The Troll Clergyman

The troll in a suit was there.
From atop the chandelier, where he had hidden himself, Solomon had also witnessed the intellect and refinement displayed by the troll before him. And the figure of a high-ranking clergyman capable of casting the Level 5 spell <Life Bond> as well.

“……How are you still alive?”

Solomon asked back in a cold voice. To be honest, it was not as though he had no guesses. If anything, he had too many.

“I had taken out a few forms of insurance in preparation for my death.”
“I see.”

Above all, the dead coming back to life was not all that shocking in this line of work.

“So, did you show up again to take revenge?”

There was only one thing Solomon needed to be wary of. The fact that the troll, who should have been torn apart by steel cables by Solomon’s own hand and crushed to pieces beneath the gigantic chandelier falling over his head, had returned before him once again.

“Oh. Revenge. There’s a flaw in that word choice.”
“What?”
“Personal revenge refers, in the end, to an action or mentality that seeks to repay ‘harm one has personally suffered.’”

The troll said it in a voice full of intellect and refinement, as always.

“But philosophically speaking, does the me standing here, resurrected by magic, truly share an ontological identity with the ‘past me’ who was crushed to death in that mansion?”
“……What?”
“Is the being standing here nothing more than a derivative replica reconstructing the memories of the me who died there? Was I born as a kind of simulacral existence, an emergent derivative form replacing the dead original…….”
“……”
“As for me, I would like to give somewhat stronger support, in Baudrillardian terms, to the autonomous existence of the simulacrum.”

[Oh, that expression says you have no idea what kind of bullshit this troll is spewing. Actually, neither do I.]

“……”

For the first time, the narrator’s words stirred genuine sympathy from the depths of Solomon’s heart. In any case, that changed nothing.

“Besides, even if that were the case, I am not particularly fond of revenge.”

The troll said this as he straightened the slightly crooked cuff of his suit.

“I failed the commission, and my employer lost the ability to pay at the moment of his death. Even so, to become consumed by emotional resentment and act in the face of an irreversible realized loss would be the worst kind of sunk-cost fallacy.”
“……I suppose so.”
“I am not such a foolish troll as to invest in a negative-sum game with a negative ROI and no profit model.”
“You don’t seem to be lying.”

At least with Solomon’s current Insight, he could tell clearly that the troll was not lying.

“Rather, from an economic perspective, what I would propose is not revenge, but……”

It was then.

“I would like to propose something for the public good, Mr. Solomon.”

The clergyman troll said. Even Solomon blinked at the sudden remark.

“The truth is, while I accepted Baron Gould’s commission on short notice, there was one commission I had received before that.”
“……A commission?”
“Yes. Might I ask for Mr. Solomon’s assistance with that commission?”
“Why me?”
“Because a contractor capable of taking the life of a troll like me…… is a very rare high-value operator. Even in this hotel.”
“……”
“Shall we discuss the rest in my room? Room service has already arrived.”

Said the troll in the suit. At those words, Solomon instinctively grew wary, but soon remembered that all forms of conflict were strictly forbidden within the hotel. And for a guest as full of rationality as the troll before him, the possibility of doing something so foolish was even closer to zero.

‘There’s no harm in hearing him out.’

Solomon followed behind the troll. Quietly upward through the hotel. Past Solomon’s third floor and up to the fourth. He had expected as much. A troll of that caliber could hardly be just a third-floor guest. The same held true when they passed the fourth floor and went on to the fifth. Yet the troll did not stop.

Sixth floor, seventh floor, eighth floor……

Ninth floor.

“Here we are.”

Room 909. At that absurd height, Solomon unconsciously drew in a breath. It was a level he could not even dare compare to his own third floor. It was not yet a double-digit room above the tenth floor, but it was clearly a room fit for someone to call themselves one of the hotel’s powerhouses.

Unlike ordinary rooms, Room 909 had a door several times larger, as if it was made in consideration of the troll’s huge frame. And when he stepped inside, the interior was no exception.

“Oh, please wait a moment. I’ll prepare the tea.”

The troll’s room.
And yet what filled the room was not the trollish symbols of blood, violence, and savagery. It was the dizzying scent of intellect and scholarship.

「The Semiotic Desire of Trolls and the Discourse of Subjective Fragmentation」
「Critique of Pure Troll」
「Spell Portfolio Optimization Theory for Trolls: With a Focus on Risk Hedging」
「Simulacra and Simulation」

It felt as though he had stepped into the office of a philosophy professor.

“As you know…… it is not easy for a troll to use magic the way an elf does.”
“I’m sure.”

And that was true enough. Even at character creation, a troll’s magical aptitude was so terrible that even calling it hopeless was not enough. In other words, the troll before him had reached his current level despite that truly atrocious aptitude.

‘Setting aside the fact that a clergyman is staying at this hotel in the first place.’

Before long, the troll returned with chamomile tea and set a comically small teacup before Solomon.

“My introduction is late, Mr. Solomon. I am Jean Baudri, a troll clergyman.”
“A troll clergyman……?”

It was a combination shocking enough to go beyond mere bewilderment.

“As for you, I’ve been hearing quite a lot about you lately, Mr. Solomon.”
“It just happened.”
“At the very least, I consider you an ideal fit to join me on this commission. Above all, the performance you just displayed was nothing short of astonishing.”

Saying that, the troll took something out. It seemed to be documents delivered by room service for his commission.

“May I decide whether to take the job after I read the details?”
“Of course. Even if you refuse, however, I trust you will keep the contents of the commission strictly confidential.”
“……Needless to say.”

Solomon nodded and examined the commission the troll had received. A commission that even a ninth-floor guest, someone from a level Solomon could not yet dare to reach, was reluctant to handle alone.

───
High-Ranking Evil Spirit Extermination Commission

Client: William Molesworth, Director of the City Council Public Health and Quarantine Bureau
Target: Marie Molesworth, a sixteen-year-old girl in a possessed state
Location: Molesworth Family Villa, Sun Street
───

“A high-ranking evil spirit……”
“Troublesome and vexing beings in more ways than one.”

At the weight of that title, Solomon frowned. And possessed, no less. Did that mean an evil spirit had taken residence in the girl’s body?

“There may be no easy-to-understand god or lord, but this city overflows with easy-to-understand evils like demons and evil spirits.”
“That doesn’t sound much like something a clergyman would say.”
“It is precisely because I am a clergyman that I say it.”

After shrugging, the intellectual troll clergyman Jean Baudri spoke.

“In any case, facing evil in this city…… is never easy.”

Facing evil. That was hardly someone else’s concern for Solomon either.

“That is why Baron Gould’s commission happened to make for a fine opportunity.”
“……So finding a contractor to work with there was your goal from the beginning.”
“To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations.”

[Insight Success!]

While protecting Baron Gould, and while many contractors had gathered to protect him, this troll had possessed a separate purpose there from the very beginning.

“Even so, the returns on that investment were beyond my expectations.”

The troll said this, sipping delicately from the tiny teacup with his rough hand.

“Of course, there was the not-insignificant expense of one of my lives, but in return I discovered a blue-chip stock called Mr. Solomon…… so in the end, I would call it an earnings surprise.”
“So you’re asking us to save that bourgeois girl possessed by the evil spirit?”
“That is correct. For reference, the compensation will be divided seven to three.”

Said Jean Baudri, the troll clergyman. At those words, Solomon frowned.

“So my role is worth about three-tenths.”
“The ratio can be adjusted later depending on your performance. It will not be too late to discuss that again once the commission is complete.”
“……Fine. But I haven’t heard what the compensation actually is.”
“Oh, so you haven’t received one yet.”
“What?”
“There is only one form of reward that hotel guests receive for special commissions above a certain level.”
“And what is that?”
“The Wishmaster Medal.”

The Wishmaster Medal? At those words, Solomon blinked.

“Or, more simply, the Medal of Wishes.”
“A wish……?”
“Just as it sounds, it is a medal that grants wishes.”

The troll said this as he closed the teapot lid.

“It is something like a promissory note stating that the hotel will grant what we desire.”
“That sounds like something out of a genie in a lamp.”
“It is not quite so absolute. The hotel provides a certain number of medals each time a commission is completed, and depending on the wish one seeks to fulfill, the number of medals required also increases.”
“Can you exchange that wish for money?”
“Ha ha. Unfortunately, it cannot be exchanged directly for currency. That is the rule.”

It could not be exchanged for money. If so, then what was the point of it? Dumbfounded, Solomon pressed further.

“Then what use is it?”
“Money, in truth, cannot do as much as people think.”

The intelligent troll, Jean Baudri, answered with a smile.

“For instance, even if you brought a fortune to Deadlock Guild’s workshop, it would still be impossible to receive their services. But when it is a ‘wish of the hotel,’ that is a different matter.”
“I see. In my case, I’ve got a mountain of debt that needs paying off right away.”
“Ah, you need not worry about that either.”

The troll answered.

“Though it cannot be exchanged for money, a wish to clear debt is another matter. It is not even difficult.”

Not even difficult.

“The reward for this commission is ten Wishmaster Medals. Of those, Mr. Solomon’s share would be three. With one Wishmaster Medal, the maximum debt relief one may ‘wish for’ is 5 billion krona.”
“……!”

At those words, Solomon drew in a sharp breath. His remaining debt was only around 3.7 billion.

“Moreover, although I said it cannot be exchanged for money, there does exist a workaround whereby one borrows exactly 5 billion and then has it forgiven.”

Which meant that even after clearing 3.7 billion in debt, there would still be another 1.3 billion krona remaining.

“Of course, it would be difficult to call using a Wishmaster Medal merely to ‘wish for’ debt relief a particularly good use of it.”

Only then did Solomon realize that by this point, to powerhouses who handled commissions of this level, the concept of ‘money’ meant almost nothing. What they wanted was not money. It was something beyond money, something money itself could never obtain.

“How absurd can those wishes get?”

That was why Solomon asked.

“Once, someone wished to become ‘the king of a nation’ using those medals. It required a truly absurd number of them, but he achieved it in the end. As a result, he became the king ruling one of the kingdoms on the continent.”
“!”

The power to make one of the hotel’s guests into the king of a nation. At that fact, Solomon couldn’t hide his shock. No matter how much money one had, it could not make someone a king.

“Of course, there is an epilogue to the story in which that kingdom did not last long before collapsing. Governing a kingdom well requires a different set of abilities, and unfortunately, even maintaining a kingdom is itself a separate wish.”
“……”
“So, what will you do?”

A brief silence.

“I’ll take the commission.”

Solomon answered. The reward of granting wishes was compelling enough on its own, but beyond that, there were more than enough reasons for him to take this job. For one thing, what Jean Baudri, the troll guest from the ninth floor, had shown back at the mansion could not possibly have been the full extent of his strength. Though the fact that an innocent life had been lost because he had not revealed his full power was another matter.

‘A chance to see one of the hotel’s powerhouses up close.’

Taking all things into account, it was not an offer Solomon had any reason to refuse.