What? Is that so? Because Mr. Chotos had gone all tense and dramatic, he had needlessly scared me. “Well, do you know how much these bills are worth?”
“Hmph, let me see… I don’t know the northern economy very well, so I can’t say. But I don’t think it’s some outrageous amount. At the very least, they’re not going to be worth more than an Earth Ogre sorcery core. So for you, it might not be worth it to make a trip all the way to snowy Selvei just to liquidate this cash.”
Mr. Chotos frowned at the bundle of bills, tilting his head in puzzlement. “From what I can tell, I think some scrips were taken out after they were bundled. Look, the string holding the bundle is a bit loose… Could this be the change leftover from a larger purchase?”
I also tilted my head. This Selvei scrip was a local currency. As such, it wasn’t strange to learn that its use was prohibited outside its territory. However, the presumably severe punishment that came with it was a bit much.
If I assumed the surrounding territories preferred to use gold and silver coins, then all the more universally useful money—gold and silver—would flow into the Selvei territory, be converted to scrips, and the money would…stop. It gave Selvei an overwhelming economic advantage. That would be bad. Hopefully, there were proper regulations in place.
Anyway, I was more interested in why Luvel Zairein had these northern-use-only bills while his summoning ritual was prepared in a deserted basin in the east.
I had read Zairein’s biography in his self-written books in his study. He was originally from the imperial capital, which was further west of Tibar. That biography never mentioned any connection to the north. Did this mean Zairein had obtained a large sum of local currency to buy something big in Selvei? Mr. Chotos’s earlier observation supported this.
As someone who intended to die and held no lingering regrets as he planned to end the world, what had Zairein wanted to buy in such a faraway place?
“You probably don’t know this,” said Mr. Chotos, “but Selvei is a recent addition to the empire as a result of the great Northern Expedition over thirty years ago. Their currency was different, and their laws were different, too. They even recognized the abominable custom of slave trading. Personally, I would never want anything to do with them, even if it was purely business-related.”
“Hmph, I feel the same. Trading in human beings? What an absurd place.”
As I spoke with Mr. Chotos, Gol stared at the Selvei scrips on the table. Usually, she never paid any attention when I talked to anyone else and only stared at my face. It was rare for her to look elsewhere. Also, she seemed a bit gloomy. Her long ears were tilted down.
Could it be that you hate these bills, Gol? I don’t have any particular need for these strange scrips, so if they make you this sad, I’ll burn them right away… Oh, right. They won’t burn.
“Well, frankly speaking, I don’t need these,” I said. “Do you want them, mister?”
“I don’t need them, either. Like I said, I don’t have any business partners in the north. And since the shop’s finally getting back on its feet thanks to you, I don’t want such problematic things tied to my business.”
“Argh, I can’t burn them and I can’t get rid of them! These Selvei scrips are practically industrial waste,” I spat as I chucked the bills into my bag.
Mr. Chotos frowned. “In-dues-treel waist… Huh, what’s that?”
“Ah, sorry. It’s a phrase from my hometown. Um, it means something like useless trash you can’t get rid of.”
“Oho, this is the first I’ve heard of it. What a strange phrase.”
As you may have just surmised, not only did my weird translation ability occasionally undergo gorillafication, there was this additional shortcoming I had just discovered, which functioned almost like a hole. In other words, vocabulary for concepts yet unknown to this world simply couldn’t be translated.
Somewhere in the process, actual Japanese generated in my brain and tried to make its way out of my mouth. How frightening. If I didn’t pay close attention, I might end up speaking Japanese in this place.
When I was with Master Speria, I had treated him as a respectable senior, so I had chosen my words with great care. Since I was so vigilant when speaking to the first living person I met in this world, I had managed to avoid using any words that could have revealed my translation shortcomings. Before that, Gol had been thoughtfully interested in everything I said, no matter what it was. Since I had never noticed this glitch before, it came as a bit of a shock when I first realized it.
Furthermore, since I spoke so casually with Mr. Chotos, and he met my retorts in kind, I was instantly aware of the misstep.
Incidentally, I think internet slang and game terms often slipped through my translation—take the “romance flag with a blossoming young lady” I went on about earlier. The word “flag” was outside the translation’s ability to accurately grasp. I felt a great deal of spite about this.
I mean, it was true that “flag” was itself derived from computer jargon and thereby involved some complicated implications. Accurate translation might have been genuinely impossible.
But I was interested in the fact that while my internet slang largely went untranslated, computer terms often worked out just fine. Words like “software” and “programming” apparently had readily parsed equivalents in this world’s language.
Given that, was it possible this world had computers, or perhaps spells that operated like them? It felt like a real possibility.
Lost in my thoughts, I stroked the unusually depressed Gol in my arms. As I pet her, she slowly returned to her energetic state. She buried her face in my chest and squirmed. Thank goodness.
At that moment, the bright afternoon sun flooded the interior of the shop. Mr. Chotos had reopened the shop’s shutter doors.
“Ah, right! Nemaki, there was something I forgot to tell you.” Mr. Chotos turned to me with a smile.
“Eh? What?”
“Ah, it’s really nothing. It’s just that I rushed back to the shop as fast as I could, but seeing you crying about destroying the mana tool surprised me and it slipped my mind. It turns out, with the profit I made from the sale of those sorcery cores, I can at last pay back my debt.”
“Oh, really? So you did get it done.”
Good for you, mister. But I-I wasn’t crying or anything!
Although he so casually insulted me with an entirely false revisionist history, Mr. Chotos looked really excited as he spoke. At the same time, he seemed just a touch nervous. “That’s why, in a few days, I plan on going to the branch office of the Paisley Company in the northern town of Zibil to repay the debt.”