Money Cushion (2)
Even as my head spun from managing the first large-scale business I’d ever tackled in either my original life or this one, it wasn’t as if I had no other worries. Aisha? That counted as one, I suppose. There was the very slight concern of whether her restraints would truly hold, and the worry about exactly what kind of “research” or “experiments” Guinevere might conduct. But the thought that suddenly slammed into me now was more personal—something existential. Call it existence, or identity; either way, it hit me like a brick.
“Zieg.”
“Huh? What?”
“Am I pretty?”
On the road to the Romano Cathedral, the sudden question drew Yulia’s gaze toward me as well. Afraid I’d die of embarrassment if I acknowledged it, I kept my eyes locked on Ziegfried.
“Uh, um, y-yes? You’re pretty. W-why do you ask?”
“…Sigh. Never mind.”
“Wait, what? Why the sigh?”
“It’s nothing. I just… had some things on my mind.”
Ziegfried looked genuinely flustered by my sigh, but I had no intention of revealing my inner thoughts to him. How could I possibly explain it? That my soul was still fundamentally male, yet after only a few months in this woman’s body, I was starting to feel myself becoming more feminine. Just now, when he’d said I was pretty, my first reaction hadn’t been how the hell did my life come to this? but rather a flutter of see, I am pretty, aren’t I? and the corner of my mouth had nearly curved upward.
Yes. This was the existential crisis. The slow, creeping terror that the man I used to be was being completely overwritten by this girl named Lucia. If things kept going like this, wouldn’t I face another identity meltdown even if I managed to return? Still, what could I possibly do about it from here?
Fortunately, I didn’t have to spend the whole day lost in such thoughts. As a saintess, duties kept appearing even while we traveled.
“Thank you for granting this request, Saintess.”
“There’s no need for thanks. Is this the child?”
“Yes. He was playing with a sword and… well.”
The noble we were meeting was the count of this region. The territory wasn’t particularly barren; it produced around three thousand imperial gold coins a year. After paying vassal salaries and maintenance costs, only ten to twenty percent usually remained, but that still left three hundred imperial gold coins—or seventy-five gold coins at current market rates. For a count’s domain, it was quite respectable.
Of course, most nobles still ended up drowning in debt from maintaining appearances, but this household was different.
“Regenerating a limb at this level requires a hundred gold coins. How are your finances?”
“No matter how hard we tried, we could only gather forty-six. However, we can add three hundred imperial gold coins. That should equal sixty gold coins’ worth, shouldn’t it?”
This was for their eleven-year-old eldest son’s severed-arm regeneration. They had scraped together every asset they could since the gold coins were first announced. The tragedy for the count and his wife was that so few gold coins had been released into circulation that even their desperate savings couldn’t buy enough for a miracle of this scale.
Officially the exchange rate was four imperial gold coins per gold coin, but unofficially it had already hit ten to one. So even if they offered the equivalent of sixty gold coins, that was only at the official rate. The real exchange rate was ten times higher, and even then the coins were so scarce they couldn’t be found.
In other words, this couple was literally begging me—the saintess—for mercy. Please, we’ll show this much sincerity, so grant our son a miracle.
But I was the saintess, the face of the church. I couldn’t ignore the principles I myself had established.
“Miracles can only be obtained with gold coins. You know that, correct?”
“Y-yes, of course, Saintess. But… but…”
“I’m sorry. As the saintess, I cannot break that rule.”
“Ah… aah…”
What else could I do? I understood the frustration. To the poor I handed out regeneration-level miracles for free under the excuse of “viral marketing,” yet I wouldn’t do the same for a single noble? Someone might call it class discrimination, the lingering bias from my original world influencing my decisions.
But I had thought this through carefully. For the poor, the external narrative of mercy and charity worked beautifully. I couldn’t apply the same logic to territorial nobles. Since I had publicly declared that miracles could only be obtained with gold coins, my real job wasn’t to make exceptions—it was to catch anyone who tried and stop them.
“There’s no helping it. This is a rule set by the church, and I am the church’s saintess.”
“…Understood. I apologize, Saintess, for the unreasonable request and for wasting your time and concern.”
At least this count accepted the situation quickly. It wasn’t as if the boy was dying, and after several years he had probably grown used to living with one arm. Besides, there was still hope. They simply needed to gather the money. As territorial nobles, they had the means to eventually collect a hundred gold coins no matter how quickly the value rose.
Of course, I wasn’t going to leave it at that.
“I’m glad you understand. In that case, you can bring 224 imperial gold coins right now, yes?”
“…Pardon? Y-yes, we can, but… didn’t you just say a miracle was impossible without gold coins…?”
It took him a moment to process my words. Confusion and hope warred in his eyes as he asked carefully.
Yes, miracles could only be obtained with gold coins. In other words, if one could acquire enough gold coins, anyone could receive a miracle. The current problem was that even those who wanted them couldn’t obtain them. So if I helped them acquire gold coins at fair value, wouldn’t that inspire both gratitude and deeper faith?
“Here are 54 gold coins. At the official exchange rate, I’ll accept four imperial gold coins per coin.”
“Ah! Y-yes! Saintess! Understood! Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“Thank yourself for having lived sincerely until now. And please continue to live with that same heart—be generous to those around you and uphold your faith.”
“Of course. Oh, you truly are the real saintess.”
Strictly speaking, I had granted him a favor. I was offering something nearly impossible to obtain even with money, at the official rate rather than the actual street value. But since the church distributed its own gold coins at that same official rate anyway, I wasn’t actually losing anything. Trading at unofficial rates would look too mercenary and damage my image, and auctions couldn’t be held too frequently.
“Did you really need to go that far?”
The question came from the Royal Knight Commander, Sir Freewind. The scars that proved his survival through countless battlefields were striking, but he seemed to view my actions as nothing more than a nuisance. Or rather, he appeared to think I was simply toying with the count. Perhaps he saw the entire thing as some twisted hobby of mine.
“I did. Absolutely.”
“You merely exchanged gold coins you already possessed at the official rate.”
As expected, his understanding in this area was still lacking—especially since he had earned his title through pure military strength rather than territory management.
“It’s not merely an exchange. Most clergy lack both the authority and the will to do it, and some would ignore my recommendation entirely. Let me put it this way: this too is a kind of miracle.”
Religious miracles weren’t the only kind. The economic miracles I loved thinking about were miracles too, and what had just happened for that count was clearly one of them.
By rebuilding the slums of Endium—home to five hundred thousand people—I had purchased the hearts of the poor. Yes, literally bought them with money. If anyone other than me had done it, the feat alone would have qualified them for sainthood. The cost-effectiveness had been excellent.
But if I did nothing for the nobility simply because the return was lower, what would happen? No matter how much numbers equaled political power, a noble’s voice carried far more weight than an ordinary citizen’s. Setting aside the highest nobles who couldn’t be swayed by such things, it was wise to cultivate at least the sentiment of the lower nobility. Since this wouldn’t affect the top tier, it could still be considered a cost-effective investment within noble society.
“I don’t really understand.”
“I know. Everyone says that. When I first walked barefoot through the muddy, stinking paths of the slums, giving blessings and sharing miracles, and when I created the special currency called copper for the poor, people said the same thing.”
“…I see.”
I wasn’t making it up. Everything I had done so far was utterly incomprehensible to ordinary clergy and nobles. Still, it had worked out. The church had come to acknowledge the necessity of my methods, and by showing real results with both gold coins and public sentiment, I had brought them to at least partial understanding. That was enough.
One step at a time. If I could reach the point where explaining that I wasn’t some minor god possessing a body only shocked them mildly, then I could confidently demand to be sent back to my own world.
“But what if I had changed my thinking each time and acted differently? Would I have become a saintess even a baron could acknowledge?”
“I would never fail to acknowledge you. How could I deny the saintess recognized by the church itself?”
“You already know that isn’t the kind of acknowledgment I meant.”
I offered him my usual benevolent smile, and the baron fell silent, lowering his gaze. His expression remained unreadable.
After that, we continued on. Sometimes we received the exact amount in gold coins; other times, for those who fell short, I exchanged my own gold for imperial gold or other currency and accepted it back. In this way, I steadily accumulated favors among the nobility.
For those who couldn’t gather enough gold coins, and even for those who could, having the saintess personally bestow the miracle was an enormous honor. As I had mentioned before, even cardinals and patriarchs rarely distributed miracles themselves. For a saintess—treated as slightly higher than a cardinal—to do so personally was far more than a simple “thank you.” Especially for lower nobles.
“Something feels off.”
“Yulia? What is it?”
“Didn’t you say that the slum reconstruction in Endium consumed most of the Brien Kingdom’s gold coins?”
“I did. Why?”
“Yet we’re about to cross the border, and we haven’t even properly traveled through Brien yet. How has this much money accumulated?”
After repeating the process several times, Yulia finally tilted her head in confusion and opened one of the boxes. Inside, nearly a thousand gold coins had piled up without us noticing. There was also a leather pouch containing nearly a thousand imperial gold coins. Even though we had been spending considerable amounts everywhere we went, the money was growing exponentially.