[Please remember. What happens behind this door is top secret.]

I nod. It's been so long since I've spoken Japanese with someone, I was almost afraid I'd forgotten.

The cat-girl opens the door to the old ballroom. Who would've thought old Sakson castle hid some many secrets?

What's this? Amazing!

It's all the powerful people currently alive in the world together in one room!

Beatrice Dichtershire is here of course, at the head at the table.

But there's also Adel, the edelweiss hero from our capitol.

And Donato, the legendary bard.

The ancient wizard Klumpus.

And a bunch of other adventurers.

Donato stops playing his flute. [Finally he has arrived, waiting around is like chewing sand.]

Eh? Donato is from Osaka?

Beatrice stands up and bows. [Welcome, Diedrich Stahl. To the community of isekai-jin.]

Right! [P-please take care of me.]

-

It's really special being introduced to everybody's real identity.

Dichtershire-san was reincarnated as the villainess from the story she loved. Donato-san woke up one day in a world where his compositions where world-famous.

It seems like everybody has an amazing story to tell!

I really want to tell Lothar and Wahnzin about this, but I guess it has to be a secret for everyone's personal life.

I wouldn't want them to think of me any differently either.

[Well? Tell us then.] Donato-san says.

Everybody's looking at me. What am I supposed to tell them?

[Stahl...] Dichtershire-san says to me [everyone here has encountered the story of this world before. Sometimes in novels, sometimes in games. Do you have any memory of all of this? What happened in the story?]

[I don't remember anything like this. I didn't play a lot of games, I would just collect toy robots...]

Adel-san slams his hands on the desk and walks off. [I said it before. Nothing's changed. The goblin didn't know any either.]

What is he talking about?

Beatrice-san wants to explain. [The story we saw was that of the future that we would each encounter. But we had the power to change it.]

[And then our changes would show in the story of another.] Donato-san says.

She nods. [But lately, it seems like stories about this world are disappearing from Japan. It makes it seem like we don't have any future left.]

Adel-san clicks his tongue. [We have one future, and it's his future.]

[Adel-kun was the one that read the story of Abyss. Destroyer of the world.] Beatrice says. [We had hoped his efforts had created a new future already.]

[Abyss? Is he an other isekai-jin?]

[Kato Ken. He was brought here alongside his entire highschool class. Basically... some things happened and he killed them all.]

Killed-!?

[Whether or not he was justified... he holds a grudge against this entire world and wants to wipe out everybody.]

Oh no! I didn't expect something so heavy to get brought up all of a sudden!

-

After talking to everybody, I think I can say this.

[The church of Benesant... may actually be something bad.]

[You've met the pope.] Klumpus-sama says. [Do you think he's an open and honest man?]

[He met with us secretely, in the rose garden.]

[The church of Benesant is rife with intrigue and scheming. They did nothing to lift a finger against countless oppressive lords, but when it comes to Scratch-san, suddenly they take action.]

[Scratch-san? Ah, you mean the goblin lord.]

It's all the noble families that are closest to the church that want us to focus on attacking the little backwater town. I didn't understand why before.

[He is an isekai-jin, like us.] Dichtershire-san says.

[Eeeeh!?] I am not the only one surprised.

[Abyss is a dungeon master. Scratch is a dungeon master. There must be some connection.]

[Abyss' minions could have infiltrated the church and be using it to take out a rival.] Klumpus suggests. [Or Scratch an accomplice of his and the gods have declared him an enemy over that.]

I shake my head. [When we were at Heiligdom, the pope wanted me to speak to Benesant, but the other gods told me to question the church instead. They told me to make my own judgment.]

[Scratch may be a foreigner,] Dichtershire-san says, [but he does not want to destroy the world. Instead, he left our club with valuable information. Locations of S-rank dungeons, and the corruption and lies of important royal figures.]

Klumpus-sama clasps his hands in one. [We can slash his empire in half before breakfast. That is, if you're up for some adventuring.]

I stand up and get on my knees. Dogeza position. [Senpais... I apologize. I did not know the church was corrupt. I followed the directions of my country over my own conscience. My deepest apologies!]

[Raise your head, Diedrich-chan.] Dichtershire-san smiles. [You have nothing to apologize for. It is only natural for an isekai-jin to follow the common sense of their new world.]

Adel-san laughs. [Gahaha, but from now on, things will be different!]

Underneath the Harkness manner, in the comparatively public-facing parts of the sprawling basement, stood the Mint.

A series of primitive standing looms, their productive element tucking small within their large wooden frameworks, where small cloth rectangles were weaved and dyed in one.

After the textile came together, the attending goblin could swipe the stencil hanging above with some colored ink and press it down, printing the faces of important Promise authority figures onto the currency.

Scratch called it "paper money", although no paper was involved.

Now that no gold needed to be weighed and booked into the underground treasury, the mint could happily produce as many bills of fortune as possible and the goblins were developing a joy in trying to complete the process quicker and quicker.

Ada sighed. Just looking a her smaller cousins working assembly made her feel tired.

She sat in much too small of a chair, her legs crossed, and idly waving a bill around with her face on it.

"So now that we've got unlimited money. Can we buy our freedom?" She asked her father.

"We don't have unlimited money. I only have..." he looked at his little hand held chalkboard "200 more with this printing. You don't have any."

"Yeah but it doesn't have to be only 200. We can print as many as we like."

"We can't, that would devalue the currency to nothing."

"...Why?"

"Look." He put his things away and walked up to her. "Everything that's bought and sold has a price, yeah?"

"Yeah?"

"And every time a price is paid within our territory, this paper changes hands, right?"

"Right."

"So then, the total price of things being bought and sold has to match the amount of money there is to go around, doesn't it?"

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

She uncrossed her legs and leaned in. "No." She said defiantly.

"Why not?"

"Maybe somebody isn't spending their money. Maybe two guys are just giving it back and forth."

"Aha... that's smart." He relented. "Maybe not the amount of money itself, but the circulation of it, that has to match the price level. If we buy everybody a wyvern to fly around the continent with..."

Her eyes lit up at the suggestion.

"...Do you think the wyvern sellers would just sit on that income?"

She sunk back down. "...no."

"And having such a big sum in their pockets, what do you think they do to their own suppliers."

She didn't answer.

"Supply and demand. We've discussed this."

"They have more demand... so they make things more scarce for others... so the price goes up."

"Indeed, a rich man can stand to lose more in a negotiation. And he usually will. An excess supply of a commodity drives down its price, that's the meaning of value."

"Well then can we print anything at all? I mean it's only increasing the amount, it doesn't go back down."

He held up a finger. "We can keep on printing, as long as the pool of goods and services it circulates in continues to increase in size. More total price, means more currency is required, right?"

"...oh."

"As long as the economy keeps growing, we as the money printers don't need to tax even a percentage of it. We profit off of the seignorage."

He had used several words she didn't understand, but he was prone to doing that. A few more times and she would have pieced together their meaning from context. "Hey. So... when people stop using gold they'll start using our money right?"

"That's the plan."

"So with the seignorage... we could buy a wyvern."

"...I'm about to go south to bring this stuff into circulation. How about you bodyguard? It'll be a trip."

She forgot about the wyvern immediately. "Yeah, sure!"

The new currency was entered into circulation via the medium of loans.

There was a newly constructed pirate port south east of Grienice that had the prospect of selling stone and metal to the dungeon lord Arlette in her Stillwater Ocean, but first it needed to construct for a proper trading port.

"Three tons of daily throughput." Was the pitch when they arrived. "We have the fleet, we have a guaranteed supply and a guaranteed buyer. All I need is some starting capital."

Ada looked at her little brother- nephew really- reading the papers and confirming the number.

She didn't have the patience to do long division like Maenith, and she had already learned that math being right didn't prove anything. If the fleets could move that much in a day, then yes, that was the storage capacity Count Bondlieu needed, but let him prove that they could carry stone to the Stillwater Ocean in the first place.

Regardless, Scratch seemed satisfied. "You have your starting capital here, Count. It's legal tender in all our cities."

The pirate admiral toyed with the bills. It was mostly the large denominations, which featured Lydia. He'd have preferred gold of course, but he was sensible enough not to mention it now.

Ada followed the muscles moving in his face, the faint backdrop of emotion that played no role whatsoever in this negotiation.

Bandit leaders were usually exiled nobles, but the nobility of Grienice had been deposed almost a century ago. He'd have to been born into exile, inheriting a meaningless title from a parent clinging to past glory.

He knew how banditry worked. He knew that this financial talk was just window dressing to one bandit city being overlord and patron to another. Though it would hurt the pride of a man like him, he was submitting to a greater power.

For his part, Papa Scratch left his dignity intact. Mostly.

"What would be the interest?" Bondlieu asked.

"2 percent."

He froze up. His face hardened.

"Annually." Scratch quickly clarified.

Bondlieu relaxed. "Loan sharks usually ask for interest by month."

"That's only if we don't trust you."

"2 percent per month is the same as one-oh-two-times-one-oh-two-is-one-oh-four-oh-four-times-one-oh-two-is- 27 percent per year." Maenith quickly calculated.

She gently patted his head to signal not to interfere.

"If you don't pay in-between."

"We want you to survive Count." Scratch said. "27 percent would cripple the town. We'd never see the loan repaid at all. Although we could collect monthly, with a credit account and a local banking office..."

"2 percent annually works very well. Let's shake on it then." The count quickly said.

"Oh one more thing." Scratch almost shook his hand but then put his fingertips together. "One condition."

"...Yes?"

"You see... it's my wife. She worries for me. She is fearful that I might- haha- squander our money on untrustworthy individuals. Of course I know what an honorable man you are, but for my wife's sake. I'd like to have a few of my people sticking around."

The room darkened.

There were people outside the windows, blocking the light of day.

Shadow bandits had circumvented the count's pirate guards and scaled the admiral's quarters from the outside.

Before he knew it, they were inside.

Ada sighed and stepped towards the door, where the count's guards were just about to burst in upon hearing the noise.

She disarmed the first one by grabbing the fingers holding his cutlass and twisted them such that he was forced on one knee, blocking the others from coming through the opening. "It's just a threat," she said, "let's not es-ca-late."

"Shadow bandits." The count said.

Scratch nodded towards the intruders. "That's right. An elite force of outlaws. If everything goes right, you won't see them after today."

"Lupi!" One of the guards exclaimed. "They came out of nowhere and took on human form."

"Guard dogs, I'd like to say." Scratch smiled politely. He was fighting his pride at least as much as the pirate.

Ada could never hope to understand why her Papa was so opposed to enforcing rules. In the Promise too, it was Lydia that kept them in line. Scratch said that they were allowed to break any rule of which they understood why it existed.

Perhaps it was offensive to him that not everybody could be a maverick, mold breaker.

"They'll be keeping an eye out for foul play but also... ready to step in, if you know what I mean."

The count was less than pleased. "If I were to break my contract, you would have been able to find me. This prova di forza..."

Scratch dismissed the werewolves with his hand, and all but one left the way they came. "You're not my only client in this city, and my business isn't the only one we want to protect."

"What is your meaning?"

"You buccaneer your heart out out on the seven seas. But within this town, there's no killing, there's no stealing, and there's no kidnapping anybody for their bounty without my express permission, is that clear?"

Bondlieu clenched his jaw. It wasn't that steep of a demand, but the goblin had insisted on stepping on his pride at the last minute anyway. "Aye, sir."

"Call me Papa."

-

The werewolf that had stayed was Alpheba. Ada almost hadn't recognized her in her new black skin-suit. Only a few strands of her typifying green hair escaped the hole in her head covering.

Although she were a petite girl normally, werewolf form had intimidated the guards and they could make their exit unmolested, despite the damage to the ship.

Ada felt that she herself was at least as dangerous as Alpheba's direwolf form, but there weren't many that would back up that claim.

"So, you'll be the face of law enforcement around here?" Scratch mentioned, sort of tersely as if he had had no say in it whatsoever."

"Shadow banditry." She said. "Lydia has taught me the basics. We have a few safe houses scattered around, eavesdropping corners and rooftop routes..."

"Can't be very sneaky as a direwolf." Ada said.

"I'm usually not a direwolf."

"Well, take it easy. Make sure to take plenty of bribes, and don't feel obligated to be consistent. That's the hobgoblin of little minds you know." Scratch pointed out.

"Huh?"

Alpheba didn't acknowledge what he had said. "We're still learning, it will probably take a while for us to really disappear into the shadows. But a bandit city is good training grounds. There are no real guards to hide from, the population all but expects the thieves' guild would have a presence, so the occasional slip up isn't a huge loss."

As they spoke she escorted them to the post office, which was situated just outside the port town proper and had a warping circle hidden in the basement.

"Must be hard running around the whole city and not transforming." Ada said, stubbornly returning to her own topic. "I mean, you got little legs, everybody else is a wind wolf."

Alpheba pursed her lips, clearly much to grown up now for hobgoblins. "I used to be a witch apprentice, I have magic to help me."

"Not anymore?"

"No, still. Magic power- the kind that isn't derived from cheap gizmos- doesn't disappear. It's knowledge."

"Yeah but- you're not an apprentice?"

Ada's question had caught her off-guard. "No I... Miss Lacrima doesn't have a need for me anymore, it seems."

"Oh so she just threw you out like garbage? Harsh!"

Alpheba bit her tongue and looked at Scratch to put a stop to his daughter, but he just laughed good naturedly as if it was all harmless ribbing.

"And after she turned you into a werewolf too. That's selfish." Ada knew exactly what she was doing.

"That is just the way it is." Alpheba said. "An apprentice serves their master in exchange for knowledge, the relationship is predicated on that exchange. When one party can no longer offer anything of use to the other, the apprenticeship disbands."

"Well I think it's-"

"It's perfectly rational." Scratch said. "Here is where we get off."

In theory, an advanced enough mage would have been able to travel to a known warp circle from anywhere. However, the goblins relied on crystals and energy-ingesting-and-excreting-silicon-manabladders to simulate the effects of the spell. The resulting contraption was hardly portable. It stood in the basement of the bandit town's unassuming post office and took the form of an imposing wood and copper platform, sporting arches and more than a bit of crystal plates.

"Ada." Alpheba said, while Maenith was dialing the coordinates on the rotary device, "you know I don't regret ever becoming a witch's apprentice. Lacrima has taught me to see the world in a way few do. It's knowledge that I use and share every day defending this city."

"But wouldn't you've rather been a normal witch?"

They didn't have time to continue the conversation because Scratch flipped a switch. A shot Alpheba one last admonishing look and they disappeared.

For a brief second they were the three of them a flash of light, a bolt of weightless nothing soaring over water, forest, and grasslands, a whole volume of land that one could never explore in one lifetime.

Then they were in the egg shaped thing under the Promise, a hobgoblin peeked through the portcullis and then began to heist it up.

"Is being an apprentice really so great?" Ada asked.

Scratch smiled. "Well you're kind of my apprentice."

"...Meh."

While her apprentice roamed the human world, aging, Lacrima sat admiring her eternal beauty in the reflection of a forest pond.

Like anyone, she had been young once.

Young and exceptionally beautiful.

That dark and seductive witch was a faded memory now, left far behind on the long and winding road to the witchwood. She had given her youth to Guth.

And now it was back.

She traced the back of her hand over the water's surface, seeing that face from long ago reflected once more.

Suddenly she looked up at the moon.

She hadn't heard from the goddess in a long time.

A part of her was afraid of what she might hear. Had her spent youth been returned to her as a refund? Here is your money back, we're going with a different partner.

Scratch.

She had been kurt with him because she feared him greatly.

Feared that he had taken her life's purpose from her and her standing with the goddess of magic.

Why hadn't she reached out?

With the invisible light of a fairy queen, Lacrima called forth her own little followers. Pixies swarmed around and landed on her arms and shoulders. She smiled pleasantly. It was much more pleasant than control magic.

Control magic belonged to her past as a hag.

"There are other fairy groves," she told the little fey girl perched on her finger. "They must also belong to us."

The pixie nodded without really understand.

"I shall need an army that can traverse the lengths of this world, and gnaw at roots in distant earth. What such creatures can the feybloom produce?"

The little girl raised her shoulders and threw up her hands.

"The stars will tell us." Lacrima said.

She turned the leave and the fairies shook off her bare shoulders as one coat.

"I must build an observatory."

Heartbeat

Class: Bard

Rank: C

As this spell has no combat functionality, it may be taught outside of the adventurers' guild.

While bards have used the Heart Flutter spell for flirtation for generations, the Heartbeat spell provides a stronger, more physically felt version of the effect and can not be used in idle passing.

Although the exact purpose for which the goddess has designed this magic must still be determined, its main use seems to be in animal husbandry. As the mind altering effect of the beat compels creatures to breed.

This is a bard spell, and can only be cast via magical instrument. The goddess of love, Dither, bestowed this song upon the legendary bard Donato during his meditations in the west, as part of the newest wave of divine inspirations all across the four realms.

NOTE: This entry is under review. Please leave comments and suggestions in the clay jar, so that they may be taken into account before the entry is added to the next print of the adventurers' guide. Thank you!