Chapter 304: My Relative
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
Since the bait I had tossed out that day was quite attractive, and since my lecture had been an incredible success and had gained everyone’s attention, countless people signed up for my Great Industrial Party the very next day. It instantly became one of the largest mage organizations in the Cloud Tower… I’m joking; that was all obviously made up!
Reality often developed differently from what one planned. Even though I made tons of advertisements, not a single person had signed up for my mage organization as of yet— perhaps it was the mages’ nature to be cautious, or perhaps it was simply that I had been far too villainous in the past.
However, there was one person who kept coming to find me of her own volition, though—someone who I didn’t welcome at all, someone who made herself into my “guardian…”
“I shall be watching you closely!”
Don’t misunderstand. This was no confession. It was a police mage’s angry justice-filled roar towards a suspect. Cher decided to find a reason to arrest me at all costs…
And so, my Great Industrial Party, which didn’t have any members except for my people, now had an internal overseer working for us for free. This was a specialized treatment typically only given to large mage organizations with over one thousand members. However, since we were technically a mage organization under the Mystical Blade, we were unable to refuse this overseer from the main branch from staying here as long as she wished.
As for the Great Industrial Party… fine, I know this sounds awkward. The only property this organization possessed was the Thorn Garden shop, which was why Cher spent her free time idly here, inspecting our accounts every day… how could I possibly allow her to do as she pleased!?
Any normal merchant aimed for profits, which meant the merchant wouldn’t be entirely legal. Something like account books? There needed to be a minimum of at least three sets. One set was for the tax inspectors, one set was for yourself, and one set was for when you were forced to the brink so you would toss that out to sacrifice part of the profits to protect the whole.
According to the Mage Country’s laws, all transactions conducted within the Mage Country would be taxed at a 10% rate. This was quite a hefty sales tax that would add up, so we typically did many transactions in secret in order to avoid taxes. We also made an excellent fake account book, but…
“What? She’s comparing our account book of what we’ve sold to the amount of stock we have left in the warehouse? She’s counting all the stock gone from the warehouse as how much we have sold instead? That’s not following the most basic rules of tax regulation!”
“And do you think that you’re completely following the rules by creating a fake account book?”
“Of course! Is there any merchant in this world who doesn’t make fake account books!?”
“…At the very least, those of the royalty who are also merchants don’t need to make fake account books.”
Harloys thought over it for quite a while and finally had to admit that despite her lengthy life, she couldn’t recall a single merchant who didn’t make a fake account book. She had no choice but to hesitatingly speak about her most ancient memories from when she was still a princess, about the royalty who were also merchants and seemed to be quite honest.
“That’s because they don’t even need to pay taxes to begin with! They’re the people whose wallets are being filled with tax money!”
My angry roar echoed across the room. No matter which world it was, public enterprises or companies supported by the government would be an excellent way to make money. They would have advantages in areas such as taxes, trustworthiness, and financing. Independent privately-owned businesses simply couldn’t compete in those areas.
But that wasn’t the important part…
“Twelve products aren’t listed in your account books. There’s at least a minimum of four hundred transactions that haven’t been listed in your account books. In less than a week, you’ve already evaded taxes that add up to a minimum of 50,000 gold coins. Your fake account books are marvelously well written with no evidence of any wrongdoing to be found anywhere. I’m even beginning to suspect that you came from a merchant family.”
When I looked at the tax evasion slip that Cher gave me, which stated I owed 52,452 gold coins, plus another 20,000 coins on top of that as a fine for tax evasion, I my heart bleed. This was all money I earned through blood and sweat! (Ok, fine. That last part was a lie).
“Hmph! Are you praising your own auditing ability in a roundabout fashion?”
After all, my talent in creating false account books came from another world to begin with, meaning that I was far above the level of anyone here. Unfortunately, she still saw through me. If only I knew that she was crazy enough to go inspect the warehouse and patiently count all the stock one by one, for an entire day, I wouldn’t have been so nice to her and allowed her to come in and do as she pleased.
“No, I’m being honest with you. Although your accounts may seem simple, the mathematical techniques involved have far surpassed any ordinary mage’s math abilities. I’m even suspecting you’re a professional swindler and counterfeiter. That’s precisely why I had to resort to non-regulated methods in order to find evidence of your crimes.”
“…So, you’re saying you’re not investigating me because ‘I have committed a crime?’ You investigated me because ‘I definitely have committed a crime, so no matter what, you’re going to investigate to the end?’ Do you know that you’ve already broken one of the most basic principles that executors of the law should follow? Innocent until found guilty!”
Even though Cher had a blank expression, likely because she had never heard of this phrase from my original world, I didn’t really care right now. Seeing the enforcers of the law here act as they pleased made me mysteriously displeased as I frowned.
*Rip!*
However, I was surprised to see Cher tearing this tax evasion fine slip to little pieces in front of me. She even tossed all the little pieces on the ground, littering scrap paper everywhere.
“I wasn’t intending on using this to threaten you. I merely wanted to ask you one question that I want your honest answer on.”
“…What’s your question?”
Since Cher used an entire day’s worth of time to find my weak spot, her question couldn’t possibly be about anything small and unimportant. However, what I really needed to do right now was…
“Hey, stop just standing around and gawking, hurry up and help me destroy the evidence and restock the warehouse! Also, randomize the stocking procedures, and redo the account books! If she catches us for anything again, you’ll all be paying the fine out of your salaries!”
Yep, in order to avoid being caught in the same fashion again, I first needed to deal with this immediately. I decided to ignore Cher’s expression of condescension upon me, and then…
“Since you’re being so sincere in asking me, I shall do my best to answer your question.”
Cher hesitated for quite a while before she gritted her teeth and finally asked me her question.
“Are you my blood-related grandfather?”
“Ptui!”
Everyone who was watching this spouted fountains of tea from their mouths, and even the silly cat knocked over her bowl of milk as she rolled around on the ground, laughing. I was so shocked that I felt as if my soul was leaving my body. Where exactly did such a question come from!
Thanks to a certain female mage’s astonishing question, there was a huge ruckus in Thorn Garden. It took more than ten minutes for everything to calm down. During this entire process, my mind was completely blank.
“What on earth? Is she here to ask me for child support money? Or am I being scammed? Am I suddenly going to be called Daddy next? I joined no such competition! Something seems wrong with the script! I don’t even have a wife so how could I have a granddaughter?”
Cher Allen, someone who appeared to be human on the surface, at the Gold rank, with an unknown age, had started out as a self-taught mage. Her specialties were divination and rune magic. From looking at her personal information, it didn’t seem like she had any special background. She was already a Silver-ranked mage when she arrived in the Mage Country. It could be said that she was a classic example of a successful self-taught independent mage.
Based on her personality, I doubted that someone like her would want to “adopt a criminal as a father” in order to have a better relationship with me for whatever reason. It was just the opposite, as when she asked me her question, she had such a look of disgust that basically said “how could my relative be someone like you?” which was still fresh in my mind.
Soon, she gave an unforgettable explanation of why she asked such a question.
If you went by her birthplace, she was born in the Bardi Empire so she technically counted as a Bardi citizen. However, she was born as an orphan who didn’t know her parents, and a powerful dragon had raised her and taught her magic. Later, she became an adventurer in the Bardi Empire. Then, Orloss began to force all adventurers and mages to officially register and work under the government, so Cher chose to leave the Bardi Empire rather than stay and work for Orloss.
“…The Bardi government started forcefully recruiting mages more than twenty years ago, right? In that case, this means that Lady Cher is at least forty years—ahhh!”
As expected of my disciple—he was incredibly perceptive. Cohen instantly noticed the important point, one that I was paying attention to as well. He even rushed to say it out loud before I could, but Cher’s movements were quite swift as well. She stomped quite accurately on Cohen’s foot, a perfect combination of swiftness, accuracy, and viciousness. It seemed rather painful for Cohen and made one wonder if she was also in a monk sub-class.
As I watched the unfortunate Cohen, who deserved what he got for saying too much, I felt quite pleased. I had been too slow in saying the same thing. I inwardly sighed; Cohen was still too inexperienced. After all, some things simply couldn’t be said out loud even if one had their suspicions. Wasn’t that simply being suicidal?
“Female mages are women as well. Hmph! Haven’t you seen how I’ve never discussed the topic of age with Harloys and Amelia? That would be suicidal. Oh right, Amelia should be only a few centuries old, with three digits. But as for the princess from the elven empire, could she possibly have a five digit age? Haha! That’s so old—ahhh! It hurts! Silly cat, stop clawing me! Da—damn it! I forgot about our soul connection!”
This time, Harloys wasn’t biting me in her typical joking manner. She even transformed her claws into metal, not going easy on me at all. I felt a fiery pain on my nose, and I looked in the mirror to see eight bloody claw streaks on my face along with a silly cat still attached to my head with an iron grip. I began seriously considering just how I was supposed to go out tomorrow, and if I should be creating a cat-fur scarf.
“…By the time I had an understanding of the world around me, I was already being raised by that humongous three-headed dragon. She taught me everything I know, but she never told me who I was or whether or not I still have relatives left in this world.”
Cher seemed to have lost her patience for idle chatter as she directly started talking about her past.
“A three-headed dragon raised you? That’s something that only exists in myths and legends these days. You’re truly fortunate.”
“You actually believe me? I’ve told others before as well, and none of them believed me, telling me that three-headed dragons don’t exist in this world and that I must have been dreaming. Evelyn clearly exists! In a way, she could even be considered my mother!”
Evelyn was the name that I had seen just recently in that letter that was seemingly filled with grudges and was addressed to me. This instinctively caused me to retract my casual attitude of thinking that Cher had nothing to do with me. I felt an unnatural chill running down my spine. My ominous premonitions were always on the mark, and this time, I felt that there was truly a huge amount of trouble in store for me.
“My job class is Weaver of Fate…”
The moment Cher mentioned this, everyone around her instinctively retreated several steps, while Cher helplessly shook her head and smiled wryly, apparently having gotten used to such treatment. This wasn’t actually because the bastards under me were such cowards, it was because this job class truly had such a frightening reputation.
The Celestial Tower’s fate was already the best evidence that divination magic was something unreliable. Changing fate would only cause one to suffer even greater misfortune. That was one of the basic laws that the God of Fate had taught mortals. However, mages weren’t scared of anything, so why would they be willing to obey the concept of Fate? That was how this incredibly special high-level job class known as Weaver of Fate was born.
As a high-level job class which required being at the Gold rank or higher to progress into, this special job class had basically zero requirements. Yep, mages could enter this job class as well with only Silver rank, but as for the success rate of entering this job class… There was a saying about the Weaver of Fate job class that it wasn’t that there were zero requirements for entering this job class, it was that this job class itself had, from the very start, picked those who could enter this job class. No matter what, those who weren’t chosen wouldn’t possibly be able to enter this job class, so the so-called requirements for the job class didn’t matter at all.
This job class was so rare that there were less than ten individuals with this job class in all of Eich. So, it was natural that those with this job class were considered as mortals favored by the God of Fate, Catio.
The Weaver of Fate job class wasn’t a particularly strong combat job class, and it wouldn’t have any additional benefits for mages’ magic spells, either. However, this job class had two basic abilities. The first was to analyze an object’s past and future, and the second was to change someone’s future fate.
However, since forcefully changing anyone’s fate would only result in that person’s fate becoming worse, even if a Weaver of Fate had kind intentions in using their powers, such as trying to change a person’s fate of an upcoming death, all that would happen is that the person would die in an even more pitiful or painful manner. That was why this job class had a very famous nickname: Summoner of Misfortune.
From a certain standpoint, this job class was literally one where anyone that they looked at would suffer misfortune. Anyone they glared at would become even more misfortunate.
“Our abilities aren’t quite as wondrous as depicted in the legends. Divination abilities have long since lost their power from the ancient eras. Even if I use all my power on ‘Fate Analysis,’ I can only see approximately one minute into the future about what will likely happen to a nonliving object. Rather than calling it a prophecy, it’s more accurate to call it a prediction. As for my job class’s ability to ‘Weave Fate Lines,’ it can only bring negative effects on others, which is why Weavers of Fate don’t typically use their abilities.”
I had researched about divination and fate-related magic as well in the past. Although I didn’t gain anything myself, I had some basic knowledge about it. Stargazers would typically trip over rocks under their own feet; the more closely something’s fate was related to oneself, the more difficult it would be to divine. However, it was publicly recognized that this job class was one that nobody should antagonize. Weavers of Fate definitely weren’t as weak as she made them out to be. After all, the #2 ranked individual in the Calamity Rankings was the ‘Misfortune God’ Ain, the most famous Weaver of Fate in the entire world.
However, ever since the God of Fate Catio used his divine power for that divine-level forbidden spell, transforming his own power into that star net which covered the entire dimension, the Fate Lines should have been completely messed up. All divination should have become ineffective. Perhaps that would allow us to somewhat relax about her powers.
“…Although direct divination magic spells are no longer usable, perhaps Weavers of Fate really are the children favored by the God of Fate. I can currently use the divine star net’s power of Fate, and my power has become far stronger than before. Although it’s still difficult for me to see future fates of anything living, merely summoning misfortune upon anyone is quite easy now. All I need to do is slightly change their Fate Line.”
Alright, now even I wanted to run away at top speed.
“Catio gave all of us Weavers of Fate a special gift as his favor to us. I’m allowed to directly ask him one question, regardless of what it is, or what rules it breaks. However, I can only use this ability once in my lifetime.”
She paused here with a rather strange tone of voice and expression as she looked at me. Then, an expectant look even came into her eyes.
“When I was at my most lost and confused, I decided to use Catio’s gift. I asked him, ‘Where is my family?’ Catio told me, ‘Go to the Cloud Tower and wait for the Lord Yongye.’ So, Your Highness Roland, are you my grandfather?”
“No, Cher. I am your father.”
This caused everyone to become astonished. I was so proud of myself that I was about to start laughing out loud. However, a sudden dark premonition caused me to recall that Cher was a Weaver of Fate, and that my joke had apparently gone overboard?
“…Don’t take it so seriously, it’s just a joke! I’m just making a reference! A truly awesome reference! Have you ever seen Star Wars!? I highly recommend it! It’s an amazing story! I really love this quote from it—who doesn’t?!”
Alright then, after experiencing three continuous days of misfortune where I almost choked to death every time I drank some water and suffered from endless amounts of cat bites from a certain silly cat, I learned that some jokes wouldn’t be appreciated.