The girl in the ten-gallon hat gazed at the small figures lined up on the table like chess pieces. They looked like the sort of thing one might find in a box of cereal. She picked up one between her fingers and placed it down with a satisfying Clack!
“How’s that?”
“Excellent move, My Lady,” replied the dark-skinned, glasses-wearing elf in a flattering tone.
The negligee-clad Celsa silently looked back and forth between the pair as they spoke, as if she were refereeing a tennis match. They were sitting in a fancy restaurant, a little before opening time, around a table draped not with a tablecloth but with a large map of Tokonatsu City. However, this was not a map of landmarks and street names.
“…The blank space between the subway tunnels, hmm?” said Cindy.
“A unified, standardized subway system sounds handy in practice,” explained Ayame, “but in truth it’s only adding the issue of authority to a system that’s already complicated enough to navigate as it is. The train companies are so caught up in arguing over which areas are whose responsibility that even they don’t know who controls what anymore.”
Her dark elf companion agreed. “Plus, barely any Dealers care about public transport. None of them would care if some train line looked crooked; they’d just assume it was bent around a tiny piece of land the owner refused to sell.”
“That settles it, then. That’s where the Mind is hiding the final Legacies. Deep underground.”
“And once we find them, we can start tearing apart the code of Money (Game) Master.”
Pinning down the vault where your enemy hid their jewels was not a feat that could be achieved through trial and error. As Ayame logically thought it through, she felt a sense of nostalgia. This had been her job back in the days of Called Game. She had always been better at it than her brother, who was so unreasonably skilled that he could overcome most obstacles through brute force alone. Perhaps it was because she was more comfortable doing things methodically than going in guns blazing.
Argh, if only this game had a level-up system. I bet I’d be great at it then!
“Well, good evening, ladies.”
A sleazy voice came from one end of the room, and Ayame and Cindy looked over to see a blond gentleman wearing a white evening suit. He was not the owner of this restaurant, but it was currently under his possession as collateral for a loan. It was the pawnbrowker king, Frey(a).
Although this was a game, that didn’t mean fuel and ammo were unlimited, and there were only a few places one could replenish them without running afoul of the Mind.
“It appears your investigation has borne fruit, and for that, I am glad. As you are doubtless aware, I am not a fighter, and so the forms of support I can provide are woefully limited.”
“…I probably shouldn’t ask, but why are you helping us, again?”
Though Cindy and Tselika were apparently already acquainted with the man, it was Ayame’s first time meeting him. Naturally, she wanted to know more.
“I know everything’s settled away between you and big bro, but you do realize our mission concerns the whole of Money (Game) Master, right? If we screw this up, the entire game could be destroyed, and snow along with it. I’d have thought you’d care too much about your own investments to risk that.”
“Money is only a means to an end, my child. More than anything else, my goal is love. I’ll always extend a hand to help a girl in love, so long as she shares all the spicy details with me.”
“…”
“I adore the pure kind of love you see in storybooks, but I also can’t get enough of the more wicked and perverse varieties. Ah-ha-ha, all forms of love are valid in my eyes, so long as there is conviction. It might not be right, but it’s what I believe.”
As Ayame sat, unable to respond, Cindy stood.
“H-how did you know I harbor a forbidden interspecies, lesbian love for my mistress?!”
“True love is a risky thing, something you would rather keep pent up forever than blurt out and allow to shatter,” Frey(a) replied. “Perhaps if you were more than a well-crafted fake, you would know that.”
The man laughed cruelly and transformed into a beautiful woman in a snow-white dress.
“But I wish to devour love in all its most corrupted forms. I have tasted more flavors than there are stars in the sky, and yet yours is one I have never known. I want you to tell me so that I might know. What does it taste like to curse your own birth so?”
Ayame Suou remained silent.
Perhaps this indescribable something was what set humans and Magistelli apart. Tselika would probably disagree, though. Don’t lump me in with that thirsty two-faced dark elf! she’d say.
It was a short while before Ayame spoke.
“…It’s not fair.”
“Hmm?”
Celsa cocked her head expressionlessly.
“You know everything about me, even though I haven’t told you a word.”
“True,” replied Frey(a) with a smile. The Dealer who hunted love in all its forms was no doubt profoundly familiar with how tactless it was to reveal the secrets of another. Perhaps she even took pleasure in that moment of exposure.
“I was in love once,” Frey(a) said at last.
“Once?”
“But I was rejected. Told our love could never be. That my efforts would never bear fruit. Back then, I didn’t understand what that meant.”
The way she said it suggested there might have been some sort of power imbalance, but it was hardly objectionable as far as breakups went.
Except Frey(a) had power.
“My only choice was to test it out. I had to find out for myself what love was and what it could be. I became insatiable. Man, woman, young, old, I came on to whoever so much as looked at me. I was almost killed a few times. I used any methods at my disposal: persuasion, threats, devotion, violence, money. There was no one I couldn’t have, and with each new conquest, my encyclopedia of love gained another page.”
Here Frey(a) went silent. There was a long pause before she began speaking again.
“Everyone praised me. Everyone wanted me. Everyone opened their legs for me. Any age, any gender, any job, any standing. Even if they had to toss those labels aside.”
She spoke the words like a song, but there was no joy in them.
“Somewhere along the way, I realized something. I was happy to give out affection, but I was terrified of receiving it. I had so many balls to give out, but only one pocket in my heart. Now I’m scared of reuniting with my first love. Terrified, even. I’m not sure I’m ready to put that ball in my pocket, even if it was offered. I might say it’s not time for me to settle down, and pass them right by.”
Frey(a) laughed. It took some time for Ayame to realize it was a bitter laugh.
“So now, unable to commit, my heart is empty, and no matter how many people’s beds I share, I remain all alone. Perhaps I will stay this way for the rest of my life.”
There was a dull thud, as the girl in the ten-gallon hat slammed her empty cola bottle on the table.
One way or another, the two support roles would need to work together. And it wasn’t exactly kind to sidestep her question now, when Frey(a) had already revealed so much.
Ayame steeled her nerves and spoke. It felt just like a girls’ sleepover night.
“Fine. I’ll say mine, too. It’s only fair.”