.
And so the frantic mini Gold Rush raged on until regular break time was upon us.
"I'm baaack, oppa."
"Noah, come inside alre... whoa."
She sauntered in wearing a necklace strung with gold coins.
The wobbly, jingling swagger of her walk was quite the sight.
"What are you doing right now?"
"Ahem. Please address me as 'Master Merchant' Noah, if you would, Mister Civil Servant."
She flashed a V with her fingers and grinned.
"I'm seriously considering just setting up shop here for good. A measly ten percent markup, and the profits are no joke."
Her sheer audacity wrung a helpless laugh out of me.
"Just hurry up and go west already."
"I've still got six days left~."
The same girl who had been wailing yesterday, begging me to erase her memory, had tasted the sweet nectar of profit and transformed into a entirely different person.
This is why merchants terrify me.
Even Erzena seemed flustered by her complete one-eighty — no, five-forty — turn, and murmured to me:
"...Nathan. Your sister is a remarkable person."
"She wasn't like that as a child. I suppose environment really does shape a person."
Give me back the sweet, innocent Noah of the old days.
Just then, having finally cooled down from her frenzy, my sister looked around the office and tilted her head.
"Hmm. I was wondering what felt off. Why is it so empty in here?"
"The aides who are out on errands make it just look that way."
"No, not them. How many inspectors does this post even have, oppa? The Northern Border has almost forty inspectors alone."
"Five, counting me. Around ninety-seven including support staff."
"Wasn't the Southern Border supposed to have thirty or so as well? Where did they all go?"
Ah. The headcount.
"That used to be the case. Not anymore."
"Why? What happened?"
"..."
For a moment, I simply stared at Noah instead of answering.
There was no particular reason I needed to tell my sister about this.
Even under an oath of secrecy, some parts of the past are things you simply don't want to share.
Fortunately, Blaszek, sharp as ever, stepped in for me.
"Ah, er... young miss. There were... circumstances. Matters we're not at liberty to discuss."
"...I see."
Noah read my expression and the weight in the air at a glance, and asked nothing further.
Instead, she pivoted the conversation with an entirely new opening.
"So you're telling me that crowd out there gets processed every single day by just four subordinates and my brother here?"
"Can't be helped. These are the only people left we can trust."
"Oh my... you must have suffered so much..."
With an impressively theatrical tone, she sidled up to Blaszek.
"Your work must be absolutely grueling."
"Haha. Not at all. A matter of duty and responsibility — nothing I can't handle."
"My brother gives you a lot of trouble, doesn't he?"
"...................No?"
Why does that damn wolf always take so long to answer?
But Noah had been waiting for exactly that hesitation, and began rummaging out something from behind her back.
"Which is why I came prepared with gifts."
And with that, she handed out presents large and small to each of the Five Senses Officers.
"Huh? This is the ink for the fountain pen the Central Officer uses!"
"A free family-meal voucher for up to twelve? My family has exactly twelve members?"
"Moisture-retention cream for tentacles...? I needed this, like, yesterday!"
"Let's see here — good heavens! This is goat-milk cheese from the eastern nomads, the most expensive appetizer money can buy!?"
Every single one targeted the Five Senses Officers' tastes with surgical precision.
The master merchant flashed a knowing smile.
"The way I see it, giving you all something you actually need beats handing out random gifts, don't you think~?"
Merchant Secret Techniques: Taste-Targeting.
Present precisely what the other party desires.
The Five Senses Officers, faces glowing with gratitude, swarmed forward and clasped Noah's hands in theirs.
"Thank you, young miss. Truly, thank you. We'll put these to good use."
"Do you enjoy a drink? It's on me~."
"The Central Officer does nothing but yell at us every day, while Miss Noah turned out so wonderfully well-adjusted."
"Can we call you big sister Noah?"
These bastards are dragging my name through the mud right in front of me.
Just what exactly have I done for you people?
And to all of them, Noah opened her arms wide with a benevolent, saintly smile.
"Don't worry about it. You've all toiled long and hard under an abusive, immoral tyrant of a boss. If you need anything on the job, just say the word. For these six days, the Kell Merchant Company will cover all the expenses."
Another Merchant Secret Technique in rapid succession: the 1+1 bundle.
When giving, pile on extras and give big.
Only then did I realize what Noah was playing at.
The moment our eyes met, and I caught that thin, sly grin spreading across her narrow black eyes, I understood.
You're getting revenge for yesterday, aren't you?
Stealing my people right out from under me.
So this was how she was repaying me for handing her that ultra-classified secret.
I forced myself to look unbothered and crossed my arms.
No problem here. My bond with the Five Senses Officers runs deep.
Look at how many hardships we'd weathered together.
They weren't the type to be won over by something this cheap.
But against all my hopes, the results were devastating.
"Oooh, Miss Noah Kell!!"
"Noah Kell! Noah Kell! Noah Kell!"
With just a few kind words and a handful of gifts, the Five Senses Officers and aides began romping around like dogs greeting their long-lost master.
So unlike the miserable, groveling days of my rookie years, when I'd worked myself to the bone trying to earn their trust.
Blaszek, visibly moved, seized her hand and declared:
"The Kell Merchant Company will be waved through this border without inspection from now on. Should you ever visit the Southern Border again, seek out this Olfactory Officer, Blaszek Winterfang."
"Oh my, then I suppose I'd better bring you an allowance."
And so I watched, with my own two eyes, a merchant–civil servant collusion ring forming in real time.
Unable to stomach this brazen theater of corruption, I hurriedly stepped in.
"This is a bribe, you know. You realize that?"
"I never asked for anything? I'm simply a citizen of the kingdom making a donation to civil servants laboring in poor conditions."
"..."
"Besides, the money I earned selling things here gets 'returned' to the state, so there's no issue. Just think of it as paying extra taxes, oppa."
Flawless logic. Flawless motive.
Damn it.
I bit my lip without realizing it.
Outmatched on every front.
What was this feeling?
Like watching something precious — something I'd thought was mine — snatched away right before my eyes.
That was when it happened.
- Creak.
Amid the materialistic frenzy gripping the Bureau, the faint sound of a door opening reached my ears.
"Pardon the intrusion."
And along with it, a voice that was somehow, strangely familiar.
Touch Officer, one of the few still clinging to his sanity, turned his head and said:
"Ah, we're on break at the moment. Please come back in fifteen minu... gah!!"
Then he snapped to attention and bowed his head in a fluster.
"Touch Officer? Who on earth could make you..."
At the rare sight, I turned around as well — and froze solid.
"It has been some time, Central Officer Nathan Kell."
A hulking figure over two meters tall, draped in a black veil.
"...Your Excellency, the King's Proxy."
It was none other than Incansus Vermotem.
The instant his name was spoken, everyone fell silent at once.
"...eep."
The only sound to be heard was Noah hiccupping mid-freeze, caught mid-song in the middle of her mindless worship session with the Five Senses Officers and aides.
But the surprises weren't over yet.
"Yah-ho, Central Officer! Good day to you!"
"D-Director?!"
Right from behind the Proxy popped my direct superior, Hailin Metaharashin.
"What business brings the two of you all the way here?"
What was with today, exactly?
A dragonewt whose very presence radiated overwhelming pressure from his massive frame.
A desert woman with exotic features and a lively, easygoing spirit.
Why would these two — mismatched in rank, in species, in every conceivable way — come here together?
Hailin answered first.
"We heard some rather amusing news, so we came to see it with our own eyes. His Majesty's own Proxy here did declare that this officer simply had to come along, you see~."
Then Incansus drew close to me, bowed his head low, and spoke.
"Central Officer. I have come to understand that there is something you must tell me."
The blunt, clipped speech typical of the dragonewt — one I hadn't heard in a long while.
Yet something about it felt off.
...Is he angry?
The veil hid his face, but I could tell.
I could sense the expression lurking underneath: 'What in the world have you done?'
How could I possibly know that?
Because Incansus's tone was exactly, precisely the one Minister Grayson had used when he'd cursed me out recently.
So instead of denying anything, I said this:
"...And how much have you already learned before coming here?"
After all, it wasn't as though I'd had just one or two things happen to me lately.