"Today is the fifteenth," Yu said. On a small piece of paper was written September fifteenth. "On September twenty-eighth is the first match in which we will deliver the letters, the Sea Monsters versus the Vesthelm Storm. After that, there will be a match every seven days. If we start distributing the letters for the first match now, we can have a hundred thousand letters by the twenty-first. Then let's give people a week so that they forget, and when our predictions come true they will remember, and I think that will have a good effect on them."
On the piece of paper he created a calendar that stretched until September twenty-sixth. The matches to be played and the letters to be distributed were written on the calendar. "Then we will distribute the letters over a maximum of three days, and the letters for the final match must be distributed in one day. When we get our money, we'll run away without wasting time."
If he could, he would have wanted to run away with the money before the start of the final, but he had to wait for the final because he wanted to get his money from the owners of the teams he had made deals with.
"I hope nothing goes wrong."
Betrayal by the owners would only cost him two hundred gold pieces, but if others were involved, it could cost him his head.
"Got it." Marino picked up the calendar Yu had prepared and studied it. "Your writing is beautiful, Mr. Valarfin."
"Thank you," he smiled. He would never tired of praise. "Did your guys finish their work?"
"Yes, we can start the distribution right now if you want."
"We can't start during the day, start at night from the far ends of the country. And when we get there, we will distribute the letters for Redchapel."
Since he was going to be in Redchapel, he was going to take over the distribution to reduce his workload. Lylphia might be a nuisance during the distribution, but he thought it would not be difficult to trick her.
"Unless there's something else you want to say-"
"Actually, there is..." said Marino. His voice was low.
"Hoh?" He hated being interrupted, he was going to give him a chance to speak after finishing her sentence anyway. "What is it?"
"How to collect money from people."
He had already thought about how to get the money, but he had forgotten that he hadn't told Marino.
"This ID thing is new, there are people who don't even know what it does. We buy an ID from some idiot and use it to open a bank account. We give people that bank account in the letters and ask them to put the money in that account if they want to get the results."
"What happens when they realize they have been scammed? Even if we open a fake account, I'm afraid that the bank books will cause problems."
"As long as they don't have our names, nothing will happen, and even if they do, nothing will happen when we are not in Rolderhelm."
In the Second World, there were no laws requiring extradition between countries. And people were harder to trace than in the First World. Even if they somehow got their names and were sentenced to death in Rolderhelm, as long as they were not there, it would not matter. He could live his life without returning to Rolderhelm.
The only thing that bothered him was that if their names got out, a few people he knew would find out that he was a fraud. But living the rich life in another country was a small price to pay and he could live with that.
"How do we convince bank employees?"
"I'm convinced that we can bribe our way through. If they have enough money to make a better life in a different country, we can find a few people who will do what we say."
That was Yu's plan. As long as they didn't get busted on the job, the government wouldn't give them any trouble, and after the job was done, no matter how much they were searched, it wouldn't matter anymore.
"Then we're leaving now, if anything happens, send one of the guys to the inn where I'm staying."
"Goodbye, Mr. Valarfin. Take care and please let me know if you need anything. My door is always open to you, don't hesitate."
"Thank you."
Marino's gratitude and admiration for Yu continued unabated. He had turned Yu into a hero in his eyes.
After leaving the Swann Postal Office, Yu and Yurine made their way to the inn where they were staying. They were halfway there when the autumn rain clouds decided to soak them. The rain started lightly at first and quickly intensified.
Yu was indecisive as the raindrops hit their bodies. He looked at Yurine and tried to decide if it was the right thing to do.
"Should I do it?"
It was an opportune moment to improve their father-daughter relationship. He wanted to do it, but he hesitated for fear of making Yurine irritable.
Finally, he dropped his jacket over Yurine's head, picked up the child and started running.
"What do you think you're doing? Let me go! Put me down, now!"
"I'm doing it so you don't get wet. I've covered you and now I'm running so we get there fast."
"Hmph, I'm already wet enough! It's too late to think about it."
Yurine protested at first and shook his shoulders, but she quickly gave up and leaned her head on Yu's shoulder and waited in silence
"It's a beautiful moment."
The warmth he felt made him happy, and although he felt that a scumbag like him had no right to be happy, when he was with Yurine, his conscience let him be happy.
"But why are your lips curled down again? It makes me sad that you are unhappy."
He knew why; Yurine was upset because she was complicit in his evil deeds.
"Don't overdo it, technically you could even say that we don't scam people. We could even argue that there are good things about what we do."
Yurine chose not to answer. She rested her forehead on Yu's shoulder and hid her eyes.
"We are not extorting money from anyone and we will never claim that the results are hundred percent accurate. People should realize that this is a game of chance and if they don't, it's not our fault. Yes, maybe half of the people will lose their money because of us, but the other half will be very rich. Don't you think we are neutralizing the positive consequences and the negative consequences of our actions?"
Despite his logic, he knew that what he was doing was bad. The lives of people who got the wrong results and lost their money could suddenly be extinguished.
Still, the logic was enough to ease his conscience. If they were doing evil to a hundred people, they would be doing good to a hundred people. In this day and age, who could do good to a hundred people in one day and make them rich?
"I don't know what negative, positive and neutralize mean. Don't use words I don't know."
"Negative means bad, positive means good and neutral is like balanced."
"Why did you choose to use these words instead of good, bad and balance?"
Yu hadn't made a choice, it hadn't even occurred to him to use those words. He just spoke and they came out of his mouth.
"I don't know."
When he looked at it, how many choices had he made so far? The only thing he had ever done was to walk on the path in front of him.
As he continued to run in the rain, he felt the world go silent after his answer, only the sound of water drops falling to the ground.
"I shouldn't fool myself, I might not have killed..." He made a choice, he chose to obey the script that was put in front of him. "I don't want to think about it... Yurine is so sweet, I can think about her. Yes..."
"Mr. Valarfin!"
Another time he confronted himself, his thoughts were interrupted by a blond-haired elf calling out to him.
Running in the rain, he stopped and looked at the elf waving at him.
"Come here!" Lucie shouted.
He hurried to the inn where Lucia's sister Lucie, the innkeeper, had invited them. Lucie greeted him with a big smile.
Although the inn where Yu stayed was mostly used by traveling merchants, there were also adventuring warriors and mages in that inn, but this inn was full of warriors and mages.