An Investment

“—Man, I slept well.”

Tōru woke up in his room at the inn and looked toward the window. The sky had grown completely dark, with a few stars twinkling overhead.

After defeating Wenz and the other members of Demon Centipede and handing them over to the guards, introducing the twins to the guild branch manager, and cooperating with the guards’ questioning, he had returned to the inn around noon. By his calculations, he had slept for almost half a day.

His stomach growled the moment he sat up.

The guards had kindly provided some snacks during questioning, but he hadn’t eaten a proper meal since morning.

Rubbing his stomach as it protested its hunger, Tōru climbed out of bed.

“…So, why the hell are you two here?”

He directed his question at the twins, who were inexplicably in his room.

The twins were engrossed in a board game. Whether they were playing against each other or somehow playing alone was unclear, but both wore serious expressions. A glance at the board revealed that they were recreating and analyzing yesterday’s match between Tōru and Euphie.

The twins turned toward Tōru in unison.

“Shall we go out for dinner?”

“Thank you for the wonderful sight of your sleeping face.”

“Glad you enjoyed it. Now answer my question.”

He asked again while running a comb through his hair, and the twins finally explained.

“The aftermath has been dealt with, and the auTōruities have handed down their decisions. We’re here to report the results.”

“That was fast.”

“Apparently, they skipped several procedural steps because they were worried the Ubaz merchant company might be attacked and burned down if they didn’t resolve things quickly.”

The smuggling scandal had erupted just as the tax collectors were beginning their rounds, when people’s awareness of taxation was particularly high. Moreover, the shortage of gold coins had already begun affecting everyday life, so resentment toward those responsible was apparently widespread.

Since the adventurer clan Demon Centipede had handled the actual smuggling operations, the branch manager had also been summoned before the town council to explain the incident. Consequently, he couldn’t remain by the twins’ side.

The branch manager had apparently decided that sending the twins to Tōru would ensure their safety, so he had arranged for them to enter Tōru’s room while he slept.

“This inn is frequently used by adventurers, so they opened the room for us as soon as we asked.”

“From now on, you probably shouldn’t rely on the inn’s locks to secure your room.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

After finishing his preparations, Tōru decided he might as well invite the twins along.

“Recommend somewhere that serves fresh vegetables. Some hot potage would be nice, too.”

“I always imagined adventurers ate almost nothing but meat.”

“My body’s my livelihood, after all. I’ve got to think about nutritional balance. Not that I know much about it.”

“Nutrition, huh? That’s an area we haven’t studied at all.”

Tōru left the inn with the twins. The innkeeper, who had asked him to exchange gold coins the previous morning, watched the twins with a complicated expression.

Along the way, the residents of Darandy they passed also gave the twins conflicted looks. The twins, who walked hand in hand, seemed largely unconcerned by the attention.

“Harran, Wenz, and the others involved in the smuggling have been arrested. Apparently, Harran had prepared an escape route through the underground waterways in advance. Your contribution in capturing him back there was quite significant, Tōru-san.”

“So you were Red Thunder, Tōru-san. Even we’ve heard of you. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“People give you those nicknames without asking. It’s embarrassing to introduce yourself by one.”

Besides, his nickname described his fighting style so accurately that it could give opponents an opportunity to prepare countermeasures. For that reason, Tōru rarely introduced himself by it.

“What’s going to happen to the Ubaz merchant company?”

“It’s been ordered to pay compensation. Two thousand seven hundred gold coins. It’s more of a public example than an actual punishment.”

“…Can it even afford that?”

“Of course not. Its financial situation had already deteriorated considerably.”

“For the time being, we plan to have the Ubaz merchant company purchase our personal assets and books about otherworldly objects at low prices. The company will then auction them under its own name to raise enough money to pay the compensation.”

“Ah, those books on the shelves.”

They were rare and traded at exceptionally high prices. If taken to the right buyers, they would easily fetch more than a thousand gold coins.

In exchange, the twins would lose every asset they owned.

“Taking into consideration that we provided information about the smuggling method using Wood’s Metal, and that we were effectively under house arrest without participating in the smuggling itself, we weren’t charged with any crimes.”

“Even so, there’s no choice but to dissolve the Ubaz merchant company. It has no credibility, employees, or funds left, so rebuilding it is out of the question.”

And the Ubaz merchant company wasn’t the only one that had lost people’s trust.

Tōru sighed, ignoring the looks directed at them by passersby.

The twins walking in front of him had lost not only their assets but also their reputations and means of employment.

Yet neither of them looked particularly distressed.

“As for Harran’s motive, apparently he intended to use the money he’d accumulated through the illicit gold smuggling to establish a new merchant company in another city, employing only people personally loyal to him.”

“It seems Harran himself understood that he couldn’t maintain the Ubaz merchant company with only employees who unquestioningly obeyed him.”

“He could’ve just downsized the company, but I guess his pride wouldn’t allow it.”

Tōru recalled Harran’s face, though he doubted he would ever see the man again. Harran had always seemed angry, but he had at least been capable of planning ahead, considering that he had prepared an escape route.

Unfortunately, he simply hadn’t possessed the qualities needed to lead others.

“This is the place.”

Just as their discussion of the incident came to an end, the twins stopped walking.

Without knowing better, Tōru would have mistaken the building for an ordinary house. However, a blackboard displaying the menu stood beside the entrance, although it was more than half-hidden by the surrounding plants and would have been easy to overlook.

Once inside, he discovered that the restaurant was surprisingly spacious. Lush green houseplants decorated the back of the establishment. There didn’t seem to be many customers, with more than eighty percent of the seats unoccupied.

Upon seeing the twins, the proprietor thoughtfully suggested that they use a table at the back. A partition separated it from the rest of the dining area, allowing them to eat without worrying about other people’s stares.

After taking a seat and ordering several dishes, Tōru looked across the table at the twins sitting side by side.

“So, what are you two planning to do now?”

“We’ve been invited to become someone’s adopted daughters.”

“The branch manager?”

“Yes. He’s an old friend of our parents. He offered to look after us because our parents supported him financially many times when he was still an active adventurer, and he wants to repay their kindness.”

The Darandy branch manager had always shown particular concern for the twins. Now that Tōru understood their relationship, his behavior made perfect sense.

Apparently, the former head of the Ubaz merchant company and his wife really had been admirable people.

“But you two don’t seem very enthusiastic about the idea.”

When Tōru pointed this out, the twins looked surprised.

“How did you figure that out?”

“If you intended to become his adopted daughters and stay in this town, your behavior would affect the branch manager’s reputation, too. If that were your plan, you’d probably be making more of an effort to act friendly.”

Throughout their walk from the inn to the restaurant, Euphie and Mary had ignored everyone they encountered.

Even if the Ubaz merchant company ceased to exist, the twins should have been able to continue living in town with relatively little inconvenience if they visited their former business partners and explained the circumstances.

Once it became public knowledge that the twins had cooperated in resolving the smuggling incident, people might still gossip behind their backs, but openly criticizing them would become much more difficult.

“Or are you planning to hire me as your bodyguard while you go around paying everyone a visit?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. As you guessed, Tōru-san, we don’t intend to become his adopted daughters.”

“There’s something we’d like to propose to you, Tōru-san.”

Euphie and Mary straightened their postures and addressed Tōru seriously.

“Would you consider investing in us?”

“Investing?”

The unexpected word prompted him to repeat it in surprise.

Euphie and Mary nodded simultaneously.

“You said you’d made a fresh start and decided to live out your life in this world, even if it means dying here. But despite saying that, you still haven’t managed to dispel your anxiety, have you, Tōru-san?”

“Then why don’t we, who understand that anxiety, build a place where we belong in this world together?”

“Our knowledge will undoubtedly prove useful to you. We won’t become a burden.”

“And even if you suddenly find a way to return to Earth, we won’t complain about being left behind. We’ll have made our own decision to accompany you.”

As the twins continued laying out their terms like a proper investment proposal, Tōru raised one hand to stop them.

“So that’s your angle.”

He folded his arms and considered their proposal.

They were two beautiful girls of a vulnerable age. Even though they had studied self-defense, there was no telling what might happen to them once they ventured outside town.

They would absolutely need an escort to leave town, but neither of them had any money to hire one.

However, they apparently believed they could make a convincing offer to Tōru, who understood the extent of their knowledge and possessed the ability to protect them.

And indeed, the terms they offered weren’t bad.

Tōru had resolved to live and die in this world, yet some part of him remained uncertain, unable to completely shake his anxiety. For someone still caught between those feelings, maintaining his relationship with the twins might be a good way to gradually adjust to his new life.

After considering the matter for a while, Tōru finally reached a decision just as their ordered drinks arrived.

“Well then, I’m looking forward to working with you two.”

“Yes, likewise. We look forward to working with you.”

Tōru raised his glass, and Euphie and Mary responded in kind, clinking their glasses together in a toast.

“By the way, Tōru-san, do you think I’m Euphie?”

“Or do you think I’m Euphie?”

“…For now, I guess I’ll work on learning how to tell you two apart.”