Texas
“Thank you, James.”
But Colt had never wanted James watching him in the first place.
If James was the one keeping an eye on him...
A chill crept up his spine.
“Ho-jung, I’ve made up my mind now.”
“Then James’s surveillance becomes unnecessary too?”
“Of course!”
“That still doesn’t give you a reason to refuse, does it? If being watched wouldn’t be a problem, then all the more reason.”
“...Tch.”
From this point on, he would have no choice but to live under James’s watchful eye.
And he was a magician, too...
Colt knew very well that James was the one and only true magician in the world.
!
On top of that, while Su-ji and Ho-jung weren’t looking, James was circling a finger at Colt and pretending to cast magic. It was a warning that he would even use magic to keep watch over him.
...There was no escaping James’s grasp.
No matter where he ran on Earth, it would be useless.
“F-fine. I really have made up my mind.”
Click. Click.
Just then, a woman with a slim body barely covered by anything passed near the table where the four of them were sitting.
Colt’s eyes naturally began to scan her.
A narrow waist and full breasts, long legs... glossy hair and light but perfect makeup. Pass.
“......”
It was impossible for Ho-jung’s radar, which was trained solely on Colt, not to catch that movement.
Snap.
Ho-jung’s thumb and forefinger caught Colt’s plump chin and turned his face toward her.
“Ugh.”
“What? You’ve really made up your mind? No need for surveillance?”
“Th-this is just instinctive...”
“Why do you think James is doing this? Because men don’t have instincts? Huh? If your partner is sitting right next to you, you should know how to behave! Hm?!”
“Uuugh.”
“If you’re like this while I’m sitting right beside you, how am I supposed to feel safe?”
The half-clothed woman sat down at the table, showing off her long legs to the fullest. Naturally, Colt’s eyes drifted again.
“Again? Your eyes are wandering, huh? Huh? They’re wandering?”
“N-no... this isn’t what I really think...”
“James! You really need to keep a close eye on Colt! Got it!”
“I’ll make sure Colt doesn’t get up to anything.”
Their back-and-forth was unexpectedly entertaining, and James and Su-ji lost track of time watching them.
“Heh heh.”
“Ho-jung’s going to have her hands full from now on.”
“I told you. I said I was worried. People don’t change so easily.”
“Yeah. That’s why I said there was no need to worry for no reason.”
After a long while of fooling around, it was only late evening when the group finally sent Ho-jung and Su-ji home, leaving Colt and James behind to continue talking.
* * *
James opened his mouth after taking a sip of the liquor he had ordered.
“I’m thinking of buying a house in Korea.”
“Because of Su-ji?”
“That’s the biggest reason.”
“Any other reason?”
“I don’t know how long I’ll be staying in Korea, but I can’t keep living in hotels forever. I looked into it before coming, and they say investing in Korean real estate never really loses money.”
“So you’re planning to stay here a while?”
How long he would stay was still undecided.
“And I’ve been freeloading at Colt’s place all this time, so isn’t it my turn to pay you back?”
“...Huh?”
“If things really work out with Ho-jung, live there. I’m planning to buy a fairly big house, so there’ll be plenty of rooms.”
“Why are you already preparing for something that hasn’t even happened? You’ve only just said you’d start seeing her seriously.”
James added another reason.
“I wanted a place of my own too. It’s a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing.”
“Am I short on money or something? Rather than living in your house...”
Colt also had cash worth tens of millions of dollars.
“...how exactly are you planning to prove the source of your income?”
“...Ah.”
“You don’t think the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, stops paying attention just because you’re in Korea, do you?”
“Aren’t you the same?”
“I’ve got plenty of ways.”
“...Then that means I do too.”
Colt thought he could just use the same method James did, but the method James had in mind was something Colt couldn’t use.
“No. Only I can do it.”
“...Magic?”
It wasn’t magic, but something made possible by the inheritance he had received from his master in England.
“No. I happen to have a few antiques. I’m going to sell them through an international auction and raise the money that way. That doesn’t require a separate explanation for the source of income, so even if someone raises a fuss later, I can justify it.”
“Where exactly are these antiques I don’t know about...”
Colt could only think of the California-sized storage unit James had described as portable.
“...What’s in there?”
“I’ve got a few ancient gold coins.”
There were many other treasures besides those, but the only thing he could safely reveal to the market was the gold coins.
“An ancient gold coin goes for well over a million dollars apiece, you know?”
!
He had just checked the auction results for a similar ancient coin on his phone, and the winning bids had cleared the million-dollar mark.
“Besides, my ancient gold coins are probably worth a little more than Alexander the Great’s coins.”
The coin James had searched for was a gold coin stamped with Alexander the Great’s portrait, and because it was rare and historically valuable, it had gone under the hammer for an enormous sum.
“...Ah, Alexander the Great’s coins? You’re saying yours are even more valuable than that?”
“I told you. Do you know who my master is?”
“...Merlin.”
“Who comes to mind when you hear Merlin?”
Merlin Ambrosius, the strategist of King Arthur, was James’s master.
“...King Arthur.”
“Correct.”
The coin James possessed was a gold coin of King Arthur, unknown to the public until now, and it bore Arthur’s portrait.
“I don’t know how they’ll verify the authenticity of a coin that isn’t publicly known, but... if they’re experts, they’ll figure it out somehow.”
“You’re going to buy a house by selling that?”
“We’ll sell a few, see how much comes in, and if it isn’t enough, we can sell more.”
“How many coins do you have?”
“Enough.”
James emptied the glass in his hand and stood up.
“I’m too tired to keep going. I’m heading up now.”
“...Same here. We’ve been going non-stop since we got in.”
They had intended to rest as soon as they arrived, but instead they had spent the whole evening talking without a break.
“I’ll make sure Colt gets inside, then I’ll head in too.”
“...You really are watching me?”
“No, I meant I’d only check until the elevator.”
“Right?”
“Why would I bother with something that annoying? I’m too tired to even watch Colt go upstairs.”
“Heh. Right. We’ve spent plenty of time together, so there’s no way James would...”
“If you get up to anything, I can always castrate you.”
“...W-what?”
“I tested it on the guy who picked a fight with me in L.A. the other day, and it worked great. After being castrated, he wouldn’t even look at women anymore. The power of magic is something else...”
!
“I’m sorry for Ho-jung, but castration is the answer for Colt.”
“Hey!”
James made a scissor motion with his index and middle fingers as he spoke.
“Of course, I wouldn’t cut it off for no reason. Just do a little bit of fooling around.”
“Ugh!”
James turned away, leaving Colt hunched over with both hands covering his groin.
“Good night. Colt.”
“Damn it... that’s going too far...”
Just then, the half-clothed woman who had entered the bar gave Colt a sultry glance as she passed by the table, and Colt whipped his head away in a hurry.
If he got caught, he’d be cut off...
Castration was the most effective threat against Colt.
* * *
The next day, James looked for a place in Korea where he could conduct an international auction and learned that there was a Sotheby’s branch in Seoul.
If it’s a Sotheby’s auction, it can be trusted. There should be plenty of experts there too...
James didn’t hesitate. He called right away, made an appointment, and headed to the Sotheby’s branch.
“Welcome.”
“I’m James Kane. We were scheduled to discuss the auction items today.”
“Your reservation is confirmed. You said it was ancient gold coins, correct? I’ll call the person in charge.”
“Thank you.”
James sat down and waited while drinking coffee, and before long a foreign man wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses came in.
“Oh. James Kane. It’s a pleasure. I’m Jake Lyndon.”
“You know me?”
“It’s hard not to know a famous figure from Las Vegas.”
“Haha. Thank you, Jake. ...Are you American?”
Most Koreans didn’t know James, but Americans were different.
“I’m from Washington. I mostly work out of Washington and Singapore, but auctions are often held in Las Vegas too.”
“I see. I guess you saw it back then.”
“Yes. It was an unforgettable magic show. I still feel like the cards are flying in front of my eyes.”
“If today’s conversation ends well, I’ll show you a short one too.”
“Oh. Then I’d better make sure I give you a good result, wouldn’t I? Hahaha.”
The conversation after that went straight to the main point.
“But there are so many fake ancient coins out there that I’m rather worried.”
“Of course there are.”
James placed one coin he had taken out of inventory in advance onto a black velvet tray.
“But this one is genuine.”
“...Let me take a look.”
Jake put on white gloves, examined the coin, and then began checking the surface with a cylindrical scale loupe.
The coin was in remarkably good condition.
It’s almost too good a condition.
In cases like this, the odds of it being fake shot up exponentially, so it was actually a situation he did not welcome. After studying the coin for a while, Jake straightened his back and said,
“...Even for an expert like me, this is a form I’ve never seen before. Cases like this are very rare.”
He had phrased it carefully because he couldn’t bring himself to say outright that it looked fake.
“I expected as much.”
“By any chance, do you know who is engraved on this coin?”
“I’m not sure you’ll believe me, Jake.”
“So it must be someone I know?”
“Naturally. He’s famous enough.”
“...You’re not going to say Alexander the Great, are you?”
“Haha. I believe Alexander the Great’s coin came up at Sotheby’s before. So no, of course it isn’t Alexander.”
“Then who...”
“King Arthur, from the ancient oral histories of England. It’s his portrait.”
“......”
Jake stared blankly at James for a moment before quickly returning to the coin.
King Arthur? A coin of King Arthur?
Jake’s concentration was so intense that beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
The minting method is excellent, but it definitely has an ancient feel.
Still, certainty remained impossible.
It’s only exceptionally well preserved. It’s definitely old...
“...James. This item will need a little more verification.”
“I understand. If there were another surviving coin of the same kind, comparison would be easy, but that’s not the case, so it’s difficult. In the first place, even if someone doubts the coin’s existence, I have no way to prove it.”
James had been thinking that verifying the coin’s authenticity would require everything from carbon dating to the involvement of relevant experts. But Jake’s next words went far beyond what James had expected.
“...There is another coin of the same kind.”
“What did you say?”
A coin of King Arthur, identical to the one James had, did in fact exist.
“There is one in the British Museum, and another in the Vatican Museums in Rome.”
“What! There was? A coin of King Arthur?”
It was information James had never heard before.
“Neither museum has publicly displayed the coin, so very few people know what it looks like. Among experts, it’s regarded almost like a legend. But I can say with certainty that no expert doubts the coin’s existence.”
“That’s a relief. If there’s a specimen, checking authenticity shouldn’t be difficult.”
“Let me ask again, James. Is this coin really King Arthur’s coin?”
“Then I’ll give you the same answer again. It is definitely King Arthur’s coin, Jake.”
“...Phew.”
“How much can I get for it?”
“That’s not what matters right now...”
The appearance of a newly discovered King Arthur coin, one of only two in the world, was an enormous event.
“What could be more important than the winning bid at auction?”
“...Heh. True enough. Nothing matters more than the winning bid.”
If King Arthur’s coin already existed, pricing it wouldn’t be difficult.
Still, because it was such an important item, Jake couldn’t help asking one more question.
“...I’m sorry, but may I ask how you acquired this coin?”
“Mm...”
James couldn’t very well say he had dug up the coin in a place he had identified through Stonehenge, so instead he tied the coin to an old incident from when he had dug in the ground.
“...It was discovered at the house where I used to live.”
“So, in America?”
“Yes. In the yard of a house in Texas.”
At that moment, the yard of a house in Texas was transformed into a legendary excavation site.
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