Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 36: The Classic of Mountains and Seas
Sols arrived, but he was far from unaccompanied.
Flanked by two sleek patrol cars, his luxurious steam-powered sports car hissed and puffed its way to the center of the gathered crowd. Beside him was not just his old, loyal butler but also an imposing briefcase forged from mythril alloy, gleaming ominously in the morning sun.
Armed officers clambered down from the patrol vehicles, their weapons glinting in the light, and with an almost brusque efficiency, they cleared a path through the curious onlookers, who had instinctively crowded closer to see what was unfolding.
There he stood—Sols—cigar clenched between his teeth, black sunglasses hiding any hint of expression, the mythril briefcase dangling casually at his side. Thanks to the officers’ intervention, a straight corridor now stretched before him, leading directly to the four figures encircled at the center: Marlon, the old paladin, the Claw Druid, and the goblin publisher.
“Check, let me see it,” Sols demanded, his voice calm but authoritative.
Under the gaze of hundreds of spectators, he strode toward Marlon with the confident gait of a man accustomed to commanding attention. Extending a gloved hand, pure white against the backdrop of the crowd, he waited.
Marlon, cooperating without hesitation, handed over the check.
“They’re acting! It’s all a show! They met secretly a few days ago!”
The goblin publisher shrieked, pointing accusingly at Marlon and Sols, his voice grating like metal scraping against stone.
“Oh, and you must be the infamous publisher, Mr. Gavin Riley, notorious for exploiting fledgling authors?” Sols glanced at him, a faint, ironic smile tugging at his lips. “Riley, you seem to have forgotten that Emerald Crest Publishing has maintained business relations with Sols Bank for over thirty years. Its owner, Miss Ivna, brought her newly discovered prodigy to open a VIP account with us—a bank account capable of withdrawing massive sums at any time. Surely… there was no need to inform you, a competitor, about such a transaction?”
He paused for dramatic effect, then lightly tapped a slender finger against his temple, feigning sudden realization.
“Ah, now I remember! It does concern you, doesn’t it, Mr. Riley? I heard that a few days ago, this very young prodigy author standing before me intended to sell one of his novels to you, yet you offered a paltry buyout of only two hundred Lants. And in your attempt to claim the manuscript, you refused to return the original, forcing the child to concoct a story about a ‘hidden secret’ in the manuscript just to retrieve it?”
Sols’s casual revelation, delivered as if it were mere trivia, immediately left the goblin publisher red-faced and speechless. His indignation erupted into a shrill cry:
“Lies! This is slander! Such an absurd event never happened!”
“Precisely,” Sols replied, his smile half-amused, half-scornful. “It would indeed be an affront to intelligence for such a thing to happen to the astute Mr. Gavin Riley, wouldn’t it?”
He nodded faintly, then continued, his tone even more cutting:
“So… to prove this is nothing but a vile rumor, I shall have one of our priests from the Church of True Knowledge perform a lie-detection. Surely, Mr. Riley, you would have no trouble passing such an examination, correct?”
The old Gavin Riley suddenly went mute, as if someone had clamped a hand over his beak, unable to make a sound.
“No… no need! I am a broad-minded goblin! Ah! I suddenly remember—I have urgent matters at the publishing house to attend to…”
Seeing Sols’s unwavering gaze, the hint that a priest would indeed be summoned, Riley muttered a few disjointed words and fled the crowd in a flustered panic.
Marlon watched, utterly awestruck. In handling such thorny matters, he realized how novice he was compared to a seasoned veteran like Sols.
With the meddlesome Gavin Riley finally dispatched, the next act unfolded with breathtaking precision.
After confirming that the massive check in Marlon’s hand was indeed issued by Sols Bank and personally signed by Ivna herself, Sols snapped open the mythril briefcase. Inside, every compartment was meticulously stacked with bundles of one-hundred-Lant notes, each bundle containing a hundred notes.
The case contained twenty-five compartments, arranged five by five, each visibly layered four deep at the very least.
As Sols efficiently withdrew eleven bundles, only two and a half compartments were emptied, revealing the staggering truth: this briefcase held one million Lant.
To put that into perspective, the average citizen earned around fifty Lants per month. Even the ostentatious Vonstein family of White Sand City, known for their wealth, had an official fortune of less than two million Lants.
This was a sum of money so colossal, so unimaginable, that if the armed officers hadn’t been stationed menacingly around him, it’s likely some of the more desperate onlookers would have attempted to snatch it on the spot.
“This copy of The Book of Aery is yours!”
After personally inspecting and verifying the bundles of currency, ensuring no deceit had been employed, Trist Rem, masquerading as a destitute paladin, finally handed The Book of Aery to Marlon.
“Many thanks, Lord Druid,” Marlon said, though his gratitude was directed subtly toward Conchita Bowden, the Claw Druid, with a respectful nod.
Conchita, however, looked sheepish. If not for his sudden surge of excitement and impulse to raise the stakes, Marlon might have acquired the book for a fraction of the cost—perhaps twenty or thirty thousand Lant.
Curiosity gnawed at him despite himself. “Marlon, you’re willing to spend a hundred thousand Lant… do you actually understand the secret script written in invisible ink in The Book of Aery?”
Marlon chuckled softly. He carefully opened the book to the first page, cradling the spine with his left hand, while his right hand traced the smooth surface of the seemingly blank page. Then he began reciting fluently:
“The earth bears all things above and below; within the four seas, the sun and moon shine, stars twinkle in the sky. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter divide the year, and time is measured by the cycle of seasons. The myriad creations of this world, each with its own form, some fleeting, some long-lived, are only fully comprehended by those of enlightened wisdom…
Let us begin from the southwest corner of the western seas…
The Jiexiang kingdom lies southwest of the extinguished Mengniao; its people possess chest bones pointed like chickens.
The Southern Mountains lie southeast of Jiexiang. Its inhabitants call long worms ‘snakes’ and snakes ‘fish.’ Some say the Southern Mountains lie southeast of Mengniao.
The Biwing bird grows east of Mengniao, with feathers of blue and red, magnificent to behold. Named Biwing because a single bird cannot fly alone; two together can take flight. Some say Biwing birds are east of the Southern Mountains. The Featherfolk nation grows southeast of Mengniao, its people possessing bird-like elongated heads, bodies covered in feathers…”
Indeed, Marlon was not reading The Book of Aery at all, but the plain-text, vernacular rendition of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Though originating from Earth, the strange, fantastical descriptions and imagery effortlessly captivated the erudite Claw Druid, drawing him deep into the wondrous and surreal world of the Shan Hai Jing.