Aila's Reluctant Bet
Peluah's 2nd Commercial District. In front of the lavish three-story building of the Golden Fleece Guild, which had been aggressively expanding its influence lately.
"Young Master Elpanso... no, Mr. Elpanso. What brings you here?"
"Got business. Is this a place I can't come to?"
I pushed past the gatekeepers' scornful stares and strode confidently inside.
As I entered the guild hall, a red-haired woman carrying a stack of documents froze mid-step in the corridor.
Aila Winchester. My childhood friend from our snot-nosed days, and now the manager of the guild's 3rd Branch. In modern terms, she was at the level of a branch manager—a real powerhouse.
"...Elpanso, what the hell is trash like you doing here?"
She greeted me with her usual warmth.
"Long time no see, Aila. You've gotten even prettier since then."
"If you're gonna spout bullshit, get out. I'm working."
Aila shot back coldly. She'd been the cute kid trailing after me back in the day, but once I started my wastrel ways, she'd treated me like a bug. Even when the Carnoble Guild went belly-up, she'd just clicked her tongue and said, "What goes around comes around."
"Don't be so harsh. For old times' sake, can't you at least give your long-lost childhood friend a cup of tea?"
"Old times? You took the continent-spanning guild your old man left you and flushed it down the toilet in a year. What kind of face are you showing up here with? I figured you'd starved to death in some alley by now."
Her tongue was sharp as ever. But I just shrugged it off like it was nothing and barged right into Aila's office.
"Hey! Get out!"
"Just hear me out for five minutes. I've got a killer business idea that'll triple your guild's performance this quarter."
It was unfair. I hadn't done anything wrong to her, yet here she was acting like this. If I'd tried some sleazy move on her, I might not feel so wronged. I'd treated her like a true friend—why treat me like an enemy?
I'm wronged. So wronged.
So I decided to be shameless about it. Aila let out a disbelieving scoff at my brazen attitude.
"A business idea? From you? You're full of hot air. Bet you're here to borrow money for your gambling debts."
"Oh, spot on. Yeah, I'm here for a loan."
"What?"
"A thousand gold coins. No, minimum five hundred. Invest in me, and I'll hand you the entire textile market of Peluah on a platter."
She was a merchant, after all. We were people who talked money. Promise her profits, and she'd never say no.
Money—you love it, right?
I approached her desk with sparkling eyes. Recalling the laws of thermodynamics I'd mastered as Kang Woojin, the meshing of gears, and the overwhelming productivity of the steam engine, I flashed a confident smile.
"Aila. How many days does it take your weavers to produce one bolt of cloth on a loom right now? The machine I'll build can churn it out in just a few hours. Uniform, smoother quality too. Give me the capital, and you'll be sitting at the top of the continent's guilds."
I figured it was a perfect briefing, hitting all the key points. Even knowing my past stupidity, she'd have to waver before my rock-solid confidence and logical pitch.
A heavy silence settled in the office. Aila set her documents down, rested her chin on her interlaced hands, and stared at me intently. Her emerald eyes narrowed as if appraising something.
Had I convinced her?
"Elpanso."
Her red lips parted.
"Yeah. Made up your mind?"
I replied, brimming with anticipation.
Aila gave me a smile—beautiful, yet utterly icy—and spoke.
"Get out."
"...Huh?"
"Guards! Drag this lunatic out!"
*
"Ow, ow, ow..."
I was unceremoniously dumped onto the cold stone pavement of Peluah's 2nd Commercial District. Two burly guild guards brushed off my clothes while growling threats.
"Show your face near the manager's office again, and we won't just break your legs, you wastrel."
Slam. The guild's main gate shut with a thud.
Passersby whispered as they glanced my way, but I had no time to blush.
Can't give up now. I'm starving to death here.
I dusted off my rear and stood. The old Elpanso might've thrown a tantrum from the humiliation, but after all I'd been through—worldly trials and soul possession in another world—fragile pride was a luxury I couldn't afford.
Slipping through a gap during the guards' shift change, I snuck through the back yard dog hole, climbed a second-floor window that was ajar, and burst open Aila's office door again.
"Aila!"
"You—how the hell did you get in here again?! Are you insane? Guards! Guar—!"
Aila jumped up in shock, reaching for the call bell. But I flattened myself on the floor, clasping my hands in desperate plea.
"Wait! Just once! Hear me out! Food! Just one meal!"
"...What?"
Her hand froze in mid-air at my beyond-humiliating display. I looked up at her with pitiful eyes.
This oughta make me look pathetic enough.
Channeling a desperate gaze from some actor in Kang Woojin's memories, I poured on the act.
"I haven't eaten in days—just water. The mansion's stripped bare by creditors; not even a rat left. Kick me out now, and I'll die on the streets. You don't wanna see your childhood friend's corpse rotting in the gutter, right?"
Aila's mouth hung half-open, speechless at my desperate cry. Her gaze swept over my sunken cheeks and dust-caked, torn clothes.
The pampered pig of Carnoble, always draped in the finest silks and gorging on rich foods, now withered and wretched—this was probably a first for her.
"Haa..."
Finally, she sighed deeply, pinching her forehead.
"You're a real piece of work. One meal. That's it. Nothing more."
Guess some childhood bond lingered after all.
Soon, a hot stew, bread, and roasted meat from the guild's mess hall were set before me. I tossed dignity aside, shoved my face in the bowl, and devoured it like a beast.
"Eat slower. No one's gonna snatch it."
She watched, chin in hand, clucking her tongue.
I licked the plates clean in no time, wiped my mouth with my sleeve, and declared boldly.
"Thanks for the meal. Now give me some work."
"...What work?"
"Gotta pay for the food. Anything—ledger sorting, inventory checks."
Aila scoffed in disbelief.
"You? Working? A guy who's only ever spent money his whole life? Fine. The 3rd warehouse inventory ledgers are a mess and giving me a headache. Fix 'em. If you can't, you're out."
She dumped a thick stack of ledgers and inventory lists in front of me. Probably hoping the complex numbers would scare me off.
But.
Ledger sorting? Compared to engineering math and differential equations, this is just basic arithmetic.
I grinned and picked up the quill. Time to shine with my commercial savvy glimpsed over my father's shoulder as Carnoble's sole heir, Kang Woojin's ironclad mental math, and systematic data sorting.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
My quill flew across the parchment. Beyond mere matching numbers, I introduced double-entry bookkeeping concepts—profits, expenses, causes of missing stock—all charted perfectly.
Two hours later.
"Done."
"What? No way. Even guild scribes take days on that..."
Aila skeptically took the ledger. But the next instant, her emerald eyes widened in shock as she flipped through it.
"Wh-what is this? How'd you organize it so... Wait, those three missing bolts of wool weren't rat-eaten—it's the overseer's embezzlement? This flow of numbers... it's perfect?"
She alternated stares between me and the ledger, incredulous. This wasn't just better than average. Even a top guild accountant couldn't match this precision and insight.
Aila slammed the ledger shut, frowning as she glared at me.
"Elpanso. What's your angle?"
"Angle? None."
"You're acting like a different person. Showing off pro-level skills just for a meal? What's the real goal?"
I leaned back in my chair with a grin.
"Told you. Invest in me."
"Fuck off."
A crude curse flew from her lips.
"If you're this smart, go be a scribe somewhere else. No way I'm burning my money on your scheme."
Firm rejection. But I stayed cool, pulling out a secretly sketched parchment and spreading it wide on her desk.
"Before you curse more, look at this first."
It was the blueprint I'd doodled while blitzing the ledgers. Not flawless—memory-based—but solid.
"What's... this?"
"The machine that changes the world. Spinning Jenny and Power Loom."
Enough to convince her. I pointed at the diagram and launched into the full presentation.
"How do weavers make cloth now? Warp threads set, shuttle hand-passed through one by one. Time and labor sink."
The first invention that sparked modern science's dominance. Among clothing, food, shelter—what humans needed most—these satisfied clothing's shortages completely.
The Spinning Jenny's massive output freed people from clothing worries.
"This is the flying shuttle and its cam drive. Gears convert rotation to linear motion. Connect power, and it auto-shoots the shuttle side to side, weaving cloth—no hands needed."
Britain, refining and deploying it, skyrocketed to world's top GDP first. Surplus production fueled military might, snowballing imperial power.
Maybe this was imperialism's spearhead.
Beautiful blueprint, right?
Aila's eyes locked onto the intricate gears and levers. True to her manager role, she instinctively grasped what this bizarre drawing meant.
I drove it home.
"Power from waterwheels now, or later my 'steam engine.' One machine equals twenty weavers. Tweak gear ratios? A hundred."
"A... hundred?"
"Yeah. Labor costs down to a tenth, output up a hundredfold. Quality? Machine's consistent tension—more uniform and sturdy than hand-weaving. Imagine, Aila: you monopolizing the cotton cloth from this."
A vision of the future. The machine that turned a tiny island nation into a superpower. My voice brimmed with certainty.
"Peluah's textile market? No—the continent's fabric trade. Golden Fleece Guild—you—swallows it whole. Rivals bankrupt on costs."
Heavy silence blanketed the office. Aila stared entranced at the blueprint. Gear shafts, power-transmitting rods, tension springs. No madman's scribble.
A perfect embodiment of mechanical engineering—precisely calculated ratios, utterly feasible.
Aila knew zilch about engineering, but.
At least not some half-assed scam sketch.
She could tell truth from lie. Her merchant instincts screamed of the golden future this held.
"How... how the hell did a screw-up like you come up with this?"
Her voice trembled.
A screw-up? Harsh words.
The old me might've earned it. I shrugged leisurely.
"Hit rock bottom, and your brain starts firing on all cylinders. So, what do you say?"
I leaned forward, locking eyes.
"Investing?"
Aila chewed her lower lip. A once-in-a-lifetime shot at continent's top guild. But the partner? Elpanso, the legendary fuck-up who tanked Carnoble.
Reason versus instinct warred visibly in her head.
Choose, Aila!
Take my hand. Even if it's hell ahead—we go together!
After long silence, Aila ruffled her hair wildly and exhaled deeply.
"Haaa... damn it. Feels like I'm dumping my gold in the dirt."
She slammed her palm on the blueprint, glaring daggers.
"Fine. I'll invest. But only after I see the prototype run with my own eyes. Fail, and you're slaving off the debt in my guild for life!"
That meant...
Develop the prototype on her dime?
I grinned and extended my hand.
"Smart choice, Manager. Won't regret it."
Deal sealed.