Chapter 73

“Incredible.”

An air of stifling decadence and elegance.

In a corner of a dimly lit room where these scents hung heavy, an old man’s voice trembled.

“Impossible. Utterly absurd. This is sacrilege. It cannot be permitted.”

With white hair falling over his shoulders, grey eyes, and the poised air of a cleric, this was the man who, in his heyday, had served as the Prime Minister of the great nation of Luten—Clemens.

Having been sent to prison and gradually acclimating to this bizarre space, he stood shuddering today, a certain book clutched in his hand.

“What is the matter, ‘Vain-Glory’?¹ If there are numbers you don’t understand, you should ask ‘Sloth’.”

“Oh? I thought that even if he is a former ‘old-fart noble,’ Vain-Glory served as Prime Minister. I assumed deciphering a ledger of this level would be child’s play for him.”

“Maybe he found some ‘window dressing’?² Fitting for a man named Vain-Glory, wouldn’t you say?”

The three men calling out while lounging on their respective sofas were Liesel, Morgan, and Horst.

Clemens spun around with such force his joints practically snapped.

“I don’t recall ever permitting such an embarrassing nickname!” he barked sharply.

Horst, who was sipping tea, simply shrugged while sticking out his tongue. “Forgive me, Clemens.”

Indeed.

After the incident with his wife, Clemens had been stripped of every shred of vanity and social authority. The inmates of the prison had taken a liking to him and bestowed the nickname upon him; just as Heidemarie had predicted, he had become their complete plaything.

Vain-Glory—it was the name of an ancient vice that had once been counted among the eight deadly sins.

Clemens had been given a position akin to an assistant to the “Seven Sinners of the Prison.” Utilizing his experience and knowledge, he managed the prison’s internal accounting. However, he did so while being relentlessly teased for desperately trying to maintain his pride as a former Prime Minister, despite his true nature having already been exposed.

“Good grief, when I looked at the ‘public’ ledgers, I thought there might be a swindler among you who could at least read numbers… but what is this? What is this ridiculous ‘ledger’?”

“Oh, to receive words of praise from the former Prime Minister… I am truly humbled. Regarding the ‘public’ side, I intended to create a ledger befitting a ‘hell on earth,’ but it seems even a professional’s eye found no inconsistencies?”

“Hmph, it was a disgustingly seamless ledger. So much so that it was suspicious. If the one examining it had been me instead of some greenhorn tax official, I would have launched a raid within six months. It is a meticulous ledger that the pig-faced guards sent here couldn’t possibly manage.”

His tone was disparaging, but there was a definite trace of admiration for a skilled peer bleeding through.

Clemens was originally a Prime Minister who rose through the ranks of finance and accounting. While he loathed incompetent pawns enough to spit on them, he had a tendency to open his heart to those who were capable.

Inevitably, he seemed to get along well with Morgan, who controlled the prison’s economy as a former swindler. The two occasionally engaged in conversations where it was unclear if they were insulting or complimenting each other. Morgan, for his part, found Clemens’s noble origins irritating, but he held a level of respect for the old man’s sharp numerical intuition, backed by years of experience.

“If you praise it that much, then what exactly is the problem?”

“Don’t play dumb. This thing you handed me as the ‘private’ ledger. What on earth is this?”

Clemens held up a worn-out notebook, his anger flaring once more.

The word “Private Ledger” and the fiscal year were written quite boldly on the cover. Upon flipping through it, one found a jumble of handwriting and languages, with phrases scattered about like: “Late October, Clear, North 1, West 3” or “New arrival in the South-South-East, 1”—words that were utterly baffling to interpret.

Not only that, but words that clearly didn’t belong in a ledger appeared periodically: “Hungry,” “Hair Beauty Cream (Honey ver.) Concept Design, mid-May,” “Abrasive (Boxed, Bernstein Co.) old packaging style.”

“Is this a diary? A business memo? A shopping list? And what are the units? Is this income or expenditure? If it’s an expenditure, write the item name instead of a compass direction! Categorize it! Unify it into the Luten language! This isn’t a guestbook at some roadside inn—don’t pass it around for everyone to scribble in!”

As they were faced with these entirely reasonable criticisms, the group simply shrugged.

Just then—

“—Checkmate.”

The beautiful woman who had remained silent until now spoke in a sweet, secretive voice.

With loosely waving silver hair and melancholy indigo eyes, it was the lovely former prostitute, Heidemarie.

She casually ignored the fuming Clemens and offered a soft smile to Isaac, who was clutching his head in front of her.

“Honestly, ‘Gluttony.’ It’s no fun if you lose that quickly.”

“You… knew I was bad… at chess… and yet you invited me anyway…”

“Because I was in the mood for it.”

Answering without a hint of remorse, the Queen of the Prison stared intently at the board where the pieces stood.

“—North 5, East 2. The timing… well, I suppose it will be around the end of next month. I’m sure it will be a day of very heavy rain.”

“North 5, East 2, late November, rain, she says. There you go, ‘Vain-Glory,’ write that down.”

“What?”

When Clemens, left behind by the conversation, asked for clarification, Horst let out a sigh. He continued slowly, his tone like that of a teacher explaining something to a slow-witted student.

“Since you’re asking ‘what on earth is this,’ ‘Lust’ is kindly telling you. She’s explaining the meaning behind the words scattered in the private ledger.”

“….?”

Clemens furrowed his brows suspiciously. As far as he could see, Heidemarie was simply relaying the coordinates of the checkmating piece. No, wait—she had added extra information like the date and weather. What was the point of that?

“Is it a record of the game?”

“Less of a record, more of a prophecy, I’d say.”

“What are you—”

Just as Clemens was about to press further, the door creaked open, and another “Great Sinner” walked in.

A man with a sturdy build and a fearless face. The former Hero, marked by his unruly, thick black hair and deep, striking blue eyes.

It was Gilbert.

In one hand, he held two sealed envelopes.

“Good news. The settlement money we wrung from King Felix—pardon me, the ‘gratuity’ bestowed upon us—was invested in the northern gold veins and the western silver veins. It seems they’ve struck new mineral deposits in both. One in the north, and three in the west.”

“Ah, so that’s the ‘North 1, West 3’ bit.”

“Precisely.”

As Gilbert let a faint smirk play across his lips, the room erupted in whistles and cheers.

Liesel, who was standing closest, snatched the private ledger from Clemens. He struck through the word “Late” in the entry that read “Late October, Clear, North 1, West 3” and added “25th” in its place.

“Mmm, I can almost hear the gold singing already.”

Liesel mused about whether he should overhaul his entire wardrobe, while Clemens stood by, utterly aghast.

What, exactly, was happening here?

Seeing that Clemens’s brain was flatly refusing to process the situation, Horst offered an exasperated explanation.

“Look, maintaining an environment that satisfies us and our precious princess requires astronomical amounts of money. That’s why we occasionally invest our funds according to ‘Lust’s’ advice. As for the interest rate… well, it’s honestly too ridiculous to bother calculating. Money just rolls in every day like crazy.”

“It increases faster than we can record it, after all,” Morgan added with a quiet nod.

Everyone else in the room seemed to find absolutely nothing strange about the fact that a massive fortune was endlessly multiplying.

“What on earth… are you…”

Clemens was a former Prime Minister. He knew firsthand how agonizingly difficult it was to generate a single coin of revenue for every ten coins of expenditure. And yet, they spoke of money rolling in “every day” and “like crazy.”

“Even a veteran financial officer would be awarded a medal of honor for achieving a slight increase in funds for five consecutive years. And you say calculating the interest is ‘too ridiculous’…?”

“Yeah, well. If we scatter money where ‘Lust’ tells us to, it just starts multiplying on its own like wildfire. It almost feels pointless trying to keep track of it all.”

“Back in the day, ‘Gluttony’ used to dig out gold veins with his fists and ‘Greed’ used to turn stones into gold with alchemy. There was a bit more professional satisfaction in making money back then, wasn’t there?”

“Totally.”

Horst and Liesel chatted idly, but their words barely reached Clemens’s ears. Faced with such an impossible reality, he could do nothing but stare at the scene before him.

Speaking of impossible—

His gaze was drawn, almost magnetically, toward a certain individual.

At the very back of the opulent room.

The beautiful courtesan, leaning back languidly on the sofa in her usual disheveled elegance, resting her cheek on the shoulder of her husband, Gilbert.

Who—what—exactly was she?

That excessive beauty, those eyes and that voice that command one’s attention… and the way she carries herself, as if she sees right through the future and the truth.

Come to think of it, ever since Clemens had first met her, he had sensed a bizarre, overwhelming pressure radiating from her slender frame. And then there was the power she occasionally displayed—like that of an oracle.

Hmph… I’m getting ahead of myself. To see through the truth is a sacred power, one that wouldn’t be out of place for a saint. If a prostitute possesses such a thing, it must be nothing more than some dubious trick used to deceive people.

Or—

Looking into Heidemarie’s mist-like indigo eyes, a different possibility suddenly occurred to Clemens.

A demon—using wicked powers to toy with the souls of men.

“Is something the matter, Clemens?”

She spoke at a timing so perfect it was as if she had read his mind. Clemens let out a sharp, startled breath.

“Are you so moved by the sharpness of my intuition that you’ve lost your words?”

“Intuition…?”

“Yes. I am a woman, after all.”

She dismissed her freakish ability with a single word: intuition.

As Clemens stood frozen and speechless, Heidemarie gave a slight shrug, her movements emphasizing the delicate lines of her collarbone.

“Well, yes. I happen to be a little bit talented when it comes to things like fortune-telling.”

“‘Fortune-telling’…”

“Mmhmm. It’s such a feminine pastime, isn’t it? Perhaps a tedious subject for a gentleman.”

As if she were the one who was bored, she let out a small yawn and gave a mischievous smile. “Pardon me.”

“I’ve grown tired of chess. I feel like I might fall asleep at this rate. Tell me, Clemens. We should start a new game.”

“A new game…?”

“Yes.”

In the next instant, a deck of cards appeared in her white hand.

“Are you familiar with the Tarot?”

“Where did that deck of cards just come from!?”

“My cleavage.”

Heidemarie coolly brushed off Clemens’s question and began spreading the cards on the table without waiting for an answer.

“Let’s see. You don’t seem particularly good at card games, so instead of competing, let’s make it a reading. What shall we divine? Your future? Our past? Or perhaps… the present of our dear child…”

The Fool.

The Magician.

The Hierophant, the Devil, the Star, the Sun.

Lavish cards, beautifully adorned with gold leaf, were lined up one after another. Though they looked old, each one was like an expensive painting. They wouldn’t have looked out of place among the secret treasures of a royal palace.

It was as if a common courtesan was in possession of gems on par with national treasures—but then again, that was a daily occurrence in this space.

Heidemarie shuffled the deck, selected five cards, and placed them face-down on the table in the shape of a cross.

Then, she slowly looked up, asking in a quiet voice that felt almost sacred:

“Now. Which card shall we turn over—?”