Chapter 8
We had no intention of actually borrowing any money.
All we needed to do was lure the owner out.
Meanwhile, the loan officer carefully looked Cesare up and down, as if appraising merchandise.
“And who exactly is this man? Is he really worth one billion baht?”
“Of course he is. The employee standing beside you should know better than anyone.”
The loan officer glanced at his coworker.
The man nodded with a pale face.
“He used to dominate the underground fighting pits. He retired after only a year, but if he’d stayed longer, earning a billion would’ve been easy. He’s also the one who knocked out my teeth.”
“…Your teeth?”
The loan officer’s expression changed.
So the man beside him was that strong?
He stood up.
“This is a rather large matter. I’ll need to consult the boss. I’ll be back shortly.”
The two employees left.
As soon as we were alone, Cesare grabbed me with a pitiful look.
“Master… you’re not trying to sell me, are you?!”
“Of course not. I only wanted to bring the owner out.”
Only after I explained the plan did he finally calm down.
Looking at him quietly, I asked,
“Did I really look like the sort of pathetic master who’d sell his own disciple just to make money?”
“N-No, of course not. I just… wanted to make sure.”
Embarrassed, Cesare laughed awkwardly and changed the subject.
“Still… I can’t believe they’d actually lend out a billion baht. If you’re ever desperate, you can sell me.”
“A billion is certainly a large sum.”
“…You’re not seriously considering it, right?”
A short while later, the door opened.
Along with the previous employees came a man who appeared to be in his late forties.
He wore clothes that were obviously expensive.
Sitting across from me, he smiled calmly.
“I heard an important customer had arrived. Cesare… it’s been a while.”
“Huh? You know me too?”
“I do. Thanks to you, I made quite a fortune at the fighting pits.”
After giving Cesare a satisfied look, the owner turned to me.
“So you’re the one who wants to borrow money? One billion baht. Fine. In exchange, we’ll take Cesare—”
“I have no intention of handing Cesare over. I only used him to get you to come out.”
The owner silently stared at me.
A relaxed smile rested on his lips.
Though in truth…
It was a sneer.
“I’d like to know the whereabouts of the director who ran the orphanage that used to stand here.”
The owner took out a cigar.
The match flared to life.
“You’re quite the little brat. Still wet behind the ears, yet bold enough to play games.”
Through the thick cigar smoke, his eyes gleamed like a snake’s.
Though thin, the man carried an unmistakable presence.
“This isn’t an orphanage. We don’t indulge children’s games.”
He snapped his fingers.
The instant the sharp crack echoed through the room, employees flooded inside.
So it was going to be a fight.
I hadn’t expected this to be easy.
In fact…
This was exactly what I’d been hoping for.
There were only two ways to persuade people.
One was profit.
The other was fear.
If profit failed…
Then you simply made them afraid.
Violence was one such method.
And if they attacked first…
That gave us all the justification we needed.
Yet the employees suddenly stopped in their tracks.
One of them stammered in terror.
“T-The Unbeaten Mad Dog… Cesare?!”
Now where had that nickname come from?
The little puppy who used to cling to me had become known as a mad dog.
Seeing them hesitate, the owner spoke.
“No matter how strong he is, he’s alone. There’s no way all of you lose to one man. And if you do…”
His smile vanished.
“…then perhaps it’s time to find new jobs.”
Those words changed the employees’ expressions.
The very first man we’d met spat furiously,
“Knock out his teeth too! Rip every front tooth out!”
Crack!
The toothless employee threw a punch.
Cesare casually caught it.
The man’s fist was huge.
Yet wrapped inside Cesare’s hand, it looked like a baby’s.
Twisting the man’s wrist, Cesare sneered.
“Hey. I’m worth a billion. How much are you worth?”
BAM!
With his free fist, he smashed the man’s jaw.
I watched yet another tooth fly through the air.
“Everyone! Get him!”
Before the shout had even finished, Cesare grabbed the man by the collar.
The employee, who had to weigh over a hundred kilograms, was lifted effortlessly off the ground.
Another charged in.
Cesare hurled the man in his hand like a cannonball.
Both men screamed as they crashed into the floor.
“Tch. You losers wouldn’t even survive in the fighting pits.”
BAM!
Every punch landed cleanly on a vital point.
His precision.
His ability to read incoming attacks.
And above all else…
The overwhelming strength that eclipsed every other advantage.
There wasn’t even a chance for me to step in.
While Cesare carried out his one-sided massacre, the owner’s composure disappeared.
The moment he tried to stand, I pressed firmly on his shoulder and forced him back into his chair.
Looking down at him, I spoke gently.
“Is it really appropriate for you to resort to violence like this? We have no choice but to defend ourselves.”
“Y-You little…”
“Come to think of it…”
I smiled.
“You have quite a few gold teeth yourself, don’t you?”
The shoulder beneath my hand twitched.
I continued quietly.
“If you insist you don’t know where the orphanage director is, then we’ll come back tomorrow.”
“And the day after.”
“And the day after that.”
“If something like this happens every single day…”
“What do you suppose your customers will think?”
“…”
“We simply have a debt of our own to collect from the orphanage director.”
“It would be much cheaper for you to give us one piece of information.”
He fell silent.
Judging from his eyes, he was calculating the gains and losses.
As a moneylender, he naturally knew which choice was more profitable.
I asked again.
“Do you know where the orphanage director is?”
Silence filled the room.
The cigar continued burning as ash drifted onto the floor.
After glaring at me for several moments, the owner finally spoke.
“…He’s at the Crystal Quarry now. Couldn’t repay his debt, so we sold his contract over there. The location is…”
Once I’d learned the exact location, I removed my hand from his shoulder.
The cigar had already burned halfway down.
“That’s everything. Now get out.”
“And don’t ever come back.”
“Of course.”
“As long as the information isn’t false.”
The owner looked at me with a mixture of rage and humiliation.
There was relief in his eyes as well.
“Let’s go, Cesare.”
“Yes, Master.”
I led Cesare away before he could continue growling at the employees.
Outside, Cesare flashed a grin.
“I fought pretty well, didn’t I? You must be happy to have a disciple worth a billion.”
“So you’re worth a billion…”
I chuckled silently.
Cesare immediately looked uneasy.
“W-Wait, I was joking! I know I’m not worth that much.”
Was his self-esteem lower than it appeared?
Only moments ago he’d been beating grown men half to death.
“You honestly think you’re worth only one billion?”
“…Really?”
“Of course.”
Cesare looked at me suspiciously.
I said nothing more and simply continued walking.
Someday…
He would realize it for himself.
Clang! Clang!
The sound of pickaxes striking stone echoed loudly from the moment we entered the quarry.
The quarry was surrounded on all sides by towering cliffs.
Massive crystals jutted out from the rock everywhere.
Countless blue-tinted crystals shimmered before our eyes.
Cesare whistled in admiration.
“Wow… what a view. Those crystals are beautiful.”
He looked down below.
“And that’s quite a sight too… in a different way.”
While the crystals sparkled brilliantly beneath the sunlight…
Below them, workers who were little more than skin and bones swung their pickaxes without rest.
The conditions here were just as dreadful.
If the orphanage director had been working here for ten years…
I only hoped he was still alive.
Meanwhile, something about the crystals felt unusual.
Most of those near the ground had already been mined away, so I couldn’t be completely certain…
Still—
“I believe these are mana crystals.”
“Mana crystals? The kind used to make magical tools?”
“That’s right.”
Gemstones naturally possessed high resistance to mana.
They could store magical energy without easily breaking.
Among them, the crystals mined here were especially resistant.
Mana crystals.
Cesare gazed upward longingly.
“Hmm… it’d be nice if I could make a spear out of these. Whenever I pour my mana into a normal spear, it falls apart.”
That reminded me of the ability he’d demonstrated before.
He could instantly appear where he’d thrown an object infused with his mana.
A useful ability…
Though rather limited.
Gemstones were too brittle to use directly as weapons.
Still…
There might be other ways to apply them.
We walked deeper into the quarry.
A man with far more life in his face than the workers approached us.
“Who are you people? What brings you here?”
He had the rough look of a thug as well.
Judging from his clothes, he seemed to be a foreman.
I lightly nudged Cesare.
After clearing his throat, he spoke in an awkwardly tough voice.
“The boss at the moneylending office sent us.”
“The orphanage director is here, right?”
“We’ve got business with him. Bring him out.”
The owner had personally transferred the director here.
There was a good chance this place had close ties to him.
Sure enough, the foreman’s attitude changed the moment the boss was mentioned.
He glanced at me.
“And who’s the brat?”
“He’s my underling. Got a problem with that?”
That part was entirely Cesare’s improvisation.
I hadn’t warned him beforehand.
Not bad.
The foreman finally seemed convinced.
Pointing toward a narrow opening in the cliff, he said,
“He’s working inside there. Break starts in thirty minutes. He’ll come out then.”
“Wait?”
“Why wait? We’ll just go in and find him.”
“The tunnels are wide, and there are places where the ground is unstable. It’s dangerous.”
“If someone connected to the boss gets hurt, that’ll be my problem too.”
With that, the foreman walked away.
Thirty minutes wasn’t impossible to wait.
Then Cesare hurriedly spoke.
“You know I don’t actually think of you as my underling, right? You just look like a twenty-year-old kid, so I figured ‘underling’ fit.”
…Was he making fun of me?
I couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely innocent or teasing me.
Judging by his expression…
He was probably serious.
“While we wait, tell me more about your ability.”
“You can teleport to objects infused with your mana?”
“Yeah.”
“But weak objects break the moment I put mana into them, so I can’t really use them much.”
“It seems like it has plenty of potential.”
“Have you ever tried using it in other ways?”
Cesare blinked.
“Not really.”
“Most things die if I punch them enough.”
“And using mana gets tiring.”
So overwhelming strength had made clever thinking unnecessary.
He’d managed well enough so far.
But if he wanted to become stronger…
He couldn’t let such a useful ability go to waste.
“Monsters also have high mana resistance.”
“Have you ever tried infusing them with mana?”
“Huh?”
“No.”
“They usually die after a few punches, so I never really thought about it…”
Apparently the idea had never occurred to him.
Later, it might be worth finding a monster and experimenting.
“Your ability could be useful outside combat as well.”
“For transportation, perhaps.”
“I’d love to work as a courier.”
“But I can only teleport within one kilometer.”
“So that’s impossible.”
As we talked, thirty minutes passed.
Several workers emerged from the cave.
I turned to the foreman.
“Which one is the orphanage director? What does he look like?”
“Skinny blond man.”
“But he isn’t among the ones who came out.”
“That’s strange. It’s break time. Why hasn’t he come out?”
We waited a little longer.
No one else emerged.
Cesare stood up with a grumble.
“Damn it, we’ve got things to do.”
“Where the hell is he hiding?”
“Hey.”
“We’re going in to look.”
The foreman looked flustered, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop Cesare.
We entered the cave.
Near the entrance, the walls were smooth where most of the crystals had already been mined away.
The surroundings were eerily quiet.
As we ventured deeper…
Cesare suddenly stiffened.
“Master…”
“Did you hear that scream?”
A sharp cry echoed from deep within the cave.
Along with it came…
The unmistakable smell of blood.
It might have been…
The scream of the orphanage director.
