What's Better Than Money Is More Money
Out of nowhere, Juhan had just been told that she wanted to fight him.
The very first thought that crossed his mind was this:
…Is she insane?
No matter how he looked at her, the woman did not seem right in the head. Even the eyes fixed on him looked a little unhinged.
The real problem, however, was something else.
“Hmm.”
“……”
It did not look as if this woman was going to let him go easily.
Just who the hell is she?
What kind of identity did she have to act this recklessly? No one behaved like that without absolute confidence in their own strength—and in whatever power stood behind them.
“Looking at you, you don’t seem like a titled knight… You’re an adventurer, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“Well then, you’d have to be at least Gold Plate. What’s your name?”
She grinned as she asked, as if suggesting they exchange introductions. Yet for some reason Juhan simply stared at her without answering.
“What? What is it?”
“……”
After a brief silence, he finally spoke.
“No, I was just wondering whether walking up to a complete stranger and suddenly saying you want to fight them is normal.”
“Ah.”
Only then did she seem to realize the conversation had been off. She nodded as if conceding the point.
“You’re right. Come to think of it, you don’t know who I am, do you?”
“…Yeah. I don’t.”
She then declared with complete confidence, as if the idea that someone might not know her was astonishing.
“Haven’t been in the village long?”
“…Right. I arrived today. Literally just now.”
“Yeah. I figured as much.”
She asked the questions and answered them herself. Watching her, Juhan decided she was going to be a difficult woman.
“Then I should introduce myself first.”
With that she proudly pointed at her own chest and told him her name.
The moment Juhan heard it, his thoughts ground to a complete halt.
“Estelle Valter.”
“…What?”
“You can just call me Estelle. For some reason I don’t feel like being formal with you.”
Estelle Valter.
He had definitely heard that name before. No—it was far more than that.
No way.
Without realizing it, Juhan turned his gaze toward Carlton. Meeting that look, Carlton nodded at him with the air of a man who had already resigned himself.
Nod.
“…It’s the Valter you know.”
“Well, how many people in the world have the surname Valter?”
“……”
Seeing Carlton’s nod, Juhan fell silent. Even with his own two eyes he could not quite believe it.
This woman is a descendant of Carius? The Hero’s bloodline?
He looked Estelle up and down once more without thinking.
Golden hair. That brazen confidence. And the completely unreasonable behavior she had just displayed.
…She does resemble him in a lot of ways.
There were far too many similarities to the Carius he remembered.
Perhaps that was why.
Gulp.
Before he knew it, Juhan had already begun to regard her with open wariness.
Saaa—
It was pure instinct. A defense mechanism, if you wanted to call it that. For someone who had nearly been killed by Carius, the reaction was only natural.
She doesn’t have something that can recognize or sense me, does she?
Estelle, however, seemed to interpret his behavior entirely differently.
“Oh?”
Rather than taking offense, she looked at him with clear interest.
“Wow. Looks like I really do have a good eye for people.”
“……”
“Even after hearing the name Valter, instead of being intimidated you’re burning with competitive spirit.”
“What?”
Juhan’s expression twisted for a moment, as if to ask what kind of nonsense she was spouting.
Competitive spirit?
What exactly was this woman looking at when she made that judgment? She was the absolute peak of self-centered thinking—truly worthy of being Carius’s descendant.
But why the hell is a Valter even appearing in a backwater village like this?
The situation felt utterly unfair. From everything he had heard and learned, the Valter family never left the North unless something major was happening.
Is this also because of the Saintess?
That was the only explanation he could come up with.
Estelle spoke again.
“Then will you tell me your name too? Actually, I’d rather you just show me your adventurer plate.”
As if, having finished her own introduction, it was now his turn.
“……”
After watching her for a moment, Juhan resignedly took out his plate and held it out.
Swish.
“Hmm. Juhan, no surname.”
She nodded to herself as if confirming the information.
“…Huh?”
Then she frowned and looked back at him.
“Wait a minute—Wood Plate? Is this really yours?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. How are you a Wood Plate?”
She kept glancing back and forth between Juhan and the plate as if she simply could not believe it—once, then again, carefully examining the plate as though checking for forgery.
Of course there was little she could actually do about it. She could not exactly grab him and start an interrogation, and in this situation he had no real reason to lie either. In the end she nodded with a deeply suspicious look, as if deciding to accept it for now.
“Fine… Well, if you say so, then I guess it is. Everyone’s got a secret or two, right?”
Then, as if something had just occurred to her, she clapped her hands and turned back to him.
“Come to think of it, you also came here to request something from this guy, right?”
“I did.”
“Then how about this?”
The words that followed made Juhan momentarily doubt his own ears.
“I’ll yield the request order this time, so how about we have a spar just once?”
“…Yield?”
She was saying something he simply could not understand.
I was the one who requested first. What kind of nonsense is this?
From his perspective, Estelle’s claim that she would “yield” was wrong from the very foundation.
“Yield? What kind of ridiculous nonsense is that.”
His voice was firm—stop the nonsense right there. Estelle, however, only looked at him as if wondering what the problem was.
“Why? Didn’t I pay more money? Hey! Magic engineer, how much did I give you?”
“…Twenty gold coins.”
“And the amount you were going to take from Juhan?”
“A-about three gold coins.”
“See? I was right, wasn’t I?”
She looked far too confident. Had this woman spent her entire life believing money solved every problem?
…Or is she actually right?
As a modern man at heart, Juhan almost found himself swayed by the logic for a second. Carlton, however, clearly did not agree.
“Still, I refuse! I have something I need to do fir—”
“What if I give you ten more gold coins?”
“Th-that still won’t—”
“Really? Then I’ll give you thirty more.”
Silence dropped over the workshop like a curtain. At some point Carlton had begun quietly staring at Juhan.
“……”
Only moments earlier he had been shaking his head with resolute determination. The Carlton of now looked completely different.
Tremble, tremble…
His pupils quivered ever so slightly, and he was desperately trying to suppress the smile that kept threatening to rise at the corners of his mouth.
Gulp.
Above all, the sound of him swallowing echoed through the workshop with unnatural clarity.
Perhaps Carlton’s intellectual curiosity and hunger for the unknown were worth exactly fifty gold coins.
“……”
Watching the scene unfold, Juhan sensed that if this continued the situation was going to become extremely annoying. He could print money indefinitely if he wanted to, but casually throwing around more than fifty gold coins at once simply did not fit the circumstances. He was not a member of some great house like the Valters; spending dozens of gold coins in one go would only raise unnecessary suspicion—from both Estelle and Carlton.
Estelle, who had been watching the entire exchange with a smile, soon turned back to him.
“So? Doesn’t it look like the request order is about to change?”
“……”
It seemed he needed to recalculate. Thinking it over carefully, Estelle’s proposal was not actually all that bad from his perspective either.
Come to think of it, this might be a good opportunity.
Aside from the unpleasant part of clashing with the Hero’s descendant, there was no better chance than this. If you had to name the most closely watched figures on the continent, it would without a doubt be the Hero and the Saintess.
I can slowly figure out the Saintess once I reach the Holy Kingdom… but the Valter family is different.
This was an excellent chance to roughly gauge their level. And on top of that, Estelle herself was the one asking him first. Even if the result turned out unsatisfactory from her point of view, the odds of her making a big deal of it were low.
Aren’t I actually the one who should be asking for this?
He was even having thoughts like that. Of course he did not let any of it show on his face.
“Well? Well? Just once is fine, right? Right? Huh?”
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Completely unaware of what he was thinking, Estelle kept circling around him, urging him to accept already.
“Hmm…”
He rested a hand on his chin as if carefully considering the matter. Then he felt another gaze on him.
“……”
Sparkle, sparkle.
The owner of those eyes was Carlton—looking at him with pure, innocent expectation, as if pleading with him to refuse, as if begging him to show his firm conviction.
Confirming that look, Juhan soon smiled and spoke as though he had finally made up his mind. Without the slightest hesitation.
“Shall we step outside and talk first?”