The Other Half

"Lord Rowin, this is serious. It looks like we're going to run short of funds..."

At Roatan's trembling voice, Rowin shut his eyes again.

The official funds allocated for this affair had been three hundred gold. The money he had brought of his own was perhaps twenty more.

At the start, he had not the faintest intention of touching the official purse. A few light purchases within his personal means—that had been the plan.

Then the whole thing had curdled into a bidding war on which the honor of his house and his own pride both hung, and Rowin had made one irreversible mistake after another.

Why... why is it only me who ended up like this?

He had meant to nudge the price up just enough and dump the lot on Ereb. He had tried twenty times. He had failed twenty times. And he was the one who had to pay for it.

I thought spending around fifty gold at the beginning would be fine...

That still would have left two hundred and fifty—roughly a wealthy barony's tax yield for an entire year. With that kind of money, winning the Einhartz Mana Cultivation Method had looked like a comfortable certainty.

He just hadn't been able to stop.

A little more. Just a little more. He had been unable to master himself, and he had kept throwing himself back into the fight.

The result:

To blow another thirty gold on top of that—and win the Spirit Jade besides!

It was like sinking into a bog. He had meant only to wet his feet. Instead he had been sucked under until there was no climbing out.

A full hundred and fifty-six gold of the official funds, gone. All that remained was a hundred and forty-four.

Have I always been this stupid?

For the first time in his life, Rowin felt the shape of his own foolishness.

He was a scion of proud House Crombell. His word had always been right. His father had favored him over his brothers, and the heirship had fallen into his lap without a struggle. How many times, in a life like that, had his own blunders ever landed on his skin like this?

Bad luck, they said, always came in chains.

The Spirit Jade auction had barely closed. A few minutes' rest, and Gilbert raised his voice as if he had been waiting for exactly this moment.

What?

The hall's frenzy and Rowin's despair arrived in the same breath.

A mana cultivation method.

It was the work of those who had awakened to mana on their own and founded a school—men and women who, for the sake of descendants or disciples, or simply because they could not bear to let a lifetime of study die with them, had distilled the flow of mana within their own bodies into a single, transmissible pattern.

In the large view, it was the labor of drawing nature's mana inward, storing it in one's mana core, and climbing toward a higher realm. In the small view, it was the training of circulating that stored mana through every circuit of the body, aiming at mastery of both physical dominion and mana use.

Because of it, even those without the talent to awaken mana on their own could learn to wield it. And depending on one's gifts—or on the grade of the method itself—even lofty realms came into reach.

Who, then, would not want one?

They were rare besides. When a decent mana cultivation method appeared on the open market, chaos was only natural.

Today is the day. The day our house finally obtains a mana cultivation method.

I have waited for this!

Noble houses hungry for power were thick on the ground. The moment they learned a fifth-stage method would appear at this auction, they had dug out fortunes they had kept buried.

Even knowing the Einhartz Mana Cultivation Method was incomplete—an unstable, half-finished thing—it was, to them, the treasure of a lifetime.

Gilbert finished recounting the method's history and the story behind it. The auction opened.

Crack, crack, crack—

He brought the fresh wooden gavel down with gusto, and the number plaques shot up like a storm.

This was nothing like the earlier lots. A tide of gold-foil paddles rolled through the hall.

Seventy... seventy-three... seventy-nine... eighty-one... eighty-nine... ninety-nine!

As the other nobles piled in, Ereb turned to Messi.

"When do we jump in?"

"The final boss always shows up at the end."

"Final boss? Kahaha—never heard that one, but I like it."

Ereb's purpose, after all, was only one thing: to make sure Rowin did not get what he wanted, and to heap humiliation on him in the process.

At last the price crossed into three digits. The paddles grew sparse. Then Rowin's fourteen went up.

"Number fourteen, one hundred and ten gold."

"Now, Young Master."

"Number seven hundred and sixty-one, one hundred and eleven gold."

A grinding of teeth, loud enough to hear. The intervention could not have been more blatant.

The surrounding nobles let their disappointment show, faces that said, There they go again. Once those two locked into a bidding war, the price always climbed beyond what anyone else could touch.

By the time it had soared to a hundred and forty gold, the rest of the hall had fallen silent. The sum was simply too enormous.

Number seven hundred and sixty-one, one hundred and forty gold.

The instant it landed there, one of the knights at Rowin's back peeled off and approached Messi's party.

"Lord Ereb. I am Roatan, a knight in Lord Rowin's service. Lord Rowin has asked me to propose a... discussion."

"A discussion?"

"Yes. He offers a formal apology for the discourtesy before the auction began, and he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will make that apology in whatever manner Lord Ereb requires. Furthermore—should you yield the Einhartz Mana Cultivation Method here—he promises to settle the cost of every lot you have already won, and then present all of those lots to you."

Want to call it a draw...?

The terms were generous. Rowin's intent came through them clearly enough.

"Oho. Is that so?"

Ereb looked tempted. From where he stood, it was not a bad offer.

An apology in whatever manner he required meant a chance to grind Rowin's pride into the floor. And among the lots already won was the Spirit Jade he had wanted to give Messi. To take it all without spending a single coin—what could be better?

He sent Roatan back. At once Erena and Ramang added their voices in favor.

"Brother, I think we should yield at a reasonable point. We are rivals of Count Crombell's house, yes—but we are nobles all the same, and there is a line we ought to keep. If we don't, the grudge will only grow."

"She's right, Young Master. Wars between houses have started over far smaller things. Relations are already poor. Give them a pretext like this and the situation could turn ugly."

"That's true enough."

Once the welfare of the whole house entered the accounting, even Ereb had to stop and think.

"Number fourteen, one hundred and forty-one gold!"

Rowin's voice carried. The will to win it, no matter what, was unmistakable.

Ereb looked at Messi.

"Messi. What do you think?"

"He looks desperate."

"He does. Coming to us in the middle of a live auction—how badly must it be eating him? We stomped his pride good and proper, kahaha! That ought to have taught him his place."

Ereb laughed, thoroughly pleased. The heir of House Crombell, tucking his tail in front of him—how could that not be satisfying? This much already felt like the goal achieved.

Messi shook his head. He was against it.

"But isn't his obsession with the mana cultivation method itself strange?"

"I'll grant you that much is odd... but House Crombell has always been martial to the bone. I wouldn't call it unnatural."

"I'm not so sure. From where I sit, we have even more reason to secure the Einhartz method ourselves."

"...Why?"

The moment he understood Messi's view diverged from his own, Ereb snatched up his paddle.

"Number seven hundred and sixty-one, one hundred and forty-two gold!"

"The Rowin I observed is a man of fierce pride, and of equally fierce pride in his house. He knows perfectly well what the Ahental fortune can do, and he still refused to break off the fight. There has to be a reason for that."

"You've read him right. And he hates our house besides."

"And a man like that is willing to accept a total, humiliating defeat—the kind that looks like groveling—just to have that half-finished method. I can't make it sit right."

The Einhartz Mana Cultivation Method was a lower stage than the Crombell method, and incomplete besides. He had even said he wanted it for research. For the heir of House Crombell to lower himself this far over a research piece...

Erena's and Ramang's expressions changed. Would they have done the same, standing in Rowin's place? Messi's reasoning had put a crack in the picture.

"Sir Messi, then you mean..."

"The most likely explanation is that they already have the other half."

The remaining half of the Einhartz Mana Cultivation Method.

It was a possibility no one had even considered. Which meant that securing this piece would complete it.

Even incomplete, the Sky Castle had graded it fifth-stage. Completed—what rank would it reach?

If a rival house like Count Crombell's obtained a method of that caliber, they would take wing and never look back.

A chill ran down the back of Ereb's neck.

He had nearly let a small satisfaction in front of his eyes blind him to the thing that actually mattered.

"It isn't certain... but it isn't something we can just let go, either."

"No. That's why I believe we should take it. If my guess is right, how desperately will Count Crombell want this? And then we—"

"—sit in the stronger seat, and every negotiation in the world opens up."

And Rowin had tried to settle a prize like that with an apology and a handful of already-won lots.

Ereb found him thoroughly, venomously unpleasant.

"Number seven hundred and sixty-one, one hundred and fifty gold."

The words were out of Ereb's mouth before Gilbert had even finished. There was no more hesitation in him at all.

"My congratulations, Lord Ereb."

"Nothing to congratulate. The payment's here—count it."

Ereb passed a purse of gold coins to Gilbert, who handed it to a clerk to be tallied.

At a Huang Merchant Group auction, payment was due the instant the gavel fell. The merchant houses of this age put no faith in a noble's promise to settle later on his good name.

Fail to pay on the spot, and the penalties were severe. The Huang Merchant Group sat among the executive leadership of the White Donkey, the merchant coalition that spanned all the Central Eight Kingdoms, and the reach of those penalties was correspondingly vast—economic isolation, political retaliation through the cartel, diplomatic obstruction. Anything gold could do, they did without hesitation.

"The count is exact, Gilbert."

Once the clerk confirmed it, Gilbert smiled, collected their paddles, and brought over five Huang Boxes.

"The Huang Merchant Group will take full responsibility for delivering the lots to your residence. Just take the Huang Boxes home with you! Haha—ever since we introduced them, people tell us the ride back is never dull."

Gilbert was as good as his word.

On the carriage ride back to the inner castle, the lady knight escorting Ramang and Erena opened her own box. They were as excited as children tearing into presents on Christmas morning.

"Ah..."

Erena's escort knight looked disappointed. Inside her box, nestled with a slip of instructions, was a small doll.

"It's a singing doll!"

A magical trinket said to sing whatever song suited its owner's mood. Erena, who had once collected dolls, knew it at a glance.

The escort knight had no interest in dolls. She offered it to Erena as a gift.

"Hmph. Mine's just a gemstone necklace."

Ramang's Huang Box held a necklace set with a purple crystal.

"Heh. Your wife will love that."

At Erena's words, Ramang's face went stiff. He had just pictured what would happen when he brought it home.

She wouldn't suddenly start bathing, would she...?

An inexplicable sense of foreboding settled over him.

Three boxes remained. Those were Messi's.

He started with the one that had nothing to do with the winning tickets—the Number One box Ereb had claimed. The moment the contents came into view, Ereb muttered, looking faintly crushed.

"I was going to give you the Spirit Jade as a gift... and now I've ended up giving you this instead."

Number One had produced a necklace as well. This one, though, carried a faint pulse of mana—a magical artifact.

"Oho. This is..."

Ramang read the instructions aloud.

It was a piece that had not sacrificed beauty for function; the mana-stone setting was rather lovely.

Messi did not hesitate. He held it out to Erena.

"Y-you're giving this to me?"

"They say it's good for the health. You'll be working hard at your rehabilitation—I thought it might help."

"Ah... thank you."

Erena took the necklace, looking shy. Her escort knight fastened it around her throat, and she turned her flushed cheeks toward Messi to show him.

"Well? Does it suit me?"

"You ought to be showing it to your brother—it came out of the Number One I drew! And what would a man who grew up in the forest know about beauty anyway?"

"Brother, please be quiet."

It did suit her. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠And yet on Erena it did not look so much like an ornament hung at her throat as something that had always belonged there.

"It suits you very well, Lady Erena."

"Thank you, Sir Messi."

She seemed pleased, at least. That was enough.

Next was the one Messi had wanted most: Number 761.

Thanks to Kkyu's advice, though, he already had a fair idea of what was inside.

"What?"

Ereb's eyes went wide, as if he could not believe it.

What came out of Number 761 was none other than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Spirit Jade.

Thank you, Kkyu. Things worked out because of you.

Back when Messi had been turning over how to handle the Spirit Jade bidding, Kkyu had sent a thought.

Kkyu's words had let Messi turn the situation to a different use entirely—a trap, aimed to land a killing blow on Rowin.

The Spirit Jade's appearance delighted Ereb more than anyone.

"I was the one who swapped in the 761 paddle, wasn't I? Haha! Consider it my gift, Messi!"

"I was already planning to."

The answer pleased Ereb. Things had, without his meaning them to, fallen out exactly as he had wanted—and that only made him happier.

One box left.

Messi opened Huang Box Number 41. Inside lay a black cloak.

"Mm. This would be a Cloak of Stealth."

Ramang read the instructions in his place.

In other words: the perfect tool for anyone who needed to go walking at night without being seen. Having one on hand could never be a bad thing.

All that trouble of learning the paddle numbers and swapping them had been worth it.

I can think of a use for this already.

Messi smiled.