Leave a comment

We arrived in front of the king’s room, and I knocked on the door.

“It’s Alim and Mika, your Majesty.”
“Oh! Come in.”

Mika and I did as he had said and went inside. She carefully surveyed the room’s interior.
Well, she’s here for the first time.

“You can sit there.”
“Yes.”

I sat down in the same chair, I had used before.
This elephant design… That’s Behemot, isn’t it?

“Why did you want to talk to us, your Majesty?” Mika inquired of the king. “Is this about Mephistophales and Mr. Herrell…?”
“No, we still have to judge them. However, there are various important matters.”

It’s unusual for her to talk first.

“Hrm…” the king continued. “First of all, you both are being promoted to SSS-Rank.”

Well, that was to be expected.
Far from just sealing her, I made the demon god disappear completely. Well, it was Mr. Aijou, who used her as compensation for his Forced Contract.¹ And Mika defeated tens of thousands of enemies in one go, just by herself, didn’t she? The king saw that himself.

“Thank you very much, your Majesty!”
“Thank you so much.”
“Hrm, we will also announce this in front of the populace. Now, next…”

The king snapped his fingers. Thereupon, four servants entered the room, transporting a large platform attached to a pulley. It was covered in a white sheet.
The servants stopped the platform in front of the king and then left the room.

“Your Majesty, what is this?”
“Yes, Mika. This is your… reward and our gratitude.”

The king stood up and pulled off the white sheet with a rustling sound. There, who knew how many large gold coins were piled up.
The sheer number of coins… it’s breathtaking.

“T-That’s an incredible amount, no?”
“Yes, it’s 3000 coins.”
“Wha-?!”

3000… large gold coins!? 300 million bells… that’s approximately 3 billion Japanese yen!

“3… 300 million bells?” Mika asked the king with an expression of shock.
“That’s right… Still, this here is only a small part. Since we are currently unable to calculate the spoils of war exactly, we can only give you this much, but… once we’re done calculating everything, you should get the remaining 199 billion and 700 million bells.”
“…wow…”

A total of 200 billion bells…!? In other words, 2 trillion yen.
Or roughly 20 billion US dollars.²

Mika and I were unable to shut our wide-open mouths.

“Eh… erm… huh… that’s…”
“Alim, you’re not making sense,” the king said. “It’s natural for you to be surprised, but… calm down a bit.”

I can’t calm down, you know. That’s 2 trillion yen!? 2 trillion. That’s no longer on the level of just living without having to work at the same time.

If this was Japan… In a human’s life – though there were various opinions – including marriage, a household, education expenses for children, and also some reserves for old age, around 250 million yen would be necessary… So that’s enough for 8000 human lifetimes.

That’s insane, my heart is racing. It’s the same as yesterday.

Mika also looked, as if she was trembling.

“All… hah… all that money is… phew… for us?” I asked haltingly.
“Indeed. Calculating the number of foes Mika defeated and your actions, Alim, that’s the amount we arrived at.”
“Wha~~….”

Mika and I looked at each other’s faces. I also started to sweat.

“Both of you… how about you take a deep breath for now?”
“Hah~, phew~.”
“Hah~…”

Mika and I did as we’d been told and tried to breathe deeply. Moreover, we calmed down a bit, if only barely.

“Did you settle down?”
“Yes, somewhat.”
“Eh… I’m sorry.”
“Well, no matter. I was troubled at first, for how to reward you, you see? Since Alim can create items by herself, you’d likely have no use for those.”

That’s certainly true. Giving me items at this point would be meaningless.

“And then… I thought about bestowing peerage, or certain social standing to you, but as the hero and SSS-Rankers, your status is already established.”

That’s also true.
When I saw, how the people who’d come from other countries treated me, I understood just how high the hero’s status was. Moreover, we were now SSS-Rankers. We definitely didn’t need social standing.

“And, with that being said, all that was left was… money. I’m sorry, by all rights, you already possess sufficient fortune, Alim. You likely don’t require money, either. Still, this is the only way we can show our gratitude, forgive us.”

No… merely thanking us would have been enough, you know. Still… I wonder, is it really alright to give us 200 billion bells?

“Will you be fine, giving 200 billion bells, just to the two of us? What about the payment for the adventurers and countries who have participated? What about repairing the damage?”
“That won’t be an issue,” the king replied with a slight smile on his cheerful face.

I see, did they earn something from it?

“What do you mean?”
“First, we earned a rather large amount from this war. Our foes weren’t human, instead they were demons and magic beasts. So, we obtained magic cores and materials³ from them.”
“Hah… Then, how many of them were there?”
“According to measurement devices, there were a total of… 522’280 magic beasts and demons, you know?”

522’280!? Hey, hey, what’s with those numbers…?

That’s crazy… and besides. In this world, even an E-Rank magic beast can earn you several thousand bells, if you dismantle it well. Moreover, it felt like lots of our enemies were C-Rank or higher. Sure, merely from this, 200 billion bells likely wouldn’t be anything to worry about.

“With this, do you understand, how our expenses for this war will not be a problem?”
“Yes, then, what about the damage?”
“Thanks to you, there was barely any. Since our foes concentrated solely on the royal capital, they didn’t even appear in any of the surrounding villages. To be honest, there was likely more damage due to someone setting fire to a mansion⁴. Ha-ha-ha!”

Is that so…?
Sure, the dead have all been brought back to life and nothing at all has been destroyed. There wasn’t any damage. If you merely looked at the result, wasn’t it an overwhelming victory?

“With that being said… you did really well. Both of you,” the king grasped both our hands. “And let me tell you several things.”

He looked unusually serious and seemed to be overflowing with emotion. He let go of our hands, stood up from his chair, took off his crown and then… bowed his head deeply.

“…Thank you, for preventing damage! Thank you for reviving our citizens… us… and Karuna! Thank you for being my daughter’s friends! I… No matter how much I thank you, it will never be enough! I truly, truly thank you!”

The always rather calm and quiet king presented his lowered head merely to the two of us.

“Ah, please raise your head, your Majesty!”
“She’s right, doing this for just us goes too far…”
“Still… As a single human, I give you my gratitude,” he didn’t relent.

The king stayed like this with his head lowered for several minutes.

TL notes:
And that’s the result of Alim being unable to settle on any reward during volume 6…

I get that it’s hard to ask for a reward for something you did of your own volition, but a king has the obligation as a ruler and representative of his country to bestow a suitable reward. Ideally, Alim would have talked this out in advance with the king, who’d then, for example, publicly give him a large sum of money as reward, which could then be used to improve infrastructure and fund public works.

Instead, we now have a teenager with enough money to get him on the Forbes list, who’ll likely just let it gather dust somewhere.

1. Seriously, what exactly happened to her soul? Did they even try to find out if she’s really gone now?
2. On 30.04.2016, when this chapter was originally posted, it would’ve been around 18.8 billion dollars. Today, it would only be around 12.7 billion.
3. Didn’t they rain make them literally blow up? I wonder how many useable materials you can get after that.
4. Not 100% sure if this happened during the war. He might also mean that a random act of arson would cause more damage than what happened during the war.