Memoirs of the Returnee
chapter-198

Accumulating Achievements (1)

“……30 Ren per gram. The deposit is 10,000 tons. Are you kidding me? No, you must be joking? Can’t you do math? Even if you take care of the mining cost, it’s 300 million Ren. If you sell it at market price, you’ll lose 150 million Ren right away.”

“Yes, let’s say we expect a high stone price. Where are you going to store it? Storage costs, transportation costs, inflation, etc., as soon as you conclude, you’ll lose 200 million Ren. Intern Riley, will you do it?”

We’re getting scolded as soon as we return to the company.

The deposit amount that the Count wrote in the contract was larger than expected, so the order size suddenly increased.

“Moreover, let’s say this extreme mana stone has potential. No, whose idea is it that it has potential?”

“……It’s intern Shion.”

Riley pointed to me with her finger. I was betrayed in an instant.

“That’s very intern-like. But, what do you need to maximize that potential? R&D, right? You need R&D. But the research cost? The research cost is on a different level. No matter how much you think, you need to add a few more zeros.”

“And, if you add the opportunity cost of not being able to research other things while researching extreme mana stones, you need to raise it to at least 40~50 Ren per gram to balance the books. Will you do that?”

Of course, it doesn’t balance out right now.

“Go back. I won’t say anything more since you’re an intern.”

The manager waved his hand as if to shoo away a fly.

* * *

“……I didn’t expect anything anyway.”

On the rooftop of Libra Station. Riley shrugged her shoulders and spoke. I handed her a banana milk.

“I haven’t given up yet.”

“If you didn’t want to give up, you should have lowered the price from the start.”

Clock- Riley stuck a straw in the milk.

I shook my head.

“That Count, his territory itself is affluent. Those nobles would rather wait than negotiate. Especially when the price of mana stones is rising day by day.”

In just 1-2 years, the price will dramatically soar, then it becomes too late to negotiate. It’s only natural that the haughty Count becomes the absolute party.

“Do you really know something?”

Riley glanced at me with suspicious eyes.

“I told you. I have a theory.”

“……”

She silently shook her head. I leaned against the rooftop railing. I glanced at Riley.

Sip- Sip-

What does she, who is sipping banana milk like a cigarette, want right now?

Suddenly, I became curious about the inner thoughts of my colleagues who stood against the mountain called ‘Libra’.

“Why did you come to Libra, Riley?”

Then Riley looked back at me.

“……What? Are you flirting? We’re both interns.”

“Maybe.”

“You’ll regret it later. What if I’m the intern inspector?”

Riley chuckled, a mature smile playing on her lips. I shrugged.

“Just curious.”

“What’s there to be curious about? I came to Libra because I wanted to live a fabulous life.”

“Fabulous?”

“Yes. To earn a lot of money, to travel here and there, you need more money than you can imagine. It’s simple math. 6-7 trips a year. Two weeks of accommodation at a five-star hotel. Round-trip first-class airfare. To live like that until I die… I need at least 100 million Ren.”

Riley smiled faintly, as if imagining herself traveling.

“So now I’m holding my breath. Acknowledging that I’ve become a cog in the wheel, but waiting for the day I can break free from it…”

I looked into her face.

Is she sincere?

Or is it a lie?

Either way, she will never escape from the cogwheel.

Crushed and ground down in the infinite mesh of gears, she will be killed by Libra before she can even embark on a single trip.

“Quit.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Make money while traveling. Like a freelancer.”

“Ugh, that’s the worst. When travel becomes work, and work becomes travel, where’s the fun in traveling?”

Riley frowned.

“Besides, what were you hoping for when you came to Libra, Intern Shion?”

I raised an eyebrow and replied.

“I hope for Libra’s rest.”

It’s not a lie.

The eternal sleep of Libra… I hope they sleep forever.

“Well, the rumor is that you’re a loyalist.”

“Yes.”

I quietly stood up from leaning against the railing. I glanced gently at Riley.

“I will find and execute those who oppose Libra.”

This is also a warning.

Riley has potential. Therefore, she will quickly rise to a high position in Libra. However, precisely because of this, she will be more easily exposed.

Overconfidence in herself and the mistaken belief that Libra trusts her will lead to a fatal mistake.

Riley silently met my gaze.

I smiled at her.

“You can look forward to it.”

Once, I had a chance to peruse Libra’s internal documents. Living in the underground world’s garbage dump, where information from the upper world flows, for a good half a year.

There, not only the list of cartels and spies in the underworld who are currently infiltrating Libra, which are ‘just right for my performance’, but also…

Riley.

There’s also a list of allies who pretend to be your colleagues and will eventually sell you out to Libra.

“Let us live long.”

“Whatever. Just leave the extreme mana stone alone.”

Riley stretched out nonchalantly, without any change in her expression.

“Yes, do as you please, Miss Riley.”

“And you, Mr. Shion?”

“I will convey my thoughts to the direct line.”

Riley froze, a peculiar smile playing on her face.

“Don’t worry. Even if things go well, I won’t monopolize the credit.”

“…What kind of report are you planning to write?”

“Well, it’s all a coincidence.”

I chuckled.

Just like how the development of safety glass was due to a cat’s mischief, or how ‘penicillin’ was discovered by a fortuitous mistake.

The rediscovery of the extreme mana stone, in my opinion, is nothing more than a coincidence.

* * *

Three days later, at the Aerial Garden.

“…?”

Upon her discharge from the medical center, Zia discovered a certain report on her desk. It was a thin document of about ten pages.

“What is this…”

She pressed a button on her desk to ask the secretarial team.

“Excuse me… did anyone come here…?”

There was no response.

“…Hello?”

Thunk- Thunk- Thunk-

After pressing it several times, a response finally came.

─Yes. There’s a report from Libra Station to be delivered to Miss Zia.

“…Is that all?”

─Yes.

“Who…”

The communication was cut off immediately.

As such, while the secretarial team at the Aerial Garden serves the direct line, the place is also fiercely contested by the successor factions, making Zia the least favored.

She picked up the report. She skimmed it with her eyes.

It seemed to be about the extreme mana stone.

At first, she intended to read a bit and put it down.

[I have long held a theory about the extreme mana stone. In fact, it was something I experienced quite by chance. Once, I accidentally put an extreme mana stone I had found in the freezer with some meat.]

“Put it in the freezer with meat…”

The principle is to store mana stones at room temperature. If frozen, the structure is damaged, causing about 20~30% of the mana to evaporate.

[But strangely, the freezer exploded. The refrigerator was completely destroyed. At first, I didn’t know the cause… but then I found the remnants of the burnt extreme mana stone.]

“…”

It was strange. If a mana stone is stored in a freezer, it loses its efficiency. Therefore, it doesn’t cause explosions.

Because the explosion itself is a mana reaction phenomenon.

[So, I bought another extreme mana stone. I put it in the freezer of the meat shop where I was working part-time. But this time, there was no reaction.]

“So…?”

Zia became a bit intrigued.

[Just when I was wondering if the extreme mana stone had caused the explosion. I had this suspicion. Could it be a problem with the refrigerator brand?]

“That can’t be…”

She furrowed her brows.

Why am I reading this? She had this thought, but she had nothing else to do today anyway.

[So, I bought a refrigerator of the same brand that had exploded before, and put the extreme mana stone in the freezer. As a result, the extreme mana stone exploded.]

“….”

Zia’s hair stood on end at that paragraph.

She felt like she could somehow anticipate what was coming next.

[However, it’s hard to believe that the extreme mana stone reacts to the brand of the refrigerator. So…….]

“It’s the temperature.”

She immediately came to a conclusion.

The initial set temperature of the freezer varies by refrigerator manufacturer. Of course, consumers can change it, but initially, it’s between -18 and -24 degrees.

[……The problem was not the brand. The refrigerator I bought had an initial freezer temperature set to -22 degrees. Then I thought. This extreme mana stone, could only trigger a special reaction at a very short range of a ‘specific temperature’.]

It doesn’t work at -24 degrees. It doesn’t work at -18 degrees. Only when the vicinity of -22 degrees is consistently maintained.

“…….”

She quickly reached out her hand to pull out a pen and a blank sheet of paper. From this report, she brought up her own thoughts. She whipped those thoughts into numbers. It was about calculating the output of magic power from the mana stone.

“Ah…….”

Zia’s heart pounded.

Extreme mana stone.

The mana stone, simply divided into extremes, is known to be more efficient than the average grade mana stone, but the actual ‘magic power content’ is small, making it a somewhat unique mana stone.

But now…

Calmness is needed.

The biggest danger to Zia is herself more than anything else.

Showing off oneself is bad. Therefore, if she monopolizes this information, there will definitely be a problem.

She pressed the button on the desk again to contact the secretarial team.

“……Um, excuse me.”

There was no answer.

But she had to leave a voice. As ‘evidence’.

“I have something to pass on to my brothers and sister…….”

There was no answer this time either.

Are they ignoring her after hearing her, or are they ignoring her without even listening?

It doesn’t matter.

Zia got up.

She copied and scanned the report herself.

She will send the physical report to Derek and Jade, and she will send it to Johanna by email.

Derek probably won’t care. Derek, who is blind to succession politics, wants the present more than the future.

Johanna is the same. She will dismiss this report as Zia’s child’s play. No, she might not even check the email.

Therefore…… perhaps only Jade, the most sensitive of the four siblings, will respond.

If it’s just Jade and her sharing, that’s enough.

Zia picked up the report again. She checked the name of the author on the last page.

[Shion Ascal]

……

In the old mansion of the capital, Edsilla, the eldest son of Libra, ‘Derek’, is grooming his clothes to attend a social event soon.

“Lord Derek.”

His butler approached and spoke.

“What is it?”

“Miss Zia has asked that this report be delivered to you, Lord-”

“Throw it away.”

Derek furrowed his brow and waved his hand dismissively.

“……Yes. So, I should just dispose of it.”

“Yes. It’s probably just another request for money.”

He had more construction projects failing than ever before, he didn’t have time to indulge in the pestering of the youngest.

“There, there’s a trash can.”

Derek pointed to a high-end trash can behind the wardrobe. It was adorned with jewel decorations.

“Yes. Understood.”

The butler threw the report in there.

……

Inside a dark room. Johanna’s office in a hotel casino without windows.

Ding─

A small alarm rang from Johanna’s laptop on the desk.

Ding─

The second alert rang.

However, there was no one to open it.

The laptop blinked a few times and then quieted down. It quietly blended into the darkness of the office.

……

At the same time. Inside a car leaving for a business trip.

Jade was reading the report. It was a document containing Zia’s own thoughts about the potential of the extreme mana stone.

It was quite suspicious to just read the text─of course, there were many numbers that Zia herself had calculated, but he hated math─ but what if this was true?

Anyway, if the extreme mana stone could become a ‘new type of mana stone’?

“Hmm…….”

Jade had met quite a few swindlers so far. They ripped off his money, and he ripped off their heads.

However, Zia is not a swindler.

The problem is Jade’s own bank balance.

He had lived without thinking about his balance so far, but recently, several businesses have been shaky and the expenses have been quite high.

“If it succeeds, I can recover all the losses I’ve suffered so far.”

Jade is sincere about his business. He wants the title of a successful businessman more than anyone else.

Therefore, if it’s time to take a gamble, isn’t it now?

Jade picked up his cell phone.

He immediately called Zia.

Doo-roo-

Zia answered.

“Zia. So, you’re saying you need money to acquire this extreme mana stone.”

* * *

4.

Jared Arkne raced across the world with a single horse. He left the capital, crossed the wasteland, swept through the storm, and traversed the wilderness. He found his direction by looking at the stars, not distinguishing between day and night.

“……”

At the end of that mad dash── Jared arrived.

“This is……”

The end of the world.

He blankly stared at what lay beyond.

There was a wall.

A wall made of transparent grid patterns, blocking his way like some kind of ‘aquarium’.

“What……”

Overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness greater than the wall itself, he was panting heavily when suddenly,

“Arrived, have you?”

A voice sounded out of nowhere.

“!”

Jared quickly turned around. There stood a man dressed in a black hood.

“Hello.”

“……”

Jared rested his hand on the sword at his waist. He stared at the man, on high alert.

“What? Don’t be so wary.”

“Do you have a nail clipper?”

“I buried it in the ground.”

Despite this, Jared maintained his stance. He glared at the man and asked,

“Where is this place?”

“Where, you ask? It’s the end of the world.”

“No. I mean this world.”

“……”

At his words, the man gave a small smile. Then he stretched out both his hands.

“Here.”

In each palm, there was a pill.

“What are these?”

“Red pill, blue pill. This is a very famous story, don’t you know?”

“……I don’t.”

“Then I’ll explain. If you take this red pill, you’ll understand. What this world is, who I am. But……”

The hooded man looked at him and sighed softly.

“It won’t be very pleasant.”

“Not pleasant?”

“Yes. You might come to know some very uncomfortable truths. On the other hand, this blue pill will make you comfortable. It will make you forget everything.”

“……”

Jared silently looked up at the wall for a moment.

The end of the world.

The proof that this world is fake.

“If I take this red pill……”

Jared suddenly stopped speaking, and the man continued for him.

“You’ll come to know the most important thing.”

“The most important thing?”

“Yes. Your memory.”

The man pointed at Jared’s chest with his finger.

“The memory that you’ve seemed to have forgotten.”

Suddenly, a strand of hair flashed before his eyes. It was red hair, just like his own.

Something he had lost without realizing at some point……

A very precious child.

“You’ll regain that.”

“……”

Jared looked at the man. He looked at the pills on the man’s outstretched palm.

He picked up one of them.