Chapter 117: Last Mission in Heimdall
I continued to eat my second slice of cake as I kept myself amused with the way how the clatters of the fork and knife of King Roselle gave me the perfect picture of his raging worries, actually, I am not that bad of a person, I just want him to buy my stocks (coins) so that other countries will be enticed as well, I even compromised the number of coins I want to sell at a reasonable (for my desire) price, so I am not worried that he will decline my offer, of course, if he still did, I can just change the location of the discussion to the crater I created in the forest that is, half as big as the entirety of Heimdall, I am sure King Roselle will be very interested in my offer if that happens.
[You demon.]
Well, joking aside, I bet this person already regrets alienating Urduja for generations, these moments are the ones that you needed a powerful fighter to put a blade in the throat of your counterpart, but in Roselle's case however, no amount of army can prevent me from spewing threats in front of him because of his relative's bullshit pride.
Alas, another case of the Younger Generation being drowned in the bullshit of the former generation.
As I was thinking of the unfortunate circumstances of my counterpart, I controlled a cart inside the kitchen that was busy preparing more food, some voices of shock were heard as the cart went out of the room and into my side, King Roselle had that "Here it comes" look on his face, he must be very excited on buying some of my stocks.
As the cart finally stopped at my side, a slit appeared on its platter and on the slit appeared my table back at my office in Bulawan City, I put my hands inside and pulled out a pouch full of coins, the coins looked like the grey of some sort with my face in it and has the Baybayin word for "Kamatayan" and also the Baybayin words for "Error" and "Wisdom" (1). I put the pouch of coins in the platter of the cart after which, the cart slowly went to drive itself towards the King who got confused by my actions, I finally ate the remaining slice of strawberry cake as I said.
"King Roselle, I will not make any idle chatter to plead for your approval of this or give you a favorable impression of my intentions..."
I paused a little to give a little suspense and also to observe the wince on Roselle's face because he sucked up to me just a little while ago, after satisfying myself for about a second worth of pause, I continued speaking.
"Also, I am in quite a hurry so I will not beat around the bush, as you know, my nation is a new one and is just starting to establish its clout, I think I have already given us bad clout with me almost killing Hebi, but that is different, so as compensation for my work for your Kingdom, I will ask you to buy some 1,000 gold coins from my Queendom, they are made of Magic Metal which happens to be extremely rich inside my land."
The King's eyes widened immediately upon me mentioning "magic metals", after all, magic metals are an infinite source of metal, not to mention they can also create high-quality armor and weapons that can amplify the effects of spells, most of all, they can be injected with the mana of the user and make the said mana more potent, they were very precious if you think of the fact that someone like Momoiro who have genetically imprinted "magic" in them exists.
Imagine a sword slash hitting you but instead of being sliced, you got skull-crushing headache, it was quite nasty. The King picked my coins and looked at me, apparently he wanted to try and haggle even before knowing my price, there were 1,000 Kamatayan Coins in total so of course he didn't want to miss out, but because he wanted to shock me with his shamelessness, that will he be doing.
"How many percent of these coins is not that of a magic metal?"
I started my third slice of cake, now that of raspberry flavor as the King asked such a question, I simply shook my head as I answered.
"None of them."
Even though he does have some speculations that it is pure magic metal given that it is kind of glowing as opposed to how coins should be reflecting light, he still opens his mouth wanting to say "Impossible", but he has enough tact to not say such a word and just tested it himself, he looked at the coin that is in his hands and then injected his mana on it, do take note that what he inserted is nothing but a small amount yet, the amplification effect of the magic metal made it so that blue streaks of thick electric currents shoot out of the coin, Roselle flicked the coin away immediately to not damage the foods in front of him causing the electricity to be deactivated.
I also controlled the coin to hover back to the pouch as I smiled.
"So? What do you think?"
The King had a conflicted expression as he looked at me and contemplated his response, I bet he thought about what would happen if he used these coins of 100% purity to enhance his attacks or his army's overall capabilities. Not to mention with these pure coins here, he can dominate the arms dealing industry and deepen his monopoly of high-quality weapons.
_I would love to see your smithy exploding, so I wouldn't mind you doing that._
As I thought of that, King Roselle finally replied.
"This really is of the greatest purity, who would have thought that the five-pronged forest dubbed as 'god's protected land' would be really abundant in these metals like how the legends entail, it is a good thing that we humans did not manage to occupy it and handed it to your capable hands instead. However, in terms of value, buying a lot of these coins will be quite a burden to our coffers, after all the human standard for an impure magic metal ore is two gold coins, but, these coins are obviously of the purist magic metal, this alone will make the price to double, not to mention that Kamatayan's currency is just starting... and no matter how much I wanted to compensate you of your life risking way of saving us, I am afraid that if we don't lower the price or agreed on the common ground, we will have to choose a different way to reward you of your feats."
[Shameless alright.]
[Guide] cannot help but comment on the way the King said that no matter how much I risked my life, he cannot buy my coins, well at least that can be misunderstood as such, it is really funny how the mug of this pussy who can't even kill his brother who tried to cuck him whilst endangering the very capital of his nation turned from troubled to a gauding smile.
[Well, no matter what, Noir is still his brother, so you can't blame him for looking for a replacement for the corpse that will be presented to you later on. Just replace that charred corpse with the head of Noir later.]
That reasoning is very Asian, and this story is heavy European.
_So, is this the level of shamelessness he can show me?_
That is simply not enough, I shall show him what a King or Queen's level of shamelessness has to achieve before calling themselves one. All of these thoughts happened in a fraction of a second, at that time, I had already finished my third slice of cake and grabbed a cupcake for myself.
"I see, I see, I have certainly not considered the plights of buying new currencies, not to mention that you have to repair the gargantuan crater that the fight between Hebi Tsukaiza and I have created, it is quite a pressing matter... However, this is more like a negotiation than compensation because the gem at the crown of the queen is already enough of a reward for me."
I paused for a second to once again relish the expression of this poor soul who has become expectant, what is he expecting, I wonder?
"That being said, I am also quite hellbent on promoting my currency around the continent and soon around the world, so how about this, so that you can dash out a large amount of spending, I will repair the crater I have created, after all, I went too far at that one because I wanted to prove that I am stronger than Hebi despite being way younger than her, so the large part of the damage is my fault, what do you say?"
The King looked at me confused as to why I seemed to yield to his demands so easily, but all I did was to maintain my smile as I did not even take a bite of the cupcake that I placed on my plate, soon his eyes widened and his confusion turned to horror quick for he finally understood the implication of my words, such statement of mine, despite looking passive, this is actually me wielding the dagger I am holding in front of his throat, by reminding him of the very first explosion I have created and the fact that the forest is of the same size as the city of Heimdall, he was reminded that I can erase half of his royal city with a single explosion.
Roselle most probably was also reminded of the reminder I had given him when we first had our official meeting. That heroes on a fundamental level can cause mass destruction if they wanted to, so he started shaking quite violently that he cannot even hide it from me, of course, I am just here laughing my ass out inside my brain, with this I have already grabbed back my pride that was shattered because of Loki, of course even if I don't have any beef with Loki, I would still enjoy this sight.
The misfortunes of others are the delight of the mind after all.
After almost breaking down and probably questioning all of the teachings of his parents and teachers about how hard work pays off eventually, King Roselle finally answered me with a final gulp that is evident due to his Adam's apple.
"Hm... Hmm, if we can cut down on the cost of repairing the battlefield, then I can agree to the price, with this we do not need to strain our finances... yes, and we will also be the very first investor of such a promising currency, this will surely benefit our future cooperations a lot."
The King immediately looked for his treasurer through a maid, the treasurer looked at me with a little bit of a frown due to his king's shaking voice, but I paid it no heed because I just really don't care about them, they are not my people after all, at least for now. After arguing a little bit because of the 4,000 gold coins the King wanted to liquify (it seems like they are quite tight in their budget), the treasurer finally agreed and left the room with his unpaintable face.
_Even then, I am sure that Roselle will not take this blow lying down, I am sure that even though he agreed to allow my coins to be valid in Gjallarhorn he will just release 500 of them at most and will try to use them as upgrades to armors and weapons... Another entertainment._
Well, like I said, I don't mind him destroying one of his smithies, the mega one that I saw when I was scouting would be preferable, he can be free to do whatever he wants with that (on the first try), and realize that if he has taken a lose against me, it is better to take it lying down.
_Now, I wonder how the last missions of Bakunawa and Kabuto in Heimdall are fairing._
[3rd Person POV]
In one of the minor roads of Heimdall going towards a buffer town that is being used by small-time traders to replenish their supplies and sell their goods, a caravan was transversing the area, well at least, that is how it looks like for the horses of the caravan has a huge spike of ice on their heads whilst one of the caravan's wheels were made of ice, the coachman, instead of being in front was inside, his face was on the back whilst his nape is facing his chest, he has his neck twisting to death.
Looking at her masterpiece, Bakunawa could not help but sigh as she made the movement of the caravan halt and made it slam on a tree, the ice wheel and the spike on the horse melted whilst Bakunawa carried the head and the body of the passenger, Prince Noir unto both her hands, she then arrange it so that the coachman will look like he was kicked by his horses, finally, after finishing the job, he escaped from the scene.
_That useless pussy did not fulfill his only job on that fight..._
Bakunawa looked at the corpse that had its fingernails torn off.
_Is this how you have fun when facing a weaker enemy?_
_______
Meanwhile, in a certain mansion on the outskirts of the noble district of Heimdall, a butler ran towards the office of the owner, or at least the acting owner as he shouted.
"My Lady! We have finally found actors for the body doubles!"
This scene was documented by a certain grey-colored shinobi who cannot help but wonder.
_Who are these people for them to be monitored by Lady Sophia?_
________
Author's Note:
1: Sophia Demiurge's name has origins in Gnosticism, it implies that Demiurge is born from Sophia, Demiurge is portrayed as an ignorant lower emanation of the divine and created the flawed material world (an "Error" if you may).
I used Error because no entity in Filipino folklore is equivalent to Demiurge. My device seems to not be able to display the translation so please translate "Karunungan" and "Kamalian" if you are interested.
2: The transaction is considered a loss because 4,000 gold coins can fund a small city already, and it is not worth it to spend that much on a start-up currency. (Any pointers to improve future transactions like this will be greatly appreciated)