[Hanako] Chapter 5: Slave Owner's Assets

[Asta]

Hanako thumbed through the books, making a mental note to read through some of the ones about heroes and especially give a close look at the significantly older book.

As she rifled though the contents of the smaller box she hunched over the letter and read it silently to herself. Uh oh. Well... I guess there's something to be said for character development huh. Let's just keep this to ourselves... When she was done, she carefully folded the letter back up and stuffed it into her track suit.

At last she stood up and dusted off her pants. "Well! Some interesting stuff, but I guess we've got another little mystery for this key don't we? Let's go open up the chests in the basement first though."

Hanako is gonna transfer the items she found in the chests from Klein's room to her own, so she can read the books later, then head back downstairs with whomever is gonna follow and get those three chests in the basement unlocked.

[Throndir]

Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Cellar
Date: Day 5 - 7 PM

Once you were done placing the books into your own room. You headed back down into the cellar. Everyone was already there waiting for you, each of them were probably curious about what was in the chests.

You began to open each of the locks, and they all clicked open. In the end all three chests were full of mithril coins. Wendy's eyes lighted up at the sight. Given the worth of the gold bars, having three chests seemed to be a fortune.

"I really doubt... that anything else you can find in his estate is worth as much as those three beautiful mounds..." Wendy said absentmindedly, still entranced at the coins sparkling in the lantern's light.

[Asta]

Hanako had to admit, she was genuinely impressed. She had probably never seen the relative value of all this wealth in her entire life.

"Wew! That's uhh, certainly a lot of money right there." she said, very nearly forgetting the thought she had earlier. When she collected herself a moment later she turned to look at Amarille. "Though, to be fair it doesn't really belong to us... This was probably all plundered from the elven kingdom and to put it ethically... It belongs to them."

It was painful to take the moral high ground, the value of the metal bits glistening in the lantern light was easily enough to make the upcoming flight to Isikawa much more smooth. However, her conscience wouldn't let her spend the money. At least not without permission...

[Throndir]

Amarille shook her head.

"This was lost when our capital fell. Among many other things too. Treasures that we've held for thousands of years. Even if you were to return this to the king and queen, I'm sure they would have given it back to you." Amarille said as she smiled gently.

"But since they're not here. The Princess of the Lassetaure kingdom shall gift this upon you as thanks for my release." She stood up straight, while the other three, Wendy, Trudy, and Minette furrowed their eyebrows.

"You're... a... princess?"

"Wait... what?"

"U-umm.. A-ah..."

[Asta]

Hanako, having known Amarille was a princess watched the others with some amusement. She then gave a proper Japanese bow, back straight, hands on the front of her legs, forty-five degree tilt, the whole nine yards. "Thank you very much, I am humbled by your gift and will see it put to good use."

It would have to be counted, Wendy could probably see to that. For now, it was getting on in the evening and she was starting to think about dinner. She stood up again and announced as much. "Well, It's been a pretty full day I think. Let's see about some dinner and then I might take a look at some of those books we found. How about the rest of you?"

[Throndir]

"Well darling, I plan to go with Minette to find out the worth of the rest of the goods... And I really want to see how much all those coins are... The exchange rate for our currency to the New World is a bit in-flux, but I'll go with the assumption one of their gold pieces is equivalent to one of our Refedoria gold coins. The countries of this world are a bit backwards in their banking, so I'm not even sure if an exchange rate really matters to them, or if they just care about it's weight in gold." Wendy shrugged.

"Darling?" Minette's eyes flickered over to Wendy, noticing her pet name that she used for you. It didn't seem to bother the accountant-soldier though, Minette smiled softly, her sharp eyes seeming to be in agreement.

"Oh... I'll... be helping Wendy... I'll get the other soldiers... to bring everything in order, and we'll go room by room... I'll write down Wendy's estimates, but she is usually very on point on their worth..."

"I was planning to help some of the others with sewing later... We need to have enough clothes that we all don't look like slaves in rags when we and if we do go out."



After saying quick goodbyes, it was just Trudy and you left.

"W-well Hanako..." Trudy said, realizing the two of you were alone. It was at this moment that you felt Trudy reach for your hand and hold on to it.

"S-Since the others are gone... how about we have dinner together, and take a look at those books?"

[Asta]

Hanako gave Trudy a smile, and tried not to let the fact that she was holding her hand get her heart rate up. Despite this it was beating like a drum.

"R-right, lets go then."

With that, they headed off to collect the books that were found earlier and went to find themselves a meal.

[Throndir]

Heading into the kitchen, you realized that many of the other ex-slaves and soldiers who weren't helping Minette and Wendy go through the inventory of items to sell in Klein's estate had already started to prepare food an hour earlier, and the food was already being served out.

Trudy was surprised. The previous days, they stuck with routine, eating and preparing only what they needed.

"Frau hero! We decided to throw a feast... I hope you didn't mind. It's to celebrate our freedom. Your summoning. And our potentially brighter future... Klein used to hold parties for business guests, so there's a lot of food stocks in reserve both in the kitchens, the cellars, and cold storage."

All sorts of food had been prepared, and with the number of people, many of the other slaves had brought in extra chairs and tables to fit mostly everyone. Another soldier noticed you.

"The hero is here!" He said as he poured a bottle of something into a cup, he handed it to Trudy, and then before you could react, had started to hand you one as well. With the loud announcement, the crowd started to quiet. Trudy stayed close to you. All eyes turned towards you, as if expecting something.

You're at the edge of the crowd.

[Asta]

Guess I'm not getting any reading done tonight... Hanako thought as she looked at the crowd and the feast. She really didn't like public speaking, and it was a miracle she had managed to get through the last time she spoke to the crowd, but it looked like they wanted a speech or something. She took the cup, found a nearby chair and stood up on top of it.

"Ahem" she cleared her throat. "I'm not really one for giving speeches, but in light of this feast you've prepared I feel like now is a good time to express my gratitude to all of you. It's not the act of a single person that brings a brighter future, but the collective pull of a group of determined people with a goal, a desire for something better. Together, with hard work we will seek that shining horizon where your people can be free. Each new day we lay the foundation for a better tomorrow! I thank you, for all your hard work and hope for our continued success! Let's eat!"

With that she took a deep drink, doing her best to drain the cup in one go. She hoped the little speech sounded good, or inspiring. She was going for one of those third act rallies they always seem to have in fantasy anime.

[Throndir]

A new title appeared then.

You have gained a new title『Chief Executive of Klein Company』
You have gained +1 CHA

The rest of the crowd cheered along with you at the end, and when you took a deep drink, the rest did as well. Whatever was poured into your drink was pretty strong. But you managed to down it well. The speech you gave kicked off the rest of the feast they were having, and soon enough they had begun to start chowing down on their food. There was two long tables setup filled with all sorts of food, and the others continued to either say their thanks to you, or encourage you to grab something to eat. A particular soldier seemed fascinated with food and kept on making suggestions.

You socialized a bit with the others, though with bottles of alcohol being opened straight from Klein's stashes, they overall mood was light and merry.


Location: Herr Klein's Estate - Hanako's Room
Date: Day 5 - 8 PM

After you had your fill, you left, along with Trudy in tow. She was slightly intoxicated, but it only appeared as a slight blush on her features. She seemed to have giggled and talked more at the very least. Eventually heading back to your own room, you took out the various books. There were 3 separate books about heroes, you noticed that each book was written in a different language, they all seemed to have come from different places. There was a book about the 'Shifting' by Eloise Renaud. And lastly there was a much older book about an older civilization.

Inside your own chest, were the other items you removed from Klein's locked boxes: The pictures of his wife and family, the large map with a red 'X' on it, and the 5 gold bars. You had kept the letter from Klein with you, along with the letter from Amarille to the elven King and Queen.

[Asta]

Hanako had the slight tilt of someone who'd been into their cups, but fortunately common sense had kept her from going overboard while she was socializing. She did feel the hot flush of whatever it was they were drinking radiating from her face however. After spreading out the books they'd acquired she decided to leave the one in Refedorian to Trudy, since for whatever reason the language barrier no longer existed for herself.

After a moment's deliberation she settled on the oldest tome, since the promise of learning about some kind of ancient civilization piqued her interest the most.

"Let's see what we've got here..." she mumbled.

Hanako is gonna try to get through at least half the book, and then probably get ready for bed and finish the rest at some point tomorrow. When she does get around to sleeping, she'll put in 8 hours.

[Throndir]

When you first opened the book, a note with scribbles had fallen out. It looked similar to the same handwriting in the letter you had found in the box. It was Klein's writing. It seemed to be a list of random notes, written at various times.

Book about heroes? Ancient civilization!
Need to find translator.
Hierdsvainian
Felothian
Old Felothian ?
Old Felothian scholar currently attempting to translate for me
Page 315, picture map

Quickly flipping to page 315, which was marked by another loose piece of paper, looked to be a map. It had striking similarities to the map you had seen in Minette's room, but there was some noticeable differences as well. The note Klein had written had various question marks on the markings on the map which were marked as "Hideouts?", but you were able to translate it.

To your best guess, this was what the map looked like long ago. The particular points in places that Klein had thought were hideouts were actually cities of the ancient civilization.

Although the tome was old, you realized a couple of things about it as you were reading it. It seemed like this particular book was written in the early days of a 'Felothian Kingdom'. This particular kingdom seemed to have been part of the original New World's inhabitants. You remember seeing a 'Felothian Bay' in the map in Minette's study, but as you recall the countries around that were the Antwarch Dragon Knight Kingdom, the United Felencorp Alliance, and the Baolong Dynasty. During your reading, you realized this book seemed to be an attempted analysis of the older kingdom that you found out was called the 'Velethen Empire'.

At around 10 PM, Minette had arrived in your room, she brought with her some notes. She immediately realized the two of you were sitting together reading a book, and at this, Minette's eyes grew wide.

"Oh? I want... to join." Minette said. She immediately started to climb in on her side of the bed next to you. She seemed to be getting more comfortable with this, where Trudy was still at times hesitant.

"Can I... choose a book? Also... we found out how much everything is worth... And Wendy is still celebrating with the others in an 'after party'. She is... a bit drunk."

Handing you the slip, it seemed the rest of the sellable items in the estate totaled up to about 12,000 gold pieces. Not including the mithril coins.

However, with the mithril coins, it went up to over a 800,000 gold pieces.

3 BP

[Asta]

Hanako took a look at the slip and her eyebrows nearly shot off the top of her head. "Holy shit." she breathed quietly.

She tucked the paper into the book she was reading to mark her page. "That's a lot of money. We can probably get a pretty nice settlement going somewhere outside the country with all that cash." It was an extraordinary sum, she couldn't even begin to imagine the amount it would have totaled to in yen. We might be better off than I thought we would...

"I was about to turn in for the night, but I plan on finishing up tomorrow some time. But before I do, take a look at this." she said to both Trudy and Minette, pointing to the map on page 315. "This map here shows a bunch of ancient cities that were part of a 'Velethen Empire' that predates the actual author of this book who was a citizen of a 'Felothian Kingdom'. Does any of this geography look familiar to you?"

While she spoke, she grabbed the map they had found earlier in Klein's room and laid it out next to the book to see if there was any overlap.

[Throndir]

There was indeed an overlap, it seems like one of the dots that was in the book seemed to match up with the red 'X' on Klein's map. It was Minette who spoke up next.

"That's... one of our mining sites?" Minette said pointing to the red 'X'.

[Asta]

Hanako ran her fingers through her hair and breathed out a long slow sigh. "That complicates things a bit, but I'm glad we found this out before moving forward with our plans. Originally I was planning on giving stewardship of these sites to Sofia, but clearly Klein was looking for something here and I want to know what. Can you figure out who's operating in this mine for me tomorrow? It's gonna be dangerous, but I think that we should go take a look while the other preparations are being made for our departure. It will probably have to be after our meeting with Sofia, so I can try to pawn some of Klein's future meetings off on her."

She rubbed her eyes, she was starting to get sleepy after such a long day. "Whatever it is he was looking for, it was related to this Velethen Empire and I have a hunch it might be important."