Chapter 101
Chapter 101: A Small Snowball (5)
Yuri lay on his bed.
He tilted his head slightly at the loud scream of a man echoing from afar.
“Huh? Came sooner than I thought?”
He thought it would take a few more days, but they came right after the quest ended.
‘Looks like they’re in quite a rush over there too?’
Even with the arrival of his awaited guest, Yuri remained lying on the bed, swinging his legs.
[Agh! La-Lady Theresia! N-no, not there!]
The scream echoed desperately, like music to his ears.
He hummed a cheerful tune, eagerly anticipating a big hole being punched in some shameless pervert.
After idly lying around for a while, Yuri only got up when the man’s pitiful screams subsided.
“Alright, time to go check it out.”
Yuri stealthily made his way to Theresia’s quarters.
Peeking inside, he saw Goetz, dressed in clothes full of holes, kneeling on the floor.
Before him stood Theresia, holding a spear with an angry expression.
She looked so imposing, like a general who had captured a prisoner.
And indeed, their relationship was not too different from that.
When Theresia glared at him, the kneeling Goetz shuddered slightly.
He spoke in a somewhat subdued voice.
“Th-There’s a misunderstanding, Lady Theresia.”
“What is the misunderstanding here? You took advantage of my absence, dragged a woman into my house… and now you’re saying that was a misunderstanding?”
“No, well… that… the Owl Knight interfered, so I couldn’t actually do… that…”
“……”
“…Not that it matters. Even if I had twelve mouths, I wouldn’t have any excuse for that! But aside from that, I didn’t come here without permission; I had a prearranged reason to be here…”
“Senior Goetz.”
“Y-yes?”
“Shut up.”
“…I will.”
Goetz lowered his head deeply, his hands placed neatly on his knees.
Theresia’s voice grew sharper.
“No matter how much you used to live here, coming and going as you please without considering the current resident… is quite disrespectful, don’t you think?”
“…I apologize.”
“Not only did you bring a woman into a house where a woman lives, but you also damaged property.”
“I didn’t know it was a house where a woman lived. I acknowledge my mistake on that part, so I won’t make any further excuses. But… what do you mean, property damage?”
“Are you denying it? You broke the wooden door I made myself.”
“The wooden door? No, that was…!”
As Goetz was about to defend himself, Yuri, who had been secretly watching, quickly interrupted.
“Hey, were you treating our guest well? See, I told you, just looking at him, you’d know exactly how to treat him.”
With that loud entrance, their conversation was cut off, and both sets of eyes focused on Yuri.
Theresia nodded her head.
“Indeed.”
Theresia could clearly feel what kind of “treatment” Yuri had been referring to by looking at the uninvited guest.
And the proof of that treatment was the holes in Goetz’s clothes.
Seeing this, Yuri gave Theresia a thumbs-up.
He scampered over and squatted down beside the kneeling Goetz.
He glanced over at the holes in Goetz’s pants.
“Still… attached, right?”
“…If the spear had gone half a finger’s width further, the world would have lost an extraordinary handsome man.”
“Then it would have gained an extraordinary beautiful woman.”
“You got that right, Owl Knigh—hold on, did you purposely choose this place for our meeting?”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
Yuri feigned ignorance, his expression utterly clueless.
Goetz’s suspicious gaze narrowed even further.
Yuri chuckled and stood up.
“I’ll take him away. Anything more you want to do?”
“No, that’s enough. I’d like to rest now.”
Theresia shook her head.
Then she cast a cold glance at Goetz.
“If you try that again, I will make sure to pierce that useless thing.”
“I-I’ll keep that in mind.”
Goetz, with his hands protectively placed between his thighs, nodded with a pale face.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Y-yes, let’s!”
Goetz quickly followed Yuri out of Theresia’s quarters as if fleeing.
The place they headed to afterward was Yuri’s dwelling.
Upon arrival, Goetz let out a small gasp of admiration.
“Huh, so you can decorate this gloomy cave like this. It’s much better than the third-year residential area!”
Indeed, Yuri’s dwelling was impressive to that extent.
Especially considering that the place had merely been a dark and ordinary cave, his surprise was even greater.
As he looked around, peering here and there,
“Stop snooping around and take a seat.”
Yuri gestured, and Goetz finally sat down on a chair.
Then, Yuri, who had been tinkering with something on one side of the cave, came over with a small leather pouch.
He sat across from Goetz, crossing his legs.
With a table between them, the two finally faced each other.
It was time to settle their long, long account.
Yuri leaned his head forward slightly.
“Now then, shall we get straight to the point?”
“Hmm, let’s do that. I don’t have a lot of time either.”
“Why, planning a night out with your lover?”
“Oh? How did you know?”
At Goetz’s somewhat surprised reaction, Yuri’s eyes narrowed.
“…A fifth-year lover, perhaps?”
“Ho? Are you a fortune teller or something? How did you really know that? That’s quite impressive.”
“Maybe… ah, never mind.”
“…?”
Yuri shook his head back and forth.
‘Some things are better left unknown.’
It was a rule in this line of work not to dig too deeply into the clients. He didn’t want to know more anyway. So, Yuri quickly changed the subject.
“The success reward? You brought it, right?”
As soon as Yuri finished speaking, Goetz placed a bundle of Points on the table.
Clatter—
Ten bundles, each worth 100,000 Points.
Yuri’s lips curved into a bitter smile as he looked at them.
‘How fickle the human heart is.’
At first, these 1 million Points had seemed like a massive amount. That was why he had gone through so much trouble to return to the Forest of Beginnings. Of course, 1 million Points was still a significant sum now. But with tens of millions of Points in his possession, 1 million felt relatively small.
Yuri flinched at the thought.
‘Wait… am I feeling satisfied?’
A fiery determination flared in his eyes.
‘No, no! What a stupid idiot I am!’
Shaking his head vigorously, Yuri berated himself for such foolish thoughts.
‘Just like there’s no such thing as small or unnecessary money, there’s no such thing as small or unnecessary Points!’
Would he ignore a single Point lying on the ground just because he had tens of millions in his account?
‘What a foolish and corrupt mindset that would be!’
Yuri stared intently at the 1 million Points, silently rearming his mental fortitude for quite some time.
Not knowing what was going through Yuri’s mind, Goetz could only tilt his head, puzzled by the variety of expressions flashing across Yuri’s face.
“Owl Knight?”
Yuri snapped back to his senses at Goetz’s call.
“Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about something.”
He then pulled out his item.
Rustle—
A small leather pouch that Yuri had brought.
From it, he pulled out a piece of paper.
He placed it on the table and gestured silently toward Goetz.
Wave—
It was a gesture to take it.
Goetz took the paper and examined it.
He read through the content carefully.
He stroked his chin.
“Hmm, this is….”
The content on the paper was certainly the item he had wanted.
However, Goetz’s expression turned suspicious.
Seeing this, Yuri frowned as well.
“What’s with that distrustful look?”
At Yuri’s interrogative tone, Goetz flinched and sighed.
“Phew… Alright, I’ll be honest. Is this really genuine?”
“It is. See the seal on it?”
“Yes, but still…”
“What’s your issue?”
“It’s just… too quiet, isn’t it?”
“…?”
“If this is genuine… why has the Black Sword Corps been so silent? If they were looking for this, the Black Sword Corps should have taken action.”
Goetz had assumed that Yuri had failed in his task because the Black Sword Corps had been so quiet. Even though an important document had gone missing, the Black Sword Corps hadn’t taken any significant action.
To Goetz’s question, Yuri merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows? Maybe it’s not that important of an item.”
“Well, that could be the case… Or it could be quiet because this isn’t genuine, right?”
“It’s genuine.”
“Are you certain?”
“Can’t you tell just by looking?”
“…”
Goetz’s mouth shut tight. He had asked Yuri to retrieve the item, but he didn’t have the ability to determine if it was real or not.
Seeing this, Yuri sneered.
“I went through the trouble of getting you this item, and the first thing you do is doubt me? That’s not how you handle a transaction.”
“…”
“If you’re so suspicious, take it to Duran and ask. Tell him I stole it, and ask if it’s the document he wrote.”
“It wasn’t me who stole it; it was you.”
“Listen to you trying to dodge responsibility. You’re the one who stole it. I just did it for you.”
“…”
“Claiming you didn’t do it just because you didn’t do it yourself is ridiculous, isn’t it?”
Seeing the truth in Yuri’s words, Goetz’s mouth clamped shut.
Yuri waved his hand dismissively.
“If you hire someone, trust them a little. Isn’t this all based on mutual trust? If you got the item without any fuss, then that’s a good thing. Why are you doubting? Right?”
“Hmm… that’s true.”
“In situations like this, just think, ‘Ah, the person I hired is really skilled and handled it well!'”
“That’s why I’m asking… how did you get it?”
“Trade secret. It’s not polite to ask someone to reveal their livelihood, is it, dear customer?”
Watching Yuri grin, Goetz hesitated for a moment.
Should he believe this or not?
After pondering for a while, he finally nodded and tucked the item into his pocket.
Seeing that, Yuri also grabbed the 1 million Points on the table and extended his hand.
“So, is our deal done?”
“Yes, it’s done.”
Goetz shook Yuri’s hand.
As they lightly shook hands up and down, Yuri slyly spoke.
“Thank you for the good deal, dear customer. If you have any more big jobs like this, feel free to come by anytime.”
“Now that I’ve seen your skills today, I’ll come back if I have another big job.”
Goetz responded with equal slyness and then left, mentioning he was off to spend some quality time with his lover.
After confirming that Goetz had gone far away, Yuri took out the 1 million Points from his pocket, tossed it into the air, and caught it.
“…Damn, almost got caught.”
A faint smile spread across his lips.
Since everything had fortunately ended in a perfect crime, Yuri erased the incident from his mind.
However, he didn’t know.
That small snowball he had tossed aside and forgotten…
He had no idea what it would turn into in the near future…
