I Want to Hear Your Story. (2)
I Want to Hear Your Story. (2)
The first thing Olivia did once she came to her senses was to check Kiel's Status Window.
[Kiel Rothschild]
- Level: 83
- Occupation: Sword Saint
- Favorability: -100(+7)
- Titles: Regressor, Duke, Wandering Swordsman
The plan was in shambles. She'd intended to slowly gaslight him, planting the memory that 'Olivia was actually a victim who'd been controlled too,' but it had all gone to hell...
"Huh?"
Olivia's eyes flew open.
Wh-what was that?
The number 7 in the favorability window was gleaming brilliantly. Her trembling eyes betrayed just how startled she was.
"I-insane. I was right! I was right!"
Olivia threw both hands up and struck a victory pose.
With this, she'd proven that memories of the past could affect the present.
Indeed, people shouldn't cowardly fight with facts; they should fight fairly with incitement and fabrication. Wasn't this a beautiful result?
'...But why isn't it displayed as negative 93? Why is it split up?'
Sensing something off, Olivia stopped in place.
Favorability was either positive or negative. It was impossible for it to hold two states at once. At least, that was what Olivia knew.
So why was that damn favorability stubbornly separated instead of combining?
'Kiel Favorability Details. Show only the two most recent entries.'
[Year 987: -100]
[Year 992: +7 ]
[Warning! Favorability gained through a 'Clue' will not be applied until you reach that time period!]
[The (+7) favorability will be properly applied in 992, five years from now!]
Olivia looked up at the sky with a deeply satisfied smile.
...Are these motherfuckers insane?
Hold out raw for five years from now?
*****
"...She's coming."
Ro, who had been fiddling with a surveillance artifact at the lair's entrance, opened his eyes wide.
From far in the distance, an unusual aura struck him.
"She's coming! Sh-she's coming! Five hundred meters out!"
"Sh-she's coming? Right now?"
Jeina, who'd been toying with a deck of trump cards, stared down at her hand with a flustered face. Four brilliantly gleaming aces. Four of a kind.
'I-I have to die holding this hand?'
A full house, maybe, but dying while holding four aces was grade-A idiocy.
Jeina spoke in a subtle voice.
"Five hundred meters, if we're quick we can definitely finish this round. What do you all think?"
"...Your hand must be unbelievably good."
"Think whatever you like. Lady Glacia?"
Glacia sat to Jeina's left. Her mouth had been torn up this morning, so she couldn't speak straight.
"Khehehehe. Whad a stoopid woman. I’m callin’ too."
They could roughly understand what she was trying to say.
"Okay. Lady Glacia calls. Aramis, what about you?"
"...Raise. Two more bottles."
"..."
"If you're scared, you can just die."
Aramis said it with a fishy smile. Jeina raised a hand to cover her mouth with mock gravity, hiding the corners of her lips that were twitching uncontrollably.
'Moron. He's calling this? You're dead.'
Jeina cleared her throat and pretended she was taken aback.
"T-two bottles?"
"That's right. Two bottles."
"Eummm... You're really coming out swinging."
Their stakes weren't money. In a cave that contained everything except freedom, money was just a piece of scrap metal.
The stakes were usually rights. The right to use the artifact Olivia lent out first, or the right to read a grimoire first.
But today's stakes were the empty potion bottles.
Anyone who asked why such trash could be used as a stake would understand after observing life inside the cave for a single day.
- Ten bottles per person, per day. That is your allowance.
If you translated Olivian, it meant she'd grind you into the ground until you collapsed ten times a day. The part where you die if you can't manage it was, in any case, left unpronounced.
The bottles that Jeina had dubbed Yellow Springs Strawberry Potions were enchanted in some unfathomable way so they wouldn't break even if you slammed them against the stone floor.
The crueler trick was that they were designed to be opened only after you'd drained every last drop of your mana and collapsed from exhaustion.
In other words, each empty bottle meant one fewer bout of total exhaustion.
'I have to win those no matter what!'
Fire blazed in Jeina's eyes.
The base bet was one bottle, one had been added mid-round, then add the two bottles Aramis had just raised—a total of four bottles.
Incredibly, this was a hand worth eight bouts of total exhaustion.
"Call!"
"Nya-do kori-da!"
Jeina and Glacia smacked the ground and stood up.
"Ro! How long until the master gets here?"
"Three hundred meters left!"
There was enough time. Plenty to flip a few cards, at least.
They'd have to tidy up quietly too, but right now that wasn't what mattered.
Jeina shot a look at Aramis.
"...Are you telling me to open first?"
"You raised. So it's only right you go first."
"Mm-hmm."
"..."
Under the combined assault of Jeina and Glacia, Aramis clicked his tongue and flipped his cards. And the next moment, a burst of laughter exploded from Jeina's mouth.
Aramis's hand was trash.
'Heuheuheu, this one tried to bluff like a moron.'
Even if he wasn't bluffing, it wasn't like he could beat four of a kind. What? You lose to a straight flush or a royal flush?
Unless the world was deliberately screwing her over, there was no way those were coming out.
Olivia turning agreeable was far more likely.
'Ah, no, wait. Now that I think about it, that's not possible.'
She was the kind of person who wouldn't change even if she died and came back ten times.
She called herself a mage, but what she did was no different from a witch. Lately she just walked around in witch's clothes—apparently it was too much of a hassle to explain to others that she was a mage.
If only her personality had been decent, she really would have been the best teacher on the continent.
But that personality ruined everything.
Jeina laid her cards down as if tossing them.
Flop.
"There, four aces. I win, don't I?"
"...Insane."
Jeina gave the groaning Aramis a bright grin and reached for the empty bottles piled in the center.
"Anyway, I'll be taking this round's winn..."
"Waid."
Glacia's eyes flared as she grabbed Jeina's arm.
"I havven’t shown my hand yet."
"...Ah, yeah."
Even after seeing Jeina's hand, Glacia's will to fight was still blazing. Her swollen lips looked exceedingly comical, but no human had guts bold enough to burst out laughing openly in the face of a dragon.
"Showin’ it."
Jeina drew a tight breath at that brazen confidence.
'...No way, is it really a straight flush?'
But even after waiting for a long while, Glacia's cards showed no sign of being flipped.
Ten seconds.
Twenty seconds.
Unable to endure it, Jeina spoke up.
"Um... Lady Glacia?"
"...Uh?"
"When exactly are you thinking of flipping your cards..."
"..."
Jeina's brow furrowed.
Was she trying to stall?
No, no matter what, she was a dragon—there was no way she'd do that just for four empty bottles...
"Lady Glacia?"
"Y-you dere! Human on lookout! How long till yer master gets here?"
"She's about two hundred meters away n... Huh? Gone? She's gone?"
Ro unconsciously rubbed his eyes.
Olivia, who should have been on the mountain ridge, had somehow already covered the ground up to the fifty-meter mark.
It looked like she'd used Blink because walking there was too much of a bother.
"Emergency! Emergencyyyyyy!"
The moment Ro confirmed Olivia's rapid approach, he darted back inside the lair.
"Knock over the board, now! Knock it over!"
"D-dammit! Just flip!"
"Heehee, I can't flip! If you don't call this round void, we'll all just have to die here together!"
Glacia froze the cards she was holding.
"Now, what are you going to do, human. It looks like your friend here has the same idea as I do."
"Jeina. I'll pray you make the right decision."
Aramis rolled up the corner of her mouth.
"If you just concede once, a full two people can become happy."
"Would you do it, if you were me?"
"Well then, I guess we all just have to die together. You know what will happen if it comes out that we skipped training and were running a gambling den, don't you?"
"Y-You lunatic... Hrrgh..."
Jeina grabbed the back of her neck. And then, as if she were going crazy, she shook her head wildly back and forth and shouted.
"Fine! Do whatever you want! Take it all! Just watch, I'm never playing a stupid game like this again!"
"Heuheuheuheu, a good deal."
After gathering up their share of the empty bottles, the disciples hid the cards and scattered in all directions.
In an instant, the gambling den transformed back into a training ground.
Pretending to practice magic, the disciples surreptitiously watched the entrance.
A moment later, Olivia appeared abruptly from thin air.
"Hehehe. You have returned, yes?"
Glacia scurried over, rubbing her hands together obsequiously. Watching her, Olivia smiled with satisfaction and said,
"Were you all working hard at your practice?"
"Yep!"
"Really?"
"Yep! We worked really hard!"
Olivia took something off a bookshelf and tossed it over with a plunk.
It was a crystal orb equipped with a recording function.
Only now sensing that they were totally screwed, the disciples' faces went stiff as they froze solid.
"You said you worked hard?"
"..."
"Now then, I wonder what's going to come out when I activate this?"
"..."
Olivia infused the crystal orb with mana.
[Caaaaaaaall!]
[I can't win, but I'm in!]
[Knock over the board! Knock over the bo...]
Click.
A familiar staff was already in Olivia’s right hand.
"Your master is running her feet to the bone trying to save the world, and what? Gambling? Gam-bliiiiiing?"
"I was just the lookou..."
Kwaaaaaaaang!
Ro, who was about to make some excuse, lost consciousness and collapsed on the spot. A huge lump was rising on his head.
"What? You were just the lookout?"
"You should have been practicing instead of standing guard."
The sound of people swallowing echoed around.
"This master of yours will not accept excuses from worthless disciples."
Hmm, she must have been going too easy on them.
"Don't even think about sleeping for the next week."
"If you get sleepy, pound a potion and hold out through sheer grit and guts."