The Bizarre Cash Shop (1)
Prickly.
There was no better word to define Roella Amelia.
Brilliant golden hair, sharp features, and those piercing blue eyes. She had the kind of face that made strangers turn for a second look on the street — but once you'd tasted her personality, everyone scrambled away shuddering.
Dummy. Shut up. Get lost. Just die already.
Endlessly haughty and endlessly sharp-tongued, the third daughter of a great house. That was Roella Amelia's identity.
And right now, that same Roella was standing at the back of the lecture hall with her arms crossed, snorting through her nose.
"Hmph!"
She did not like the way things were going.
After the emergency meeting adjourned, the Territory Management lecture hall filled once more with restless noise. The cadets had started trading opinions among themselves — and given who these people were, it was less a student discussion than a closed-door summit of lords from every corner of the continent.
Anxiety and fear were giving way to a different kind of heat. Calculating eyes. Ambition. Territory reconstruction, Chaos Crystals, war funds — the hungers of people determined either to survive, or to climb higher on the back of this catastrophe.
"……"
Roella Amelia stood with her arms folded at a crooked angle, looking down over the hall. The usual cold light sat in her blue eyes, but beneath it a tangle of complicated feelings was churning.
Honestly. Hmph!
She scoffed inwardly.
In the ranking of territories that had taken the least damage during the Eclipse, first place had of course gone to Ian Darkest's Seorigol. Second place belonged to her own domain — Loreal City.
Ordinarily she would have been furious at coming in second. This time, though, her mood was strange.
So that idiot was telling the truth.
Honestly, even Roella hadn't believed him. The sun vanishing in broad daylight, monsters pouring in — when Ian Darkest had shown up at the Academy spouting that nonsense, she'd written it off as just another desperate bid for attention.
But she hadn't been able to ignore it completely.
…Because it was him.
She'd known him since they were children. Ian Darkest was different. Crushed under the weight of being a bastard son, sometimes almost pathetically servile — and yet deep in his eyes there had always been something else. An unbreakable core. Or perhaps a bizarre insight, as if he saw the world through an entirely different lens.
Roella had instinctively marked him as her one and only rival. The other noble heirs were hollow shells riding their family names. Ian Darkest was not.
That was why she hadn't been able to dismiss his warning. His words had been too serious, too desperate. Faced with her rival's raw urgency, Roella had reinforced Loreal City's defenses beyond the usual standard and double-checked every emergency measure — just in case. She had never dreamed that "just in case" would become reality.
…Not bad, Ian Darkest.
In the end, thanks to him, Loreal City had weathered the Eclipse with minimal damage. Casualties were few; the ruined facilities were still within recoverable range. Compared to the catastrophic blows the other western territories had taken, it was practically a miracle. Should she… thank him?
Roella flicked a glance at Ian, currently surrounded by students.
This is just ridiculous.
The same people who'd looked at him like an insect until a few hours ago were now swarming him for advice and favors. Pathetic.
A bunch of flies!
And Ian himself was a problem. Standing there grinning like an idiot while those nobodies crowded around him — was he not paying attention? You were supposed to let garbage like that go in one ear and out the other!
"Is he actually an idiot?!"
She was in a foul mood for no good reason. Before, it had felt satisfying knowing she alone recognized his worth and treated him as a rival. Now that everyone else was starting to notice, it just irritated her.
And that Ian Darkest…
Why wasn't he looking at her?! She was right here, hovering practically beside him!
Look at your rival, damn it! Every day! Without missing a single one! Don't I get under your skin at all?!
On the outside Roella stood there looking cool and unbothered. On the inside she was stamping her feet.
"Lady Roella, if you're just going to stand there, could you move aside for a moment?"
"Ha? What did you just—"
"Amelia, just a second."
"Ha?"
"I need to talk to Ian too."
"……"
And just like that, she was shoved aside — all the way to a far corner of the classroom, nowhere near Ian.
Which brought her to the present.
Tap. Tak. Tak.
Roella stood thoroughly sulking, glaring down at Ian. She jiggled her foot in pointless irritation, but she never found a window to speak to him before the meeting ended. The moment it did, Ian hurried out of the lecture hall as if he had somewhere urgent to be.
"Ah, honestly!"
Was he allowed to ignore his rival like that?!
Roella was furious.
And yet—
…I still should have said thank you!
Even as she grumbled, a corner of her heart held onto guilt and gratitude. If Ian hadn't warned her, Loreal City really would have been in serious trouble.
However prickly she was, she knew what needed doing. Yes. She was someone who did what had to be done. She was a direct descendant of the Amelia family, after all.
"Ugh, seriously!"
Roella gathered her things in a huff and went looking for Ian.
Evening was already settling in, the world turning dim around the edges. Where on earth had that boy gone at this hour?
— Tadadadadak!
As she scanned her surroundings, one of the students from the same department caught her eye. James something-or-other, was it?
Come to think of it, isn't that guy one of Lionel Darkest's lackeys?
One of the ones who usually led the charge in harassing Ian. Sensing something off, Roella carefully tailed him.
James whatever-his-name-was headed toward a secluded corner of the Academy — an old annex almost no one used. Behind the annex, in the empty lot behind a dilapidated warehouse that saw almost no traffic, he paced as if waiting for someone.
A moment later, another figure emerged from the dark.
Roella pressed herself into the shadow of a wall and held her breath.
"…So. What became of that bastard brat?"
The voice belonged to a man — high-handed and cold.
"Y-Young Master. About that… you've probably heard the rumors…"
James stammered out his answer.
"Rumors?"
The man's shadow twitched.
"The rumor that he's become some great prophet? Or the one saying he needs to be reevaluated? Whatever it is, nothing that reaches my ears is pleasant, so I'd been trying to forget about it."
Thwack!
The sound of someone being struck down hard, followed by a choked scream.
"You're really asking for a beating, aren't you."
"I-I'm sorry. But the way the students treat him is changing so fast I can't find an angle to spread any bad rumors."
"You idiot!"
Murderous intent bled into the man's voice.
"That's exactly when you push harder! Say he sold his soul to a demon or something! Do I have to spoon-feed you every single thing?!"
"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Young Master Lionel."
"You little—!"
The sound of another blow landed, but Roella was too busy clamping a hand over her own mouth.
Lionel? Lionel Darkest?
The eldest son of the Darkest family. She'd heard the rumors that he used Ian as a punching bag for his temper — she hadn't realized he was this serious about it.
"We need to deal with him properly this time. That bastard's started drawing attention because of this. We can't drag this out any longer. Handle it somehow. And if you can't…"
His voice dropped low.
"Manufacture a pretext and get him expelled."
Roella swallowed hard. Goosebumps prickled over her entire body.
Only one thought filled her mind.
She had to get this information to Ian, no matter what.
Leaving the Academy's splendid main gate behind me, I headed into the deserted back alleys.
The sun was long gone, and even the streetlamps burned faint. A place like the Academy's own shadow.
Since the Eclipse, damp corners like this seemed to breathe an even stranger, more ominous air.
I pulled my hood down low. Inside my coat sat a small leather pouch, and inside that pouch were Chaos Crystals.
My destination was fixed.
A certain fountain tucked into a corner of the Academy.
Aberrations.
They weren't simple beasts or magical creatures. Most of them were entities bound to unknowable forces or chains of causality that transcended human concepts. Things that fed on humanity's negative emotions — and ever since the Eclipse had ushered them in, they had seeped naturally into mankind's shadows. As if they had always been there.
Of course, most people still wouldn't recognize them for what they were. As always, they'd write them off as urban legends or scary campfire stories. Hear about the "Night Librarian" or the "Portrait with the Smiling Face" and everyone would assume it was made-up horror and move on.
Those were all named aberrations that had taken root right here at the Academy. Non-everyday beings you could encounter only through specific places, specific times, and specific actions.
And some of them… liked to make deals.
I made my way behind the western annex, to a neglected corner of an old garden that saw almost no use. There stood a small stone fountain, ancient and thick with moss. Countless coins glimmered faintly along its floor.
The kind of "wish fountain" you could find anywhere.
And you'd have heard the other version of the story too — that if you stole a coin from the bottom of the fountain, something very frightening and very bad would happen to you.
Before, it would have been nothing but a ghost story.
But now that the prologue was over, in this world, it was no longer just a ghost story.
"…Hoo."
I carefully peered into the fountain.
"…!"
Where the basin should have been empty — or at most holding a little rainwater — a black, viscous liquid filled it like an abyss. Ominous black water that reflected no moonlight at all.
The conditions were met.
Tonight, the aberration was waiting to eat someone.
I checked my surroundings once. Fortunately, not a soul in sight. Only an unpleasant stillness and a chill night wind.
Shall we begin.
I called up the entry procedure for the in-game "Black Market."
Ridiculous — but absolute. Rules that had to be followed.
One. Take one of the coins from the fountain.
I slipped off my shoes, rolled up my pant legs, and stepped straight into the fountain to pick up a single coin.
Two. Check whether a hand rises to the surface.
Goddamn it.
Goddamn it!!
Fighting down the urge to squeeze my eyes shut then and there, I scanned the surface. Something black was writhing in the water. A dark hand thickly crusted with pale, moss-like growths.
Crushing the scream clawing up my throat, I waited for it to float up near the surface.
Three. Return a coin to the hand. Not the one you stole — a cheaper one.
Ah, I honestly would rather just die.
Should I just sell these Chaos Crystals to the Magic Tower and be done with it? Even if this Black Market was basically a cash shop, this was too much. Safer to just convert to cash and—
— Slosh. Slosh.
The hand waved impatiently, as if demanding I hand it over already. Whatever second thoughts I'd had vanished on the spot.
This thing.
Fail the proper clear conditions and you'd be written off as missing, right here and now.
I quickly pulled out a ten-rene coin and placed it in the hand.
Squelch.
The nauseating texture against my fingers lasted only a moment.
Whoosh—!
Along with the sensation of pitching off a cliff, I was sucked straight down into the fountain.