Vol 2 Chapter 1.3 (1/2)

Unbelievably, and especially so for a hotel restaurant, the crab buffet had offered quality food. They hadn’t forced in alcoholic drinks or salty food either, since it was dinnertime anyway.

“Ah… th-this is so good! Can we eat here every day?” Ensign Meihowa’s eyes sparkled as she cried in glee.

Even if it were good food, I wasn’t too sure about having crabs every single night.

Admiral Luise shook her head as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. “It’s delicious, yes, but… it’s embarra.s.sing to have to get help from Lezirth for every bite.”

She was terrible at picking meat out of the crabs, so I had been doing it for her. Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa followed along as I helped Admiral Luise. I felt as if I had suddenly become a fish cleaner working for some fish factory. But I didn’t mind; I liked seeing everyone having a good time, and preparing crabs was just cakewalk for my superhuman strength. “Don’t mind me. It only makes sense to leave meat-picking to someone who’s actually good at it. Heh heh.”

It was a small price to pay if I could have the girls forget about that last incident, and even better if they could stop being gloomy about it. Still, Sergeant Aroha grumbled to herself as she folded paper cranes.

“Alright, shall we leave?”

We finished our dinner and dived back into the bustling streets. In the casino streets, there were various shows, circuses, and musicals being performed for extremely cheap. In return, the roads to the entrances were lined with slot machines and card tables. We remembered our tragic history with them and simply walked past.

“Hmm? What is that?” Ensign Meihowa pointed at a line of people.

I recognized that it was a waiting line for a bus. “City tour bus. I heard that it went directly to a night market at a Chinatown.”

“Night market?”

“Let’s go there!”

It was a very impulsive idea, but we were feeling too great to care. Those Shanghai mitten crabs probably had a lot to do with it. I was personally happy, to be honest; back in my days as the Commander of Dawn Corps, Lezirth Dawnbringer… not that I’d spent my entire life in wars, but there were limits to my ability to travel on my own. I couldn’t ever imagine taking a relaxing vacation at a planet built entirely for vacation trips.

And so, for that very moment, I was very happy that I could spend my time with these girls, laughing like an idiot, even with nothing happening in particular. Though I did end up in a foreign world after a long sleep, I had no special feelings for my previous life.

--I was always a foreigner.

A memory from the past slipped by.

In that second… all the excitement, happiness, all of my feelings died down.

I remembered my duties; the things that I had to live by, but ultimately failed.

I am…

--I am not your messiah!

You ask me to save every one of you, but I failed to save myself. My weakness pains me. Why must you pain me further by having hope for me? What do you expect by begging me? And why am I unable to stop trying to fulfill them… Why?!

I felt sick.

“Lezirth, are you okay?” asked Ensign Meihowa with a worried look.

I looked up at her in surprise. “Ah, nothing… I think I ate a little too much.”

“Oh, dear. Want a digestive tablet?”

“It’s not that bad. Thanks anyway. Hey, we’re going to miss the bus! Let’s hurry up.”

“Of course!”

And we managed to catch one of the city tour buses. But…

“Whoa!” A tour guide on the bus exclaimed as he saw our faces.

I glanced at his face and realized that he was the mob leader who hara.s.sed us in broad daylight a few hours ago. In other words, he was the writer of that weird poster, William Mayer. He must have remembered us, too, though I suppose we were quite the special group in the first place. Not to mention all the weird looks we got from the people here.

“Tsk. It’s the walking symbol of the Federation’s corruption. Having fun, are you?”

“Big words, huh?” Sergeant Aroha crossed her arms and stood in front of him.

“What do you want?”

She pulled out a Federation banknote. “You. You’re a tour guide, right? How about you show us around?”

“Th-this is only my part-time job! I really am a scholar otherwise!” said the man, but he clearly couldn’t resist eyeing the money.

“...”

I did not at all enjoy his actions during the day, and I also did not appreciate his rude comment towards me a moment ago, but Sergeant Aroha had gone a little too far. It was just too much to make a fool out of someone for his means of survival.

I interrupted Sergeant Aroha and apologized to him in her behalf. “Sorry. She’s a bit drunk right now and she doesn't know what she’s saying.”

“Wait, I’m not drunk, Lezirth! I’m completely awake now!” shouted Sergeant Aroha, but Ensign Meihowa quickly put a hand over her mouth.

After my apology, the man scoffed and eyed to the side. “... Hmph.”

“I really am sorry. None of us meant to offend you. Please forgive us.”

“Uh, well, whatever. ...A-anyway, are you all new to Critik?”

“I suppose so.”

“People only speak Chinese at the night market, you know? I’ll guide you around for only five thousand credits per person. I can speak Chinese, Tamil, Tibetan, Hindi, and more. I also got a doctorate. ...I can tell you about all the fun places around the town, too, but it doesn’t look like you’re going to need any of it.”

And yet he held a little flag that said that the tour price was twenty-five hundred. Trying to rip us off with double the price, huh?

I a.s.sumed that he was merely accepting our apology in his own way, which didn’t make me feel bad. He was chock full of misaimed pride; he had a doctorate and yet he had to make do with his job as a nightly tour guide, working for way less than Federation wages. So, even his twisted way of accepting our apology was understandable.

Well, both Admiral Luise and I could speak fluent Chinese, but I decided to hire him as our guide anyway. A man like him was too much of a ha.s.sle to keep as our enemy.

I nodded. “Deal.”

“Er, alright. Then you people are my customers now.” He picked up the little flag and stood up. “Here, follow me. I’ll show you how to get around the place without being ripped off.”

Soon, the bus arrived at the Chinatown night market, about two kilometers away from the casino hotel area. Around the entrance were young ladies in cheongsam, throwing colourful confetti around, and dancers with large masks that resembled lions. They did the traditional lion dance as they walked up and down ladders with dazzling fireworks and noisy crowds as their backdrop. ...How can they do that without any daylight and their blinding masks?

… Must be tough having to work for all these tourists.

Though, it was probably weird that I felt sorry for them at all, considering how my job as a frontline soldier is the bluest of all the blue-collar jobs. I suppose they would feel even sorrier for me if they knew that I was a soldier, let alone a lowly apprentice.

We stepped out of the bus and pa.s.sed through a doorway of decorative lights. The streets were brightly lit, and the market sold a huge variety of things.

William Mayer held his flag up and began doing his duties as our tour guide. “And this is Critik Chinatown, the Bazaar. Anyone can take up a spot and start selling things at the front of the plaza. Down the road, you got the registered shops. All the antiques and old art are down the southeastern road, and the food stalls are at the northeastern part.”

As expected, the area around the plaza was full of people selling various trinkets from square mats. There were plastic dolls made out of scrunched up cola bottles, and some others sold secondhand shoes that clearly had faked brands. Right beside them was a vendor selling a mountain of very old magazines.

“Oh.” Sergeant Aroha suddenly stopped in place as if she ran into something.

“Hmm? What?”

“Uh… excuse me, this magazine… how much is it?” Sergeant Aroha asked the magazine merchant, pointing at one of the magazines.

“Ten thousand! Ten thousand credit!” The merchant replied in the Federation common language with a slight accent.

“Hmm…” Sergeant Aroha pondered, picking up the magazine.

Developed areas like Federation planets and independent planets had fully networked exchange of information, but developing planets usually lacked the energy sources to maintain a large enough network. So, printed materials like these remained in use up to this date.

William Mayer walked up to her arrogantly. “Huh, you’re a strange woman. Not surprising for an Asa, I guess. Want me to haggle with him?”

Sergeant Aroha frowned. “Do you always talk like that to customers?”

“Heh, what’s the problem? I’ll try to get the price lower. That fine with you?”

He and the merchant became engaged in a loud discussion in Hindi. Wait, I thought he was Chinese! Soon, he was able to cut the price down to fifteen hundred credits.

“That’s good enough.” said Aroha, paying the merchant.

Mayer appeared irritated at her decision. “Hmph. If you gave me more time, I could have cut the price down even more for sure. I swear, all of you Federation tourists throw money around like it’s nothing. And somehow give less tip at the same time.”

“...”

He really doesn’t care about his quality of service! I could understand why, though. He didn’t seem to get the respect that he deserves as a scholar. He’s holding demonstrations by day, and he works a tour guide by night for the exact same people that he was denouncing in his demonstrations. ...Anyone would feel terrible in his shoes.

I feared that Sergeant Aroha would end up insulting him again… but she was staring blankly at the magazine in her hands.

She held a sports magazine that had an unfamiliar mixed martial arts fighter striking a pose in the cover.

“...Really, I didn’t think I’d find a treasure here. Heh heh, it was a good idea to come here.” Her eyes welled up in tears as she spoke to herself. A second later, she had her bright smile back on her face like nothing had happened. “Right! Let’s go and see if we can find more good stuff!”

“O-okay.”

We walked around the night market and came across all sorts of strange items. Mayer explained most of them for us, explaining which one’s fake, which one’s real but gutted out the insides, and how to avoid being ripped off like a dumb tourist. He wasn’t a bad guide.

Admiral Luise and Ensign Meihowa seemed to have understood my sentiment towards the guy, despite his obnoxious choice of words. And Sergeant Aroha was no longer a problem since her vocabulary was reduced to “Huh, what?” and “Uh… okay!” since she got the magazine.

We spent our time in the market like that, until Admiral Luise froze her footsteps in front of a showroom surrounded with old neon signs.

“H-how?!”

“What is it?”

“Lezirth! Come here, quickly!”

I ran to where Admiral Luise shouted. And then, I stopped in place just as she did.

“What?!”

“Rabbitte the Rabbit?!”

“Colorado?!”

Admiral Luise and I screamed at the same time. In the showroom of one of the antique shops stood a humanoid rabbit with human arms and legs, leaning on a coffee machine. Beside it was an old M8-inspired ground combat knife with a red blade. That blade, extending about sixty centimeters long, was definitely Colorado!

Wait! Why was that there? No way, that must be a fake! Hahaha!

I glanced at Admiral Luise for confirmation. She was nodding with a very solemn look on her face, biting her lips.

… Eh? Then that’s… the real deal? No way! Why are our greatest tools being shown in some random antique shop in a tour destination?

“Ah, I see your got the eyes for valuable things. But that looks like a well-made fake.” William Mayer followed us and grumbled loudly. “That rabbit robot is ‘Rabbitte the Rabbit’, a robotic computer made by Admiral Luise Maynard, the pilot of Tetragrammaton and the creator of the Federation’s tactical systems. And that old looking sword is actually the one in a billion, they call-- the perfect sword made from a billion attempts, a sword named ‘Colorado’ that was the favourite of an old war hero named Lezirth Dawnbringer. Or, so the owner says, which is why the price tag is just as crazy.”

Like he had said, the prices were horrendous. Colorado itself was five hundred million credits, and Rabbitte was a billion.

Admiral Luise was strangely content about it. “Heh heh, Rabbitte is worth a billion credits? Maybe a little too low for what it’s worth.”

“Uh, no, this isn’t the time to be happy about it. ...Mmh, but why is Colorado so much cheaper than Rabbitte?”

“Colorado’s just a military weapon.”

“B-but it’s the one in a billion, the priceless treasure of eternity… you can always remake Rabbitte, right? Colorado, though, you’d have to ask around legendary artificers to make another.”

“Erk… did you really go there, Lezirth?” Admiral Luise pouted, hurt from my remark that Colorado should worth more than Rabbitte.

Ensign Meihowa sighed from beside. “Combine them both and they’re a billion and a half. Shouldn’t that be the bigger issue here? And how can there possibly be the original Rabbitte or Colorado in a place like this?”

Mayer began laughing half-heartedly when he noticed our interest in those two items. “You think they’re real? Hey, seriously, you’re going to buy them? Unfortunately for you two, this shop doesn’t open at night. Want me to call the owner over? He’s a very persistent guy, though. Everyone already tells him that they’re clearly fake, but he still claims that they’re the real Rabbitte and Colorado. Even if I manage to drop the price to ten percent, it’s still a hundred fifty million, so to even think about making a purchase for a possible fake…”

Mayer paused his long chatter after taking a look at our faces.

“Eh? You serious? This is real?”

Ensign Meihowa looked just as shocked at our expressions.

“If this shop won’t open at night, I suppose we’ll have to come back here later.”

Mayer came back to his senses from Admiral Luise’s comment. “H-hey, lady, are you seriously buying this thing? How are you planning to pay for this?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ll try to haggle with the owner and try to fit the price to your plan. In return, pay me ten percent of it as commission.” Mayer pulled out a bottle of water and emptied it in an instant. He seemed to be agitated by the scale of money involved in the deal.

Admiral Luise understood his intentions and told her plan. “My current budget is… about twenty-five million.”

“You’re trying to pay for a billion and five hundred million with only a twenty-five million budget? Aren’t you asking for too much?”

“Isn’t your wit supposed to pull us through? If you manage to lower the price that much, I’ll be paying you two point five million credits. And if you can lower the price even further, I will give you half of the extra cut you make.”

“What?”

“So, if you lower the price to five million, I add ten million on top of the promised two and a half million. Here, I’ll give you the room number of our hotel. No… wait…”

“You can have my mail address.”

I gave him my personal mail address. Mayer gulped as he looked at it. “I’ll haggle and tell you how it goes tomorrow. B-but I can’t promise that I’ll get it lower than two and a half!”

We left the night market after Mayer’s last words and returned to our hotel with the city tour bus.

We returned to our room after a quick detour to buy some drinks and snacks.