Chapter 56
Chapter 56
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: Selfish Bastard. Even If the Vested Interests' World Crumbles?
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Selfish bastard. Even if the vested interests' world crumbles, that's fine with you?
Not everyone is born with the 'form of a human.'
For example, some are born with arms twice as long as others, and some twins come into the world fused together.
And.
Some are forcibly ejected from their mother's womb after barely seven months.
"Torsso. You okay?"
"Ah. Yes. I'm fine. It's just... the wind feels a bit chilly. Sorry for worrying you."
"If you're not feeling well, take the day off."
"No. It's my duty and privilege to serve at Your Excellency's side."
Congenital disabilities carried from birth are called Heavenly Punishment.
Torsso is one such person.
A seven-month premature baby.
A fetus receives ten months of love in the womb to be completed as a 'human,'
but Torsso was cast into the world after only seven months of that love.
His organs weren't fully developed,
and he was born gasping for air, his lung alveoli not yet properly formed.
The winter of his birth
was an especially harsh season for him.
When he breathed deeply, his lungs swelled with pain like they might burst,
and cold winds tore at them like hailstones.
As his birthday approached, this suffering intensified day by day,
and by the time it arrived,
his body was so wrecked that he could barely last a day without medicine.
"Lerso."
"It's Torsso."
"Have you ever resented being born with such a body?"
"......"
And His Excellency surely knew that too. He was the sort who saw everything.
He must have seen through even the circumstances of this one body.
But.
The heart couldn't be peered into with mere blessings,
so only by asking directly could he guess.
"Your Excellency."
"Yeah."
"I've never once resented being born into this fate."
"Not even once?"
"Yes. Thanks to being thrust into the world early, I could serve at Your Excellency's side."
Torsso Gont.
It's the Gont tradition for the child born in the same year as Riddle to serve him.
If he had been born even a day later,
ripened fully in his mother's womb,
and come into a warm spring,
he wouldn't have been able to serve at His Excellency's side.
The Gont House would have adopted another child born that year and raised them as a 'Gont.'
"Sometimes I have thought about it. Being born without any duties, receiving warm care from nursemaids, growing up healthy in a proper body instead of this broken one, living an ordinary life as a noble with socializing and romance."
"......"
If another child had been made the 'Gont' to serve at His Excellency's side,
Torsso could have enjoyed an ordinary life.
He was a noble, the Gont House was fairly wealthy, and Torsso had some confidence in his looks.
Perhaps such a life was closest to the so-called 'perfect happiness.'
And.
Torsso was the kind of person who couldn't be satisfied with the ordinary.
"But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't imagine being satisfied with that kind of life."
"Why?"
"Because ordinary people don't make big money."
"......Huh."
Only the extraordinary and special bring in big money.
With ordinary methods,
you only earn ordinary money.
"I love money. I love making money. I love the clink of gold coins bumping in a sack. I love gold neatly stacked in a vault. I love the numbers in an account. I love huge windfalls. And when the scale of the moneymaking gets so massive that I have to adjust the pace of business not based on success odds but on the size of the market itself, I feel the purest ecstasy. It's not a lack of money, but having too much money, the market not being big enough, not being able to spend enough— that sweetness is so intense it makes breathing hard."
"......"
"That's a pleasure no ordinary man enjoying mundane happiness could ever feel. They wouldn't even imagine such a life exists. Better to drown buried in gold I can't handle than enjoy boring, stupid happiness with healthy lungs."
Perhaps Torsso was the most devoted pirate in this world.
Because he didn't care about his own life for gold,
he could be a truly devoted attendant, friend, bodyguard, and adjutant.
"......Torsso."
"Yes."
"Actually, I prepared a birthday gift for you."
The possessor took a small case from his desk drawer.
When he opened it, a rosary bracelet appeared.
An ordinary-looking string of beads,
but the blue stones making them up were extraordinary.
"You've been studying scripture diligently lately, so I got you a rosary."
"This is... turquoise."
"Yeah. You recognized it right away?"
December's birthstone.
Turquoise.
One of the oldest gems used by humanity,
symbolizing success and prosperity.
"One of these rosaries could buy a small manor..."
Among the finest bright, transparent blue turquoises,
it was made from those with the most beautiful patterns.
Turquoise for bracelets isn't usually that expensive,
but it varies by quality.
Gems of this caliber don't get chosen by people—the gems choose their owners.
So.
It meant an enormous sum had been spent.
"I thought you'd like it, but after hearing you, it seems this isn't enough to satisfy you."
The possessor took the rosary from the case and slipped it onto his wrist.
It had been prepared as a gift,
but in this moment, it was just a rock.
Even if the gem turned to money,
it couldn't match a person's worth in coin.
So, it didn't matter who wore it.
After all, he'd make so much money that a turquoise rosary like this would feel trivial.
"I'll change the gift."
"......"
"In the name of the great merchant house 'Riddle' that sold the seas, and of its head 'Karl Riddle,' I swear before the gods. Henceforth, 'Torsso Gont' shall stand at the vanguard of all my moneymaking ventures, sharing the fate of every business I undertake. This oath may be broken by mutual consent, but until then, we shall uphold it with faith and sincerity."
The turquoise rosary sparkled, reflecting the light.
Whether this world's gods worked diligently was questionable, but they were real entities that bestowed divine power.
So.
An oath before the gods would have some effect.
Well, whether it did or not wasn't important.
Faith and sincerity.
The intent to not betray each other's trust was what mattered most.
"Torsso."
"Yes."
"I'm going to change the world."
"I know."
"No. You don't. You have no idea how precarious it is. You probably can't even imagine."
"......"
This was the possessor's true heart, never honestly shared with anyone.
The first candid words from the evil spirit that possessed this world.
He wouldn't speak like this again.
So, this selfish confession
was the first and last birthday gift the possessor could give Torsso.
"I'm the kind of person who values my own survival over moneymaking. Earning money, changing the world—it's all just means to survive."
"......Survival, you say?"
"Yeah. I'm afflicted with a soul-sickness that only gold can cure."
The evil spirit had to prove it.
That he wasn't the 'Golden Ear,'
just an evil spirit possessed from 21st-century Korea,
and thus qualified for a different fate from the Golden Ear—
he had to prove it to this world.
And.
The only way to prove it was with gold.
"You once said, didn't you? If it's harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, then the Riddle way is to hammer gold into a giant needle."
"Yes, we had that conversation."
"It's right, but to get to heaven, one more thing is needed."
"Hm. What's that?"
"While hammering the gold to enlarge the needle... give the camel water. If the camel dies, no matter how huge the needle, no one gets to heaven."
"......"
Using gold not for himself, but for others.
That was the greatest difference between the 'Golden Ear' and the 'possessor' evil spirits, wasn't it?
If hammering gold into a giant needle
meant striking at the entrenched slave system to prepare for emancipation,
then watering the camel
was caring for, educating, and building the self-reliance skills of slaves.
"I hate this world. But to survive, I have to live in it anyway."
"......"
"So, I'll change it."
The saying goes that if you hate the temple, the monk should leave,
but he couldn't leave the world.
He didn't want to leave this world. He wanted to live. Survive. Cling to life pathetically. Exist.
So what could he do?
Change the world.
The world the possessor would create
wouldn't please everyone enjoying ordinary happiness,
but there was no choice.
It was selfish, but this was the only way the evil spirit could survive.
"Torsso."
"Yes."
"Let's go make money."
"Understood."