Whack-a-Mole (1)
"I still don't get it."
It was a name I'd been introduced to with the assumption that I'd naturally know it, but I couldn't recall it at all. The name U Gil still felt completely unfamiliar. What to do? Asking again would feel awkward given the atmosphere... but thankfully, Ser existed precisely for situations like this.
—Please don't arbitrarily decide the meaning of my existence.
She grumbled at first, but Ser responded right away.
"So, do you know or don't you?"
—...I do know, for now.
She kept grumbling with some incomprehensible metaphor about being treated like a mole or something, but in the end Ser lived up to my expectations and explained U Gil's identity.
—Do you remember the house where you got the medicine you fed to Sun Quan? She's the owner of that house.
"Ah, that one... What?!"
That problematic...! It seemed things were connected in the strangest way. I'd glossed over it at the time, but somehow the time to settle that debt had suddenly arrived.
"It seems you've realized it now."
U Gil smiled as if my reaction amused her.
"Then you must also understand why you need to repay the debt?"
"A debt, huh..."
She was right. Taking someone else's property without permission clearly meant I had to repay it. Especially when the other party could notice what I'd taken, chase me across any distance, and even intrude into my residence without hesitation. If people like that harbored ill will, things could get extremely troublesome. So when they were willing to treat me as a mere debtor rather than a thief, it was important to smooth things over appropriately... Thinking that, I nodded at U Gil's words, straightened my posture, and answered in a polite tone.
"Of course I must repay it."
Usually only fools came to their senses after tasting something spicy. As someone who claimed to be educated, I ought to show a different side. In that sense, I bowed my head to the person called U Gil, offered a sincere apology, and hoped to resolve the situation as smoothly as possible by discussing proper compensation afterward.
"I was absent during your visit, so I inevitably committed a discourtesy. I cannot fully replace it, but I will pay the full value of the medicine right now, and generously at that."
Fortunately, my pockets had been decent lately. I'd been shaking down plenty of people who had money these days, so I was among those with quite a bit of cash on hand. Even if that weren't the case, considering how much I'd gained from that medicine, I was willing to pay a steep price.
When I expressed my willingness to pay, U Gil seemed quite satisfied with my response.
"Is that so? I'm glad you're handing it over willingly. Now, let's see..."
She spread all ten fingers and began slowly calculating the medicine's cost one by one.
"First, the main ingredients were red lead, sulfur, white quartz, magnetite, and red clay. We should also include the cost of other materials used in the preparation process. Ah, but I won't charge for the labor. Um... and there were more things that went in..."
After repeatedly folding and unfolding her fingers for a while, U Gil even pulled out the toes hidden beneath her voluminous robes and started including them in the calculation. At first I thought it was just a habit, but was she really using them to calculate? This wasn't a child... Watching blankly, I felt fatigue creeping back in, so I sat down on the floor, rested my chin on one hand, and continued staring at U Gil's struggle.
Even after that, there was no sign of it ending, so I asked if she wanted help.
"Would you like some help?"
"Ah, no. I've finished calculating now."
I wanted to lie down, but U Gil was using both hands and feet for her calculations right where I would lie. I'd asked to help speed things up out of impatience, and she'd waved me off saying she was almost done—which was fine, except she suddenly made a troubled face right after.
"Whoops..."
"...I knew I should have helped."
She'd apparently forgotten her calculations while waving her hand in refusal. She should have written them down somewhere. I sighed, stood up, and approached her.
"Call out the numbers. I'll write them down and add them for you."
"........"
"What are you doing? Let's hurry. It's awkward for the one at fault to say this, but I'm really sleepy right now... If it's all right, I'd like to finish this quickly."
I really was sleepy, but I figured phrasing it this way would ease her mental burden a little. And it worked—U Gil initially tried to decline, but after hearing me out, she nodded.
"Thank you. I'll discount it a bit more in return."
"Never mind that, just call out the numbers."
"Ah, yes. Then... first, the white quartz..."
U Gil began calling out numbers again while counting on her fingers. She didn't need to, yet she kept doing it, so it seemed like a genuine habit. As I wrote down the numbers she recited, I realized she was listing the materials in a completely disorganized order. I paused her for a moment, neatly wrote the materials on the left and the order of use in the upper right for easy reference, then continued writing.
"Oh, this looks quite convenient?"
"Does it? I thought this was the normal way, given my situation."
"No, I'm not very good at thinking about things like this... Ah, where was I..."
"...From here."
It was a good thing I'd written it down, because U Gil got confused just from reciting the numbers. Yet she remembered the quantities of materials used in such precise detail—it was either impressive or bizarre... Either way, writing it systematically paid off, and I soon finished listing all the materials used. Next, I asked for the price of each material, wrote them down, and multiplied them by the quantities used.
"All right, now just multiply these..."
The final calculation was just adding up the multiplied values, so it didn't take long. However, a question suddenly arose during the process, so I set aside my desire to finish quickly and decided to ask U Gil after completing the calculation.
"Um... Miss U Gil?"
"Yes."
"I didn't call out anything wrong, did I?"
"Eh..."
U Gil leaned in close to me and tilted her head at my question. Then she pointed with her index finger and counted through everything I'd written before nodding. Normally this would have been a slightly heart-fluttering situation, but given the circumstances, my heart was pounding for an entirely different reason.
"Yes. Everything's correct."
"I see. So that's how it is..."
At her answer, I crossed my arms and fell into thought for a moment. The prices being higher than I'd expected was one problem, but the quantities of medicinal ingredients claimed were no joke. It seemed like at least a hundred times what I'd used, and she was charging for all of it. I could afford it, but procuring this much money would definitely invite scrutiny... It felt a bit shameless to say I'd pay generously and then do this, but I couldn't help asking.
"It's a bit late to say this after readily agreeing to pay generously, but the quantity seems much larger than the powder I used..."
"Of course it would be."
U Gil readily admitted it, but then added one more thing.
"Because you used my medicine without permission, all the medicine I prepared for my own purposes became useless. The amount includes those as well."
"Purposes?"
"Oh? Didn't you hear the story from Sun Quan? She probably mentioned it."
"...! Don't tell me, the immortal who fed medicine to Sun Quan?"
Come to think of it, Sun Quan had said something like that when explaining why the medicine hadn't worked properly on her. At the time I'd just thought there were surprisingly many immortals, but to think it was the same person...
"Of course it's me. Who else would it be?"
"Ugh..."
Honestly, I had my own objections about that part. When using the medicine, I hadn't anticipated that Sun Quan had already taken it before, so its effects wouldn't be as strong as expected, which had thrown my original plan into disarray. But when I thought about it, U Gil had started working on it first, and I was the one who used it without permission later and ruined her plan, so I wasn't in a position to complain. I could only click my tongue.
"Then I have nothing more to say... but before that, may I ask one favor?"
"...?"
U Gil's face clearly showed curiosity about what I wanted. I bowed my head and made my request.
"Withdraw your statement. Please discount it after all."