The Huang Box
Messi couldn't help wondering where the siblings were taking him. Every time he asked, Ereb merely flashed that grin of his, as if to say the wait would be worth it.
The place they arrived at was a massive building in the heart of Ahental City, a structure so vast it recalled Rome's Colosseum—easily the largest in the city save for the inner castle and the monastery.
"Where is this?"
"Bwahaha! Didn't I tell you to look forward to it? This is the auction house run by the Huang Merchant Group. It doesn't open just any day, you know. They hold it irregularly—only twice a month—and even the invitation tickets cost a pretty penny!"
Ereb explained it all as if he owned the place himself. That swagger wasn't entirely unfounded. Operating inside Ahental City, the auction generated a considerable sales tax.
"My brother wanted to give Sir Messi a gift. That's why we kept it a secret, so please don't scold him too much."
Erena added, filling in what her brother had left unsaid. She needed it understood that bringing him here had been her brother's kindness, meant for Messi alone.
From Messi's point of view, there was nothing to take offense at. The only thing that didn't add up was Ereb thinking of him at all.
So that's why Miss Erena came along. This was her idea.
Messi was hardly going to miss that. He turned the situation over in his mind, and the answer presented itself readily enough.
Ah... so the young lord is getting restless.
He almost laughed. Viscount Ahental had already agreed to everything Messi had demanded of Ereb. The young lord had realized he had nothing left with which to bind him. And so he'd gone so far as to consult Erena and launch this little gift offensive... For someone like Ereb, it was a rather adorable stunt.
Messi pretended not to notice and simply nodded.
"I'd been wanting to see the city of Ahental anyway. I've been cooped up in the inner castle for too long. Thank you, young lord."
"W-what's there to thank me for over something like this... Come on, let's go in."
Embarrassed, Ereb hurried ahead, with Ramang falling in behind him. Messi entered the auction house alongside Erena in her wheelchair and the lady knight who served as her guard.
As expected, the one most excited by the crowd was neither Messi nor Ereb, but Kkyu. She poked only her head from Messi's pocket, eyes darting this way and that.
She really does love people-watching... I've left her cooped up for too long.
A twinge of guilt crept in, unbidden.
"Lord Ereb, we are truly grateful that you have honored us with your presence. It is a great privilege for the Huang Merchant Group's Second Auction House."
"Ah, yes. It has been some time since this lord graced you with his presence. You are the manager, I take it?"
"Yes. I am Gilbert, the manager in charge of this Second Auction House. If you would grant us the honor of attending you today, we would be most grateful."
Ereb waved him along with a gesture. The blood of high nobility—and the second son of the house that ruled Ahental, no less—commanded enormous privilege here. And the presence rolling off Ereb, the sheer pressure of it, was distinctive enough to draw every eye in the auction house.
He was a noble down to his bones. If he had a single exception, it was Messi.
"We're doing 'that' today, I take it?"
"Of course. That's the signature feature of the Huang Merchant Group's auction houses, after all—what sets us apart. Right this way, if you please."
Messi frowned, wondering what on earth they were talking about, and Erena kindly filled him in.
"The auction houses run by the Huang Merchant Group offer a special service. They hand out numbered tickets to every guest."
"So it's a raffle, then."
"As expected of Sir Messi—you're so quick. When I first learned of it, I thought it was wonderfully clever."
Coming from the twenty-first century, drowning as it was in every marketing gimmick imaginable, Messi found nothing surprising about it. To them, though, it would have been a novelty.
"Now, now, Lord Ereb, Lady Erena—if you would grant me the honor of selecting numbered tickets imbued with good fortune for you...!"
"I'll draw my own."
Cutting him off without a second thought, Ereb plunged his hand into the barrel and pulled out a gold-foiled ticket.
It was number one. Ereb grinned, thoroughly pleased with himself. Erena, for her part, granted Gilbert the honor of drawing hers.
Erena received 647, Messi 55, Ramang 231, and Erena's lady-knight escort 890.
"Thank you for your love of our Huang Box. The Huang Box boasts a one-hundred-percent prize rate, and its contents are a mystery until opened. Ticket exchanges are permitted freely until the auction begins; once the auction concludes, please return here to redeem yours. One hour remains until the auction. We hope you enjoy the pleasant thrill of anticipation."
Manager Gilbert gestured to the wooden crates stacked behind him like a fortress wall. A number was carved into each one. Those, it seemed, were the Huang Boxes.
Messi was mildly impressed.
I thought it was just a raffle. I didn't expect lucky boxes...
The princess had taken an interest, so Messi slipped the number-55 ticket into his pocket for her. Her voice wilted almost at once.
It hasn't even started yet.
?
Kkyu's words gave him pause. Didn't that mean she could pick out the boxes that did carry a special scent or energy?
Come to think of it, the monsters of the Forest of Resentment had senses of smell that defied all reason, and they were acutely sensitive to energy besides. Ants, in particular, could read intent from the chemical signals living creatures produced.
A scent or an aura doesn't necessarily mean a jackpot... but it does mean there's something unusual in there, right?
Spirit energy. It had been a long time since anything had reminded him that he possessed an affinity with nature.
Three boxes out of a thousand. The odds were abysmal.
They would have tucked something special into a handful of them, at least, and filled the rest with goods decent enough that customers who'd paid a fortune just to walk through the door wouldn't leave feeling cheated.
What if I just took all three?
Knowing the answer and walking away empty-handed sat poorly with him. At the very least, he wanted number 761—the one tied to the spirits.
While Messi was still turning it over, Ereb came up and held out his ticket.
"Hmph. You take this one. I drew it myself, so something incredible is bound to come out of it."
Messi didn't believe a word of that—not when he already knew which three boxes were special—but he took it without hesitation. A ticket could always be exchanged for another.
Erena handed hers over as well. Today, she too wanted to give Messi a gift.
Ramang and the lady knight, meanwhile, looked flushed with anticipation, hanging their hopes on the numbers they still held—the faces of gamblers watching a dealer slide cards across the table.
"I'll go exchange these tickets, then. I'll be back before the auction starts."
"I drew Number One, of all things, and you're going to swap it?"
"Well, it's mine now, isn't it?"
"L-let's go together, Sir Messi."
"I'll be right back, Miss Erena. Don't worry."
Messi smiled and vanished into the crowd.
We finally made it out. It would have been nice to walk around together...
What's that bastard plotting now? Swapping tickets all of a sudden?
The siblings each nursed a different disappointment. Ereb found himself wondering whether Messi, slipping off alone, had some scheme in mind—but unfortunately for him, that particular instinct of his, the contemptuous read he always had on those weaker than himself, failed to trigger when it came to Messi.
Even if I know the winning numbers, I have no way of knowing who actually holds them. That's the problem.
A thousand Huang Boxes meant a thousand people taking part. Wandering around asking after three numbers among that many was hopelessly inefficient.
He turned the problem over, and Gilbert came to mind—the way the man had recorded each number by hand the moment Ereb drew his ticket. Exchanges were allowed, yes, but they logged who had drawn which number in the first place. That way the merchant group could respond if a ticket was stolen or seized, and they would know who had first laid hands on a lucky number.
So I need that ledger... but leaning on the young lord's influence would be awkward.
Having Ereb throw a tantrum until they were shown the record was fine, as far as it went. But if the merchant group later discovered that all three prize boxes had ended up with the young lord's party, luck would no longer be a sufficient explanation. Suspicion would follow.
He would have to borrow someone else's hands. Messi realized, then, that he had come out into the city at last—and that he now had someone he needed to see.
"Looks like I'll be seeing the old man's face for the first time in a while."
"Kkyu. Can you sense where General Ant is?"
"Lead the way. I've got business."
Messi showed his numbered ticket to the men guarding the entrance and stepped back out. It was the mark of an auction guest; with that in hand, slipping out for a while was no trouble at all.
Following the princess's guidance, Messi walked through the city. At the sight of a demi-human so rarely seen, every gaze gathered on him for a beat, then slid away.
His steps carried him, little by little, toward the shadowed side of Ahental City.
Even in a city this commercially thriving, the gap between rich and poor was a law of nature. And in a society of such naked class divisions, there was hardly any need to say it aloud.
The farther he left the main avenues and pressed toward the outskirts, the more the scenery changed. Poverty claimed the view, and the bleakness of sickness and death lingered in the streets.
He could feel eyes on him, hunting for an opening, but there was no need to let them know he knew.
The princess's guidance ended at last before a shabby tavern. The moment he stopped in front of it, every watching gaze vanished at once.
Which meant this was no ordinary place.
The door creaked. He stepped inside, and the men drinking cheap liquor glanced up, then went back to their gossip as if nothing had happened.
Messi walked straight to the proprietor behind the bar as if he were a regular. The man stared at him as though he couldn't believe his eyes.
"A demi-human? Don't tell me you're the demi-human prince?"
"You know me. I'm here to see the Antenna Knight and the Herb Gatherer."
"Oh. So you really do know the boss. This way."
Messi started to follow his gesture upstairs—and the princess stopped him.
Messi let out a breath. Without the princess, he would have wasted time on a pointless detour.
"Hey. Cut the runaround and take me there. I know he's in the basement. I already gave you the password—so why the song and dance?"
He let his aura bleed out toward the proprietor in warning, and the man's face changed at once. From the moment Messi had awakened to mana, he too had reached a level these people could not afford to treat carelessly.
The tavern keeper's body began to tremble; his complexion went ashen.
"I-I'm sorry... We have to run a verification, it's just procedure..."
Messi pressed him as if he had no time to spare, and the man hurriedly opened a hidden door beneath the bar.
The stairs led down to a corridor with three rooms. The tavern keeper knocked on the door at the far end.
"Yeah, come in."
A familiar voice. Messi smiled and stepped inside.
A face he knew sat in the chair behind a battered office desk, and behind that chair stood a large knight in iron armor, antennae protruding from the helm.
The moment they recognized each other, both men broke into rare, unguarded grins.
"Leto."
"Messi. It's been a long time."
There he was—Leto the herb gatherer, who had followed him all the way from Benuda Village.
From the day they had left Benuda Village, Leto had been thinking about his role.
To overturn an affair bound up with so many unknown connections, Messi would need people he could trust. What Messi meant to do was wage war on the vast organization Barcelo had once faced. There was no telling who might be entangled in it, and that made trusted comrades all the more necessary.
Messi had understood as much himself. On the road out of Tallen County, he had made a request.
"There's something I need you to do for me in the Ahental Territory."
"Just say the word. I followed you ready for anything. There's nothing I won't do."
"...You're telling me to become the king of the back alleys?"
Leto was taken aback. What he had pictured for himself was becoming a tool Messi could use at ease—not ruling an organization.
But Messi had his reasons.
"I'm going to take House Ahental as my power base and wage war on them."
"Right. The enemy's some unknown giant, so I understand you need a faction of your own. But what's that got to do with me being king of the back alleys?"
"To do that, I need everything in the Ahental Territory in my grasp. I can hold the daylight from behind the young lord... but it'll be hard to extend that reach into the dark."
Messi intended to make House Ahental—and the territory itself—his home ground. And to do that, he refused to miss even a single shadow in a darkened alley.
He would set the person he trusted most in his place as master of the underworld, and expand his influence from there.
"Build your power there, and gather every scrap of information you can. From inside the territory itself to the enemies who threaten it."
Once he understood the plan, Leto accepted it.
"But do you really think I can do it alone? It's been thirty years since I last fought a proper battle..."
"I'll put a fine weapon in your hands. Don't worry."
"...A weapon?"
Leto looked puzzled, and Messi had Kkyu summon the Royal Guard Captain.
They had been drawing farther and farther from the ant kingdom where the queen's dominion still held, and Kkyu's place had been shifting—from princess to mistress of a newborn royal house. As a princess, she had been hard-pressed to command the Royal Guard Captain beyond the purpose of his existence. That was no longer the case.
Kkyu had become the sole remaining seed of the royal restoration. She now held the Guard Captain's boundless loyalty as her due.
Janggun-i answered by twitching his antennae.
"Well? Think you can do it now?"
At Messi's question, Leto let out a hollow laugh.
Could he do it? Of course he could.
Anyone handed a monster bordering on the Brillant realm who still couldn't pull it off would have to be a goddamn idiot.