A few hours later, before dawn…

A mix of cotton and linen is fed into the large machine by long sheets after a modification introduced by Straf. The machine now entirely covers the wide wall, and turns to take up a large portion of the corner. Steady bubbling emanates from the slurry of cooking cotton slowly flowing through a wide brick channel arranged within the warehouse, which is then drained and compressed into a sheet by another contraption. Straf briefly watches the flow, then turns to the drake printer.

「Right. That took far too long, now let's see if it works…」

Straf thinks out loud and approaches the control panel.

「…I'm going to fucking break something if it doesn't.」

Crrk.

Straf pulls a lever on the panel, and the printer sparks into life. Using its old feed mechanism, it now continuously feeds itself with the cotton-linen sheets, hungrily devouring the material. Its inner mechanisms work faster and faster, becoming louder and louder. After a moment, the printer begins spitting out stacks of drakes into a crate at its output end. Straf walks up to the output, and takes one of the stacks into hand.

Snifffffff…

「Ahhh… The smell of financial slavery.」

He gives the freshly printed, still warm stack a large sniff and lets out a contented exhale. The design remains the same, but the fact that the bill is made out of a different material is now very apparent. Straf rubs his thumb across the drake, and recognizes the familiar texture of the old world money. He smirks, and throws the stack into his [Portable Storage]. He waits a few minutes for the machine to fill the crate and swaps it for an empty one, then throws the drake-filled crate into the vortex as well.

「I'll have to explain all the new security features again… Tsk…」

Straf takes a few steps away and looks at the machine while it's working. He clicks his tongue, lowering his head in frustration, before shrugging.

「I'll just write them a note, or something…」

He takes a seat on the very few crates left in the warehouse, mostly the ones that he brought back in from the bank…

…

An hour later…

Straf approaches the panel and pushes the lever up. The printing machine slows, then stops. He puts the filled crate at the output end into his [Portable Storage], and turns for the exit.

「…I suppose I should finish the market ticker next.」

He mumbles while rubbing his chin on the way to the door, then heads out.

Stripe jumps down from the crates, eyes focused on the closed door. After making sure that Straf is not coming back, she approaches the massive machine by the wall. The furnace in the corner continues burning its fuel away, heating water meant for preparing the cotton. She ignores it, and approaches the control panel.

「…What is this? He pulled this thing and it started making noise. What does it do?」

She looks at the lever, then turns her eyes to the output end. Her golden, vertically-slit eyes return to the lever with a flame of determination in them.

《I'm just going to find out myself!》

Stripe thinks, and yanks the lever down. The printing machine slowly comes back into life, spooling up. She cautiously takes a few steps away, watching the very few visible moving parts and trying to make sense of them. She walks to the output end and furrows her brows.

《…Why is it not working?》

She thinks, as she stares with confused eyes at the empty output area. She approaches the control panel again, and turns a few knobs.

《He did something like this, didn't he?…》

Krrrkkkkkkk!…

A loud, grinding noise abruptly comes from deep within the machine. Her shoulders jump up in panic, and she jumps away. It audibly slows for a few seconds, before speeding back up.

A few seconds later, stacks of drakes start dropping out of the machine onto the floor at a rapid pace. With her eyes wide open, she runs up to the quickly growing pile.

Plap. Plap. Plap. Plap. Plap.

She watches the bills plop out, her clawed hands dart around while she's panicking a little at how fast they're popping out.

Krrkhkkk…

The machine regurgitates bits and pieces of torn, shredded bills on top of the pile, then continues spitting out drakes in larger denominations. Stripe runs back to the lever, and pushes it up.

The printer slows, and the bills gradually pop out at a slower pace, before stopping altogether. She walks back up to the pile and squats down, looking over it.

「So they make their money with this…」

She utters out, briefly turning her eyes to the machine. She picks up one of the stacks.

《…These are different. Are they changing them? Why?》

Her clawed finger sweeps through the low-denomination drakes in her hand. She loosens a small, black pouch and stuffs them in, then takes another stack into hand.

《These will serve as funds for the mission-》

「Hnh?…」

Her eyes widen when she looks at the stack of bigger denomination bills. Straf is grinning at her, holding his thumb up. She reads the text beneath him.

「Minister of Finances… Of course.」

She lowers the stack and turns her golden eyes back to the door, cautiously peeking over her shoulder. When she makes sure the coast is clear, she starts shoveling the drakes into her arms.

「Funds for the mission, and finally something to send back!…」

Stripe exclaims in a hushed voice, and grabs the largest amount of drakes she possibly can into her grasp. She stands up, abandoning the rest.

A few stacks drop from her arms while she's rushing to the door. She hesitates for a few moments whether or not to pick them back up, but decides to leave those behind too.

She opens the warehouse door and sneaks out, leaving a sparse trail of drakes behind her…

…

The next morning, in Nona's palace room…

「Nnnhhh…」

Lying in the luxuriantly comfortable palace bed, Nona lets out a soft groan as she opens her amber eyes. After a few moments, her head begins to pound as if being hit with the heavy two-handed hammer that's resting shaft up, and hammerhead down beside her bed. She attempts to sit up, but the moment she tries, a massive wave of sickness overcomes her that only gets a little better when she drops back down into her bed.

「Uggghhhhhhh…」

She groans again, staring blankly with half-open eyes at a wall beside her. She lies motionless, at least as motionless as she can be. Her door opens, and someone walks in.

「There you are…」

Straf says, approaching the side of her bed with his hands in his pockets.

「Ngghhh…」

Her only reply is a groan of discomfort, and a sigh. Her eyes nominally track Straf's form as he draws near, but remain low.

「…The deadbeat was wondering why you didn't show up at work today. I told him I'll go look for you.」

「Uurggghh…」

「Hangover, huh?… My bad.」

Straf looks at Nona with her brown, fluffy hair splayed on her pillow, visibly sick from just her face alone. She takes a large breath.

「I don wannu go to work…」

Nona exhales the words, barely audible.

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「Yeah, I can't blame you… I mean, who wants to do this until retirement?」

He scoffs, grinning with his hands spread, and sits down beside her.

「I'm feelin' like I'm gonna vomit if I get up…」

She adds, and forces her eyes up to look at Straf's nonchalantly smirking face. Her eyes widen in shock.

「Am I pregnant!?」

She shoots up to sitting, staring at Straf with huge orange eyes and a nerve-wracked tight-lipped grimace.

The question leaves Straf at a loss for words for a prolonged moment, and he stares at her with a narrow-eyed gaze, mouth slightly open.

「…Huh? I don't know. Are you?」

「T- The girls I talked with… Who… You know… Do stuff with men…」

She tries to explain, speaking in a meek and quiet voice, tapping her fingers together as her amber eyes escape sideways.

「Whores?」

Straf asks, raising his brows.

「Straf! It's rude to call them that!」

Nona points her finger at Straf, pouting through her sickness.

「Politicians?」

「…Huh?」

She furrows her brows, lowering her pointing hand.

「Okay, best of three. Prostitutes?」

Straf shrugs, spreading his hands with a roll of his eyes.

「Yes! Those!… And they told me I need to be careful what men I kiss, or I might end up accidentally pregnant!…」

Nona nods, pointing at him again.

「…And… And I remember holding hands with you, Straf… And I gave you a kiss…」

She adds, lowering her hand, tapping her fingers together again.

「Hrk… It was a mistake to sit up quick like that…」

Tfwomp.

Her face slowly twists back into the discomfort from before, and she plops back down on the bed.

「…How can you be so man-eating yet so innocent at the same time?」

Straf asks, shaking his head in disbelief with his brows heavily furrowed at her visibly sick face, while she breathes heavily in a steady and specific rhythm.

「I don't mind if it's you… But I think I'm too dumb to be a good mom-」

「You're not pregnant.」

He nonchalantly declares, staring at her with a tight-lipped grimace.

「Hhuuh?… How do you know?…」

Nona asks as her amber eyes struggle to reach his face.

「I don't. I'm guessing. Mainly guessing that you weren't up to some stuff with some men that you didn't tell me about…」

Straf shrugs, spreading his arms before they drop down onto his legs with a noisy tap.

「I wasn't… I only know the boss and you here…」

She replies, and squeezes her face into the pillow.

「Right… So your morning sickness is booze-inflicted. Tough.」

He nods, then shrugs his shoulders, tilting his head a little, scrunching his mouth to the side gently as he explains.

「Is that so?… I'm glad… It's a little too early for that…」

Nona pulls her face out of the pillow, faintly nodding her head.

「Here's a bucket. Drink water. I'll tell the deadbeat that you're sick today and can't go to work.」

Plunk.

Straf drops a wooden bucket out of his [Portable Storage] by the bedside, and places a corked waterskin by her head with a faint slosh of the liquid inside.

「Have you never drank before? You should have told me what your limits were.」

「I haven't…」

She replies, weakly grabbing onto Straf's waterskin.

Pop!

After a brief struggle, she manages to pull the cork attached to the waterskin by a cord out, and takes a few small sips.

「…I see. That explains your misconceptions about conception, and your weak head. Stay in bed until you get better, I'll go let him know.」

Straf lets out a resigned sigh, and shrugs. He stands up, places his hands in his pockets, and leisurely heads back to the door.

「See you tomorrow, I suppose…」

「Nnhh…」

He adds, and exits as Nona weakly nods her head with a faint, acknowledging sigh…

…

Out on the capital's streets, a few minutes past the afternoon bell…

Dressed in her incognito city woman outfit, Stripe is flowing along the street with the crowd, clutching onto a cylindrical package wrapped in waxed paper, tied with a dark cord.

She seamlessly slinks into an alleyway, and continues onward. Not once does she have to look into adjacent alleys to check where she's going.

After a moment, she arrives at the rear of a building. She approaches the metal gutter pipe stretching to the ground from the roof, and squats down near its bend by the bottom.

Stripe briefly looks around, then peeks inside the pipe. She takes her brown package and stuffs it inside, once again swiveling her head around to ensure no one is watching.

She stands up, brushes her hands off her pants, then exits the alleyway the same way she came, merging into the crowd once more…

…

Around the same time, in the Royal Reserve Bank…

「…Aaaaand there.」

Straf flips a switch behind the bank tellers' counter, then walks to the front. Above the counters there is a long, relatively flat, crystal-like panel now displaying the shorthand ticker names of the companies listed on the Draconis exchange, as well as their last traded price. As the trades are relatively infrequent at the moment, the display simply states the price from yesterday. Satisfied, he nods at his handiwork… The mana-powered, tapeless ticker machine.

「Perfect. If the gem ever runs out of mana, get a new one and write it off as business expenses. Remember to force everyone to register their trades with the machine.」

He says, and points at the small box on the counter strongly resembling the prototype trading machine he constructed in the Academy of Magic.

「Yes sir.」

The woman that usually handles matters of company certificates nods her head.

「Boss… Is Nona really alright?」

Niklaus asks as he's sitting in his desk. Straf turns his attention to him.

「She's fine. She should be back to work tomorrow. Worry about your own ass, because now there's no one to defend you when you slack off.」

He spreads his hands then places his fists on his hips, adding a shrug of his shoulders.

「…Alright. I just lost a lot of friends to a simple sickness back in the day, so…」

Niklaus nods, lowering his hatted head before readjusting his Ministry of Security hat by its brim.

「Did Carrothead and the team find anyone suspicious yet?」

Straf asks, nodding his head up at him.

「Carrothead?…」

「Yeah. The adventurers. Did they?」

Niklaus furrows his brows briefly before Straf clarifies. He shakes his head in response.

「No. Not yet, at least. When Nona comes back, I'll go out on patrols as well.」

Niklaus straightens out in his chair, looking directly at Straf's bored face.

「Alright, fuck it, then… I'll go look for her myself…」

Straf throws his hands up, and turns for the exit as he places them in his pockets.

「…Remember about the new security features!… And burn the note when you memorize it!」

Standing in the doorway, he points at the women behind the counter. He turns again, only to once again turn back, point at them, and and remind them about the note.

「Yes sir. We will.」

One of the women bows, and Straf exits into the street, placing his hand back into his pocket…