Chapter 7

“……Hek, hek.”

Exhausted, I slumped against a nearby building in the city and collapsed.

To cut a long story short, I somehow managed to barely complete a month-long exploration mission.

‘I’m about to die from exhaustion, seriously.’

The reason I volunteered for exploration was nothing special. I just rounded up any idle vassals in this game and sent them out to explore. With a bit of luck, we might meet new talents or even find items with an extremely low probability. And unless your luck is exceptionally bad, it’s a way to earn some cash—exploration being the command for that in the game.

But…

Even though this is a game world, it’s my reality now that I’ve been reincarnated here.

What do you have to do for exploration? You need to run around everywhere like crazy. And the only thing moving me are my own two legs.

‘Phew…’

Still, it wasn’t completely fruitless.

First, I did manage to get some money. Nothing fancy—just helping out villagers as I wandered through towns earned me small rewards. It was a way to make a little cash day by day.

In the game, when you send out exploration parties, you just assume they’re picking up random money somewhere. But thinking about how it works internally makes sense.

Thus, the gold I managed to collect: 75 gold coins. Not a huge amount, but better than nothing.

Secondly, I learned that the public order around here isn’t great. The village atmosphere was tense, so good public order was impossible. But there was something strange.

‘Lady Luna came alone to fetch me and even walked…’

A situation where encountering bandits along the way wouldn’t be surprising. So, my exploration stayed within the walls of the territory. Going outside would mean certain death for someone as weak as me.

Yet, she walked alone several times to meet me.

Though I haven’t spent much time closely observing her, it’s clear she’s not stupid. She doesn’t move recklessly.

There’s definitely a “random encounter” event in this game when traveling between cities or territories where you can randomly meet bandits. To avoid this, you either spend money to hire two or three guards, which is annoying because of the cost and the button-pushing.

However, there is a way to avoid these “random encounters.”

First, you could possess the rare item [Lamp of the Dead]. With this lamp, no bandits will appear.

Second, you need a strength stat of 90 or higher. High strength means bandits won’t bother you.

‘…Could it be her strength stat?’

Is Lady Luna’s strength stat much higher than expected?

While Luna is known to have relatively high strength, I remember it wasn’t over 90. But this game has its pesky “adjustment values,” so I can’t accurately determine her exact strength based solely on the game information I played.

If only there were a damn status screen! This old-school game doesn’t show such things, which is quite frustrating.

Thinking about it, even though it wasn’t a very long distance, she climbed hills all day without showing any signs of fatigue and even carried me, a grown man!

‘Did Lunarien Iniyan’s stat adjustments hit a singularity or something?’

Well, the prediction itself—”Lunarien Iniyan will unify the continent”—is already a singularity. If only I had more concrete information, I’d be more confident…

‘Alright. No point dwelling on it now.’

Still, pondering aimlessly made me feel a bit more energized. Being a character with low strength is genuinely inconvenient.

Do I have to live like this forever…?

It would be nice if there were ways to increase stats through quests. There are methods to boost stats, but they’re too difficult to even attempt.

I stood up and headed into the castle for the meeting.

*

“Ahh, you’ve arrived… oh, you’re here.”

“This way!”

Once inside the castle, Luna and Tifa greeted me. But one person was missing.

“Where is Lord Cain?”

Luna answered my question.

“Cain stepped out for a moment. He said he had something to do.”

I nodded lightly.

“Well, now that our strategist has arrived, shall we open this thing?”

Tifa said while tapping something on the table.

“What is this?”

“Oh, this? One of the merchants’ shops completely collapsed, so we helped rebuild it by digging a bit. Then this popped out.”

“You… didn’t handle commerce-related tasks?”

“How should I know that stuff? I just built houses. Yeah, assign my next task to commerce; it’s not finished yet.”

Looks like she didn’t achieve much. Still… the prophecy with Divinity 100 instructed her to focus on commerce. If there’s anything hidden, it must be in this box.

“So what is this?”

“I was about to open it anyway. Since it’s incredibly heavy, there’s definitely something inside, but no matter how much force I apply, it won’t budge. There’s a crack, though.”

“Didn’t the merchant who owned the shop know about it?”

Tifa replied to Luna’s surprisingly casual tone.

“Yeah, he’s never seen it before. He was grateful for the help and said we could take it.”

“In that case…”

I looked around and grabbed a crowbar-like stick.

“Alright, let’s try opening it.”

“Oh! This should work. Thanks! You’re really smart!”

Being praised for something like this doesn’t make me particularly happy…

Tifa took the stick, roughly jammed it into the crack, and started applying force.

“Hnnngh! Hnnnnngh!”

Once, twice, and again… the box refuses to budge.

“Geez, why won’t this open? There’s no lock or anything!”

“…Tifa, let me try.”

Watching this scene, Luna spoke up. Tifa nodded and handed over the stick.

“Alright. Maybe this is something you need to do.”

Luna took the stick.

“…Hnnngggh!!!”

She applied strong force once.

Bang!

“It’s open!”

The box that Tifa couldn’t open finally burst open with a loud sound.

“…!”

One fact I learned from this scene:

Luna’s strength is higher than Tifa’s. Despite Luna looking delicate and Tifa muscular, in this game, numbers decide everything. If they were to duel 1-on-1, Luna would likely win.

And secondly,

Tifa’s strength is in the high 80s to early 90s. A ruler’s stats don’t wildly fluctuate regardless of adjustments.

Therefore, the shining truth:

Luna’s strength is over mid-90s.

‘Lady Luna, you’re strong.’

“This is…!”

“…My goodness.”

Upon opening the box, Luna and Tifa gasped at the contents. Curious, I moved closer to check.

And immediately understood why they were so shocked.

“…Gold, right?”

Inside the box, piles of dusty gold coins lay. Who would have expected to find this in a rusty old box?

“Wow! How much is all this? Hang on!”

Tifa, more excited than anyone, quickly poured all the coins out of the box and began counting at lightning speed.

“Hey! All together, this adds up to 6833 gold! Incredible!”

“!!!”

Luna was surprised, but I was even more so. Was there an event in commerce missions that gave out thousands of gold?

I’ve played this game for 10,000 hours. I’ve seen every single event.

So I can confidently say:

There’s no such absurdly sweet event.

And now I understand why the brain with Divinity 100 told Tifa to handle commerce. If you can scoop up this much money in one go, of course, you should go.

“…Miss Tifa, where exactly did you find this box?”

“Huh? I already said, while laying the foundation to rebuild the house.”

Considering that usually commerce missions involve overseeing markets rather than rebuilding homes, this box was undoubtedly found because Tifa went there.

‘As expected.’

Even though I was already pretty sure, this confirmed it 100%. My divinity is 100. Only the number 100 can explain this level of brilliance. Now there’s no room for doubt.

“What should we do with this? Raising more soldiers would be best, right? What does the strategist think?”

And conveniently, Tifa asked me the perfect question.

‘What’s the best use of the money we’ve saved?’

And the answer is—

“…Actually, everyone, I have a favor to ask.”

“?”

Suddenly interrupting the conversation, Luna spoke with an unusually serious expression.

“I want to distribute this money among the villagers.”

“???”

Tifa immediately frowned upon hearing this.

“Hey, what are you saying! We’re already short on funds for our operations! Aren’t you going to recruit soldiers? Our army only has 2,000 capable fighters! Are we just going to sit and watch as enemies invade and destroy us?”

“But… there was a typhoon recently, and the villagers are struggling. We’re ruling over them, after all… Besides, this box came from the village land.”

“Hey! This is our territory! Land under our control! Anything produced here basically belongs to us! That’s common sense, right!”

“That’s true… but…”

“Hmph.”

Tifa roughly scratched her head. Honestly, her actions and tone may be rough, but she looks quite sexy when quiet.

“Luna, I understand your heart. Helping those in need is why you set out to rule. But even I, who’ve never set foot in an academy, know that using this money to build a solid foundation will allow us to help more people later. You’re smart, so you must understand that, right?”

“…I… guess…”

Luna listened to Tifa and visibly deflated, lowering her head.

Indeed, I also know from a month of exploration that the state of this village is dire. It seems to weigh heavily on Luna. She’s frustrated because, as a leader, she feels powerless to act.

“Hey, Strategist, say something to Luna. You’re smart, so you can persuade her more elegantly than me, right?”

Persuasion.

Actually, I was planning to persuade her too. I knew idealism doesn’t put food on the table.

But…

“We should follow our lord’s wishes here.”

“…Eh?”

“What?”

Both Luna and Tifa were surprised by my words. They probably didn’t expect it. I admit, neither did I.

But what can I do?

‘What’s the best use of the money we’ve saved?’

And the answer is—

[Relieve the poverty of the territory.]

Because after careful consideration with Divinity 100, distributing this money to the villagers is the best course of action.