ch24

“This is absurd.”

“You’ve been saying that since earlier. Aren’t you tired of it, being a man?”

Kyle grumbled incessantly as they headed to the moneychanger, the pouch now bulging with silver coins, threatening to burst.

“Is it even possible that a guy who just came to the human world has more money than I’ve saved for over two years, risking my life?”

He had been ecstatic when he actually won the gambling game, but after receiving the silver coins from the trembling hands of the gambler and holding them up, he seemed to be overcome with a sense of emptiness, and he had been grumbling ever since.

I understood, so I left him alone.

He’ll get tired soon.

Many moneychangers were located near the bridge, not too far from the market.

I visited one of them to exchange the money.

“At today’s rate, one gold coin is worth 28 and a half silver coins, and the exchange fee is 12 copper coins per gold coin.”

“I’ll exchange four gold coins.”

I started taking out the silver coins from my pouch one by one and placing them on the moneychanger’s stall.

The moneychanger began to pick out only the silver coins of decent quality, even using a crude scale.

Even in this era, currencies were issued by various sources, and even those issued from the same place varied in purity and shape.

I guessed that this was more due to a lack of technology than intentional manipulation.

Even though exchanges were picky about the exchange, they generally considered and used them unless the quality felt excessively poor.

Perhaps after more time passes and a nation or a system equivalent to it is established, an era will come when the quality of currency represents the power of the issuer, just like in my previous life.

After the tedious task of exchanging the silver coins for gold coins, the bulging pouch became slim again.

I was satisfied to see that the pouch, even when placed inside my clothes, didn’t feel cumbersome or ruin the silhouette of my outfit.

As they left the moneychanger, Kyle looked enviously at the pouch near my chest, then seemed to remember something and wore a worried expression.

“Will it be okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Those gamblers.”

“Ah.”

“…Did you do something?”

“Well, the trick itself was used by the other party first.”

“That guy… he was glaring at you like he wanted to kill you. Usually, those kinds of guys have dangerous people backing them up.”

I remembered the gambler handing over the money with a pale face, and the shill who later glared at me with murderous intent.

Even when I told him to smile, he wouldn’t listen.

Since he was playing the role of a shill, shouldn’t he smile all the more to be a true professional?

I simply shrugged my shoulders in response.

“Well, what can I do? It’s his karma for cheating. Those who try to stab others in the back should know that their own backs can be targeted as well.”

“…Aren’t you scared? They might retaliate… If they’re doing that kind of thing, they must be bad guys.”

“Scared? Me? Of them?”

I stopped walking, looked up at Kyle, pushed up my bamboo hat with my right index finger, and grinned fiercely.

“You must be joking, right? There’s no way I’d be afraid of thugs who manage gambling dens in the marketplace.”

Isn’t that like a tiger being afraid of a mouse, or rather, a flea?

I was a being as big as the Giant Brothers, and I didn’t feel like I would lose even if a hundred of them came at me.

Not to mention thugs who haven’t accumulated a single ounce of energy in their bodies and comfortably resort to occasional fistfights against fellow humans in the city?

Even if ten thousand came, it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Still…”

“…Ha, I guess I haven’t shown you my skills since we first met, since I’ve been keeping the riffraff from approaching throughout the trip.”

“Huh? Where are you going?”

“Just follow me quietly.”

Realizing what Kyle thought of me, I felt offended and started walking into any alleyway among the several branching off the road.

The deeper I went, the farther I got from the road, and the sounds of people talking gradually diminished.

“…This isn’t the way to our inn…?”

Kyle, feeling the eeriness of the disappearing atmosphere, shrugged his shoulders and followed behind, using Rudolph as a shield.

Rudolph, annoyed by being stuck to from behind, shook his body in protest.

How can a man be so timid?

“Why did you come this way anyway? Do you even know where you’re going? This area isn’t very safe.”

“Yeah, it’s a place where someone could die or disappear without anyone knowing. Stop talking so much, I think we’ve arrived.”

“What kind of gruesome things are you saying… Arrived? Here? There’s nothing here?”

Kyle stopped in the middle of the alleyway and looked around with a puzzled expression.

I hadn’t explained enough to Kyle.

“It’s not ‘we’ who have arrived, but ‘they’.”

As my voice echoed in the deserted alleyway, signs of life began to appear in various parts of the alley.

Men with extremely menacing expressions appeared, emitting a grim aura and blocking various parts of the alleyway.

Their faces, already unique due to scars, looked even more vicious as they contorted their expressions and took out tools such as knives and clubs.

But they didn’t feel threatening at all.

‘Is there one exception?’

One of the men had a face that was swollen like a well-risen bread.

The gambler I had met earlier was among the men, his face beaten up, probably held responsible for his failure by his colleagues.

“Hiek…!”

“You’re quite perceptive.”

“Well, yeah, thanks to that, I made quite a profit, didn’t I?”

I took out the pouch containing the gold and silver coins and jingled it provocatively.

The provocation worked, and the shill who had led this group lowered his voice and said,

“I don’t know what tricks you used, but thanks to you, we’ve lost a lot of money, not to mention today’s business. We’ve lost all the money we’ve made for a while.”

“Business refers to mutually beneficial transactions, not riffraff preying on the common people through gambling.”

“…Ha! I don’t know what a little girl is relying on to be so arrogant. Do you not understand the situation you’re in?”

I exaggeratedly turned my head around and answered,

“The situation where riffraff don’t know their place and are forming a gang to block my path.”

“…You little bitch.”

The shill, true to his riffraff nature, spat out vulgar words and seemed about to lunge forward, but a figure a head taller than him appeared from behind and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.

“Don’t be reckless, Gid.”

“Leader Adral…!”

The man whom these riffraff called Adral walked in expressionlessly.

Was he a little over 1 Elte 90 Pate (1m 90cm)?

Considering that the average height of men in this era was barely over 1 Elte 60 Pate (1m 60cm), he was definitely tall enough to make you crane your neck to look up.

Kyle flinched every time he approached, and by the end, he was cowering behind me.

What a pathetic man.

“Are you the leader of these riffraff?”

“A young girl with a foul mouth. Yes, I am. Are you the one who ruined our business?”

“Putting aside the filthy language, I took it through a fair game, though?”

“We always win at the end of that game.”

“…You’re not even hiding that it’s a rigged game.”

Adral crossed his arms and looked down, saying,

“Compensate us for interfering with our business.”

I let out a hollow laugh at his more brazen attitude than I had expected.

His attitude was so confident that I momentarily wondered if I had really done something wrong.

I wondered how shameless he could get.

“How much do you want?”

“Ten gold coins.”

“You crazy bastard!”

At those words, Kyle, who had been cowering behind Rudolph, jumped out in a frenzy.

Even though Adral glared at him intimidatingly, he fearlessly pointed his finger and started arguing.

“We only won about three gold coins from you, so how does three gold coins plus seven gold coins equal ten gold coins!”

I guess he really is a merchant.

Come to think of it, Kyle had been risking his life to do business since the first time I met him.

He was trembling so much just now, but he can become so brave when it comes to money.

“There are other customers who have won money besides you. More than anything, our colleague has suffered a great emotional wound, so that’s included in the compensation.”

He said that and slightly turned his body to shield the gambler whose face was swollen from being beaten.

“…Didn’t you guys do that to him?”

Kyle said in disbelief, but Adral continued to say only what he wanted to say, unconcerned.

“If you can’t pay the compensation, you’ll have to pay with your body.”

With that, Adral pushed back the bamboo hat I was wearing.

When he met my eyes, he looked dazed for a moment, but he regained his senses and opened his mouth.

“Indeed, I could sell you for a high price.”

“Are you even doing human trafficking? How are you going to handle the karma that’s piling up?”

“I don’t know. I’ve lived like this until now, but I’ve never paid the price even once.”

“…This kind of thing can’t be allowed-“

“You’ve been noisy since earlier.”

Without warning, he swung his fist at Kyle’s face, so I grabbed Kyle by the collar and pulled him down.

Adral, who had ended up swinging at the air, looked down in surprise, but I ignored his gaze and looked at Kyle, saying,

“Kyle, it would have been nice if you were a woman.”

“…What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Saving a young lady surrounded by thugs in a deserted alleyway is one of the romantic things, you see.”

“…?”

“Well, it’s just nonsense, so don’t think too much about it.”

Kyle seemed to be greatly shocked by Adral’s attack, muttering nonsense like, ‘A woman…? Does she like women?’

Adral, with a slight anger on his face due to the missed punch and the dismissive attitude, slowly opened his mouth.

“I usually don’t touch potential merchandise, especially fragile young merchandise, but…”

Adral said that and kicked me with all his might.

Thwack!

“You need some education!”

“Araya!”

“If I make you a little more docile…uh…Aaaaaaack!!”

“Huh…?”

Kyle screamed at the gruesome sound of bones breaking, but I calmly looked down at Adral, who was on the ground, clutching his leg twisted in an impossible direction and screaming like a girl.

“Now the height is a little better. My neck was hurting from looking up.”

“Y-You…you bitch…! Kill her! What are you doing! Kill her!”

“I advise you not to use such strong words like ‘kill’,” I said, loosening my neck and looking at the riffraff who were cautiously closing the distance, alternating between Adral screaming on the ground and me.

“Because you look weak.”