Chapter 12: The Foolish Investor

Chapter 12: Chapter 12: The Foolish Investor

"Because you are foolish."

The words hung in the air. Dry and untasteful.

Allan kept his eyes on Amelia Arclight. Seris looked at him, watching his eyes, not knowing what could happen next. Lira continued to stare at Amelia as well, her gaze relaying her anger.

Silence only stretched further.

"I see..." Allan said, settling back in his chair and placing his hands in his front pockets. The old wood creaked and seemed to echo throughout the room as the reality of her words sank in.

"That’s your reason?"

Amelia nodded once. "Yes, that is my reason, sir Allan of Oakwood."

Allan huffed and gave a small, dark smile. "Not exactly flattering, Lady Arclight."

"It wasn’t meant to be..."

Amelia smiled briefly to herself and returned her attention to Allan. Her hands remained folded on the table in front of her. She seemed completely at ease.

Allan knew that look, even as his hands were already in a fist, pressing down into his own palm. He stayed calm. Or tried to.

"Half the city wanted to stop him from entering the Hollow Root of despair, but he went and conquered it," Lira muttered.

"He single-handedly rebuilt the destroyed manor of the noble family with a very limited budget. With the little capital he had, he could have just sold me, sold us. But he still kept both of us, raised us." Lira shouted. "How dare you—"

The guards who were at the front door arrived, spears in hand.

"Stop," Amelia ordered.

Allan held Lira’s shoulder as she turned to him. "But Master..."

Allan only gripped her shoulder tighter, and she sat back down.

Amelia, watching it all, tilted her head slightly. "Indeed, your slave is right. You did all that. That makes you either very foolish, or very confident."

Allan’s smile sharpened, but his eyes stayed cold. "I prefer the second."

"That’s why I chose the first."

Seris’s lips twitched, understanding what the viscount was truly doing.

"You’re enjoying this... huh," Seris muttered.

"Your household is so interesting," Amelia said, with a calm gaze at Allan, Seris, and Lira.

"Don’t encourage her," Allan muttered.

Amelia ignored him and picked up the document again. "I’ve done my research, Lord Oakwood."

"Allan."

"...Allan, then." Amelia’s finger ran along the edge of the parchment. "Your family’s old business had three advantages: infrastructure, demand, and an established market. Two of those still exist: the market and the infrastructure. The third..."

"Political protection," Allan finished.

"Yes, which I would provide, emphasizing the ’would.’"

The room seemed to drop in temperature by a degree or so. Seris looked hard and unyielding, like stone, while Lira looked nervous but said nothing.

As he picked up the document on his lap to scan it, it became very clear to him what Amelia had done. He looked down at the scribbled numbers of thousands of gold coins that would make even the hardest of businessmen swoon with greed.

Exactly the problem.

He set the paper down. "Call me a fool, call me whatever you wish, but in the end, slavery is slavery. There isn’t any clean word for it, no matter what your papers name it."

Amelia didn’t flinch. "I assumed you wouldn’t," she said.

"...You knew?"

"Everyone else sees the numbers first. I needed someone who would see the actual problem."

She pushed a second document across the table. The real one.

It followed the same business model, but on reviewing it, he noticed large sections had been blacked out, with large numbers of gold coins noted in the margins, and the proposal much different from the one he’d seen before.

Allan looked up. "Hmmm, you like to test men, I see."

"It’s my specialty, in fact. I like fools like you, Lord Allan. Fools are trustworthy and honest. We’ve established that you’ve thought this through." She pointed at Allan.

"You’ve got the infrastructure of your old business to work with. Warehouses, carriages, connections to merchants. And my family has political sway, though I suspect it’s not enough on its own to guarantee such large financial success. I’m proposing we create a legal labor brokerage, not slavery. Change the old ways."

Allan tapped the paper. "Fixed contracts. Fixed wages. A defined end. No buying people."

"Obviously."

Seris finally spoke, voice low. It was as if she had memorized the whole contract in one glance. "Then why still call it debt-servitude?"

"Thousands of people are currently trapped in debt-servitude," she continued. "If I simply outlawed the practice tomorrow, those contracts wouldn’t vanish. They’d go underground and probably become even worse. What I truly want isn’t labor. What I want is..."

"An end to slavery," Seris replied.

"Smart girl," Amelia commented.

Allan knew, right away, that this was going to get him in far deeper than reviving the Oakwood name ever would.

"How much capital?" he asked.

"One hundred gold initially..."

The System bloomed in his vision like a cold blue flame.

[Investment Opportunity Detected.]

[Target: Amelia Arclight.]

[Initial Investment: 100 Gold.]

[Potential Return: 5000+]

Allan wasn’t surprised by Amelia’s request for one hundred gold. The System had noted that same figure before.

"Master?" Lira’s voice cut through. "You’re distracted."

"Just thinking. Thinking whether my unique skill wants me to invest."

The words left his mouth before he could stop them.

Silence crashed down.

Seris closed her eyes. Lira whispered, "Master... this is a ripe opportunity, what’s the wait?"

For what seemed like an eternity, Amelia stared at him. His expression hadn’t changed. There was something different about her eyes, though. "You are strange," Amelia said finally.

"I’ve been told."

She pushed the contract toward him. "Then? Are you going to be just a fool, or are you going to be my fool?"

Allan took up the pen between his fingers and turned it over a few times before setting it back down on the desk.

"Terms and conditions: I deal with the operational side of things, you deal with the politics. I don’t want my control getting overreached."

A faint smile touched her mouth. "...Arrogant."

"Second condition: workers receive contracts, food, and basic accommodation. Pay them enough that they choose to stay."

Amelia hesitated. "That will reduce the profit."

"Then we make less. Money is important, yes, but people are the ones generating it."

She studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Fine."

"Third condition: we don’t call it debt-servitude," Allan stated finally, handing the contract back to Amelia. "We call it contracted labor. I know this will attract a lot of attention, mostly from other nobles who thrive on slavery. But change has to start with a loud boom, not a whisper.

They sign up for a certain amount of time for a certain wage, and in return they get food and shelter while they’re working. When their time is up, they can choose to renew their contract or leave. They can even break their contract, and there will be legal consequences for doing so, but no physical punishment can ever be inflicted on anyone for breaking a contract."

Amelia’s eyes sharpened, looking at Allan. "It seems you are not just my fool, but a joker, Sir Allan... okay. Agreed."

Allan stood up, extending his hand. "I’ll invest then. One hundred gold, as partners." He stood, his hand toward Lady Amelia.

The butler seemed not to like it one bit, but he knew his place. Amelia stood up as well, grabbing his hand.

"As partners," she said.

The System flared again.

[Investment Confirmed.]

[Investment Network Updated.]

[Partner Added: Amelia Arclight.]

[Initial Investment: 100 Gold.]

[Potential Return: ???]

Question marks? Hadn’t it shown 5000+? he thought.

Interesting.

He let her hand go. "One last question. Why did you really choose me? There are many barons, more witty, more wealthy than me..."

"Actually," she continued, walking to the window to look outside, "one could say that you’ve accomplished more in a short span of time than some of the most established merchants here have in years.

That’s what drew me to you, Sir Allan. You seem to possess a quality that very few people do.

You don’t know enough to be afraid of the things you should fear, and that makes you reckless, and sometimes unpredictable. And it’s the unpredictable people in the world who sometimes manage to change it completely."

They left the Arclight estate under a pale noon sun.

All three of them strolled through the upper district for the rest of the day, in silence. Having no words.

The streets were mostly empty, and the few carriages that did pass moved slowly, since they were in the way.

Then Seris said flatly, "I don’t like her..."

Allan sighed. "There it is."

"She’s weird. She stares at Master too much. Calling him a fool again and again."

"Yeah."

"And she called you her fool, how dare she!"

"..."

"And you said nothing! That makes it worse."

Lira smiled up at him and looked away after a moment. Allan looked back at Seris, who was walking a little ahead of him. "You agree with her?" he asked.

"A little."

"Traitor..."

Seris rolled her eyes at the comment, but the fleeting smile was wiped from her face as Allan’s expression turned serious.

"Lord Allan..." a voice came from behind.

Allan turned to see the red-headed receptionist from the guild.

"Oh, you’re... from the guild."

"Yes, I was searching for you. The guildmaster just accepted your meeting with her."

Hearing it, Allan’s eyes lit up. "Finally! Thanks for the information, miss."

"It’s Mina Ackerman."

"Thank you, Lady Ackerman."

"No, no, just Mina is fine with me," she replied, with a small smile, a slight blush rising on her cheeks.

Lira, who was already steaming, couldn’t help but grip Allan’s hand even harder.

"Master! I’m hungry, let’s go home quick!" Lira muttered.

"Ohh, okay, okay, thank you Miss Mina, tomorrow then," he said, as he was pulled away by Lira.

Meanwhile, Allan remembered the Hollow Root, and what the dragon had said.

"Other players... huh," he said.

Both women turned to him. "Master?"

"Someone wanted the next player to find both the warning and the dungeon. It was waiting for someone like me. I feel like our arrival, my arrival, may not have been random," Allan said quietly.

Seris’s face darkened. "We’re going back then?"

"Tomorrow," Allan replied. "I need to calm down my cute Lira for now..."

"I’m not cute! I’m mature!" she yelled back.

***

Everyone within the Adventurer’s Guild hall seemed to be quietly going about their own work. As Allan walked through the hall, people all around would look up from what they were doing and whisper, "The Oakwood Baron. The hobgoblin slayer."

"Miss Mina, any information on the Hollow Root?" he asked.

"Another six scouts entered the Hollow Root yesterday, and none have returned. They included two C-rank adventurers and four D-rank ones," the receptionist whispered, her eyes still scanning the room.

"There have been no messages from them, and their bodies haven’t been found yet. However, they did find the entrance to the secret passage, and one of their recording stones activated before they disappeared."

"Please, can you activate the recorder?"

She did so, and a blue light began to form around the stone. The light particles formed into something else.

It showed a long staircase of ancient stone. Heavy chains seemed to be embedded in the wall to the left of the staircase.

Allan looked at it with a familiar gaze.

Before anyone could react, the scene began to distort. A massive, familiar roar echoed through the halls of the Adventurer’s Guild.

What caused his blood to run cold wasn’t the sound of the dragon he had already defeated. That didn’t sound familiar to him. What did sound familiar was something much deeper than that.

The System ignited.

[Investment Opportunity Detected.]

[Target: Hollow Root.]

[Potential Return: Very high]

Then a second line of text appeared below the first, colder than the one before it.

[Warning.]

[Previous player Network detected.]

Allan’s eyes widened. "Previous..."

The words vanished before he could finish the thought.

He turned around to the others. "Hmmm... we’re not going down there alone. We’re going to need at least ten people to clear a dungeon like this, probably fifteen."

"Indeed..." Mina replied. "That’s why the guildmaster is eager to meet you, more than you are to meet her."

"Ohh, where is she?"

"Up." She pointed. "Waiting for you."