Neko had managed to fall asleep a few hours before sunrise, but Yu had been up all night. No matter how still he lay in bed, sleep was nowhere near his eyes.
He hated it. With no one to talk to and nothing to occupy him, he was left alone with his own thoughts, and it pained him.
“Fraud. Why do I want to do this?”
The job offer he was going to present to Marino Swann was a fraud. Yu was afraid of being involved in a crime, but when the idea of fraud entered his mind, he couldn't resist it.
“To make easy money? I'll cheat thousands of people, steal their money.”
If he had someone to talk to, he wouldn't have to think about such things, he could talk to her and forget all the negative thoughts.
“I will do it to be happy... Right? Because I don't want to think about negative things anymore, I want to live a good life. If I have a lot of money I can do it here. I can go to a different country and live a luxurious life as a rich person. That's what I want, I can live away from all my pain.”
He thought of last night, Lucie was being close to him. Her closeness had even warmed Yu's heart.
“I could marry someone, even have a harem since this is a fantasy world. Which man could refuse? I would be surrounded by beautiful women, maybe have children. All this would keep me busy and I would be free of all the memories, all the regrets that cause me pain. Maybe even forget who I am.”
Money was everything. If one had money, one could find comfort, peace and happiness, and love.
“Even if money cannot buy love, it can be the means to reach it. First World or Second World, either way, money will lead me to a life that will make me happy.”
When the light of the rising sun entered the room through the curtain on the window, it was time for Yu to go to sleep, but he couldn't sleep this morning, he had to go to the municipality early and get an ID card.
When it occurred to him that he needed to get an ID, he turned around. Neko normally turned her back to Yu before going to sleep, but in her sleep she moved and turned to face him.
She was holding the blanket with her small hands, her mouth slightly open to breathe. Yu found her long black eyelashes aesthetic and her snow-white hair was beautiful.
“She... is my responsibility.”
He reached out to touch her hair, his fingers were about to touch her hair when he stopped himself and pulled his hand back.
“Like me, an orphan. I killed her mother and I can't just abandon her.”
Yu would never forget Rie's eyes at the moment of death.
He wiped the tears from his eyes with his hand.
“Why am I such a terrible person? Why don't I try to be a good person? Why don't I? Why can't I?”
He didn't want Neko to wake up and catch him like this. His cheeks were flushed, he stood up to wipe his runny nose and walked over to the water buckets.
He took a handful of water from the full bucket and brought it to his nose, then washed his nose over the empty bucket.
He also washed his face to wipe the tears from his cheeks. Then he wiped his wet face on his clothes.
“I am a murderer. What is fraud compared to murder? Should I worry about getting more mud on my already muddy hands? One way or another, no amount of water can wash my hands clean.”
He looked at Neko again. Looking at her made him feel even lower. He was being consumed by the dark pit inside his chest.
“I want to believe her, but my thoughts, my feelings are all mixed up. The chance to make up for all the mistakes is too good an idea to be true, but even if what she says is true, I'm not the man to do it. I'm just fooling myself and her, as I always do.”
After examining his face in the mirror, he dressed. When he put on her black dress made of quality fabric and looked in the mirror again, he was satisfied with his appearance.
“Neko, Neko, Neko.” He called three times but Neko did not wake up. “Neko, we have to get up.” He took the girl by the shoulders and shook him gently.
“In a little while,” Neko said. She hadn't even opened her eyes and her lethargy made Yu smile.
“The longer you put off waking up, the less likely you are to wake up. Come on, get up.”
He had learned from YouTube that the longer you put off the alarm, the less likely you are to wake up. Since it was Yu who was acting as an alarm right now, Neko shouldn't put it off.
Neko rubbed her eyes and got out of bed. She was still sleepy, having spent most of the night awake. She yawned and stretched, then was about to go back to bed when Yu stopped her.
“Don't go to bed, don't go to bed... Get up, we'll have breakfast and go to the municipality. When we come back you can sleep again.”
Neko got up with a groan and washed her face. While she dried her face with a towel, Yu was still looking at himself in the mirror.
“I'm very handsome, aren't I?” he asked. Now that she was awake, he could talk to Neko.
The little cat-eared sword fairy started to change her clothes, ignoring the young man who was talking. Yu continued talking.
“I don't say this to flatter myself, but if God is an artist and humans are his art, then I must surely be his masterpiece. I mean, look at my face, my eyes, my voice, the natural shape of my body. He must have created me with the intention of making me a masterpiece. Although my sisters were absolutely no less than me, they were both very beautiful. I guess it's a perfect genetic inheritance from the perfect choice of mates our ancestors made in the past. Yes, the natural heritage of the Valarfin is extraordinary beauty.”
Neko changed her clothes, not caring what Yu said. Yu just wanted to escape his thoughts today by telling someone something, so he didn't mind being ignored.
“Did you cry?” asked Neko.
“Why should I cry?”
“Your eyes are red.”
Yu put his hand to his eyes, he had been examining himself in the mirror so much that he hadn't noticed his eyes were red.
“I was awake all night, that's why they're red.” Instead of confessing, he chose to dodge it with a white lie. He didn't want to say he had been crying.
He picked up a comb and sat on the bed. Then he motioned for Neko to move the chair in front of the bed.
“Let me braid your hair,” he said.
“No need.” Neko reached for Yu's hand to take the comb. Yu held up his hand and snatched the comb away.
“We're going somewhere formal, and after that we have some work to do. We need to look good.”
Neko could be as sensitive as Yu when it came to looking good. She pulled out the chair and sat down, letting Yu tend to her hair.
Yu had a hard time understanding her; sometimes Neko pretended to be disgusted by Yu, but sometimes she let him take care of her. Yu wanted to know what she was thinking.
“What are we doing?” Neko asked as she sat opposite the full-length mirror in the room, watching her hair being done with an emotionless face.
“We're going to do some research.”
“Is it about the job you're going to offer the person from yesterday?”
“Yes.”
He needed to find out details about the population, the betting system, the dates and times of the games, the details of the games, and go to Marino equipped.
“What business?”
“Hope... Chance... Hope marketing or something like that-” He was happy to be able to chat with Neko while combing her hair, happy that he could be free for a moment to give her a hint about what he was going to do.
“SCAM-MMMH!”
“Don't yell!”
Neko turned out to be smarter than she expected and immediately realized the plan Yu had in mind. Yu acted fast and immediately covered Neko's mouth so that the people in the next rooms wouldn't hear anything.
After Yu removed his hand, Neko wiped her mouth with the back of her own hand. Yu was hurt by her doing that.
“Are you going to cheat? Are you going to cheat him?”
“No, I'm not scamming Marino.” Even if he tried to swindle him, there wasn't much he could get from a man who was already finished, and if he somehow took his house away, Marino's debtors might get to him this time. “Look here, Neko, you want to rewind time, don't you? If time rewinds, nothing we do in this world will matter because it won't have happened.”
“But we will remember.”
“We will remember something that never happened, is that more important than your mother?”
He regretted saying that right after his sentence, he had given Neko a little more hope.
“Every time you use this...” Neko clenched her little fists. Meanwhile Yu had started braiding her hair.
“There is no risk of death, we are not considered guilty by the law until the last moment, and we can leave Rolderhelm immediately when the job is done. If things go the way I think they will, we have an estimated two-month window in which we can take care of other business.”
“Other business?” said Neko, still not convinced.
Yu was relieved to deflect the topic from the fraud.
“Sigma Tower. Who hired the assassins and what we need to do to achieve our goal. We'll look for answers, I guess.”
Rewinding time seemed like an impossible goal to Yu, but he was going to work on it a little to ease his conscience by saying ‘I tried’.
He hoped that once they had tried a bit and the impossibility of rewinding time was understood, Neko would accept her mother's death and look to the future.
“All right,” he said. He had knitted a beautiful braid for Neko. “We can leave after we have breakfast.”
***
“You eat so little.”
Yu always hated waiting in line. If he had to withdraw money from the ATM or pay a bill or anything else that required waiting in line, he would get up early in the morning to avoid the line and get it done.
But Yu wasn't the only one who didn't like waiting in line, there was a long line in front of the municipality even though it was early in the morning because of people like him who got up early to avoid waiting in line.
“I'm full.”
“But you are a bit thin, you need to put on a few kilo. It's unhealthy to be so thin.”
Neko, like Yu, had no taste for food and ate irregularly, but while Yu could force himself to eat enough to fill his stomach, Neko ate very little.
“I said I'm full!” Neko folded her arms across her belly.
A little over half an hour later, Yu and Neko entered the municipality and sat on the seats inside, waiting for the registrar to call them.
Ten minutes later the registrar called them into a room. The curtains were wide open to take full advantage of the sunlight.
“What is your name?” the registrar asked.
“Yu Valarfin.”
“Here you are, Mr. Valarfin. You may sit down.”
There was only one chair in the room except for the one where the registrar sat, so Yu sat Neko down instead.
The registrar took out a rectangular piece of paper the size of a credit card and asked, “Valarfin is your family name right?”
“Yes.”
After receiving the confirmation, the clerk wrote the surname first, then the first name on the paper in normal script.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Can you tell me the date of birth, place of birth, gender, nationality, parents' names?”
“Thirty of the eighth month, twenty years after the Battle of Heroes, Capital Rolderhelm - Guild Quarter, male, human.” Even if he had not been born in Rolderhelm that is how he would have registered him.
When he gave the date, he said the thirtieth of the eighth month, which in the First World would have been August thirty. Here, he learned, the thirtieth of the eighth month also fell on August thirty. Although some countries used different calendars, Rolderhelm used exactly the same calendar as the First World's Gregorian calendar.
The similarity in the calendar made Yu realize that other First Worlders had been here before him and that there might still be others like him here.
“My father's name is Yuu, spelled with two 'u's. My mother's name is Helen.” The last time he was with his parents, Yu was still a baby. Then his father died in a car accident and his mother somehow died and he was sent to an orphanage with his older sisters.
“Where are they from?”
“Both from Rolderhelm, the Guild Quarter.”
“Do you have any other relatives? If so, you have to come back with them later for registration.”
“I had older sisters, but they both died like my parents. Other than them I have no other relatives, the only person close to me now is Neko.”
“Tell me your sisters' names and the date and place of their birth.” The registrar took a separate file, entered Yu's information into it and write a section called relatives.
“They were twins. The older one's name is Ryu and the younger one's name is Myu. Fifteen years after the Battle of the Heroes, thirty of the fifth month. Rolderhelm, Guild Quarter.”
The registrar wrote Yu's older sisters on the file, again in normal writing. After writing, he waved his tired hand.
“Now for Neko...” The officer turned to the girl sitting in the chair. “Are you Neko?”
“Yes,” Neko replied.
“Do you have anyone?”
“No.”
“So would you say this man is the only person you are close to right now?”
Neko looked down before answering, finding it hard to accept the truth. “Yes,” she said quietly.
“If he's holding you against your will, you can tell me, he can't hurt you.”
“Actually, I'm the one who held against my will.” She resented being suspected of kidnapping a child.
Neko shook her head, “This guy can't force me to do anything, I'll tear him to pieces.”
Yu swallowed, knowing she meant what she said, and the registrar laughed, thinking it was a joke.
After the officer composed himself, he spoke. “According to the regulations, people cannot be named after animals or places. You need to think of another name.”
Yu was surprised when he chuckled slightly, even though they were speaking Turkish, the registrar knew the meaning of the word neko.
“What do you mean it can't be given? My mother gave me that name!”
“Sorry, it's the regulations.”
Neko protested, but she could not go against the regulations. As Neko and the officer continued to argue, Yu spoke the name he had in mind.
“Yurine.”
The officer and Neko looked at Yu.
“Yu has Yu, Rie has Ri, and Neko has Ne. Yu-ri-ne. I think it's a good name.”
“WHY, WHY DOES YOUR NAME HAVE A PART!? IT CAN ONLY BE RINE.” Neko shouted so loudly that the registrar had to cover his ears, but he still found Neko's reaction amusing.
“Yurine is a really nice name, so I'm registering Yurine as your sister.” Before the officer could touch the pen to the paper, both Neko and Yu shouted to stop him.
“Wait a minute!”
The officer looked up in surprise and looked at the two of them.
“I don't want to be his brother!” protested Neko.
“I wonder if, if there is something like child support in this country, if we could make her my child instead of my sister...” Yu's voice got lower as he spoke, yet the officer and Neko heard every word.
“Uwwwwhat, what, what! What do you mean child! Don't be silly, stupid human!”
Neko turned red with anger, Yu could feel her scratching herself.
“Some places give money in the name of child allowance, and if Rolderhelm has something like that, I mean to get it.”
“Those who are registered can receive benefits such as child allowance and old age pension.” Neko was about to interrupt, but the officer held up his hand to stop her. “But you are nineteen, how old is this child?”
“I'll be three...” Seeing the officer and Yu looking at her, Neko told her age. The registrar looked at Neko, puzzled.
Yu might have been surprised, but knowing that Rie had created her, and Rie being young, he understood that Neko was younger than she looked.
“Three?” the registrar repeated the word to make sure he got it right.
“Three,” Neko confirmed.
“She is a magical girl, that's why there are some differences in her body. Neko, let's show him magic and he will believe us.” Yu intervened to convince the registrar.
“Don't tell me what to do!” Neko was angry, but she took out a light and showed it to the clerk.
“I see,” said the registrar. Surprisingly, he was convinced very quickly. “So, do you really have no one?”
“I had my mother... She's gone...” Neko lowered her gaze to the floor. Her shoulders slumped.
“I see.” The officer who had just been amused by Neko's reactions now felt pity. The officer's pitying look at Neko made even Yu angry, but Neko didn't see the pitying look because she kept her eyes on the ground. “If you have no one else, I will register you as Mr. Valarfin's daughter. In any case, without a guardian you will have to be sent to an orphanage, we can register you as a sister, but if we register you as his daughter you will receive a monthly allowance of one gold coin.”
Neko said nothing. The officer took her silence as a sign of approval.
“I need to fill this out as completely as possible, so we will also have to list your mother as married to Mr. Valarfin. Is her name Rie?”
“Yes- WHAT?” Neko's eyes widened at the mention of marriage, she was angry. Yu was annoyed that he was going to take a dead woman into his family.
“Is that really necessary?” Yu asked.
“Of course it won't happen!” shouted Neko.
“I understand your anger, but the law forbids illegitimate unions. If an illegitimate child is discovered, the state takes action. Until now, newborn children have only been registered in churches, but with the new system it will be easier to identify them.” The officer's description of the law made Yu laugh. Rolderhelm had not expected something like this.
But when he thought about it, he realized that they were in a medieval world after all, and such rules could be considered normal.
“So, what happens if such a union is detected?”
“The people involved will be fined, and if there is a child, the state may want to confiscate it. If the parents are normal citizens, the child will be returned to the parents after a short court process, but if there is prostitution or poverty, the child will be placed in an orphanage. This is not a problem for the rich, but it is always the ordinary citizens who suffer.” The officer answered Yu's question, adding his own commentary.
“Better than illegitimate,” the registrar repeated what he had said earlier when he saw that Neko was still angry. “Give the date and place of her birth and the date and place of her death.”
“One September, year nineteen after the Battle, Kingdom of Mora, Capital Mora.” Neko gave Rie's date of birth.
“I'll register the same birthplace as Mr. Valarfin.”
“She was twenty years old... a year older than me.”
When she learned Rie's age, the hollow in her chest opened her eyes again. He already knew she was young, but he couldn't help feeling guilty as he learned the details.
“Also died before her birthday…”
"August thirty-thirty-nine, the year thirty-nine after the Battle. Guild Quarter." Yu answered the date of death instead of Neko.
“Do you know his parents, relatives?” Neko dismissed the registrar’s question with a shake of her head. “Then I'll register you as Yurine Valarfin and go back to Mr. Valarfin. Put your hand on that ball.” He pushed the tennis ball-sized orb on the table to Yu.
Yu put his hand to the colorless orb and nothing happened when he touched it.
“Hay Rhea, is it broken?” The registrar tapped the orb a few times and asked Yu to try again.
“What is this?” Yu asked. The crystal was still colorless.
“To see the type of magic,” the registrar replied. He still thought the orb was broken.
“My situation is a little different. I don't have a core, so I have nothing to do with magic.”
“Is that even possible?”
“It happened.”
“Rhea-Rhea... You touch it.” The registrar handed the orb to Neko to test its stability. When Neko touched the orb, green and white lights appeared. “Rhea-Rhea... Interesting.”
After Yu's spell type was left blank, it was time for the signature. After Yu signed his signature in Latin script, the officer again placed the paper on a credit card-sized board. He put the board and the paper in a box and pressed the box from above, and when he took the board out of the box, the paper was engraved on the board. Yu's identity card was ready.
Yu's card also had an ID number, 02000YVfin. When Neko's ID card was taken out, she was also given the number 02001YVfin.
“You will go up to the second floor and go to the family office to get your child allowance. Have a good day.”
“Good afternoon, good luck.”
***
“You despicable, deceitful, cheating, swindling scum! It's not enough that you swindle people, now you're swindling the state.”
“There's a popular saying in third class countries: the state’s money is in the sea, and those who don't fish are stupid.”
Neko was still angry that Yu had registered her as his daughter. Although Yu understood her, he did not regret what he had done, they would receive one gold piece every month.
“Don't look at me like that, Yurine. My sweet little child.”
“Shut up...”
“Okay, okay... Don't get angry, I'm shutting up, Yurine.”
Yurine's eyes were red with anger, but she forced herself to remain calm.
“I'm sorry for making you angry, but somehow I had to be your guardian, otherwise he said you would be given to the orphanage.”
Yurine kept walking.
After doing some research, they returned to the inn around noon and went to sleep. When they woke up, the sun was about to set, it set by the time they had dinner, and after dinner the two made their way to the Swann Postal Organization.
Yu could not say that the information he gathered was very detailed. He had researched the population of the country and its settlements, future arena matches and public attitudes towards bookmaking.
Arena matches, or the arena game as it was commonly known, had been introduced about thirty years ago to stop the brutality of the coliseum, where fights with real weapons used to take place, and had quickly become popular.
In the game, there were two different teams and plates were tied to each player's head, each player earned points by breaking the opposing player's plate, and the match was over after a certain amount of time or when all opposing players had been eliminated.
Yu learned all this while Yurine did nothing but sulk beside him.
They arrived in front of Marino's company. A two-story building stood in front of them. Yu pushed the door and it opened with the sound of a bell. No one was inside.
“Mr. Valarfin? I'm here.”
As Yu looked around, Marino, who heard the bell attached to the door ringing, came out of his office and greeted Yu and Yurine.
“Come in, let's go to the office.”
They entered Marino's office and Marino sat at his desk. Yu and Yurine sat opposite each other on the seats in front of the desk.
Marino leaned his elbows on the table, clasped his hands together and shook his legs in excitement, waiting for Yu to say something.
“I want to get right to the point.”
Seeing Marino excited, Yu didn't want to waste time with small talk.
“Yes, let's do that,” Marino said excitedly.
There was hope in Marino's eyes. Yu didn't know what to think when he saw that Marino was hopeful about someone he had just met.
“The job I offer will take about two months. If we succeed, we will receive our money and leave Rolderhelm on October twenty-sixth.”
A tournament was to be held in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Principality of Rolderhelm on October twenty-sixth. The eight-team tournament was to start on September fourteenth, with one match a week. It would last seven weeks in total, with the final match on October twenty-sixth.
“It's a tried and tested tactic where I come from, I'm sure it will work.”
Yu had seen it on a video and learned that it was successful. If he assumed that people in his world were smarter than in this world, it should definitely work here.
“Our work is related to the arena game. For the first two games we won't be able to take care of them because we will be preparing for them, but for the next five games we will send letters to thousands of people's homes every week. The letters will contain the results of the matches. For the third match of the tournament we will deliver one hundred thousand letters, and for each subsequent match the number will be halved. Fifty thousand letters for the fourth match, twenty-five thousand for the fifth match, twelve thousand five hundred for the sixth match.”
He paused and gave Marino a moment to understand, then resumed.
"Each time we will write on one half of the letters that Team A will win and on the other half that Team B will win. When the match takes place, we will send letters to the people to whom we sent the letters with the winning team, and then we will send letters again for the next match. We will write on one half that team A will win and on the other half that team B will win."
Marino's face fell as Yu explained. When he saw Marino's face fall, his self-belief was shaken for a moment, but he quickly recovered. If he didn't believe in success, he couldn't expect others to believe in it.
“The number of people we give the right results to every time will be halved. By the time we get to the final match, we will have six thousand two hundred and fifty people whose previous matches we got right. We will send them a letter again, but this time not with the result of the match, but with the result of the previous matches and that if they want the result of the next match they have to give us a gold piece.”
And this is where they would make money.
“If an estimated three thousand people believe us and give us a gold piece, we will have three thousand gold pieces and we will share it fairly. It could be less or more, I believe it will be higher.”
Marino Swann listened without saying a word until Yu had finished, but he wore an unpleasant expression towards Yu.
“It's called fraud,” Marino said.
“If you need to ease your conscience, I suggest we call it selling hope. And we won't take anyone's money by force, everything will be voluntary. They realize that betting is about luck.”
Even though he knew his plan was a scam, he believed that what he was doing was minor compared to other crimes.
“I can't accept this, please let's end it here.”
Marino got up from his chair in frustration and prepared to send Yu away, but Yu had no intention of giving up. Apart from wanting to make money, he wondered how far he could go.
He leaned back, crossed his right leg over his left and took a comfortable position. He was going to leave here victorious today.
“You don't think about yourself, and I understand you don't think about your wife. I wonder, don't you think about your daughters Odette and Charlotte?”
“I do...” There was no strength in Marino's voice, he lowered his eyes to the floor and sat back in his chair.
“What will your daughters think when the bank seizes their property in exchange for your debt? What will your wife, who trusted you and married you, think when her husband loses everything?” Yu was attacking Marino on a vulnerable spot to make him accept his offer. Family was sacred, and even if one would not commit a crime for oneself, one could do so when it came to one's family. “Let's say the bank seizes your assets and throws you and your family out of your home. What about the loan shark? What will your family think when they get angry when they can't get their money back, and they come with knives and iron clubs and beat you to death in front of your wife and children?”
“I don't know,” Marino said, his voice even weaker than before.
“You know, but you are afraid to tell yourself the truth. Your wife and children will hate you when you lose everything, including your life. They will curse your soul for giving them this nightmare. But there's more, and what's more, what will your wife and children do then? Will they become slaves or beggars? Or will they use their bodies to feed their...”
“ENOUGH!”
Not wanting to hear any more, Marino screamed, covered his ears and buried his head in the table. Yu was surprised by the reaction, but he didn't stop and said his last words, “You're in the sea Mr. Swann. I offer to be a snake for you,* if you accept.”
After he finished, he waited for Marino's reply, confident that he would accept.
When Marino looked up, Yu saw that the man's black eyes were watering.
“If the princess finds out about a big job like this, we'll lose our heads.”
“We'll maintain secrecy and we won't be considered guilty until the last moment. Besides, there is no precedent in Rolderhelm for what we are about to do. Besides, I don't think we need to worry as we will flee as soon as we get our money, unless you want to continue living here.” When no one spoke for a while, Yu spoke again, “So, I assume you agree?”
“On September twelfth, the loan shark's deadline to pay will expire, and then they will probably come to take my life, as you say.” Marino buried his head in the table again. Yu was both annoyed and empathetic at the way he buried his head like a peacock to escape reality.
“That would be bad.” Marino had to survive at least until the third week of October. “Let's go and talk to your loan shark tomorrow and ask for an extension until the end of October.”
“And he'll just give you a grace period?” Marino had a point, the loan shark must have run out of patience if he was to the point of beating a man in the street.
“How much do you owe?”
“Four hundred and fifty gold coins to the bank, nine hundred and ninety to the loan shark.”
“You try offering the loan shark your house, and if that doesn't work, we have no choice but to try to sweet-talk him. If sweet talk doesn't work, there's nothing else to do.”
Since Yu would not be foolish enough to vouch for the debt, his options were limited.
“Pray hard tonight and wait for us here tomorrow. When we arrive, we will go to the loan shark and talk to him. If we get a favorable result, we'll make our deal and get to work, and if not... then we'll say goodbye.”