SG! 08: Wheeling and Dealing

I had a dream.
It might’ve been because I got drunk and fell asleep in an unfamiliar place.

I was in a grassy plain. The blowing wind felt pleasant as it tugged at my hair. The sky was the bluest, the highest, the clearest I’d ever seen it.
From where I stood on a slope, I could see far out over the plains, beyond which there was a city.
I wanted to go there someday.
That was my modest dream.

“██████” 1

From behind me, someone called my name. A voice I knew intimately. I turned around, and I could see my ██████ in the distance, at the back of the mansion. I loved ██████. I broke into a run, heading toward that kindly smiling figure.

“██████?”

When I got close, I realized there was a boy just like me beside ██████, who was waiting for me. Confused, my steps faltered as I got closer.
I didn’t know this boy.
Only, that dignified bearing. That gleaming golden hair left an impression on me.

“██████”

I asked who he was.

“██████”

██████, he replied.

–

–

“…Who?”

I woke up in a bed with a wonderful snugness I wasn’t accustomed to. Looking up at the canopy, that was the first thing out of my mouth.
‘Who’.
Every person in that dream, including me.
I didn’t have any memories like that. At least, I’d never been to that place, never met those other two people.
And naturally, I’d never been the [me] in that dream.

What is all this?

Should I just explain it away as a ‘dream’?
Considering it, something tugged at me. I had a feeling it was something important.
I had a feeling. I had a feeling, but I didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was because of the process of waking up, or the booze I had yesterday, that my head was still in a daze.
Even though I tried to put it together, nothing fell into place. Damn it.

“Ugh, come on, what’s going on here?”

“What is it?”

“Well, I had this dre…–!”

As I absently answered that natural question, it hit me: something’s not right. I jumped out of bed and turned toward the source of the voice.

“Ah, good morning.”

Leon greeted me mildly, sitting on a chair placed against the wall of the large room.
He was cheerful, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be there.
While that may be true, there was no way I could just smile and play along.
My mouth opening and closing dumbly in the face of this overstep, I somehow squeezed out,

“Wh–why are you — here, L–Leon……milord?”

Even I had to admit my response was a mess. In the end, I managed to remember to tack on a ‘milord’.
What is this, I’m so embarrassed I could die. I was shaking too much, my heart thundering in my chest.
Wait, why did I have to feel like this first thing in the morning?
First of all, master of the estate or not, what the hell is he thinking, barging into a lady’s room in the early morning?
Or is this normal for nobility or something? If so, then why my room?
I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“Mmm… There’s no need to maintain an awkward pretense, you know? You and I are the only ones here, so just speak as you usually do.”

…This guy.
Despite the impact of his nonchalant words, at the same time, a sort of ‘I mean, right?’ resignation emerged inside me.
To tell you the truth, I was always wondering when we’d be exposed. So if it had to be now, I was fine with it, mentally speaking.

“…When did you figure it out?”

However, whether he knew the whole story was another problem entirely.
Returning to my usual tone, I chose my words carefully.
I still had no idea what this man was thinking.

“From the beginning, essentially,”

Leon declared shamelessly. I was more than surprised: I was dumbstruck.

“…You’re ruder than I thought.”

I didn’t know what part of the ‘beginning’ gave us away, specifically, but if it really was from the very beginning, then Palmira’s dedication to the act, to the point that she even hurt herself, and Aira’s storytelling — he’d seen through all of it.
Palmira aside, when I thought about how Aira’s smooth lies had been for nothing, she seemed incredibly pitiful to me.

“Well, everyone was desperate, after all. I thought that maybe if I went along for the time being, if I had a talk with you, I might understand the situation.” 2

Leon laughed, his tone slightly apologetic. He was surprisingly frank.
His words weren’t entirely unkind. But as a result, what followed grew harsher in comparison.

“But that’s beside the point.”

When I smiled wryly in response to his words, his tone dropped abruptly.
I braced myself for what was to come, raising my guard inside.

“We’ve sounded each other out, so I’ll get right to the point… You three are runaway slaves, am I correct?”

His smile persistent, Leon said it straight out.
Sitting in the chair with his arms crossed, there was an intensity in the eyes he turned in my direction. 3 But even without it, I couldn’t talk my way out now. Not with so much already in the open.

“…That’s right. How did you know?”

Asking ‘how’ after all that had happened felt really crass, but he heard me out anyway.

“Well, we’ve been on the lookout for illegal trading… ah, to put to simply, we were hunting slavers. But during the course of our pursuit, we found our targets destroyed by a goblin raid. That’s fine by us, but upon investigation, the number of slaves was too low. So I thought that you might be those missing slaves.”

No mistakes so far.
That was some coincidence, but his troops had moved with truly good timing.

“…And the goblins?”

“We were already on scene, so we took the opportunity to eradicate them. We’ve had reports on the damage they were causing,”

Leon said offhandedly.
I thought back to yesterday’s march. If he wasn’t lying, then they must have already ended the fight by that point.
But there wasn’t a hint of that in the atmosphere about them, and as far as I could tell, they hadn’t taken a single loss.
In other words, Leon was either lying, or the strength of those troops was no joke.
And thinking about it, there was no need for him to lie with that timing. Then that left one answer.

But assuming that it was as he said, then I had just one thought.
It was the slow-witted girl I killed back then.
Considering the timing, Leon must have made contact with the goblins within a day of our escape.
It might even have been right after.
If that was the case, then maybe, even if I’d left her alone, she might have survived. 4 Even we might have been able to [manage somehow] just by sitting tight.
…No, that’s just a possibility. At the end of the day, results are everything.
Same goes for killing people who might have survived. Even if I thought about what happened, I couldn’t do anything about it.
But, like a small thorn, it stabbed into my heart.

“…So does that wrap things up for now?”

They might have been destroyed, but he did catch the slavers he was chasing. The goblins had been exterminated too.
And they all lived happily ever after. The end.
I smacked my hands together as if to say ‘That’s that’.

At which point Leon laced his fingers together with a frown.

“No, now that it’s come to this… we’re left with one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“The truth is, the objective of our mission isn’t to capture slavers in particular. Well, it is in a sense.”

Leon continued in the same tone as before. Looking at him, I had a bad feeling.
Like I’d better not hear anything beyond this point.

“We’re aiming for a bigger prize. The head of the slavers. Who do you think that is?”

“You had a guess in the first place?” 5

I can’t hear any more of this.
Alarm bells were going off in my head. But to my dismay, I ended up hearing it anyway.

“It’s Guibenague.”

I drew a sharp breath. It was none other than the lord of this city.
Although, a city lord would be the head of a slaver ring. Figures.

But thinking about it calmly, it did explain everything.
Where were those slavers headed?
Sure, I guessed that they would’ve had an easier time here than in Kakrawanga, but based on what we saw, this city conducted inspections too. In that case, how were the slavers planning to get through the door?
And then there were the rumors about Guibenague.

[He has many, many slaves.]

…And he didn’t just own slaves, he sold them too.
What’s more, this was a port town. Ideal conditions for shipping out those slaves.

“…So that’s what’s going on?”

“Yes. That’s why we tried to capture the slavers and arrest him with irrefutable evidence, but… Before we could, it burned to ashes. All of it.”

Now that you mention it, yeah.
At the time, there certainly was a carriage that was rather noticeably on fire. That was probably where they kept the contracts.

“And that puts us in a dilemma.”

Leon spread open his hands as he concluded his story.

“Why? If you know that much already, shouldn’t you just barge into his estate or castle or whatever to investigate?”

The continuing alarm bells drove me to speak. Unconsciously, my hands squeezed the blanket.

“The worst option, but workable nevertheless. However, because our adversary is essentially nobility, if by some chance we failed to turn up evidence, it would be inexcusable.”

Sure, that might be true.
I didn’t know Leon’s rank, but perhaps under those circumstances, even the emperor would find it rather difficult.
Nobles were a powerful bunch.

“Therefore — ”

“No way.”

When Leon tried to advance the conversation again, I immediately responded.

“…I haven’t said anything yet, have I?”

“No, but I have a fair idea. Anyway, you want us to infiltrate that middle-aged lord’s place as slaves, right?”

I glared at him. 6
Finally understanding what the alarm bells were for, I bluntly threw what he wanted to say back at him.
That was all it took to ease the pressure in my chest. He wasn’t an unlikeable bastard, but like hell I was going to dance to his tune.

“That’s right. Having these talks progress quickly is a great help.”

“Who’s helping you! It sure as hell won’t be us! You’re saying we have to become slaves again!” 7

Common sense dictated that I refrain from following up with ‘Are you an idiot!’
But I was bursting with feelings I wanted to express. 8

“Hmm, mmm, then I have a problem on my hands. I would’ve been glad if I could’ve had my request fulfilled, but perhaps I should notify Guibenague that I have runaway slaves in my care instead? It’s true, after all.”

“Is that what you’re saying?”

A threat.
Leon, gentleman. I thought he was no ordinary person, but did that just mean that he didn’t have an ordinary person’s kindness?
…The image I had just a minute earlier fell to pieces.

“Well, take it as a joke. Let’s move on to negotiations here. Should you cooperate with me in this matter, you will receive this much in compensation per person,”

said Leon, raising three fingers.
…Three?
Three can mean very different things, depending on whether you’re talking copper, silver, or gold. So, the unit.
I considered it for a bit. Let’s assume it’s three gold coins.
Three gold coins comes out to thirty thousand coppers, a substantial amount for us adventurers.
Because a day’s living expenses come out to about fifty coppers, that much will last for about two years, if you don’t go on a spending spree. I was willing to continue this stalled conversation if there was involved.

Slavery, though.
Slavery, again.

I found the idea repulsive from the bottom of my heart.
And to go voluntarily to boot. While I’m on the topic, Aira and Palmira are sure to refuse as well.
Besides, before our escape, we were treated like cargo at worst because we hadn’t yet been sold. But in front of that old pig Guibenague, if we were unlucky, we were liable to be suddenly attacked. Much as I hate to say it, I believe in my looks.
In other words, we’d be treated as female slaves, completely. That was truly repulsive.

“No way.”

I shook my head decisively.

“Then, this much.”

Leon raised another finger. Forty thousand. Two years and change. But.

“No means no.”

Shaking my head, I turned away.
…For some reason, I felt like I was being kinda girly right now.
Leon sighed. “Very well then, this much. Listen, I can’t go any higher than this, you know?”

And then there were five fingers. I glanced at them.
Fifty thousand. Enough for three years. Or perhaps I should say, with fifty thousand, I could buy all sorts of things. I’d exercised self-control during my stint as an adventurer. A new sword, new armor —

Guh–, I can’t.

Scolding myself for slipping into those dreams, I shook my head.

“I refuse! It’s not a question of money!”

Feeling an attachment to the hair on the back of my head, I still spoke decisively.
In response, Leon, with a face full of heartfelt dejection, looked at his palm and simply said,

“Is that so… Even for fifty?”

Clatter-

“Fifty!?”

Those murmured words hit me so hard I just about fell off the bed.

“Yes, fifty.”

Fifty!? What?
Five hundred thousand, umm, that makes it thirty years… No, god, even that conversion is absurd.
With five hundred thousand, I could even afford to stop being an adventurer and take up a different trade. And I had to hire a mage to return me to normal, didn’t I?
What’s more, he said it was per person.
If the three of us could live together, that meant one and a half million!

“If there’s nothing else for it, then I’ll find another way.”

“W–Wait a minute.”

Please wait.
I desperately stopped Leon as he started to get up.
Even so, I was still a bit conflicted. But it was five hundred thousand.
Even if I were to work as an adventurer after this, I probably wouldn’t even make a tenth of that. Of course, with insane levels of luck, it was possible.
But just barely. Those were astronomical odds.
I was torn.

“What is it?”

Leon sat back down in the chair. If he so much as cracked a smile, I might have refused.
I didn’t know what was going on inside his head, but he looked at me with his head tilted to the side. Ahh, I’m getting pissed.

“I got it, alright–!? I’ll do it! I’ll be a goddamn slave or whatever!”

I spat out the words. It was like spitting up blood.

“Perfect.”

As expected, Leon smiled sweetly, without the slightest hint of sarcasm.

Author’s Notes
Somehow, I feel like the character’s deviated a bit.

Footnotes
1. I’m going to use blockquotes for sections like this dream sequence, where “I” refers to the feminine pronoun watashi, as opposed Chris’s usual masculine ore.  
2. Help?「いやぁ、だって皆さん必死でしたし、取りあえずここは付き合って、話を合わせるほうが空気が読めてるかな、と」
3. Skipped: 有無を言わせぬ 
4. Skipped: 開き直って考えれば 
5. Guessed: それって、だいたいアタリが付いてる、って事か？ 
6. Chris’s glare is described as sanpaku, i.e. showing the white between the bottom of the iris and the lower eyelid. Here is an artist’s rendition of Chris not buying any of Leon’s BS 

7. Chris goes all-out guyspeak here. He’s that pissed. 
8. Skipped: 勝手ばっかり言ってんじゃねえ