So This Is The Taste Of Power

Because the Chloe Grace they knew was a dimwit who could barely read her letters, let alone do sums.

The two of them were so startled by a simple bit of addition that Dong-hui ended up startled herself, and she blinked at them.

“Of course. A sum like that I could do with my eyes shut. Anyway — what does the butler think?”
“To my eye, all told, you might well ask 150 gold for the lot.”
“Not 200 gold?”

Dong-hui had no idea what one gold even came to in Korean money, but she named a high price anyway. Sure enough, Gold Rich, who had quoted his own figure a moment earlier with such composure, gave a visible twitch at the amount she threw out.

“I am disappointed, Gold Rich. I told you I have a great many of these. It seems I had better do my business with a different jewel merchant.”

There was no time to send for another jewel merchant, but Dong-hui decided to play hard to get all the same. She rose as though there were no deal left to be done, picked up the jewel box and walked slowly to the table.

The closer Chloe came to the table, the faster Gold Rich’s head moved, swinging back and forth between the jewels and her. Dong-hui gathered up the necklaces at her leisure, as though she had not a regret in the world, and stole a sidelong look at his face. With every necklace that vanished off the table, his sallow face turned more sallow still.

Carry on like that and he’ll go the color of crap.

“Butler. Get in touch with another jewel merchant…”
“No! No! I shall give you 200 gold.”

Gold Rich seized Chloe’s hand in his haste. His thick hand was hot and clammy; nerves, most likely. Dong-hui pulled a face, tugged her hand out of his grip and scrubbed it briskly against the dress she was wearing.

Flustered, he drew a neatly folded handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out respectfully in both hands.

“My apologies, my lady. My heart ran on ahead of me, that is all. I beg you to forgive an ignorant tradesman his discourtesy.”

She liked that he was quick on the uptake, too.

“So that is 200 gold for the four, correct?”
“Yes. I shall pay it at once.”

Gold Rich realized the deal was struck, and his whole face went bright with delight.

“You will leave 1,000 gold before you go. And come again next time and take the rest.”
“I beg your pardon? You said 200 gold not a moment ago! What sort of preposterous price is that!”

He shot up out of his seat as though the whole thing were absurd. Angry, apparently. Both his fat cheeks had flushed a hot red, and looking at his face, Dong-hui thought he was exactly like a toad held over a fire.

“Impatient, aren’t you.”

Dong-hui fetched the other box she had set on the bed and put it up on the table. Gold Rich took one look at the battered old thing, the sort of box that might have held sweet cookies, and his face twisted with irritation. Clueless as Chloe Grace was about the way of the world, driving a price up this far was simply unheard of.

But the moment the lid came off, his aggrieved expression vanished without a trace, and his jaw dropped straight down with it. You could have thrown that box out on the spot without missing it, and inside lay four more of every necklace he had just been shown.

“Well? 1,000 gold.”

At that triumphant question, Gold Rich stretched a trembling hand toward the box.

“M— may I examine them closely?”
“Of course.”

Chloe’s answer had barely landed before he forgot his dignity entirely, plumped himself down on the floor, and pulled a pair of white cotton gloves out of his coat and put them on. The gloves bore his own name embroidered across the back of each hand in gold thread.

“Well, then.”

Something close to grim resolve settled on his face, the look of a knight who had finished arming for battle. Gold Rich drew one deep breath and reached slowly into the box. Dong-hui watched, expressionless, as his fingertips slid down into it, shaking with nerves.

If I told him I had a hundred more of these, he’d faint dead away.

From the day Borimdang became an activated area right up to the day before Gold Rich came, Dong-hui had been diligently hauling jewels across. By now every last box in the room was crammed full of them, and what she had shown him was only a part of the haul.

“How can such craftsmanship exist!”
“Good heavens! They are beautiful!”
“There is no possible way this is the work of human hands! Oh! God above, do you tell me this is truly not a dream!”
“That a day like this should come to me! Heh-heh-heh-huuuk!”

Gold Rich sat there until the sun went down, talking to himself, laughing and then weeping and then laughing again. Only when it had gone pitch dark outside did he get to his feet with a puffy, swollen face and beam. He had the refreshed look of a man who had just woken from a good long sleep at a jjimjilbang.¹

“1,000 gold! I shall hand it over. No! I shall give you 1,100 gold. I beg you, my lady — do please trade with me and no one else next time as well!”

He bent deep from the waist and asked politely. Or rather, begged. He was offering more than they had agreed on, and the corners of Dong-hui’s mouth crept up; she had to work at keeping a solemn face.

“I shall think on it.”

Chloe tossed the words out as though granting a great favor, and Gold Rich folded his stubby body neatly to ninety degrees.

“I do beg of you. I shall price them truly generously.”
“That will depend on how you conduct yourself.”
“Thank you.”

He gave a cringing smile, then fetched a great chest himself and began packing the jewels carefully into it.

Dong-hui stared blankly at him, and it occurred to her that next time she ought to bring proper cases across as well. Say what you will, there is nothing so effective at driving a price up as splendid packaging. And since the cases would be made of materials that did not exist here, they might well fetch a fair price themselves.

Gold Rich put every jewel into the chest himself, so that nobody else could see, and snapped a stout padlock shut on it. Only after stringing the key on a chain around his neck and hiding it away inside his coat did he call for someone.

The man who came in at his call had a face astonishingly like Gold Rich’s own. The only difference was that he was a little taller, and younger.

“Your son, is he.”

Chloe asked it with evident interest, and Gold Rich answered with a proud smile.

“Yes. I bring him along to teach him the trade.”
“I see.”
“What are you standing there for! Greet Lord Grace at once! He is my own son and yet he is this slow on the uptake! My deepest apologies!”
“Never mind. These things happen. If I took offense I need only take my business elsewhere. Think nothing of it.”
“Oh dear! My lady! This wretched boy of mine!”

Gold Rich cracked his son across the back of the head and bellowed.

“Apologize to her ladyship this instant!”
“…Yes. I am sorry. Please forgive my oversight.”

The son flung himself flat and begged forgiveness with no idea what any of it was about. Moments before, his father had been reeling off unpleasant things about the lord of Grace; now the man looked, to anyone’s eyes, like her most loyal retainer.

Ah-ha.
So this is the taste of power.

Dong-hui savored the ease of the victor and smiled as benevolently as she knew how.

“Surely your son’s name is not Silver Rich.”
“How did you know!”

She had tossed it out as a dad joke, and Gold Rich’s eyes went round with astonishment.

“No way, seriously?”

In this world, she was never, ever going to open a naming shop.²

Names as on-the-nose as that.

Gold Rich went out of his way to inform her that his second son was named Bronze Rich and his youngest daughter Dia Rich, and then left the drawing room.

“I shall see you again soon, my lady!”
“Mm. Off you go.”

Dong-hui mimicked the face Gold Rich had worn when he first arrived and waved a hand about as though he were a nuisance.

“Yes. Thank you.”

As he bowed deep in farewell, his son Silver Rich called in one of the attendants who had been waiting outside, and a man came striding in carrying an enormous chest.

Dong-hui looked at the man who had appeared out of nowhere, tensed without meaning to, and swallowed hard. He was a giant, a good two meters tall by the look of him. And it was not only the height. Knotted muscle packed him all over, his thighs were as thick as Dong-hui’s torso, and his feet were so huge that a pair of his shoes must have taken several times the leather an ordinary man’s would.

For all the menace of his body, the man’s face was oddly cute. The unusually bright round eyes and the thick lashes had to be responsible. Face and body did not go together at all, and the gap left Dong-hui unable to work out whether she ought to be frightened or amused.

The man set the chest of gold coins down on the floor as lightly as you would set down a lunchbox bag.

“What is in the chest is 1,000 gold. And this is the 100 gold I promised on top of it. 1,100 gold all together.”

Gold Rich said it in a respectful voice as he laid a leather pouch holding the 100 gold on top of the chest.

“I trust you.”
“Thank you.”

Gold Rich never dreamed it was only because she could not be bothered to count it out on the spot; he made his farewells with a face full of emotion and went on his way.

The chest he left behind was full to the brim with gleaming yellow gold coins. Butler Scrooge had run the estate’s household on a permanently tightened belt, and the sight of them overflowing in front of him set him rubbing his eyes over and over, as though he could not believe them.

“Butler.”
“Yes, my lady.”

His voice even trembled a little with anticipation.

“It will still be nowhere near enough money, but let us start with what is most pressing.”
“If you mean what is most pressing…”
“For now, let us see what can be done about the village of Morta.”