Chương 58: Chapter 1.58: So We Meet Again

The conversations continued, but soon both Aelia and Marcus left the children behind, and within the envelope of Brutus's presence, Favius and his sisters focused on raiding the buffet. The side of Favius's mouth twitched as he saw several nobles scurrying away at a not-quite-dignified pace when they saw the Magnicultor approaching a dining table. The servants removed the half-eaten food as they claimed the couches. Soon, his sisters babbled excitedly, and Brutus pointed out various foods.

"You gotta try this, Favius. These mutton-cabbage cakes seasoned with thyme are a specialty in Rhexion." He grinned at all three children.

"My favorite food growing up." They all picked up some of the cakes and made appreciative noises. The food was genuinely tasty, and Favius slowly settled into a comfortable routine with his sisters and protector. Over the next hour, they kept talking about inconsequential things. The dresses of noblewomen, the food, and accounts of how Caliga and Urania had heroically convinced one skeptical noble lady after the other of the value of their soap.

Brutus seemed content to snack away, and Favius was enjoying the varied tastes, letting the evening pass over him. Carydras. He pressed his eyes shut. Nope. Not going there. My interactions with my Grandmother and all the other politicians... I still have much to learn. But tonight. Tonight I'll meet the entity again.

"If the young Lords and Ladies and the Lord Cultivator do not mind, I would have a moment of your time." Favius looked up alongside the others and saw a man who was clearly a retainer. His clothing was fiery, high-quality silk, yet it lacked the luster of the enchanted dresses the important people wore. Favius looked sideways at Brutus, who gave a small nod.

"You may join us," replied Favius, and the man gave him an apparently genuine smile. He reached into a hidden pocket of his tunic and held out three purses of green leather embroidered with flowers.

"Consul Nyctara Aquilara sends her regards alongside the payment for your soap." The man grinned broadly at Caliga.

"I consider myself quite fortunate to have been gifted one of the pieces. I'm certain the soap will be the talk of high society in the coming days." Caliga blushed but nodded. I'd like to trust him, but how can I know that he doesn't have some sort of agenda? He shuddered at the memory of the boy at the buffet. But if he's really a retainer of my Grandmother... Favius nodded, and one by one all of them accepted the purses. The purse felt heavy in Favius's hand and jingled as he squeezed it. The man bowed again.

"And finally, young Master Ovinius Loran, let me congratulate you on your victory."

"Thank you." Favius nodded at the man and gave him a careful smile. He bowed again and took a step back.

"If that is all, I shall leave you to your refreshments." Brutus made a gesture, and the man disappeared into the crowd. Favius hummed and assessed the weight of the pouch. Well, seems like I might have to invent paper money at some point. This is heavy enough that I wouldn't want to be hit in the head by it. His sisters, however, had a much less contemplative approach to the problem. Both of them were tearing at the strings and opening it.

"Oh!" Urania gasped a moment before his elder sister spilled the coinage onto the table next to the tablet with her food. Favius too began unbinding his purse, but emptied it more carefully. Well, we've all gotten the same amount of money. Even Caliga. He looked over the pieces of metal and narrowed his eyes.

"What the..." he murmured. There were three rectangular blocks of copper, roughly the size of two fingers held beside each other, twenty round copper coins with intricate patterns on them, and three silver quarter wedges of a coin.

"This is so much," murmured Urania. Caliga grinned.

"I know, right? Oh gosh, I really need to ask Father if we can go into town tomorrow." She gave Favius a patronizing look.

"Use the money for interesting things." Urania looked at Favius and bit her lip.

"Are you sure it's okay if we just spend it on fun things?" She looked straight at Favius.

"You said it's important to reinvest the profits once we have workshops. So maybe I should use all of this to make more soap? I could pay Serran for the ingredients now." She pouted.

"Unless he wants to be paid back for what he already gave us." Favius couldn't help but giggle.

"I think it's okay if you spend some of it," he ventured, and Caliga sniffed.

"Of course it is. It's your money. What our boring brother does with his doesn't matter." She put her arm around Urania's shoulder.

"We are going to a jeweler tomorrow." Favius furrowed his eyebrows.

"I thought you didn't like..." He made a gesture.

"Girly stuff?" Caliga huffed.

"Just because I don't want to be dressed up by my mother like a doll doesn't mean I don't like shiny Thulian pearls, burning amber, and wine-dark sapphires." She grinned broadly, leaning into Urania.

"Gold and silver. You remember the earrings of that old lady?"

"Yes, the ones with the green stones." Favius looked helplessly over his shoulder at Brutus.

"How much is this?" he mouthed, the voice barely audible. His protector chuckled and leaned in.

"Twenty copper senati, three silver wedges, and three copper blocks. A sizable fortune." His eyes twinkled as he studied Caliga's excited antics.

"Do not worry, Favius. Your sisters will have to put in quite the effort to spend it all at a jeweler's place."

"Well, we are going to try," sniffed Caliga. Favius studied the pile of metal before him. Wedges, senati, and blocks. Fucking hell. I roughly remember that pre-modern currencies often had weird conversion ratios. He paused and scratched his head. Well, I remember that the English currencies had those. And my primary source is reading Harry Potter as a kid, so maybe that's not the most reliable kind of knowledge. He held up one of the coins.

"So I assume the coppers are worth less than the silvers?" he whispered to Brutus, and the man laughed. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Coinage is pressed in lead, copper, silver, and gold. A senati is worth four wedges, which ought to be obvious by their shape. And the block is worth five senati of its denomination." Favius nodded.

"And between the metals?" Brutus made a vague gesture.

"For silver and copper, twenty-five senati make up one of the higher denominations. With silver and gold, it tends to vary a lot more." Favius bit his lips. That isn't exactly convenient, but it's also not a complete mess.

"But still, Brutus, what can I buy with this?" The Magnicultor laughed and shook his head.

"Already plotting and planning, are you? Changing your grand plans for soap and papyrus making?" Favius shrugged, recalling the quest reward waiting for him.

"So what if I am?" He smiled.

"Well then, you ought to know that a silver wedge might hire a skilled craftsman for several seasons, or buy you a thoroughbred Thrari stallion. A copper block will get you a pair of oxen, or maybe a dozen sheep. And each of the senati would feed a freedman well for two weeks." Favius nodded, enjoying the tingling of the coins as he shifted them about. He ran his hands over the intricate pattern of the silver wedges. They really are just coins that were cut to pieces. But a skilled craftsman? A stallion?

Hard to say what that means in Earth terms, but I'm guessing she maybe handed each of us about ten thousand bucks or more. He shrugged and filed the information away. The evening continued, but his sisters' excitement did not die down, while both he and Brutus enjoyed their thoughts alongside the good food in silence. Two hours later, Marcus found them. They left the party, and Favius gasped as the cold winter air hit him.

"Holy shit." He hugged his arms around his body. Almost forgot that it was winter with the sweltering heat in there. And with the indoor garden… He shivered and moved faster, walking by the torchlit statues and spiritual plants in the outer garden. Their carriage passed through the silent and snow-stained streets, and Favius's anticipation grew. As soon as they reached the estate, he rushed towards the bed and tried to fall asleep. Predictably, he failed for almost an hour before the night finally took him.

Jarringly, the moment he drifted off, he was wide awake again. The perfect featureless whiteness of the other place welcomed him. A wave hit him with cold, wet force. He stumbled and gasped. The water, which had been up to his calves before and perfectly calm, was now a stormy sea. He braced himself as the next waves hit him. Their valleys reached down to his knees, but their crests inundated his hips.

"What's up with the waves?" he murmured before moving his eyes from side to side until he found the entity. It giggled.

"I thought this change of environment appropriate, given your effect on this world. Wouldn't you agree that you are making waves?" The entity seemed to smirk at him. It was as hard to make out as always. Favius sniffed and shook his head, keeping his eyes focused at the very right edge of his perception. The entity was still there, unaffected by the waves, the spindly translucent featureless humanoid whose expressions he could more sense than see.

"I tried to contact you to use the quest reward, but—""But why would I waste my time on you before you had anything meaningful to do?"

"Anything meaningful to do? I wanted to use the reward to make paper—" The entity made a cutting gesture, and Favius's voice fell silent. His mouth still moved, but no words came out. Fuck no. He growled, but that was nothing but an odd feeling in his throat. This goddamned thing. A wave crashed into him, but the silence remained absolute. Has it just muted the world? Favius ground his teeth, and suddenly sound returned alongside the entity's tingling laughter.

"You may only use a quest reward after you fulfilled a quest. Though for the low price of a quest reward, you could earn the ability to use them at any time. If that is what you believe necessary for you to progress." Favius sniffed, then tried his very best to glare in the periphery of his eyes. He gave up on it with a sigh. It's unusually talkative today. Before it just dismissed any conversation, and now it's engaging in banter. Favius simply shook his head and refocused.

"That is good to know. But anyways, it was the soap that did it? I had all the mathematics books prepared…" The entity shrugged with its arms.

"I have little issue postponing this meeting by a few weeks once your little writing project has gained sufficient momentum, if that is what is required to soothe your prideful rage." Favius pressed his eyes shut and shook his head. I'm way too offended about that detail, and I shouldn't provoke the entity.

"No, it's fine. I have two questions now, one of them being of a higher quality?" The entity nodded.

"What are my new quests?" It clapped its hands together, and the words again just appeared within Favius's perception. Available Quests ++ [1. First Blood] Kill a Person in cold blood [2. Samaritan's Hand] Improve the lives of 2500 people by 10% [3. Sweet as Nectar] Undergo the Trial of Ambrosia before your First Majority [4. The Good Word] Print the same book 1000 times [5. As Above, So Below] Reveal truths of the sky and the dirt to the primitives [6. The Dao of Science] Create 10 breakthroughs in others He gasped as he read the first quest and then reread it. His eyes ran over the list, and he swallowed. What's happened to the quests? At first they were almost clinical, showing me paths. But this... in cold blood… to the primitives... It's gotten disdainful. He looked to the side again and swallowed before asking the question.

"The first quest. It seems… easy," he ventured. The entity remained silent.

"I assumed all of them are equal in value. Will it have a lesser reward than the others?" The entity chuckled.

"No, no. All quests offered are of similar value, all other things held equal."

"But just killing a person..." Favius trailed off, and the entity laughed again.

"The quests are there to guide you along your path. They're not novel directions. They are merely incentives to continue on with the steps you've already taken." Favius felt the ghoulish amusement radiating off the entity.

"You were so close today to earning your first kill, weren't you? One more strike and I would be offering you the quest for killing ten people instead."

"There... there's a progression?" Favius murmured.

"Of course there is. Several of those quests await further along the paths that I offered you to begin with. The number of kills is going to increase by one magnitude each time. Or maybe two if you are getting enthusiastic about things." The entity shrugged as Favius's breath hitched. All those other quests... Ambrosia, improving lives, that's hard. But just killing a slave? I wouldn't even be punished in this legal system. No. He dug his fingernails into his palms. No, no, no. I won't think about it.

"That quest. I won't do it," he said, his voice sharpened loud. The entity answered with its customary laughter.

"Favius, you were an amateur student of history on Earth, and you know the game we are playing."

"Yes?" he replied, and the entity's smile seemed to widen.

"So you know that a few genocides are nearly inevitable in your future. Merely think of this as an early start, an opportunity to acclimatize to what is necessary." Favius ground his teeth and tried to swallow, but he let out a long breath. The entity isn't wrong. Historically, modernization and transformation were often coupled with atrocities. Hell, it's hard to find a significant nation that hasn't been engaged in one sort of atrocity or the other in its existence.

His mind ran through the dark tallies of history, and he shuddered.

"I won't," he said, but the entity's smile was naught but canine mockery. He averted his eyes from the First Blood quest and considered the others for a moment.

"Sweet as Nectar and Dao of Science," he murmured.

"Aelia mentioned the Trial of Ambrosia. Those would be the path of becoming a mage. As for helping others with breakthroughs, I already did it for Brutus." He remembered the conversations both at the party and in the snowy forest. No, those quests are too dangerous, even if they might not be difficult. Favius reread the text for the fifth one.

"As Above, So Below. Reveal the truths of the sky and dirt to the primitives," he said out loud.

"What exactly does that mean?" The entity shrugged.

"What do you think it means?"

"Well..." Favius shrugged.

"Teach them about science? Why are you using the word primitives there?"

"The locals are utterly primitive and barbarian in their ways, as you have witnessed more than once by now."

"They aren—" The words died in his throat, the image of his Father and Mother accepting the necessity of their suicides. The pillars with beaten corpses in front of the gates of Cindrath. The crowd's excitement at him nearly killing another child. Favius shook his head. This entity... it might be an evaluator, but it feels like it's a devil offering deals on my shoulder. He shook his head and focused on the remaining possibilities.

"Samaritan's Hand and The Good Word. Well, improving lives by ten percent… And 2500 aren't that many people. But how the hell am I supposed to know what constitutes a ten percent improvement? The entity is going to judge it, obviously. Is ensuring a steady supply of soap one percent? What about freeing someone from slavery?" Favius snorted. No. I'm going to select the fourth one. Printing a thousand books. It's a natural progression of what I'm already doing and I can easily measure it.

He made his choice, and all the other quests winked out of existence.

"A rather conservative choice," the entity drawled in his ears. But Favius shrugged.

"Would anything else be reasonable with how you are offering those quests?" The being laughed.

"No, I guess it would not." Favius considered his choice as the waves washed against his body while the entity remained silent. It's really not pressuring me to move on, so maybe I should push my luck before we talk about my reward for this quest.

"Yeees?" the being drawled, the voice clawing at Favius's spine. He shivered as the next wave hit him.

"Can you tell me how the others, my rivals, are doing?" The entity radiated cruel amusement all of a sudden.

"I can do that, indeed. You will be happy to hear that one of your rivals is already deeply regretting our gift of immortality."