“Today is the fifteenth,” Yu said. On a small piece of paper was written September fifteenth. “On September twenty-eighth is the first match in which we will deliver the letters, the Sea Monsters versus the Vesthelm Storm. After that, there will be a match every seven days. If we start distributing the letters for the first match now, we can have a hundred thousand letters by the twenty-first. Then let's give people a week so that they forget, and when our predictions come true they will remember, and I think that will have a good effect on them.”

On the piece of paper he created a calendar that stretched until September twenty-sixth. The matches to be played and the letters to be distributed were written on the calendar. “Then we will distribute the letters over a maximum of three days, and the letters for the final match must be distributed in one day. When we get our money, we'll run away without wasting time.”

If he could, he would have wanted to run away with the money before the start of the final, but he had to wait for the final because he wanted to get his money from the owners of the teams he had made deals with.

“I hope nothing goes wrong.”

Betrayal by the owners would only cost him two hundred gold pieces, but if others were involved, it could cost him his head.

“Got it.” Marino picked up the calendar Yu had prepared and studied it. “Your writing is beautiful, Mr. Valarfin.”

“Thank you,” he smiled. He would never tired of praise. “Did your guys finish their work?”

“Yes, we can start the distribution right now if you want.”

“We can't start during the day, start at night from the far ends of the country. And when we get there, we will distribute the letters for Redchapel.”

Since he was going to be in Redchapel, he was going to take over the distribution to reduce his workload. Lylphia might be a nuisance during the distribution, but he thought it would not be difficult to trick her.

“Unless there's something else you want to say-”

“Actually, there is...” said Marino. His voice was low.

“Hoh?” He hated being interrupted, he was going to give him a chance to speak after finishing her sentence anyway. “What is it?”

“How to collect money from people.”

He had already thought about how to get the money, but he had forgotten that he hadn't told Marino.

“This ID thing is new, there are people who don't even know what it does. We buy an ID from some idiot and use it to open a bank account. We give people that bank account in the letters and ask them to put the money in that account if they want to get the results.”

“What happens when they realize they have been scammed? Even if we open a fake account, I'm afraid that the bank books will cause problems.”

“As long as they don't have our names, nothing will happen, and even if they do, nothing will happen when we are not in Rolderhelm.”

In the Second World, there were no laws requiring extradition between countries. And people were harder to trace than in the First World. Even if they somehow got their names and were sentenced to death in Rolderhelm, as long as they were not there, it would not matter. He could live his life without returning to Rolderhelm.

The only thing that bothered him was that if their names got out, a few people he knew would find out that he was a fraud. But living the rich life in another country was a small price to pay and he could live with that.

“How do we convince bank employees?”

“I'm convinced that we can bribe our way through. If they have enough money to make a better life in a different country, we can find a few people who will do what we say.”

That was Yu's plan. As long as they didn't get busted on the job, the government wouldn't give them any trouble, and after the job was done, no matter how much they were searched, it wouldn't matter anymore.

“Then we're leaving now, if anything happens, send one of the guys to the inn where I'm staying.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Valarfin. Take care and please let me know if you need anything. My door is always open to you, don't hesitate.”

“Thank you.”

Marino's gratitude and admiration for Yu continued unabated. He had turned Yu into a hero in his eyes.

After leaving the Swann Postal Office, Yu and Yurine made their way to the inn where they were staying. They were halfway there when the autumn rain clouds decided to soak them. The rain started lightly at first and quickly intensified.

Yu was indecisive as the raindrops hit their bodies. He looked at Yurine and tried to decide if it was the right thing to do.

“Should I do it?”

It was an opportune moment to improve their father-daughter relationship. He wanted to do it, but he hesitated for fear of making Yurine irritable.

Finally, he dropped his jacket over Yurine's head, picked up the child and started running.

“What do you think you're doing? Let me go! Put me down, now!”

“I'm doing it so you don't get wet. I've covered you and now I'm running so we get there fast.”

“Hmph, I'm already wet enough! It's too late to think about it.”

Yurine protested at first and shook his shoulders, but she quickly gave up and leaned her head on Yu's shoulder and waited in silence

“It's a beautiful moment.”

The warmth he felt made him happy, and although he felt that a scumbag like him had no right to be happy, when he was with Yurine, his conscience let him be happy.

“But why are your lips curled down again? It makes me sad that you are unhappy.”

He knew why; Yurine was upset because she was complicit in his evil deeds.

“Don't overdo it, technically you could even say that we don't scam people. We could even argue that there are good things about what we do.”

Yurine chose not to answer. She rested her forehead on Yu's shoulder and hid her eyes.

“We are not extorting money from anyone and we will never claim that the results are hundred percent accurate. People should realize that this is a game of chance and if they don't, it's not our fault. Yes, maybe half of the people will lose their money because of us, but the other half will be very rich. Don't you think we are neutralizing the positive consequences and the negative consequences of our actions?”

Despite his logic, he knew that what he was doing was bad. The lives of people who got the wrong results and lost their money could suddenly be extinguished.

Still, the logic was enough to ease his conscience. If they were doing evil to a hundred people, they would be doing good to a hundred people. In this day and age, who could do good to a hundred people in one day and make them rich?

“I don't know what negative, positive and neutralize mean. Don't use words I don't know.”

“Negative means bad, positive means good and neutral is like balanced.”

“Why did you choose to use these words instead of good, bad and balance?”

Yu hadn't made a choice, it hadn't even occurred to him to use those words. He just spoke and they came out of his mouth.

“I don't know.”

When he looked at it, how many choices had he made so far? The only thing he had ever done was to walk on the path in front of him.

As he continued to run in the rain, he felt the world go silent after his answer, only the sound of water drops falling to the ground.

“I shouldn't fool myself, I might not have killed...” He made a choice, he chose to obey the script that was put in front of him. “I don't want to think about it... Yurine is so sweet, I can think about her. Yes...”

“Mr. Valarfin!”

Another time he confronted himself, his thoughts were interrupted by a blond-haired elf calling out to him.

Running in the rain, he stopped and looked at the elf waving at him.

“Come here!” Lucie shouted.

He hurried to the inn where Lucia's sister Lucie, the innkeeper, had invited them. Lucie greeted him with a big smile.

Although the inn where Yu stayed was mostly used by traveling merchants, there were also adventuring warriors and mages in that inn, but this inn was full of warriors and mages.

“So this is the adventurers' guild.”

“Uh... You're soaked,” Luice interrupted Yu's thoughts again. She handed Yu two towels and continued talking. “You'll get sick if you walk around like this, come on.”

“People say that, but I've never seen anyone get sick because they got wet in the rain.”

Of course, he didn't think like ‘if I haven't seen it, then it doesn't exist,’ but he had never actually seen anyone sick because of the rain.

He had always loved walking in the rain and he had never been sick at the end of a trip.

Despite his thoughts, he put Yurine down, fearing that she might be sick. He hung the jacket he gave her on the wall and threw his own towel over his shoulder to dry her hair.

“And when we get sick, can't Yurine cure us?”

“Healing magic is a strange thing, my magic can close wounds or comfort people, but it cannot cure diseases caused by microbes.”

Yu was surprised that microbes were known in this world. People here were more knowledgeable than he had expected.

“So it's like you can save the day, but you can't eliminate the source of the problem?”

“You got it right, I appreciate you for getting it right, but don't get cocky.”

Yu laughed and ruffled Yurine's hair with a towel.

“Sigh! I said don't get cocky!”

“Still, you shouldn't open the door to illness just because you'll get better later! Seriously, please don't be so irresponsible.”

Lucie took the towel Yu had slung over his shoulder and began to dry his hair. As she did so, her long elf ears turned red.

“It will only hurt you more...” He didn't stop Lucie so that she wouldn't get upset, but he wasn't happy with the way things were now.

In fact, he liked the fact that a beautiful elf girl was interested in him and he could have continued to do so, but his conscience, which had been showing itself so often lately, had come into play here too.

He couldn't stay in Rolderhelm after defrauding people, he had to leave the country and then he had to leave Lucie behind. If he gave her hope now, Lucie would cry when that day came.

“So this is what the adventurers' guild is like, I was imagining a more crowded setting.” He took the towel from Lucie and slung it over his shoulder again.

“It's usually a bit crowded at night after big missions, you know, to celebrate. Other than that, people are busy, so most of the time they stop by here to pick up quests and deliver them, and then come right back or go to their rooms and sleep. There's also the case of one in five adventurers never coming back by after receiving a mission, but that's another matter.”

Lucia had also talked about adventuring in his early days here. From the people Yu had listened to, adventuring was not as fun as in the anime. At least not for people who didn't have trick-level powers.

The high-paying jobs in this profession were a gamble, and it was a question of whether the risk of death was worth the money. If the adventurer didn't die, he or she might get rich, but even coming back without dying was considered an achievement, and adventurers who went on such big, high-paying missions often didn't return.

Even seemingly simple tasks were dangerous. Whether it was raiding monster tunnels, protecting caravans from bandits or killing the evil creatures that haunted the village, casualties could be suffered.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Lucia even said that the highest mortality rate in the adventuring profession was on seemingly simple missions.

Yet the money was so sweet that people kept going on these missions, risking death. Some adventurers persisted in their current profession despite the risk of death because they felt they could not do anything else.

“Ah! What a sweet girl!”

As Lucie finished, a young girl rushed up to Yurine and knelt down. She was breathtakingly beautiful with silver hair and sea green eyes.

“Tch! What are you looking at?” Yurine pulled Yu hard towards her and put him on one knee. “Don't let strangers come near me like this!”

“Maybe they won't come close if you're in my arms.” He picked Yurine up again and held her in his arms. Strangely, Yurine did not object.

“She's a bit rude, I just said she was sweet.” The silver-haired girl smiled despite Yurine's rudeness.

“Hello, Sivina,” Lucie said. Then she introduced the girl to Yu. “This is Dame Sivina Ecues, a knight from Elhaven.”

“Yu Valarfin and Yurine Valarfin, we are pleased.”

“I haven't seen you around for a while, Lucie,” Sivina said.

“I've been working in other inns for a few days, and I got here before the rain started. Really, despite all the running around, there is still a lot of work to be done.”

“I understand, good luck.”

Lucie responded with a nod. Then she clasped her hands behind her back and glared at Yu and Sivina. The blonde elf prayed that she had no competition.

“It's raining like it's never going to stop.” Sivina was a few centimeter shorter than Yu, and the girl who had just arrived was about ten centimeter shorter than Sivina. “Hello.”

“Hello, Ana.” Lucie was uncomfortable with the appearance of another pretty girl, but she took on the task of introducing her too. “This is Yu and Yurine Valarfin. Mr. Valarfin, this is Ana. From Sivina's party.”

“Nice to meet you,” Yu smiled.

Ana had light green hair and dark blue eyes. Sivina's face was more beauty and nobility than sweetness, while Ana's face was sweeter.

“She's so cute, is she your daughter?”

“Yes,” Yu answered Ana's question by puffing out his chest.

“She's very, very sweet, isn't she?” said Sivina.

“But she seems a bit shy,” Ana added.

Yurine buried her head in Yu's shoulder like she did when she was running in the rain. If she was the little girl she knew, she would have insulted Sivina and Ana by now, calling them stupid people, but today Yurine was calmer and closer to Yu than usual.

“Have you changed a bit? I'm surprised you haven't insulted them yet, well done Yurine.”

“Shut up.”

Yurine lifted her head from Yu's shoulder, turned to the open door and started watching the rain.

“It's not nice to let a little child insult people,” Sivina said.

“You're right,” Yu said.

He didn't want to try to explain to Sivina what Yurine was like. Yurine must have reminded Sivina of her mother because of her hair, so he stopped talking about Yurine. He was about to ask Lucie about the Redchapel when a boy appeared out of nowhere and put his face close to Yu's and Yu had to step back so that their heads wouldn't collide.

“Yo! Don't you even dare flirt with these girls when I'm not around!” The boy had black hair and light brown eyes, slant-eyed. “I know these methods, you're trying to flirt with girls using the child!”

Yu turned his head away from him, but when he continued to shout and bring his face closer, blowing his breath in Yu's face, Yu couldn't take it anymore and pushed the boy off his shoulder with his left hand.

“Are you trying to damage my eyes by suddenly revealing your ugly face and bringing it closer to me? Damn kopil, stay away.”

He wiped the hand that had touched the boy on the door they were talking about, as if he had touched something disgusting and was trying to clean it.

“Yurine, I have to look at your sweet face for a while to make up for the damage to my eyes from the ugly thing I saw.”

“Uh... I can understand that, so I'll give you permission.”

Yurine pulled her head back a little and looked away as Yu looked at her with a smile.

“What level of rudeness is this!? You-”

“Shut up,” Yurine said. “It hurts my ears to hear your ugly voice, low life thing.”

Yurine's words made Yu, who was already smiling, chuckle.

“You!!!”

“Satoshi!” The boy moaned when Sivina grabbed Satoshi's ear and pulled. “Don't start another fight please. It’s enough for one day.”

“Satoshi? Uh... And he's wore a tracksuit.”

Yu had a strange habit of avoiding directing his eyes to things he did not find aesthetic. He avoided looking at the boy because he found him ugly and didn't notice his clothes until his name was called.

He was wearing a gray tracksuit with white stripes and a black T-shirt. His slanted eyes gave enough information about his ethnicity. Satoshi was Japanese and came from a different world.

“How can we be speaking the same language with this child?”

Yu was not Japanese, he knew nothing about Japanese language except a few words he had heard in anime.

He studied Satoshi, his tracksuit were not worn out, he must have been in the Second World for a short time, so it was unlikely that he would have learned the language Yu spoke immediately. Yu believed he had discovered something interesting, one or both of them didn't speak the same language as the other people who were here now.

“Maybe Turkish is his second mother tongue, but he looks one hundred percent Japanese.” He didn't think he spoke the language of this world as his second mother tongue, nor did he believe he had the capacity to learn it in a short time. “Japanese people are smart, but this is one of those stupid anime characters. Cringe.”

Yu used the alphabet of this country to confirm that the original language he spoke was the same as the language of this world. If a different language was used in this different world, Yurine would not have been able to read Yu’s writing.

“I will consider the possibility that everything I say, hear, write and read is translated instantly to and from everyone, but that is a very remote possibility.”

He did not believe he was wrong. He would be upset if he did not speak the same language as Yurine. “Are there other languages in this world? By using them, maybe we can solve this language paradox.”

“I agree with Sivina on this.”

Today Yu would not be allowed to think. Another elf appeared and interrupted his thoughts again.

“Big sister, welcome. Welcome to you too, Mr. Raul.”

Lucie greeted her sister and the man who came with her.

“It would have been welcome if I hadn't encountered such an atmosphere as soon as I arrived,” Lucia said.

“What did we expect from Satoshi? He didn't surprise us again,” Raul said.

Satoshi must have repeated the same actions before, which was the attitude of the newcomers.

“I understand that you're protective of your friends, but they're adults, you don't have to look after them like children.” Lucia must have understood, as Yu did, that Satoshi wanted to have a relationship with one of the two girls - whichever one. Anyone who saw him would have thought so, but Lucia tried not to make a big deal out of it and spoke as if Satoshi's intentions were different.

“I apologize,” Satoshi said, bowing his head.

“Go easy on him, as uncomfortable as it is, it's understandable, I know because I've been in a few similar situations before. He saw me as a threat because my face was several hundred times above the average male handsomeness. He immediately bared his teeth so as not to lose the girls he liked to someone else. It's primitive thinking, a sign of mistrust of his partners. He also gives us an idea of his inner world by assuming that other people are like him.”

After Yu's brief deduction, Yurine nodded. “A primitive creature, an animal, I agree.”

“When you say that, it sounds like you're being racist.”

“It is not racism to declare that people are inferior to my superiority, it is the truth.”

“I would have been happy if you had at least said ‘except you’ to me.”

“Hmph.”

Lucie giggled. Raul turned to look at Yu with a grimace, as if preparing to defend Satoshi.

Raul also had black hair, but his eyes were round and green. Instead of a tracksuit, he wore light armor that allowed him to move freely. He could be called more handsome than Satoshi, but he was still far below Yu.

“Actually, more than far below. He can’t get those girls with this face.”

According to Yu, neither of them was handsome enough to stand next to Sivina or Ana.

“I didn't expect to see you here.” Lucia turned to Yu, whom she had forgotten to greet with a kind smile. “Welcome.”

“We got caught in the rain and came here.”

“You did well.” Lucia took the towel from Yu's shoulder and dried her brown hair some more. Meanwhile, her sister Lucie watched her sister with her mouth wide open, horrified.

“I'm going to start a fight between sisters without doing anything. It's hard to be handsome.”

“Except,” Sivina cleared her throat while Lucia still drying Yu's hair. “I want to clear up a misunderstanding; Satoshi doesn't like us, he's just an overprotective friend.”

“Yes, it was a bit of an uncomfortable misunderstanding.” Ana took Sivina's arm and expressed her support.

“It's not like Satoshi is anything more than a friend,” Raul said. His smile reached his ears. There was a rivalry between the two men over these girls.

“I can hardly stop laughing.”

As a man, he could understand Satoshi's feelings. The words he had just heard must have hurt him a lot. It was going to be an uphill struggle for him to regain his self-confidence from now on.

Raul laughed and threw his arm around his shoulder while Satoshi's pathetic expression made Yu want to laugh. The boy had eaten ‘friendzone’ before he had even proposed.

“Phuahahaha!”

Yu was trying to hold back his laughter so as not to embarrass the others, but unlike him, Yurine just let it out.

Yurine's laughter triggered Yu, who tried to suppress his own. He had to bite his cheeks to stop himself.

“Okay!” Lucia pushed Yu off her back and led him to a table in the corner of the inn. “Stop adding fuel to the fire and don't stand there. It doesn't look like it will stop raining, so if you're not in a hurry, move over there and I'll be right over.”

They moved to the place Lucia had indicated. There was a corner seat against the wall, and he moved to the part where the wall curved. Yurine sat to his left and smiling Lucie sat to his right. Opposite them was the group of adventurers they had just met, sitting in single seats.

“Don't the clothes of that low lifestyle similar your nightgown?”

Yu hadn't intended to tell Satoshi that he came from Earth, but Yurine had inadvertently indicated it.

“Yes, it does.”

Yu's tracksuit was also gray, but his stripes were purple. Because he liked the color purple. Satoshi's shoes were similar in appearance to the ones Yu had worn when he first came here. One of the shoes had burned so he had to throw it away, even though he liked it.

“I'm sorry, what do you mean, similar?” Satoshi asked.

“May I learn how he got here?”

Yu had no desire to return to his own world. However, he wanted to know more about his situation and what had brought people from different worlds here.

Since Satoshi was in the same situation as Yu, there was a chance that he might know something about it, and what Yu could learn from him could be useful in satisfying his hunger for knowledge.

“Are you Japanese?” Yu asked.

“Haaa!” Satoshi stood up excitedly, shouting, attracting the attention of everyone in the place and making his friends grimace. “Are you Japanese too?”

“Do I look Japanese from over there? Do I have slanted eyes and I don't know it?” Even if a world Yu spoke perfect Japanese, people could immediately tell that he was not Japanese.

“But you speak Japanese perfectly?” Satoshi was still standing.

“So I speak Japanese... Ian! I'm speaking Turkish.”

Yu's head started to ache slightly, as if he had swallowed the ice cream in one bite, but the pain was milder.

“Half the world speaks English, does that make half the world English? Your country must have thrown you in here for lowering the average IQ score of the country.”

“Besides, we speak Rolder. The fact that Satoshi doesn't even speak our language makes me worry about the state of our party.” Raul was smiling. Satoshi's humiliation in the eyes of the girls made him happy.

Yu didn't like Satoshi either, but it was obvious that Raul humiliated his friend to get favor with the girls, he didn't value people like him at all.

“Stop making fun of me! God...”

Raul kept smiling as Satoshi sat back down, and his smile was starting to catch Yu's eye incredibly. It made him uncomfortable.

“I hope you're not fighting again.” Lucia came to the table with a tray and sat down next to her sister.

There were cookies and drinks on the tray on the table. Yu still couldn't taste the food, but he could smell the fish in his mouth and feel the cookies making him thirsty.

He reached for his drink, it was orange juice. When he drank it he couldn't taste it either, for Yu it was just a liquid running down his throat.

“We were just talking, even Satoshi can't pick fights all the time.” Raul again talked down to Satoshi.

Sivina and Ana carried swords at their waists, Raul carried two daggers, Satoshi had no weapons at all. Ana also had a staff, so he thought she was something between a mage and a warrior, and Sivina was said to be a knight. Raul must have been an assassin or something, in which case Satoshi seemed to be nothing.

“So he is from the same country as you?” Yurine asked.

Yu could have answered yes because they came from the same world, but he assumed that would be a misleading answer because they were not from the same country, so he said, “No. If we think in terms of territory, I would say yes, but we are not from the same country or origin.”

“It's already clear, there's a gap between you,” Yurine said, as if she praising Yu.

“Are you praising me? My dear.”

“Hya! I didn't mean it like that, you misunderstand!” Yurine was trying to push Yu's hand away as he pinched her cheek.

“You two make such a cute couple.”

“The last time someone described me as cute was when I was a kid, but thanks.”

It was Lucia who praised Yu, Lucie again looking at her sister in amazement.

“So you two are a party?”

“Yurine, Mr. Valarfin's daughter.” Sivina spoke for the first time since she sat down at the table and answered Raul's question.

“D-daughter?!”

Satoshi and Raul spoke in synchronization and opened their eyes wide, both more surprised than the other one.

“How is she? You, how? When did you come into this world? When did you get married?”

“NO ONE MARRIED ANYONE!” Yurine suddenly shouted, pinning Satoshi in place. “And you stop misleading people!”

“Without marriage!”

“SHUT UP!”

Satoshi was completely silent.

What was clear from the conversation was that Yu had made Yurine with Rie, and that this had happened without the bonds of marriage. That's why Yurine was angry. Yu could have explained how things actually happened, but he didn't want to correct the misunderstanding.

“Do you get along well?”

“Yes, we get along very well.” He answered Lucia's question with a sly smile that worried Yurine. “We even got a room with two beds the other day but she...”

“WHY ARE YOU TELLING THIS NOW? SHUT UP!”

Yu didn't listen to Yurine and continued. “We slept in separate beds at night, but when I woke up in the morning, Yurine was next to me.”

“IDIOT! IDIOT! WHY YOU TOLD!”

“Your face is flushed, your tail is wagging behind you, you look so cute.”

Yurine held her wagging tail and tried to hide her red face, the only reason Yu told the story was to see Yurine blushing.

“Isn't that normal? I mean, father and daughter lying next to each other? Why did you make it sound like a special moment?”

“Mr. Valarfin has adopted Yurine. So it's a very special moment for him.”

“Uh...” Satoshi looked somehow relieved when Lucie answered his question. “I thought you got married or something.”

Yu didn't like the talk of adoption, he wanted everyone to accept them as an ordinary father and daughter.

“After all, they both seem happy,” Sivina said.

“Oh, what makes you think I'm happy?” Yurine crossed her arms and turned her head away.

Yes, it was true that Yu was happy when he was with Yurine, even though he did not know her feelings. But this happiness was accompanied by sorrow and pain.

“It's better this way, after all...”

“I have white hair.”

Ana was speaking for the first time since she sat down at the table and was interrupted by Yurine before she had finished.

Adults did not want a white-haired child to play with their children. Children could also exclude another child with white hair.

In short, the people of this world could easily break Yurine's heart, and it was good for her to have a protector by her side.

“But it annoys even me that it's always being forced on Yurine, and I can imagine how uncomfortable Yurine must be.”

He didn't want people to say to Yurine, ‘Be grateful to Yu because he adopted you.’

“Let's talk about something different.” Yu closed the current topic.

“How was the Redchapel?” Sensing Yu's discomfort, Lucia accommodated him and brought up the new topic. Finally the conversation was going where Yu wanted it to go.

“The people are unbearable, I wouldn't want to live there.”

“I've heard that Redchapel is dangerous.”

“Yes, I've heard similar things.” After answering Sivina, he turned to Lucia. “I have a question I want to ask.”

“I'm listening,” Lucia said, reaching for one of the cookies she had brought and taking a small bite.

“Do you know anything about Sony von Bishory?”