"Lord Alan, I have something important to discuss."
"Hm? What's up, Enrique?"
When the sub-master said he didn't want anyone else to overhear, Alan had come to his office at the Adventurers' Guild.
Enrique — the sub-master of the Adventurers' Guild, who wore an invisible collar of subjugation placed on him by Alan.
He had raised Alisa's rank to Gold using his sub-master authority as instructed, and was then put in charge of the Ruby Dragon auction that would serve as proof of that promotion.
The auction itself had gone off without a hitch, but...
"I've discovered that of the 150,000 gold coins Marquis Greed handed over, the vast majority were counterfeit."
"Huh? Wait — so he tried to weasel out of the payment? Is he looking down on us? I need to go collect right now. Or should I beat him senseless and then invalidate the auction and redo it? Also — did you seriously count all 150,000 gold coins?"
"Yes. Normally you'd trust the other party and skip that, but I thought it was better to be safe rather than sorry, so before handing them over to you, Lord Alan, I had all of the guild's criminal slaves inspect every single one. I never expected that only the first few coins would be genuine and the rest counterfeit."
Not bad, Enrique.
You've actually earned a bit of my respect.
Still — to think that what I assumed was full payment turned out to be counterfeit... It seems I still have a lot to learn about the nobility of this other world.
◇◇◇
Just then, a receptionist from the guild came rushing in.
"Sub-master! The guards are here! They say there was a report about someone carrying counterfeit coins, and they're demanding we let them investigate."
So they're going that far, this Marquis Greed...
"Lord Alan, it seems we've been set up."
"Beyond anger, I'm just speechless. But... this is pretty bad, isn't it? Why are you so calm about this, Enrique?"
"Well, I figured you'd find a way to handle it, Lord Alan. If there was nothing even you could do, then there'd be no point in me panicking either. So I see no reason to lose my composure."
Hah, that's not it at all.
It's not
that I ca-
n do some-
thing—
it's that necessity forces me, and I'm
do-
ing
some-
thing.
I just want to live a normal life.
◇◇◇
In the guild's storage room, [Appraisal] users brought in by the guards were verifying the authenticity of the gold coins.
"Captain, all the gold coins here are genuine!"
"Th-that's impossible! There are supposed to be 149,993 counterfeit coins here! They can't just disappear! Check again!"
"Yes, sir!"
......
"Captain, we've checked all 150,000 coins, but we can't find a single counterfeit!"
"Impossible! Do it again!!"
"Captain, everyone's mana has already run out. We can't continue today."
"...Hmph, we'll come back to investigate another day. We're pulling out for today!"
◇◇◇
Phew, that was close.
There's no way there'd be any counterfeit gold coins here.
After all, I'd used [Reverse] on every counterfeit gold coin Marquis Greed had handed over, flipping them all from fakes to real ones.
The way he acted, the captain must have been in cahoots with the marquis.
"What shall we do, Lord Alan?"
"What do you think? We'll have to thank them generously, Enrique. And I think I'll ask Duke Geese for his cooperation too."
"Lord Alan, you're making that scary face again..."
"How rude, Enrique. I'm simply returning the favor."
"I knew it — you're furious."
That night, the captain of the guard went missing, and from that day on, no one ever saw him again.
◇◇◇
????
"Heheh, by now that fool of a Sub-Master must have been arrested for the crime of counterfeit coins. I've managed to obtain the Ruby Dragon practically free of charge. And I'll sell it to Count Medicine for a hundred thousand coins, plus get my hands on his beautiful daughter to boot. This is what they call making a killing without lifting a finger! Money really does make the world go round — there's nothing you can't get with enough of it!"
◇◇◇◇◇◇
I haven't described it in detail, but the authentication of gold coins is done by checking them in batches of a certain number (depending on the level of the [Appraisal] skill).
Skills: [Reverse], [Divine Eye], [Sword God], [Gentleman Thief], [Dark Magic], [Rock-Iron Magic], [Holy Magic], [Space-Time Magic], [Scorching Magic], [Frost Magic], [Magic Hand], [Seduction], [Pain Relief], [Complete Status Abnormality Resistance], [Flame Spirit's Protection], [Phantom Demon], [Gale and Thunder], [Dark Spirit's Protection], [Monstrous Strength], [Thunder God Sword], [Fortune], [Clear Storm Magic], [Humility]
Rank: Silver (Alisa: Gold)
Thank you always for reading! 😊