Leone's Inn

Not long after, Leone-san came to call us, and we sat down to eat.

The sides were meat and vegetables, and as for the staple…

"Ohh, white rice!"

What a relief. For a Japanese person, it had to be rice. Without it, I might've gotten homesick.

Now then, as for the taste…

"… Delicious!"

More than anything, the flavor wasn't all that different from Earth. If anything, it was richer and tastier.

There were subtle differences, tiny little notes of strangeness, but those very differences came across as variety and drew me in all the more.

The meat, the vegetables, the rice… all of it was incredibly tasty!

"Phew… I'm satisfied…"

"Yes… A flavor of this caliber would be considered first-rate even back home. Two stars."

Not three?

Kazami-san's evaluation seemed a little harsh, but Kazami-san was rich, so if she was used to fine dining and judging at Michelin level, then two stars might actually be quite high praise.

… Anyway, we'd been isekai'd the moment we showed up to school this morning. Battled, then traveled to town.

It had been a dense stretch of time, but now it was right around midday.

The clock pointed to noon.

It had been the perfect time for lunch… Hm, did they use a 24-hour day in this world too? The clock only went up to 12.

"Fufu, isn't it tasty? People who get transferred here from another world like you aren't all that rare in this world. But everyone's always so pleased with our cooking."

Leone-san said that with a smile, adding a touch of charm to the meal.

"So, Leone-san, Adelia. As I was saying, we only just got transferred here from another world, and we don't know anything about it yet. I know it's a bit forward of me to ask, but would you teach us about this world?"

I bowed my head as I asked again.

"… My, for a Master to bow his head to a Garumon… I'd be happy to help. For our part, all we ask is that you stay with us as long as possible and pay your rent."

Leone-san agreed readily.

"Of course! With no way to go home anytime soon, we need a base of operations. If anything, we'd be the ones asking you to let us stay long-term…!"

Deal struck. Leone-san had promised her cooperation.

Alright, it was time to gather information.

"Um, first, could you tell me about the relationship between Adelia and Leone-san?"

"Hah? Starting there? In a world where we don't even know up from down… Shouldn't the top priority be how to get back home, no matter how you slice it!?"

Kanan complained. Perfectly reasonable. A sound argument.

But…

"No. She went out of her way to become our companion. Knowing more about Adelia matters more. And if she's close with Leone-san, I want to know about Leone-san too."

I pushed back at Kanan.

"Funyaa… Goshujin-sama…"

Adelia turned red and pressed her hands to her cheeks.

Leone-san chuckled softly and watched us with a warm look.

"Well… You came from another world and don't know up from down yet, right? Then I should start with the rules of this world."

"Thank you."

And so, Leone began to explain.

"In this world, every Master who turns 15 becomes a 'G-Class Master' and starts taking part in Garumon Battles. Win Garumon Battles and your rank keeps climbing. F-Class, E-Class, D-Class… all the way up to S-Class. Whoever wins the S-Class tournament held once every four years becomes the king who rules this world: the 'Garumon Master.' … Or so it's said. That's the foundational rule of this world."

"I see… Easy enough to follow."

It really was a game world. Huh, but earlier Reichhardt had been saying something about a "Master of Masters."

"Ah, that's… In a broad sense, the term 'Garumon Master' has two meanings: all the Masters in this world, and the Master at the very top. To refer specifically to the Master at the top, you can also say 'Master of Masters.' But since people usually just call all the Masters 'Masters,' if you say 'Garumon Master,' it almost always means the one at the top."

I see. Then I'd call him the Garumon Master too.

If this were a game, the player would absolutely become that "Garumon Master." But in a world that was actually real, I couldn't see things going that smoothly.

Plenty of people play baseball, but only a tiny fraction become pros, and an even tinier fraction become superstars. The higher up you go, the fewer people there are.

I couldn't innocently believe I'd be the world's number one.

… That said, I now understood the basic worldview: a world where everyone aims for Garumon Master and Garumon Battles take place all over.

If that was the case, then just living a normal life here would mean I couldn't avoid Garumon Battles.

"That's right… To begin with, the reason we have to fight and hone our skills is that beyond human territory, monsters run rampant and your life isn't guaranteed. Sharpening yourself in Garumon Battles is essential."

… That was completely unexpected information.

"Monsters… There are things like that here?"

I'd thought the worldview was Pokémon-based, but it turned out it was mixed with RPGs like Dragon Quest.

"To aim for Garumon Master, you need to acquire stronger Garumon. Next I'll explain how to obtain Garumon. It ties into how I met Adelia, too."

And so Leone-san explained the world while answering my questions.

"The first method is school. At graduation, you can take three of your classmate Garumon as companions and set off on your journey. But that method doesn't apply to visitors from another world who didn't go through compulsory education here, so… (1) Win a Garumon Battle. (2) Catch a free Garumon. (3) Buy or sell. (4) Gacha. Those are your options."

"Gacha."

I couldn't help repeating it back.

"You already have experience with (1). It's how you got Adelia. A Garumon Battle is a battle between Garumon, and the basic premise is that the winner gets to claim the loser's Garumon. Win Garumon Battles, get strong Garumon. That's how, among the lower-class Masters, the ones who collect strong Garumon become stronger Masters and climb the ranks. How you raise them matters too, of course, but that comes later. First it's all about fighting over Garumon."

"… I see."

So Reichhardt had been playing by the basic rules.

"… Then the way I gained Kazami-san as a companion would be (2)?"

"That's right. When a Master kisses a free Garumon who has no Master yet, a master-servant contract is formed."

"… Tch."

Kazami-san glared at me. From her perspective, I'd taken advantage of her while she was asleep.

It hadn't been on purpose, but… I felt small.

"And then there's how Adelia's previous owner, Reichhardt was it, acquired her through (3).

"The first Master who got Adelia decided he couldn't raise her properly, so he sold her.

"Garumon talent is divided into seven tiers.

"(N) Normal: Value 0–299

"(HN) High Normal: Value 300–999

"(R) Rare: Value 1000–1999

"(HR) High Rare: Value 2000–2999

"(SR) Super Rare: Value 3000–3999

"(SSR) Super Super Rare: Value 4000–4799

"(UR) Ultra Rare: Value 4800–5000

"Adelia is at the highest tier, Ultra Rare. She's a Garumon with special talent and tremendous power.

"Because of that, selling her would fetch an astronomical sum."

"Letting go of Adelia… I have no idea how many hundreds of millions she would've gone for, but it's unbelievable… I can't imagine any amount of money being worth what Adelia is."

I thought of that first Master, whose face I didn't even know, and the words slipped out.

"Hundreds of millions…? More like several hundred thousand, I'd say…"

Leone-san gave a wry smile.

… A few hundred thousand? In Japanese yen, how much would that be? Wasn't that way too cheap?

I thought I'd read somewhere that 1G converted to about 1,000 yen. If that was the case, it'd be a few hundred million. So it wasn't too cheap after all…

But this lovable Adelia, against hundreds of millions of yen…

To me, Adelia was vastly more appealing.

"It doesn't help anyone if a low-skill Master ends up with a Garumon way above their pay grade. A high-value Garumon is only valuable until they lose a Garumon Battle and get taken away. Not every Master has talent. If a Master with no confidence or talent ends up with a Garumon whose value is way too high for them, selling her off before she gets stolen isn't necessarily a bad move."

Leone-san added that. I see…

But I couldn't even dream of doing that.

It wasn't that I had confidence or talent.

I just couldn't imagine letting go of a companion for money.

"In any case, sold Garumon end up back on the shop's listings, but there's a system-mandated waiting period of several weeks before that happens. For a while, until she went on sale and got bought, Adelia was placed in my care here at the inn. I sort of act as a representative for the Beastkin in this town. That's how she and I became friends."

"Leone is a really strong Garumon, nya. Adelia wants to become strong like Leone, nya. Adelia respects her, nya."

Adelia chimed in.

And when Adelia had eventually gotten a buyer and was about to leave town, the parting words had been:

"You'll surely meet a wonderful master."

"If anything happens, lean on me anytime. Come back here whenever you need to."

Or so I was told.

"I see… Thank you for taking such good care of Adelia back then. I really appreciate it."

I bowed my head.

"My, my… Fufu, you're very welcome. And on my end, I'm so glad Adelia's master turned out to be such a wonderful person."

Leone-san smiled gently.

Leone-san was so kind, and beautiful too… I was glad we'd met someone good.

… She seemed like someone you could really trust.

When dealing with things you don't understand, I'd heard it was better to decide based on who you trust, not what you trust.

Right now, I didn't know up from down.

But I'd already decided to trust Adelia. So since Adelia trusted Leone-san, I'd trust her too.

If I kept going that way, at the very least, I wouldn't have regrets.

Through that short exchange, I'd already made up my mind.

"Last is gacha. There's a gacha menu at the edge of the system. As long as you have funds, you can pull as many times as you want. There's a 100G gacha, a 1000G gacha, and a 10000G gacha, and any of them have a chance at UR. The 1000G gacha is advertised at 20x the rate for SSR or higher, and the 10000G gacha at 500x the rate for SSR or higher."

"Ohh… so with a bit of luck you could even build up your forces that way…"

"By the way, those are also known as 'methods to reduce your funds to 1/10, 1/100, or 1/1000.' It's said that 'spinning the 10000G gacha until you get a UR will bankrupt even an S-Class Master.'"

"I'll never touch it."

Terrifying. Gacha really was an evil civilization.

"That said, Adelia's first owner did pull her out of that absurdly low-probability gacha. There were no Masters in Adelia's region, so after she graduated school, she went into the gacha pool."

Hearing that made me kind of want to try… no, no. Only if I had money to burn.

"Um, next, please tell me about isekai transfer. The first person we met said an expert on it would be a magic user… is that right?"

"… Oh, yes. That's right… I have just the person in mind. A very capable, trustworthy girl. I think it'd be best to talk with her present. Let me go call her."

"Are you sure? … Thank you."

If Leone-san trusted that magic user, I'd trust her too. Expanding the circle this way seemed like the right move.

Leone-san immediately went off to call the magic user.

While we waited, I asked Adelia some questions out of curiosity.

About common knowledge in this world.

… Apparently this world used surprisingly similar units of measurement to Earth.

A second felt about the same length, a day was 24 hours, a week had 7 days. A year was 12 months, 365 days.

"365 days…? 24 hours…?"

That should be determined by orbital and rotational periods. Could it just be a coincidence?

Could that even happen? Or was this Earth?

Weight in kg, length in cm, all of it just worked normally. The only difference was the currency: gold instead of yen. The meaning was clear, but I had no idea how much it converted to in Japanese yen.

"That's the power of this world's system. When you transferred here from another world, the system auto-translated everything completely, so the common knowledge of this world matches your own and you can perceive it that way. Language and the like aren't a problem at all, are they? That way, you can live as if you were still in your original world, without any sense of disconnect."

The voice that answered wasn't Adelia's, but a different, slightly lispy one.

"… A fairy…?"

That was what came to mind.

Her fluffy light-blue hair was very much an otherworldly-resident kind of look.

She looked maybe 10 years old. Still young, but with round glasses and an intellectual air.

The beautiful women and girls around me up to now had all had massively huge breasts, so the small chest felt refreshingly different.

Not that I didn't love big breasts. But small ones had their own appeal too…

… What was I doing, judging her so high-handedly?

Well, she was so beyond-real beautiful that it was like rating an anime character.

And of course, "anime character vibes" was incredibly appealing to a closet otaku like me.

"I am Lyuka. I'm a magic user. As a hobby, I research isekai transfer. This is my first time meeting an isekai transferee who's male. Very interesting… I'd like to ask some questions of my own as well."

That was how she introduced herself. Just from her polite manner alone, I'd already taken a liking to her.

"N-Nice to meet you. I'm Naoto Akai."

We introduced ourselves too.

"… So, here's what I've been wanting to ask. What is isekai transfer, fundamentally? And is there a way to return to our original world?"

I immediately threw out my long-standing question.

… Ever since I'd come to this world, I'd been hoping to meet someone I could ask this.

"As for what isekai transfer is… I can only say that it's another one of this world's systems. Whether there's some intent behind it from what we'd call a god, or whether it's a natural phenomenon with no purpose at all… It's a phenomenon that opens a hole into another world and transfers that world's residents to this one. As for the system itself, we don't even know who created it or for what purpose. Some say it was developed to fight against powerful monsters; others say this world's creator brought it into being alongside this world… But since it exists, we live our lives using it, sometimes for our own convenience and sometimes because we have no choice."

"I see…"

… As a resident of this world, did she not know what this world was?

If that was the case, would it be pointless to ask, "Hey, is this world a game world?"

If I asked the wrong thing, might it shatter her identity…?

"You don't know? How irresponsible…! Kidnapping me to a place like this on your own, this is a full-blown crime!"

Kazami-san snapped at Lyuka.

"… No, if it's a natural phenomenon, complaining won't do any good. It's like complaining about being pulled down by gravity, isn't it? And besides, blaming Lyuka, who's a resident of this world, is misdirected. If you want to blame someone, blame this world's god."

I covered for Lyuka.

"… To begin with, if it had been an ordinary cave-in accident, we'd just be dead. Sure, you could pin responsibility on shoddy contractors or whatever, but only living people can do that. We're alive. So we're better off."

"… Tch, Naoto of all people… talking back to me…"

Kazami-san fell silent. Maybe she'd accepted that what I said was correct.

… Come to think of it, was my nerve growing? Being able to talk back to Kazami-san this smoothly…

In our original world I'd been so meek I couldn't say a word…

Maybe it was because our positions had flipped.

"Now, the answer to your next question… Is it possible to return to your original world?"

I focused and listened intently.

"At the moment, it's not something easily done. At the very least, it's not something you can do right this instant with just the clothes on your back."

"I see…"

Disappointing.

"That said, I won't say it's impossible. If we know other worlds exist and there's a route from there to here, then it would actually be unnatural for there to be no route from here back to there. There must be a way. That's what I believe, and that's what I'm researching."

"Ohh…!"

Lyuka's answer gave us hope.

"As another method, if you win the S-Class tournament and earn the right to an audience with God, perhaps God's power could send you back to your original world."

"Hmm. Then maybe that's the more reliable route."

"No, no…"

She made it sound easy. We were talking about a world champion. There was no way it was that simple.

… Still, the thought of aiming for it didn't feel half bad either.

"However, by either method, to my knowledge, no one has ever actually returned to their original world."

"… So it really comes to that, huh…"

"… But I think that's less because it's truly impossible and more because they give up partway through. This world might be comfortable enough that they no longer want to leave."

So we didn't have to throw away hope after all.

"… Hah!? That couldn't possibly be! A messed-up world like this, where women are treated like slaves, could never appeal to anyone…! … Well, for some unimpressive man like you, a world where you can enslave a peerlessly beautiful girl like me, so far above your station, might just be a dream world…"

After Kazami-san had spoken that far,

"… You really are serious about wanting to return to the original world, right?"

She asked me that.

… True, if we went back to the original world, my relationship with Kazami-san would flip back to the way it had been before.

It wouldn't be strange if I didn't want to leave this world. But…

"In my original world, I have my parents I care about, and most importantly, my dear little sister… Of course I want to go back."

I answered firmly.

That's right, my little sister… Setsuna, who had been there with me. What had happened to her?

Was she safe in our original world…?

"I understand your resolve, Naoto-san. In that case, however small my contribution, I'll cooperate."

Saying that, Lyuka extended her hand.

"Really? Thank you…! Lyuka-san!"

I shook hands with Lyuka.

… Wow. A soft, fluffy hand. Slender fingers. Even though it was a child's hand, my heart was racing for some reason…

… No, no. Pull it together. More than her beauty, I should be grateful for her kindness.

Ah, I was really thankful. Leone-san, Adelia, Lyuka…

Coming to another world, I'd really been blessed with the people I'd met.

Reichhardt? … Hm, but he had ended up giving us information and bringing Adelia to us. He was a good guy.

Not that I wanted to see him again or anything.

"By the way, your little sister… Setsuna Akai, was it? If she was with you at the place of isekai transfer, then there's an extremely high probability she was transferred to this world too. Even with simultaneous transfer, time and space can shift slightly, so there might be a lag of a few days, several months, or even several years."

"…! Setsuna's in this world too…!"

So that was how it was?

If Setsuna was here… wait, my reasons for wanting to go back just plummeted.

My parents would actually be happier without kids, since they could put more into running the company…

In fact, if Setsuna wasn't in the original world, I didn't care if the company collapsed or not.

"… W-Well, anyway, if Setsuna's here, I have to save her. She might not have been blessed with luck the way I have. She might be in trouble."

"… That's right. When an otherworld Garumon transfers in, the local Masters typically rush to capture them with bloodshot eyes. Most otherworld Garumon possess rare talents and are powerful Garumon, you see."

Sure enough, Reichhardt had eagerly come to capture us too.

"… Um, then is there a way to detect people from other worlds?"

"That's part of how to use the system."

Lyuka explained.

"If you display the map through the system, you'll see the responses of those nearby. Blue circles are you, Naoto-san, and your companion Garumon. Gray circles are NPCs, who systematically can't be enemies or allies. Red circles are other Masters who could be enemies, and their companions. If you become friends with another Master, they appear as yellow circles. Green circles are free Garumon who don't belong to anyone. A Master can catch a free Garumon on a first-come-first-served basis and enslave them. So when a Master spots a green circle, they go racing to find them."

"Heh… a system map, huh."

"The responses can vary subtly even within the same color, with stronger Garumon producing stronger responses. Otherworld Garumon have the property of glowing in a rainbow color. Otherworld Garumon are almost universally SR or higher in strength. Any Master who finds a rainbow circle will count their lucky stars and chase after them with bloodshot eyes."

That was how Lyuka explained it.

I called up the system and looked at the map. It showed a square area about 50m on a side.

In the center were three blue circles. Sure enough, two of them were glowing in rainbow colors, the ones for myself and Kanan. The one that seemed to be Adelia was glowing brightly too.

Leone-san and Lyuka were gray circles.

Tapping a blue circle showed our information, the same as I'd checked before.

Tapping a gray circle showed…

"Leone" "Lyuka"… and that was it. Nothing else displayed.

"… NPCs?"

Come to think of it, a game term had just casually slipped in there… Thanks to the auto-translation, I guessed?

Well, it did make things easy to understand.

The term meant a character you couldn't operate, but it was easier to think of them as characters who were neither enemies nor allies.

Leone-san explained.

"In this world, we women are originally all slaves to be ruled by men, who are Masters. Green-circle free Garumon are simply ones who haven't been ruled yet. But if the world only had Masters and their slaves, there'd be all sorts of inconveniences. Shops are a prime example. Take my inn, for instance. If another Master were running it… could you stay at an inn like that with peace of mind?"

"… Um… You mean we might get attacked in our sleep?"

"Yes. Exactly. So when running a shop, you swear to the system that you'll no longer act as a Master, step down from Master status, and become an NPC before opening up shop. Most of the male shop-owners in the shopping district are like that. In those cases, it's common for them to make a favorite among their slaves an NPC alongside them to help with the business. I became an NPC together with my husband that way."

That was how Leone-san introduced herself.

So in other words, they'd both retired and were running the inn as a married couple.

"And, um, your husband…?"

I'd noticed I hadn't seen him.

"Soon after we retired, he passed away. Attacked by monsters."

Leone-san was a widow, then. No wonder she had that alluring air.

… No, what was I saying.

"By monsters… I asked earlier too, but there really are things like that in this world."

I changed the subject, though it really was a topic I was concerned about.

"Yes, that's right. This area is called the human territory, where humans live, but even without going into monster territory, monsters can appear outside of town. The residents of this world train each other in Garumon Battles out of necessity."

Lyuka cut in, probably figuring it'd be hard for Leone-san to talk about.

But Leone-san, as if to say it was fine, picked the thread back up.

"Powerful monsters don't usually appear near towns… But sometimes there are exceptions. While I was watching the inn, my husband went to another town to make purchases for us, and on the way he was attacked by one of those powerful monsters and lost his life… There, enough of the gloomy talk. Next, would you explain how you became an NPC, Lyuka?"

Leone-san raised her voice cheerfully, as if to shake off the heavy mood.

Had she already moved past it…?

But there was no way I, immature as I was, could understand the heart of an adult woman.

"… Some people, like me, are born as NPCs from the start. That's when you're fated by the system to take on a special station. A magic user is a relatively rare occupation in this world."

Lyuka explained in turn.

"Hmm… So basically, if I become this NPC thing, I can escape this ridiculous slave status?"

Kazami-san asked.

"… Yes, that's how it works. Of course, only if your Master pays the cost…"

That was Lyuka's answer.

"… Oh, of course he'll pay it. Naoto's my slave, so it's only natural he'd do whatever I want."

Kazami-san declared.

"Hahaha… well, once we save up the money."

I just laughed and gave a noncommittal reply.

… I'd said it lightly, but I actually wouldn't mind setting her free.

By releasing her after she'd been forced into slavery, I could paradoxically reject her.

… Well, that aside.

"What's the requirement to go from PC to NPC?"

"To go from PC to NPC, you need a fair amount of capital. For Garumon, the standard is based on their value, but those with potential cost more. By the way, going from NPC to PC is also possible, though that's even more expensive. You can see the actual prices on the system screen."

I see…

She taught me how to operate the system.

"Tap here for a sub-menu, and then…"

"Ah, hmm… like this. There it is. 'Become an NPC.'"

Honestly, what was with this worldview?

In a pure fantasy world, we were operating futuristic, holographic-style tablets and exchanging information through the system.

It wasn't fantasy. It really was a game world.

"Insufficient funds. To make Kanan Kazami an NPC, you need 125,000G."

"… Hmm… that's expensive."

An impossible amount.

"Hmm, 125,000G… Then saving up that much is the goal!"

Kazami-san was on board.

"No, no, the first goal is going back to the original world."

Though we still didn't know how.

"So um, about going back to our original world… is there really nothing to go on? Any rumors, research findings…?"

I asked Lyuka. Whether things would conveniently work out, I didn't know, but…

"Well… even now, I do have a few hypotheses."

"Then why don't you try them?"

At my words, Lyuka fell into thought.

"That one might work, but on the other hand…"

She glanced at me, considering.

She kept agonizing over it, arms folded. Muttering to herself, she paced around the room.

I waited patiently.

"… Hey! How long are you going to think about it!? There's a way, isn't there!? Or isn't there!?"

I quieted Kazami-san, who was making a fuss.

"… As I said, they're hypotheses. Without going there in person to verify, I can't be sure of any of them. However, I currently have my work as the magic user of this town, and I can't just leave that and go off to investigate. So for me to go there, I'd have to go from NPC back to PC."

"… Um… in other words?"

"250,000G. If you can prepare the funds for me to return to PC, then I'll become a PC and accompany you."

That was Lyuka's offer.

"Oh my, Lyuka-chan. You've taken quite a liking to Naoto-san, haven't you… Fufu, looks like introducing him was worth it."

Leone-san teased.

"Th-That's not what I… It's just that otherworld Garumon may not be rare, but otherworld Masters are. For the sake of otherworld research, I only thought it'd be good to observe at closer range…"

Lyuka blushed and pushed back.

"Besides, 250,000G isn't an amount that's easy to save up. It's just my way of saying, 'If you can show you have the ability to save that much.'"

Lyuka said that as if to cover her embarrassment.

"Um, anyway… I think we need Lyuka's help to go back to the original world. And for that, we need to gather 250,000 in funds."

Gathering funds had become the top-priority objective.

"No, I'm only proposing methods I know of. There may be other paths."

Lyuka pushed back, but,

"No, just having you offer to help us when we don't know up from down is genuinely appreciated. If 250,000 is what's needed, I'll find a way to gather it. In parallel, we should look for the other classmates who got transferred from school. Especially my little sister Setsuna, and…"

If at all possible, Maika Yukishiro-san too, if she'd also come to this world…

In our original world, I couldn't have gotten any closer to her than I was, but in this world…

No, no, no. What was I even saying.

"O-Oh, and… I'm worried about my best friend Haru Midoriya-kun too! Yeah…!"

Sorry for using you as cover, Haru-kun… But I really was worried about him, and that was no lie.

Had he transferred over too?

"Right, I'm worried about Sawako too. After that, Kensei… that guy will at least be useful. And if I can rescue Eclair-sama myself, I'll have a huge advantage over that Yumi jerk. Those should be on our list too."

Kanan set those goals.

"A-Anyway, let's make those our immediate goals… In the meantime, I'd really appreciate it if we could base ourselves at Leone-san's inn."

"Yes, of course, you're more than welcome… Though, after a month, you'll need to pay a month's worth. For two rooms, that comes to 30 gold."

"… Yes. Of course we'll pa… wait, eh, 30!? We're renting two of those nice rooms for a whole month, and it's only 30G!?"

I was shocked. By my mental conversion of 1G to 1,000 yen, that was 30,000 yen. Way too cheap, wasn't it?

Maybe I should be converting 1G to 10,000 yen.

I did a quick re-check on the going rates.

"Let's see, the unit 'gold' that gets exchanged on the system is too large to use day-to-day, so people use Coros copper coins and Silos silver coins instead. 100 Coros makes 1 Silos, and 100 Silos makes 1 gold."

"… So 1G is equivalent to 10,000 yen? Whoa…"

Apparently I'd had the currency value wrong.

"… In a world where the system perfectly translates every value, that kind of value-system mismatch is rare. Were you used to hearing the unit 'gold' from that 'game' of yours? In that case, the system probably judged that translation was unnecessary."

Lyuka analyzed.

Fair point. I'd gotten used to games, and "gold" as a currency unit didn't feel out of place at all.

And I'd read somewhere that 1G in games converted to 1,000 yen, so I'd just been taking that for granted.

It was probably off by an order of magnitude. 1G was worth more like 10,000 yen, wasn't it?

If that was the case, then 250,000G was… the equivalent of 2.5 billion yen!? That was a fortune!

Not that I was denying Lyuka was a good person, but if you slap down 2.5 billion yen, even the worst kind of villain would cooperate!

… Well, in any case, raising funds was now essential.