Chapter 52

“Why… is Her Majesty the Queen here in person?”

“Well, I simply wanted to see for myself, up close, the item that will adorn me in its natural form. …Besides, didn’t you say yesterday that you were the one who submitted it? I thought I’d surprise you. Forgive me.”

Yes, the person waiting in the reception room really was Her Majesty the Queen.

True, I did say yesterday that I was the one who submitted the Eye of the Deep Sea… but still…!

“Half of it was just a joke. Kokuri, the item please.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Same, here you go.”

Kokuri, who had been present, handed me a cylindrical box with ornate decorations.

It was heavier than it looked, suggesting it was packed with contents.

“These are the documents. I wanted to give them to you directly. That’s the other half of why I came here today.”

“For Her Majesty to deliver it herself… I’m honored, truly.”

“Think nothing of it. Now then, let’s handle the payment. I’ve already paid the auction house and the merchant guild their respective commissions. The remainder is due to you, Same.”

As she said this, the Queen snapped her fingers, and from the room in the back, a large chest—practically a treasure chest—was wheeled in on a cart.

Inside were… 60,000 gold coins.

“Sixty thousand gold coins, minus fees. The museum has already verified the amount.”

“Yes, we at the museum confirm that this chest contains exactly 60,000 gold coins. Here are the payment certificate and transaction records.”

“Thank you very much.”

A huge chest. The urge to open it right away was strong, but I restrained myself.

Still…

“Sixty… thousand!? Huh!? Wait, sixty thousand? Like, SIX-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO? That’s 600 times 100!?”

“M-Melt… calm down, okay? Calm down.”

“O-okay… but still… what does it all mean…?”

…Come to think of it, I never told Melt how much the gem sold for.

But this reaction feels way more natural.

“Fufufu, what a charming companion you have, Same.”

“Allow me to introduce her. This is Melt. She’s a dear friend who ‘escaped the dungeon with me.’”

“…Oh?”

That message got through clearly.

She’s someone who conquered a dungeon with me. She’s my comrade—so please treat her with respect.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Melt. Are you Same’s friend, Jyououheika-san?”

“Melt, she’s the Queen. The ruler of this country.”

“Wait—she’s the Queen!? Oh, uh… Hello, Your Majesty!”

Please forgive her. She probably only knows about queens from books.

“My apologies, Your Majesty. Melt’s circumstances are… a bit unique. She’s not very familiar with the world.”

“U-um… I’m sorry.”

“I see. Think nothing of it, Melt. Just take your time and learn about the country, bit by bit.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Was she implying, “You’re welcome to stay in this country forever”…?

Actually, it might not be a bad idea. In this country, she could be protected.

And maybe, little by little, she can learn about society, class, and how the world works.

“Well then, our business here is done. We’ll be taking our leave now. Kokuri, arrange the carriage.”

“Understood. Shuris-san, what about you? Will you stay a bit longer?”

“Hmm… I think so. I wasn’t scheduled to return to the castle today anyway. Your Majesty, I’ll excuse myself here. I’m sorry I can’t accompany you.”

“No problem. Shuris, you’ve made a valuable connection. I’m glad you brought Same to us.”

“Yes, I’ve met a good friend.”

With that, Her Majesty and Kokuri left the room. The auctioneer and the museum director also exited to see them off.

Left in the room were Shuris, Melt…

…and the merchant guild president, who had been completely speechless and zoned out since earlier.

“Looks like you got to meet Her Majesty, huh? The castle was in quite a stir yesterday—did you have something to do with that?”

“More or less. You haven’t been filled in on the details?”

“Nope. Even my sister wouldn’t tell me. But it looks like things went well between you and Her Majesty—and that you succeeded in convincing my sister. So… did you achieve your goal?”

“Only halfway, I’d say. Let’s put that topic aside for now, please.”

“Ah, my apologies. Well then, I’ll go check on my men downstairs. I’m temporarily responsible for the royal knights, after all.”

“Because of the investigation, right? Good luck with that.”

“Thank you, Same. Let’s talk again soon—excuse me for now.”

And so Shuris left as well. Now, only the guild president remained.

I turned to him.

“President? We should get going too, don’t you think? …President?”

“Hah—! W-What just happened!? I completely lost consciousness! They’re all gone already!?”

“Yes, they’ve left.”

“U-Unbelievable! An audience with Her Majesty, that close—such a chance may never come again! Same, just how do you know Her Majesty personally!?”

“Hmm…”

This time, I couldn’t let him get involved.

It might cause problems in the future.

Sorry, President. Just this once… I’ll have to keep you out of it.

“President. For the sake of maintaining a good relationship going forward, I’d prefer no further questions. At worst, it could jeopardize our activities in this country.”

I lowered my voice slightly, and changed my expression—not one meant for a friend.

“…I see. Yes, of course… It’s not an ordinary matter, is it…? Curiosity and greed are two sides of the same coin. Very well, I promise—I’ll ask no more about this.”

“Thank you, President. But… indirectly, I’m sure this will benefit you one day.”

And I hope, when that time comes, it will benefit everyone in this country.

If I can uncover the truth of the power that can enrich the land…

I gripped the cylindrical case Kokuri handed me just a bit tighter.

I’ll have to inspect it once we have a secure base.

“Now then, we can finally move on to the property introductions. In fact, I already have a few candidates lined up, and I’ve obtained approval from the noble families managing them. I’ll prepare the list when I return to the guild today. Please come back tomorrow—we’ll go over them together.”

“Really!? Melt, we did it! We’re going to look at potential homes!”

“What!? We can finally buy a house!? Same, you got that enormous amount of money, right? Is that why?”

“Exactly.”

Melt looked overjoyed—but also completely stunned.

She pointed at the treasure chest on the cart and continued.

“So houses are that expensive… Sixty thousand gold coins… I could never earn that in a lifetime.”

“No no, houses aren’t that expensive. This was just a one-time thing.”

“Really? Then we’ll have money left over? Same, don’t waste it, okay? You can have up to three juice drinks after your bath!”

“…I only ever drink one, though?”

“You do? Really?”

Juice-loving little fox.
I’ll make her some sorbet when summer comes around.
It’d be nice if freezers were commonly available.

“Haha, indeed, when it comes to standalone houses, ones with gardens usually start around 120 large gold coins. But of course, it depends on the land. You’d prefer somewhere in or around Lindblum, right, Same?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’d like to avoid places with heavy foot traffic.”

“Hmm… I see. Once we’re back at the merchant guild, I’ll narrow the properties down based on that.”

And so, we also left the museum.
By the way, that treasure chest was packed inside a decoy wooden box and loaded onto a cart to be taken back to the inn.
I mean, no way could I just pull up the menu screen and store it in front of people.

“Hey, hey, I’ve been wondering for a while… Same, do you have a magic tool embedded with a spatial stone?”

“Hm?”

Back at the inn, as I was storing the treasure chest, Melt asked with a curious glint in her eyes.

“What’s a spatial stone?”

Could it be something like an item storage tool, similar to the item box from my menu screen?
I hadn’t seen one before, but I did know from the guild attackers’ weapons that similar tools existed in this world.
Still, I didn’t expect Melt to know about them… That caught me off guard.

“Yeah. I have one too… but it’s really valuable, so I try not to use it in front of people. You were being careful too, right? That’s why you brought the treasure chest back manually?”

“Yeah, I figured it was probably some rare ability, so I kept it quiet. You have one too, huh?”

“Sure do~! I mean, how else do you think I got out of that giant forest?
This one was actually something my grandma used to store her experiment tools.
But I swapped out the contents for my stuff and took it with me.”

As she said that, Melt took off a small accessory from her belt. It looked like a keychain, with intricate carvings.

…So small. It’s barely the size of a Zippo lighter.

“Melt, how much can this thing store?”

“Hmm… let’s see…”

Melt thought for a moment, then walked to the door of the room.

“From this door… to about here! This much space inside~!”

“You’re kidding… it holds that much? That’s amazing.”

The area she indicated stretched past the twin beds, all the way to the chest by the window.
Basically, about 80% of the room’s size was the storage space inside this magic tool.

“This spatial stone seems to be high-purity. My grandma used to be a great researcher, apparently. That’s probably why she had something like this.”

“Wow, a researcher? That explains all the books.”

“Yep. Ah—though I didn’t bring any of the books. I memorized them all, so I figured I didn’t need them. I packed it mostly with clothes, food, daily necessities, and sellable monster parts. Most of those are already sold off though.”

“I see… Thanks for sharing that with me. Let’s keep this between us. This is a power with endless possible uses.”

“Yeah, probably. But I think there are places you can’t use it, too. Spatial stones can be disrupted pretty easily. Like that museum earlier—it probably wouldn’t have worked there. Technically, you could store stuff, but not retrieve it.”

Huh… So there are rules to how it works.
Makes sense. If you could pull out weapons freely, you could easily sneak one in for an assassination…

“Spatial stones are one of the ‘Three Great Rare Stones of the World,’ but they’re the most commonly found among the three. So, people have developed countermeasures. Like even if you can store stuff, it’s easy to detect that you’re carrying one. Maybe as a theft deterrent.”

“I see… Are there restrictions on what can be stored?”

“You can’t store living beings—or rather, they might die inside. It’s not really about life, but more like ‘living existence’ is rejected. But monster parts imbued with magic can be stored, so… hmm… Why, I wonder? It’s like it rejects the concept of living presence, not just magic. Even in the books I’ve read, no one had figured that out yet.”

“I think I get the idea…”

Hmm… If it rejected life in the biological sense, it’d also reject microorganisms, and then you wouldn’t be able to store anything. So maybe it only rejects magic life, or something tied to a certain level of intelligence or complexity. If even pathogens had magic, we’d probably be dealing with some wild, mutated viruses…

“But man, that’s a lot of money… Can we live without working now?”

“If we did that, we’d become lazy bums. We’ll still work. Don’t you want to see all kinds of places?”

“Of course! Let’s see—I’d like to go to the ocean… and see a desert… and the floating continent… and the Sky Tree… and Hamsterdam too… Oh no, there’s too much I want to do and too many places I want to go!”

“Wait, weren’t there some really captivating words just now!?”

The Floating Continent? The Sky Tree? And Hamsterdam…? Those actually exist!?

“When we’re traveling to places like that, if we ever run into some huge problem we can’t solve on our own… I think we should save this money for situations like that.”

“Ohh, a last resort! I know that one! I read it in a story once—‘Here! Take the money and shut up! Don’t complain!’—And they used it to force their way through an impossible situation!”

“…I’m not going to do anything like that.”

What kind of story was that…?
Melt, please don’t grow up to be that kind of person, I beg you.
You haven’t memorized that book too, have you…?

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