The Spider That Collects Gold Coins
The golden coin she offered with the words, “Would you care for one of the special gold coins I made myself?” drew my careful gaze. True to her reputation as the head of one of the Empire’s five greatest merchant groups, the coin held not a single impurity. It was crafted from pure, unalloyed gold. The portrait of Beatrice engraved at its center made it perfectly clear why she called it her personal specialty.
“It bears the most beautiful face in the world—my own—stamped directly into solid gold. With only ten such coins in existence, its value is quite literally beyond measure!”
Beatrice handed me the coin, then planted her hands on her hips and lifted her chin with open pride. Since I was no merchant, I couldn’t honestly say whether the coin truly carried the astronomical worth she claimed. What I could confirm was that, being made of nothing but pure gold, it was worth far more than the standard imperial coins in circulation. The complete absence of mana only inflated its price further.
Even so, I stared at her with a slightly sour expression and asked, “…Did you really make this yourself?”
“Of course. I commissioned the merchant group’s artisan directly—”
“Then you must know that manufacturing gold coins like this is illegal.”
“Pardon?”
At my question Beatrice seemed to think for a moment. Then her pupils trembled as if struck by an earthquake.
“R-really?”
I watched her for a second, let out a long sigh, and explained. “Judging by the look of it, you melted down some of the gold ingots your group had stockpiled and cast them yourself. Any act of producing gold coins, by any method, is forbidden by law.”
The Empire’s official coins bore special enchantments designed to prevent counterfeiting. Yet plenty of people had tried to copy those enchantments and apply them to cheaper blanks. No matter how many high-ranking mages the imperial family hired, coins had to be minted continuously; they could never rely on a spell only one mage could cast. As a result, certain high-tier mages had deciphered the overlaid formula and begun the crime of duplicating currency. Furious, the previous emperor—unable to eliminate every powerful mage—had simply outlawed the very act of casting coins by artisans.
It was a crude solution. Because it provoked considerable backlash, the law had become half-forgotten.
“An elderly artisan would have known this law.”
“…He only recently earned the title. He’s not even thirty yet.”
“That young?”
After listening to Beatrice’s explanation, I fell silent for a moment. Normally, the title of artisan was reserved for those whose skill placed them among the very best in their field—an honor granted only after their ability had been formally recognized.
“Then it’s possible he didn’t know.”
If the artisan was under thirty, he might genuinely have been unaware of a law enacted by the previous emperor. The statute had been flawed from the start, exerting almost no real influence, and most people who produced coins had done so for counterfeiting purposes anyway. Even Beatrice—who, as a merchant leader, was well-versed in every regulation—hadn’t known about it. Expecting a young artisan to be familiar with it would have been unreasonable. Had I not heard the story before, I wouldn’t have known either.
“It was practically abolished decades ago, so it’s not strange that neither you nor the artisan knew of it.”
“Even so, we cannot simply leave these coins as they are.”
I nodded at Beatrice’s words. “Practically abolished does not mean completely erased.”
Since the previous emperor’s reign, coin manufacturing had been all but eradicated; actual cases were extremely rare. If a noble occasionally minted one as a hobby, the half-forgotten law usually allowed the matter to be laughed off. But when the culprit was one of the Empire’s five greatest merchant groups, the story changed entirely.
If anyone files a report about the illegal minting, the entire merchant group will be dragged into controversy.
The impact of one of the Empire’s premier trading organizations personally producing gold coins could not be ignored—even if the accusation later proved false. Incitement required only a single sentence. Refuting it demanded dozens of documents and mountains of evidence. By the time the rebuttal arrived, the public would already have made up its mind. Just as the completed maxim—determined not to be Goebbels’ actual words—warned, disproving the claim that she had manufactured the coins would take a very long time. During that time, the populace would view her merchant group as the villain who had tried to illegally mint imperial currency.
“I will collect every last coin at once.”
Beatrice took back the coin she had given me, declaring that she would melt down every piece bearing her likeness to destroy the evidence. I nodded at her decisive judgment, then finally asked the question that had bothered me from the beginning.
“So why did you suddenly give this coin to me?”
Though the coin was not especially large, its pure-gold composition gave it considerable value. When one factored in the cost of production, the expense would have been anything but trivial. Why hand something so costly to a debtor like me?
“Well… I learned quite a lot from this tutoring session.”
“A token of gratitude?”
“You could interpret it that way.”
I frowned inwardly. Beatrice—of all people—offering such a coin as thanks? A coin whose value she herself had described as immeasurable, knowing full well it was illegal? If nothing else, Beatrice was scrupulously faithful to the terms of any transaction. The tutoring agreement had long since been settled by her waiving twenty million cells of my debt each month. She was the spider that collects gold coins precisely because she never suffered a loss. If she believed my lessons had been a loss to her and demanded more instruction, that would be one thing. But she was absolutely not the type to give extra payment simply because I had provided more benefit than the price she paid. Least of all something as extravagant as these coins.
Yet she had still tried to give one to me. Which could only mean…
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to increase my debt by the coin’s value?”
“…….”
“That is absolutely not allowed. Since I never accepted the coin, my debt will not—”
“…Idiot.”
What?
“Fool! Moron! Useless blockhead who can’t even make use of what’s given to him!”
Beatrice suddenly spat curses that clashed violently with her usual elegant demeanor, then stormed off in a huff.
“Where did that come from…?”
Having been insulted before I could even respond, I could only scratch my head while staring at the back of her retreating figure.
The girl’s sky was narrow and dim. Lying sprawled on the ground and staring upward, she saw only faint lines of light threading through acrid smoke that drifted lazily. It was the cloud exhaled by those meeting death. The smoke that addicted and ruined people left the girl no room for dreams. She had occasionally seen others inhale the cloud through their mouths rather than their noses and stagger about in a stupor, but the girl never touched it. Some called that cloud pleasure, others called it hope, and still others called it a drug. To her, it was simply the end. The end of a life. The finale of existence. The opposite of hope. Depending on something and fleeing to a place that was not reality was not the life the girl dreamed of.
A city among the many scattered across the Empire. One of its countless back alleys. That was where the parentless girl had settled. She had no dreams. She was too busy surviving day to day to afford such luxury. To harbor dreams and hopes in the back alleys was to indulge in extravagance. It might be permitted for someone else, but never for her. The girl simply survived, by any means necessary. She had forgotten the past, the present was bleak, and the future was an unaffordable luxury. Even so, she lived. She did not know why. She simply wanted to keep living. Even if this life continued, enduring while alive seemed better than dying and running away. At least that choice suited her nature. So she lived.
“Just one coin, please!”
She begged from those who still had dreams.
Pak!
She stole from addicts who had already lost the present.
“It’s because I don’t have parents…”
Sometimes she fabricated the past she herself had forgotten to buy sympathy.
She endured that way, without even understanding why.
To the girl living day after day like that, a crisis arrived.
“You fucking bitch!”
“Aaaack—!”
It had been a miscalculation. She had thought he was just another piece of trash high on drugs, but this trash knew how to throw a punch. The trash swung his fist at the girl trying to lift his wallet. He grabbed her by the hair and beat the body that had tried to rob him without mercy. The pain was excruciating. Tears leaked out, but she had to hold them back. After venting their anger, most would usually leave her alone and walk away.
But this one was different.
“Got a pretty face but filthy hands. Today I’ll fix those bad habits of yours!”
The malice of the trash surpassed the girl’s imagination. The man, drunk and fumbling at his waist, was unmistakably garbage. And now he was about to turn her into garbage too. She had seen this scene countless times in the back alleys. The girl did not want to become trash.
“Help me!!”
She screamed so she would not become trash.
“This is a back alley. You think someone’s going to come save you? It’s pointless! A useless hope!”
Paying no attention to the trash’s words, the girl kept shouting. With everything in her voice, with all her heart. The trash tried to cover her mouth, but she bit down hard on his thick hand and continued to cry out.
“Please, someone help me!!”
Save me.
“This bitch!”
Blood dripped from the bitten hand. Enraged by the sight of red droplets, the trash released her hair and hurled her against the wall. The impact was tremendous. The pain was so great that no scream could escape.
“Help me…”
Even so, the girl kept calling out. And then—
Crackle—!
“That was dangerously close.”
The first hope she had ever held had come true. The trash who had called it meaningless collapsed with a thud. At the same time, the moment she saw the black uniform and emblem symbolizing the Empire, along with the black gloves, the girl thought: The trash had been wrong after all.