Retirement in the Next Life

Painful as it was, I had no choice but to admit my post had been pure garbage.

The price of spouting half-baked nonsense about Rustyterra from my bedroom without even knowing the Empire's latest barrier news had been catastrophic.

"How humiliating. My perfect defeat."

Scratched raw by the gallery's devastatingly well-aimed mockery, I finally flipped my phone face-down.

"I was busy this time, so it turned into a trash post—but next time I'll lock in and drop a proper mega-tier shitstorm!!"

With that, I pulled the blanket over my head, grumbled for a while, and eventually sank into a deep sleep.

When the bright moon slipped back behind the clouds, the slum sank once more into its native darkness.

In the dead of night, a black shadow came to a silent halt before the unmarked Skill Rental Shop.

The shadow circled the storefront, inspecting it with deliberate care, then stood motionless for a long while, staring up at the second-floor window alone.

As it turned to leave, a breeze threading through the alley lifted the hem of its cloak.

Beneath the flipped edge, the embroidered crest of a lion with bared claws was revealed.

The imperial coat of arms.

The shadow vanished back the way it had come.

Not a soul on the second floor knew a thing about it. They slept on, deep and undisturbed.

Kkamagi, Beatrice, Celia… all of them.

"Oh, come on! Who's making all that racket this early?"

I woke to the sound of murmuring voices.

The one good thing about this neighborhood was how quiet it was—so why were people talking outside first thing in the morning!?

This had never happened before.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, got up, and opened the window.

"……What on earth is this? Why are there so many people?"

I scowled down at the alley beyond the glass. Something had clearly happened.

From that day forward, Ash Valley began changing by the hour.

The place where the Wolf Huntress noble lady who had wiped out the Bell Family's pack of hunting dogs and Butcher Graul was supposedly in hiding.

As rumors spread that a witch who rode a giant crow—suspected of being her accomplice—lived here too, people began drifting one by one into this former cesspit of a slum.

A street that had once seen only the occasional vagrant, thug, or junkie was starting to feel strangely… hip.

"……Oh, what is this!? Is this Mullae-dong? Seongsu-dong?"

I hated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠crowded places!

I had been very clear—crystal clear—that I wanted to hide from every gaze in the world and freeload in peace, so I had hunted for the deepest, most out-of-the-way corner even among the slums.

That was how I had settled on this place, and once I was here, I had meant to stay quietly tucked away and suck the honey for a long, long time.

But the distinctive stench of the slums had vanished without a trace, and the street now reeked of roasting coffee beans.

What if someone claiming to own this abandoned building showed up next?

My mood soured badly.

That was when it happened.

"……Huh?"

A hundred thousand percent odds!???

The sudden news of a massive deposit sent my excitement soaring until my head went light.

Whoa, how many zeroes is that??? Was this the start of true freeloading retirement at last!?

Then my eyes snagged on the single line of fine print above the deposit amount.

What? Tax withheld at 33.33333%???

"……So there was a freeloader even worse than me."

With a full third of the payout sliced off, my excitement cooled at light speed.

…Nothing I can do about it.

Getting mad over things I can't change is a waste of time.

What mattered was that my account now held a cool one billion gold!

From this moment on—the eat-and-play life begins!

"……My ass. There's no way this is enough to retire and freeload!!!"

I glared at my balance.

"If I'd known it would turn out like this, I should have taken out a loan on the status window!"

One billion gold? It was only enough to party hard for about ten years. For buying a building in the heart of the imperial capital and living in luxury for the rest of my life, it was less than a twentieth of what I needed.

"Ha, so in the end I still have to keep running the shop…! My beautiful retirement plan, washed away like that."

Worse still was the reality that even with a billion gold sitting in my account, I couldn't step outside to spend a single coin thanks to the throng of tourists and adventurers packing the street.

Ugh. What good is money if you can't use it.

"Tch, this won't do. Tomorrow I'll put on a disguise and go real-estate shopping in some other quiet slum. Ash Valley is already done for."

But that was tomorrow's problem. Right now, survival was the issue.

I was hungry, I didn't want to go out because of the crowd, and the fridge was empty.

In the end I scooped up Kkamagi, who had been dozing off on the counter.

"Kkamagi, this is a pain, but I need you to run an errand."

I smoothed its feathers with a silk handkerchief, then wiped around its eyes and beak.

After all, if you're going on an errand, you shouldn't look so scruffy that people ask whose crow you even are.

Our Kkamagi, finally old enough for shop errands. Look at you grow.

I firmly tied a note and a small leather pouch with twenty thousand gold to its ankle.

The note politely read: [One bag of rye bread, one pouch of Earl Grey tea leaves, one bottle of milk. Keep the change.]

"Go to the grocery, show this nicely to the shopkeeper uncle, and bring back the goods. Don't get dazzled by anything shiny and follow some stranger—just buy the stuff and come straight home, understood?"

"Caw!"

Kkamagi nodded cleverly, then flapped its wings and sailed lightly out the open window.

It couldn't talk, but its instincts were sharp as a ghost's, so there shouldn't be any trouble.

After Kkamagi left, I leaned back against the living-room sofa and fiddled with my phone.

The gallery was filling in real time with posts that made my blood pressure spike.

Give me a break. Guys who couldn't even place a bet and got completely cleaned out were doing hipster cosplay now?

Watching them spiral about going on a slum food-crawl date made my head spin.

"Ah, this is actually ridiculous……. You people! Stop coming to our neighborhood for fun!"

Whether Beatrice knew about any of this or not, she was scrubbing the floor with single-minded fervor without anyone having asked her to.

"…Lady Beatrice."

"Yes! What is it?"

"Stop scrubbing the floor already. If you keep scouring it with an S-class skill like that, the floorboards themselves are going to wear away."

"Yes, understood!"

"By the way, when are you finally going to change out of that maid outfit?"

"Ah… it's the combat uniform that brought me my first victory, so I've grown rather attached to it! If it bothers you to look at, I'll change into something else at once."

"It's not that it bothers me—more that the thing is so torn and worn out it looks ready for the trash. I'll buy you new clothes, so until then, wear our shop uniform for a while."

"Yes. Understood, Witch."

Come to think of it, this girl had always worn things like silk dresses. Wouldn't something like this feel uncomfortable?

Even if her house had fallen, she was still the young lady of a noble family. I felt like I hadn't been considerate enough of her.

Tomorrow, when I went house-hunting in another slum, I'd stop by a clothing shop and get her a silk homewear dress, I decided.

Until then, there wasn't much choice.

It wasn't like I could put her in my witch robes either.

I passed the time fretting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over Beatrice's wardrobe, and before I knew it a full hour had gone by.

Sunlight was already pouring warmly into the middle of the living room, yet there was still no sign of even Kkamagi's shadow.

On a normal day it would have flown back within five minutes, trailing the smell of fresh bread.

I finally couldn't take it and shot to my feet.

Beatrice, who without being told had switched to diligently dusting this time, seemed to sense something was off as well; she glanced at me carefully.

"Um…… Miss Celia. Has Kkamagi still not come back?"

"Yeah. It's been an hour with no sign of it. Where on earth is that bird goofing off."

"Could it be…… that it took the money in that leather pouch and ran away from home? I've heard even spirit beasts go through puberty these days."

"Ran away?"

I let out a hollow laugh at the sheer absurdity.

"Kid, our Kkamagi isn't that kind of bird. It may not be able to talk, but it's a Level 2 spirit beast officially certified by the system window—there's no way it's that dumb. If it were going to run away, it would've cleaned out my bank account first."

"Ah…… When you put it that way, that makes sense. I suppose I underestimated a spirit beast's intelligence."

Beatrice flushed and lowered her head in embarrassment.

Either way, I needed to find Kkamagi fast.

I opened the window and called for it toward the open air a few times.

Normally it would have come flying the moment it heard my voice, but all that reached me was the chatter of passing tourists.

An ominous feeling settled over me, and I picked up the smartphone I'd tossed on the sofa.

Until now I'd tried to wait and trust Kkamagi, but this clearly wasn't a matter of trust anymore—it was a matter of safety.

Out of respect for its privacy I usually refrained from using this, but this time I had no other option.

I woke the screen and activated the vision-sync streaming function with Kkamagi.

The display crackled for a moment, then the relay feed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠resolved—and my brow furrowed hard.

"Kkamagi! What are you doing in a place like that!?"

On the screen, Kkamagi was huddled and bound inside a dark, filthy iron cage.