Chapter 18

Chapter 18 : Free Event to Celebrate the Grand Opening (4)

The moment I confirmed that my rank was still only Minor Role C, an immense emptiness washed over me.

I had not gone through all that trouble just to raise my Contribution by a pitiful handful.

Of course, there had also been Pan’s threat that he would send me to the Mist domain if I refused, and I still had to clear the Epic Quest and find the traitor, but strictly speaking, it had never been something I needed to tackle with all my strength.

And yet after pouring my heart into finishing the commission, what I got in return was not money at all, but merely 3 Points and a Fragment of the Original Work.

“Wouldn’t my Contribution rise faster if I just grabbed Pan by the collar and squeezed?”

I raked a hand through my hair and took in the forest night view Selly had praised as so beautiful.

It was deflating, but what could I do now that it was already over?

Since I had basically cleaned up the mess I caused myself, I would have to be satisfied with the fact that at least it no longer sat uneasily on my conscience.

“So the studio was over there.”

Resting my arms on the window frame, I let my eyes drift over the lights in the direction where the painting had been set, and an oddly familiar shape came into view.

It was a strange feeling.

That from over there, she had looked this way and thought to include it in her painting.

Even while I had been struggling desperately to adapt to this place, wrestling with the system.

Behind those countless lights, there had been Selly and Soi, their friends, the people of the castle, and countless others living their own lives just the same.

It no longer felt like a world that existed only to be summed up in a few lines of text.

“Maybe I’m the one trapped in an illusion.”

……This, ladies and gentlemen, is how terrifying pre-dawn sentimentality can be.

I shut the window, flopped spread-eagled onto the bed, and stared at the reward notification still spinning noisily at the edge of my vision.

It was the Fragment of the Original Work chosen as my reward.

It would have looked rather suspicious if the item had simply been thrown out of thin air the moment I completed the quest, so fortunately, item-type rewards had to be claimed directly or could be issued separately whenever I wanted.

“If possible, I would’ve liked something that restored the book.”

I had already been curious about “Sek” ever since Pan casually revealed that he was the Underworld Lord the last time he tossed the book back at me.

Ding!

[Reward will be issued.]

[The fragment 〈The Phantasm Master’s Favorite Possession〉 has been bound to the Executor.]

[The Phantasm Master’s Favorite Possession (Bound)

An earring the Master of Phantasms always wore.

It is said to possess a special ability.

There is a high risk of it being stolen by anyone who knows its true identity.

At present, most of its power has been lost, and it is no more than an ornament.

??? : ???]

The system was clearly testing my patience.

The fact that it warned me that anyone who knew what it really was would try to steal it meant that if I went around asking questions about it, I would practically be advertising it as free for the taking.

And since I did not even know what ability it possessed, it was, for the time being, nothing more than an accessory. Yet the system shamelessly handed it over as though it were some great Fragment of the Original Work.

Judging from the way my Contribution had only risen by a mouse’s whisker, perhaps it was not all that important after all.

Looking at the earring lying quietly in my palm, even the thought of putting it on vanished.

The tiny red gemstones dangled in a thin linked strand, and if I wore it on my ear, it would attract everyone’s gaze in a way far too embarrassing to endure.

“Was there only one from the beginning?”

I lifted it by the tip, but all that happened was that the strand, just a little longer than my finger, dangled and swayed.

“And how exactly did the system know I only ever had one ear pierced?”

Brazen little thing.

In any case, it was a design I had no desire to wear, so I carefully bundled it up and tucked it inside the travel record.

I was beginning to feel like some kind of item collector.

“Are all the Fragments of the Original Work this sort of thing?”

And when I considered the intention of the system that had handed it to me, the sheer transparency of it left me irritated.

In the very first Epic Quest I received, the system had blatantly demanded that I destroy the Original Work.

If I kept collecting fragments of the Original Work as quest rewards, then my influence over it would naturally grow more and more, and things would begin to flow exactly where the system wanted.

What worried me, though, was the widening gap between the scenes from the Original Work I had already loaded and would continue to load in the future, and the world I myself was changing.

I was afraid the day might come when there would be no point in loading the Original Work at all.

“Is this really right?”

I asked the system, but no answer came back.

I suppose I had expected too much from a neglect-type guide.

---

“This is all the extra tea I have.”

“You have quite the talent. If the fixer business does not suit you, you could come work inside the castle and help with various things.”

Pol, who had been coveting it for several days now and had finally come all the way to my office in person, accepted the two spare tins of tea with a satisfied smile.

It was the sort of expression that looked ready to pop up a little floating heart and announce that his favorability had increased.

It took tremendous effort to manage my facial muscles.

The reason I had been deliberately trying to get on Pol’s good side ever since hearing a certain piece of information the other day was because I learned that all expenses related to me were approved by Pol.

So I had studied his preferences, what he liked, the sorts of attitudes in others that irritated him, his habits, and so on—I asked Ochel—and started aiming for precisely this result from the moment of our interview.

Well done, patience.

“In that case, perhaps I should simply submit a request to the fixer. What do you say?”

“Ahaha, I’d be glad to, but that would go against the reason I opened the fixer’s office in the first place, so I’ll have to decline.”

They had gone so far as to force me to open the place just to improve people’s perceptions of me, so if I now shut myself away inside the castle, I really might be bundled up and express-shipped to the Mist domain this time.

That was why I had also been told in advance to reject any requests that came from inside the ruler’s castle.

“I know, I know. It was only a joke.”

“If it’s some other kind of work, I’d be happy to hear it.”

Ideally, something that paid generously for the difficult task of comfortably sitting around and breathing.

I smiled sweetly as I saw Pol out, only to find my eyes meeting those of people coming from the path on the other side.

It was a family.

Two of the children were familiar—the same friends of Soi who had come during the ghost commission—and the adults, a man and a woman, were clearly their parents.

The moment they saw me out there, they jumped a little and hesitated, but eventually came right up to me and said,

“We’ve come to make a request.”

“……Please come in.”

Since I still had warm water left over from serving tea to Pol, I steeped another pot.

As I did, I watched the parents’ awkwardness while the children, perfectly at ease, sat at the consultation table and helped themselves to cookies.

Unlike the children, they were no doubt still burdened by the ingrained image they had of me.

I set the tea down and deliberately brushed my bangs aside so my eyes could be clearly seen.

“So, what brings you here?”

“It’s the children…… we’d like you to look after them.”

“……Excuse me?”

“I’m Konu.”

“Chiru.”

So the older one was Konu, and the younger one was Chiru.

But what exactly did they mean by asking me to look after the children? How much, and in what way? The request was so unexpected that I blanked for a moment, and the parents took it upon themselves to explain.

“To be honest, we did have our prejudices.”

“The rumors about you being Underfolk, and our thoughts about Underfolk in general…… I’m sorry, but I hope you can understand. We even scolded the children when they first came back from visiting here.”

It began with an apology.

I had become so used to people stabbing at me with blades while discussing whether to kill me or spare me that facing people who actually apologized merely for their prejudice felt strangely awkward.

“If that’s changed now, then that’s enough.”

“Yes. That’s right. We heard how Selly’s matter was resolved.”

I watched them as their formerly stiff expressions gradually softened, and found myself lifting my brows.

If their perceptions kept improving like this, might I eventually be able to live here with my legs comfortably stretched out?

I pushed more cookies toward the children and took out my notebook to hear the request properly.

“I may not have horns or a tail, but I’m not such a bad fellow. So then—when, and how, would you like me to watch them?”

When I repeated what the children had said the last time, almost word for word, the parents scratched awkwardly at their heads and finally began explaining.

“Our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up. We’ve never really had the chance to celebrate properly before, but this time we wanted to spend some quiet time together, just the two of us……”

Taken together, it was not all that complicated.

After discussing it, the couple had decided that since they wanted to go away for their anniversary, perhaps they could entrust the children to me.

The children had not objected either, so the whole family had unanimously ended up at the fixer’s office.

Apparently, Konu, the older one, had even welcomed the idea and encouraged it.

The time requested was one week, starting two days from now.

Since my current lodging was nothing more than a tiny room in the ruler’s castle, they added the condition that I would stay and board in their house instead.

They said they would prepare two days’ worth of meals in advance, but after that, because of storage issues, they would need me to manage separately.

I saw no reason to refuse, so I accepted the commission.

“When you say the Domain of the Sky, is it actually floating up in the air?”

Since that was where they had chosen to travel, I asked something I had long been curious about.

For a moment the couple both looked genuinely bewildered, then burst into open laughter.

Why? Why, exactly?

“There’s another reason it’s called the Sky. If I tell you, it’ll ruin the fun, so I think you ought to look it up later—or better yet, go see it for yourself.”

“I really don’t think I’d be that disappointed if you just told me……”

“We’ll bring you back a souvenir.”

“Oh…… in that case, I wholeheartedly approve.”

I was working for free, so small bonuses like that became real motivation.

From what I had observed, the children were fairly well-behaved, and if I only had to look after them for a week in exchange for a travel souvenir—

Ding!

[!Unexpected Situation!]

[A 【Time】 Limited Quest has been assigned.]

【Time】 Safeguard the Well-Being of the Two Children

Children separated from their parents can become sensitive, deeply stressed, and prone to unexpected incidents. Take care of the children safely until their parents return.

Are you a master of childcare?

▶Fixed Reward – Large Point Gain

▶Fixed Penalty – Greatly Reduced Trust with the Members of the Forest

▶Time Limit: 10d : 00h : 00m : 00s

—With the quest added on top of it, it was profit no matter how I looked at it.

---

The morning of the agreed day.

It was a good thing I had already visited in advance and familiarized myself with the location and layout.

The children’s parents pressed several pages of instructions into my hands—basic information about the two of them, precautions, and so forth—and kept looking at me with apologetic, worried expressions.

The wary suspicion they’d once shown when my being Underfolk still bothered them had long since vanished, and now they were clasping my hands tightly and telling me earnestly that they were counting on me.

“At last, people who recognize my true worth!”

In high spirits, I stepped grandly into the place where I would be living for the next week.

The family of four lived in a quiet outlying area quite some distance from the ruler’s castle.

Their two-story house was shaped like a great box half wedged into the gaps between the trees, tied together with a bundle of small branches and dozens of ropes as though defying gravity.

I truly did not understand why, with children in the house no less, they insisted on living this sort of even more dangerous acrobatic lifestyle, but in any case—

Fortunately, unlike the place where I’d first been imprisoned, this one didn’t sway precariously.

Satisfied by the unexpectedly stable interior, I was giving the house a thorough once-over when I noticed the two children peeking at me over the upstairs railing with only their heads showing.

Oh, ho.

I curled one corner of my mouth upward and went calmly into the kitchen, where I laid out the cookies and snacks I had brought.

“Well then, if you’re both still asleep, I suppose it can’t be helped——”

Thud-thud-thud.

“Can we have cookies?”

Chiru, the younger one, came racing down first and stared at the basket of cookies with shining eyes.

“You shouldn’t run like that.”

Konu approached with affected indifference, but he couldn’t hide the way his gaze kept drifting to the cookies.

I knew it. The taste of these cookies, transported all the way from the ruler’s castle, was irresistible.

Handing them out one by one, I smiled in satisfaction.

A good start.

Let the whole week go like this.

Chiru was a child serious about eating. I had heard it wasn’t that he ate a lot, but that he was deeply curious about new things, tasty things, and interesting things.

Which meant I had to carefully regulate how often he ate.

Konu, on the other hand, was the sort of child who could entertain himself. He liked to read, had a quieter temperament, and was said to look after his younger sibling well.

Apparently, he also had a habit of fact-checking people, which might cause some trouble from time to time.

Based on everything I had been told, nothing about this seemed likely to be particularly difficult, and so I looked forward to a relatively easy week.

And at first, the first day seemed poised to pass in peace.

---

I had raised a flag.

Easygoing? What’s that? Is it something you eat?