The day after Mac-kun’s wedding, I was at the royal castle.
My purpose was to receive my reward from the king.
He gave me a fine wooden box, documents granting tax exemption, documents granting sales rights, documents granting land ownership, and 50 billion G.
They apparently couldn’t prepare the entire 800 billion G at once, which is why I agreed to receive it in instalments.
Having received what I was due, I left the castle.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
At Clover General Store.
I handed Rion-kun 100 million G.
“Master, are you sure?”
I wrote, [Hold onto it for now.]
“Master, it makes me uneasy to carry such a huge amount of cash on me like this.
Please make me a personal safe, separate from the store’s.”
Hmm, no problem at all.
Using Separation Alchemy, I created a block of stainless steel. Then, with Transformative Alchemy, I made the safe and placed it in a corner of the living space.
“This is a metal I’ve never seen before?”
I wrote, [It’s called stainless steel alloy.]
“Alloy, like bronze?”
[Yeah], I wrote.
Since he asked about alloys in detail, I pulled out my typewriter and wrote down everything I remembered about alloys.
When I handed him the paper, Rion-kun was really happy.
Looks like knowledge makes people happier than money.
Money is necessary, too.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
Next, we head to the inn.
I knock on the door.
“Coming! Oh, it’s Neko-san.”
“Nyaa (Excuse me).”
I give Nancy-san a quick bow and step inside.
“Neko-san! Welcome!”
Nell greets us from the front desk.
Yotsuba seemed to be napping.
“Alright then, Nell. I’ll watch the inn while you play with the Neko-san.”
“Yay! Neko-san, over here!”
I head to the office with Nell.
It really is lonely without Mac-kun around.
“What should we play today?”
“Nyaa (Alright, let’s play Gomoku).”
I take out the board and stones.
Nell’s pretty intense, so I have to play seriously, or I’ll lose.
Childish?
There’s no such thing as adults or children in a game.
Right, I should share the reward I got from the King with Nell, too.
[I got a reward from the king. It was a lot of money. How much do you want?]
“Money? I don’t need any~?”
Well, Nell is still only nine.
Maybe I’ll give it to her when she’s older and understands the value of money.
We played Gomoku instead.
My record was three wins and eight losses.
Nell is way too strong.
Later, Yotsuba woke up. When I tried to give her the money, she handed me 30 million G instead.
She said it was to repay what she’d borrowed from me before.
I’m not so desperate that I’d extort money from kids, so I gave it back.
On the contrary, Yotsuba refused my gift of money, saying, “Gifts without reason are unsettling.
In the end, I decided to give Yotsuba 100 million G and told her to use it if Nancy-san ever needed help.
We agreed that from now on, we would split the store’s necessary expenses evenly.