Insurance (1)
After the conversation about the capital’s latest fads had run its course and everyone took a sip of tea to wet their throats, the one who spoke again was the Fontaine Viscountess, who had only just debuted in high society. She seemed to have plenty of stamina for someone so young.
“So what exactly is this Toto thing?”
Across from her, the elderly Marchioness Vasilyev gave a derisive snort. She hid her mouth behind a fan and adjusted her hat with its trembling feather ornament.
“Vulgar, you say? Darling, that’s only the beginning. Yesterday they set up a wrestling ring in a village near our estate and had the local men strip to the waist and shove each other around for bets. And that’s not even the worst of it…”
The Marchioness paused and glanced around the salon, her expression suggesting the next part was almost too shameful to utter.
“They even bet on chicken fights! Good heavens! Turning the sort of filth you’d expect from Gallian peasants into a public spectacle?”
Soft gasps of shock rippled through the salon.
“Oh my!”
“Unbelievable…”
The noblewomen hid their faces behind fans or pressed hands to their mouths, whispering furiously. Their eyes glittered with a mixture of contempt and unmistakable fascination.
“All that money, and the only thing he can think to do with it is play slum-bookie,” one countess clicked her tongue. “I naturally assumed he would build another Tourism Special Zone, or at least throw himself into finance like Conrad Salcher. At the very least, I expected him to buy some magnificent chateau.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. The sheer scale of the fortune Grand Duke Mikhail had earned through credit default swaps defied imagination. With that kind of money he could have purchased an entire minor fief in the eastern empire outright. Instead he was using it to run gambling rings for common entertainment. It was utterly incomprehensible.
“Blood will out, I suppose,” someone murmured.
Everyone knew exactly whose blood the remark referred to, but no one said it aloud. It had become an unspoken rule never to mention that Mikhail’s birth mother had been a slave. Especially not after the last noblewoman foolish enough to say it to his face had been beaten black and blue and left soaked in her own urine.
“However…”
The silence was broken by the salon’s hostess and de facto chairwoman, Duchess Stuart. She set her teacup down with elegant precision.
Her voice was soft, yet it carried the weight to draw every eye in the room.
“Have you heard the rumor that the capital’s pickpockets and vagrants have all but vanished lately?”
All eyes turned to her.
“What do you mean?” asked the Fontaine Viscountess.
“The lower classes have become completely obsessed with this Toto business. They’re all dreaming of striking it rich in one go.”
Duchess Stuart gazed into the deep crimson of her tea as she continued.
“As you know, my husband also serves as the capital’s chief of security. He told me the troublemakers are policing themselves for once. He says he couldn’t ask for a better situation.”
A faint smile curved her lips.
“In a way… His Highness the Grand Duke may have begun a rather refined new hobby for the benefit of us all. The hobby of housecleaning.”
Low laughter broke out across the salon—laughter laced with scorn and mockery, yet carrying an unmistakable note of relief.
“Now that you mention it, one of my maids told me a housemaid suddenly quit the other day. Said she was going back to her hometown to raise chickens.”
A marchioness clapped her hands together.
“She apparently boasted that she would raise champion fighting cocks and make a fortune with Toto. So that’s what she meant.”
“Goodness gracious. Those commoners really are…”
The noblewomen clucked their tongues, but the smiles never left their faces. To them, Grand Duke Mikhail’s latest venture was an excellent way to stabilize public order while simultaneously giving them something new to mock and laugh at. The method might be crude and vulgar, but the results were undeniably positive.
“By the way, Her Highness Anastasia has been rather scarce lately,” the conversation shifted naturally as Marchioness Vasilyev fluttered her fan.
“She seems quite displeased after the recent Club Ortolan incident,” Duchess Stuart replied quietly. The smile on her lips was impossible to tell whether it was mere politeness or genuine satisfaction.
The back alleys of the capital, the hour when the sun began to sink. The district where vagrants who had crawled out from somewhere mixed with laborers finished with their hard day’s work. Inside the dirtiest and noisiest tavern of them all, the air was thick with the stench of sweat, cheap liquor, and—somehow still—the tantalizing smell of food.
In the center of the shop, where tables usually stood, the space had been cleared. A crude square “ring” had been roped off. The men surrounding it clutched wooden beer mugs and bellowed at the top of their lungs.
“John! Beat that bastard to death like his mother did!”
“Max! Come on! Knock that fat pig’s jaw off!”
On the ring stood two shirtless men. Max and John. They were fairly well-known rivals among the local laborers. Their bodies were the typical sort for middle-aged men of the district—solid muscle forged by hard work, spoiled by unsightly layers of fat around the middle.
The two clashed over everything. Last time it had been over a slot machine seat. Today they were throwing punches to win the affection of the tavern’s girl, Helga.
“All right, both fighters! If you’re ready, begin!”
The very instigator of the match, Helga, banged a tray like a gong and shouted. Her ample breasts jiggled in time with her booming voice. Far from cheering for one side, she seemed to be enjoying herself by egging both of them on.
The moment the signal came, the larger John charged at Max. Thud! Thud! His fists slammed into Max’s face with dull, heavy sounds. Max staggered backward.
“Willie, look at that. That idiot Max is getting his ass kicked again,” Simon cackled from a table a short distance from the ring.
Willie, seated beside him, chewed on the pickled cabbage served as a side dish and answered.
“Yeah. By the way, I heard that golden bastard from Dagamel took a job with the Horner Company. There’s a rumor they brought in something weird.”
“Ah, that? Apparently it’s a bit different from the usual stuff.”
Simon took a swig of beer and wiped his mouth.
“The Horner Company only deals in ridiculously expensive goods like truffles and shit. I couldn’t work there. They’re insane about making sure nothing gets damaged.”
“Tell me about it. But this time it was easier, they said. Something about fertilizer. So it was pretty comfortable. The smell was awful, though. They used to treat that magically preserved foie gras like a newborn baby.”
Willie tilted his head.
“Fertilizer from the Horner Company? Some kind of luxury fertilizer? And what the hell is foie gras?”
“Dunno. Goose liver or something?”
“Goose liver? Hmm… like pig liver? That’s tasty. Guess even the nobles have similar tastes to us.”
While the two men were snickering, the situation in the ring changed dramatically. Max, who had been getting pummeled like a dog, suddenly charged in desperation, wrapped his arms around John’s waist, and slammed him down.
“Whoa!”
Cheers erupted from the spectators. Max mounted the fallen John and swung his fists wildly. But it only lasted a moment. John on the bottom used some strange technique and instantly flipped their positions. Now John was on top.
“Aaargh!”
“That bastard! Isn’t that a foul?”
The people who had bet on Max roared in protest as the situation reversed again. John ignored them and rained punches down on Max’s face. Thud! Thump! The pinned Max desperately pinched John’s arm and bit his shoulder. John retaliated by grabbing Max’s hair and slamming his head into the floor.
The two men tangled together as filthily as earthworms in heat. Ten-year-old schoolchildren wouldn’t fight this disgracefully. But then again, nothing was more entertaining than a dirty dogfight.
Everyone in the tavern clutched their stomachs laughing as they watched the spectacle.
“John! You got this! Max! Bite harder! Harder!”
Helga cheered for both sides in turn, thoroughly enjoying herself.
“Hrrraaaagh!!!”
Finally John let out a shout like he was squeezing out a particularly spicy diarrhea and swung his final punch. With a loud thud, Max’s head snapped to the side. He passed out on the spot.
“Winner! John!”
When Helga climbed into the ring, poked and prodded Max, and finally declared victory, everyone who had bet on John erupted in cheers.
“This is invalid! This isn’t bare-knuckle boxing!”
The ones who had bet on Max howled in protest. But since Max had started the fouls first, their complaints fell on deaf ears.
“That’s our tuna fisherman John!”
“John! John! John!”
The crowd happily sang the victor’s praises. Helga climbed up, gave the sweat-and-blood-covered John a light kiss on the cheek. Her generous bosom subtly pressed against his forearm. John’s face was covered in bruises, yet his expression suggested he had conquered the world.
Between the two idiots, the victorious idiot was John.
“But this isn’t really bare-knuckle boxing, is it? It’s just… a dogfight,” Willie said, emptying his beer mug.
“Who cares if it’s a dogfight? It’s fun, isn’t it?” Simon shrugged.
“So who did you bet on? Don’t tell me you put money on Max and now you’re whining.”
“Hell no. Of course I bet on John. Max is a fucking idiot. They’re both fucking idiots, but the less idiotic one is better.”
The two men stood up and headed toward the small counter set up in the corner of the tavern. An employee wearing a vest embroidered with the Valeriano Company crest greeted them. Willie and Simon each pulled out crumpled Toto tickets from their pockets and handed them over.
The employee checked the tickets, took a few coins from the cash box, and handed them over. Since everyone had thought Max was far more of an idiot than John, the payout odds hadn’t been very high. The bets had been small too, so the winnings were only enough for another large mug of beer or perhaps a cocktail with ginger ale in ‘Mikhail’ whiskey.
But that was more than enough.
The two clinked their newly received drinks together.
“Kya! Nothing beats a drink after work.”
“You said it. When you think about it, His Highness Mikhail is actually a pretty good guy, isn’t he?” Willie said.
“He sells delicious liquor like Mikhail Red Label at cheap prices.”
“Exactly. And he even opens up trustworthy, fun, and relatively safe gambling rings like Toto.”
Simon nodded.
Among the common people, Mikhail was known as a beloved member of the imperial family. Setting aside the fact that it was rare for any imperial to be disliked by commoners, it was an astonishing achievement considering his previous reputation.