[274] 1. Hostile Friendship (3)
Uorin scraped the floor where Shirone had fallen with her finger. A transparent sheet peeled off with a soft hiss and came away in her hand.
"Ta-da! This is it. Take another look at the floor."
When Shirone pressed it with his foot, the marble felt solid in a way that made sense—unlike when he'd fallen. He stomped down with his full weight, but it was the same.
"Neat, right? With this you can nap even in rocky terrain. Watch—this is even possible. Look closely."
Uorin walked over to an eagle sculpture taller than she was, fitted the sheet over it, and as if by magic the sculpture sank, revealing a flat floor.
She smoothed her skirt and jumped, landing hard on her butt. The soft floor swallowed her and then bounced her back up.
Her behavior was childish, but Shirone watched seriously. He couldn't guess what could cause something like that.
It wasn't science. Nor was it magic.
Shirone looked around with a grave expression. Only then did he understand why the items in this room didn't look luxurious. This place held the most expensive things in the world.
Uorin grinned.
"Exactly. This is a place for collecting objects—artifacts."
He had expected it, but hearing it aloud still hit him with a shock of reality.
He remembered the sleep artifact that the second-ranked Mara Baalv owned in Heaven.
Even then he had shuddered at its strangeness, but the shock now was on a different level.
'Are all of these really artifacts?'
Normally, objects are arranged by function—dishes in the kitchen, books on the shelves. But the items here had no order; there was no consistency to how they were displayed.
He counted roughly and there were over fifty items on display. Only the Teraje family, who dominated the continent, could do something like this.
While Shirone stood dazed, Jion approached carrying a copy of the Spirit Journal.
His reaction was predictably sarcastic. With a smirk of disdain, he thrust the magazine at Shirone and said, "A genius mage hopeful, huh?"
Shirone didn't even want to reply.
"Of course magic is powerful. I admit that. But compared to artifacts, that sort of ability is nothing. A third-rank archmage working at Kazra Palace earns about thirty million gold a year. How many archmages could you hire if you sold one item from here?"
"What are you trying to say?"
"That no matter how brilliant a mage is, they're still just a tool of the royals. A ruler's worth isn't decided by magic."
Jion held the Spirit Journal up to Shirone's eye level and dropped it. Then, as if knowing nothing, he stepped on it and walked past Shirone, turning his back.
"Lucky you—three days from now you'll be the first prince. How's it feel? Already acting like a king?"
With the paternity test done, the nobles' jockeying would only intensify. It was expected that someone like Jion, at the center of power, would check Shirone's psychological state.
"I told you plainly, didn't I? I don't care. Once the results are out I'll go home."
"Hmph, sure you will."
Jion didn't believe him.
Who in the world would refuse a throne? Even if such a person existed, they probably hadn't tasted the sweetness of power.
Power guarantees every kind of pleasure humans crave.
Once Shirone became the first prince, no matter how disciplined he was, his thinking would inevitably change.
"Don't put on airs. This is the palace. Especially with me, that act won't work."
Jion snatched from Uorin and flung it to the floor.
"A toy like this could buy the entire magic academy you attend. In an instant I'd be your teacher. Your teacher would be groveling at my feet. And you say you have no interest in the throne? Do you think I'd believe that?"
Shirone realized Jion was extremely materialistic. For Shirone, attending school wasn't about visible things; it was about the intangible value inside them.
From what Jion said, traded for billions, and his dismissal of it as a child's toy showed his short-sightedness.
The value of an artifact that breaks common sense can vary wildly depending on use.
For example, what if you concealed a safe that stores the 'Essences of Elementals'?
No matter how expensive an artifact might be, it wouldn't compare to the seventeen Essences of Elementals in the world (Fire 2, Water 3, Wind 5, Earth 7).
Once equipped, they not only let you cast spells of the corresponding attribute but can also block 100 percent of magic of that attribute—so their value is said to exceed the budget of small kingdoms.
There will always be people who absolutely need such things, and they will spare no expense to obtain them.
The Teraje family might buy objects on a whim, but to think artifacts are pricey merely because collectors desire them was Jion's mistake.
"I think you should hand over to someone else. Even the best book is useless if someone uses it as a trivet."
"Haha! That's the privilege of royalty. A good book? I'd use gold as a trivet."
Shirone clenched his teeth and swallowed his anger. They were from different worlds, so they couldn't find common ground even over small things.
"Fine. If you're done, I'm leaving."
There was no point staying and getting angrier, so he headed for the door, but Uorin ran up and grabbed his sleeve.
"Wait! I have something for Shirone-oppa too. I want to show you. Come this way."
Shirone couldn't refuse Uorin.
For one thing, she was someone he could talk to. She had supported him among the arrogant royals. Above all, she was the daughter of the powerful Teraje family.
"Quick, quick. This way."
As Uorin pulled him along, Jion sneered, but his situation wasn't much different.
When Uorin said she had something to show, Jion said nothing and merely followed his sister.
Uorin sat Shirone at the table and brought a small box.
It was a shabby square wooden frame with the inside hollowed into a hemisphere. In the center sat a well-worn, arrow-shaped dial—like a roulette you flicked with your finger.
"This is an artifact called . It leaves a present once a day."
It was an explanation even a child could understand, but Shirone felt as if something essential—like a subject or object—had been omitted.
"Heh heh. Strange, isn't it? It's like that at first. Artifacts break common sense, so sometimes their 'rules' don't make sense."
"Right. The weirdest part is that it 'leaves' a gift. Leaves it where? This is just an object."
"'Leave' has two implications. For 'leave' to work, you need gravity. And 'go' doesn't mean 'come.' So there has to be a space that can't be observed from either the inside or the outside."
Shirone realized why the room's entrance had a double structure.
They needed a third space where people didn't pass—neither inside nor outside.
"'Gravity' and 'no observer.' If those two conditions are met, it gives a gift once a day. Look closely at this roulette—it's divided into four colors, right?"
Shirone turned his eyes to where Uorin pointed.
The paint was worn with age, but the shades differed. The sectors varied in size and had faint inscriptions. It was hard to read, but it was definitely not the Tormia language.
Uorin pointed to each of the four regions and explained.
"The letters here are from the language used by the mountain gypsies of the Eastern Range. Translated they read: Modest Gift, Pleasant Gift, Excessive Gift, and Miracle. By measuring the sectors, Modest Gift takes up about 75 percent, Pleasant Gift 20 percent, Excessive Gift 4 percent, and Miracle 1 percent."
"Hmm…."
Seventy-five percent for Modest Gift meant the distribution was heavily skewed. The 4 percent chance for an Excessive Gift was tempting, but he was even more curious what 'Miracle' meant.
Since you could only spin once a day, naive calculation suggested you'd hit Miracle within a hundred days. But by probability, it could take much longer.
Shirone gingerly touched the dial as if he might disturb it.
"So you just spin the arrow?"
"Yeah. That's why I waited for you to come."
"Huh? For me?"
"Try it once. If it lands on something, I'll give the gift to you."
The unexpected offer made Shirone blink.
Uorin had the wealth to afford any gift, so she probably wouldn't feel attached even to something nice. But since you never knew what might come up, she wasn't the sort to give it away lightly.
"Probability, huh…"
In any case, it was a chance to experience an artifact directly.
He didn't particularly crave the gift. He was simply very curious about what might appear.
Perhaps that was the true value of this artifact: the thrill of imagining the gift.
In that sense, was a toy that understood human psychology. Unlike other gambles, there was no real failure.
"At the very least a Modest Gift is guaranteed. May I try?"
"Of course. I play it every day anyway."
Uorin agreed cheerfully and added an explanation.
"Just flick the tip of the dial with your finger. In our tests we found that if it doesn't spin at least ten full turns, it's invalid. But it doesn't take away your daily chance, so don't worry."
"Oh, I see."
Shirone's eyes brightened.
Why must it spin at least ten turns? If there were no rotation requirement, you could just nudge the dial and force a miracle.
'Fascinating. Even inanimate things have rule-like conditions.'
A good idea popped into his head.
"This might be manipulated so that it hits Miracle repeatedly."
Uorin's eyes gleamed.
The ability to analyze an object from many angles was essential for an artifact collector. In that respect, Shirone had the disposition of a collector.
"Of course—being a mage helps. If you control your sensation, you could spin exactly 3,600 degrees, right?"
"Exactly. Or hire a professional gambler. If you feel the roulette's sensitivity and adjust your force, you can always produce the same outcome."
"Good idea. But sadly it's impossible. I've already tried. It seems that when you spin the roulette, the final position is determined by a specific random-number transformation."
"Hmm, so you're saying controls the probabilities? That the one percent Miracle might be a sham. If so, it's not a fair gamble."
If an artifact functions like a gambling machine, its odds should at least be fair. Otherwise there'd be no point providing an interface for testing probabilities.
Uorin felt a strong kinship with Shirone.
In fact, she'd let many people spin the wheel besides Shirone. But most were more focused on what they'd receive than on the nature of the artifact.
She'd left in annoyance once after watching people kneel at the roulette, praying for an expensive gift.
Artifact collectors needed two things: an interesting artifact, and an audience that could recognize its true worth.
Jion could sometimes acquire a decent artifact, but his taste was hopelessly lacking.