FSTE 05

Chapter 05

At the lavish spread laid out before him, Lian’s eyes went wide.

Ever since his reincarnation, this was the first time he’d even seen pure white wheat bread instead of sour, coarse rye bread.

And right there in the center of the table, radiating overwhelming presence, was a whole roasted suckling pig.
A seafood soup with shellfish—befitting an island region—grilled fish seasoned with unfamiliar spices,
and a dish of various vegetables and a bird slightly smaller than a chicken, braised in sauce.

Meat alone covered land, sea, and air, all harmoniously gathered on a single table.

As for the fresh vegetables and fruit—those went without saying.

At this level, maybe being a slave isn’t so bad?

Honestly, even in his previous life, he’d never dreamed of eating like this.
A total defeat for modern civilization.

“Lady Isabel? Is this… by any chance a party to welcome me?”
“As if. Don’t you think this is far too modest to be called a party?”

So this was just an ordinary meal.
Of course, there was no way Isabel alone would eat all of this—the leftovers would probably go to the servants.

Lian, however, was an exception.
He sat facing her, fork and knife in hand.

“Well, it’s just… I don’t really understand why a slave like me is eating at the same table as their master…”
“If I were to eat all alone, what would be the point of buying you for such a high price? Hurry and eat before it gets cold.”
“Then… thank you. I’ll dig in.”

Lian dearly wanted to grab a whole leg of the suckling pig and tear into it, but he restrained himself.
A wretched body of a serf who’d spent his life shoveling pig manure—not properly seeing meat like this—would surely suffer if he overdid it.

First, he went for the seafood soup, which seemed easier on the stomach.

Damn! This is screaming for a shot of soju!

His tongue, long accustomed to bland, fishy bean soup, was mercilessly bombarded by the umami of natural MSG.
It was the kind of flavor that made you want to throw in some knife-cut noodles and slurp it all down in one go.

Lian moved on to the other dishes.
The braised bird tasted a bit unfamiliar with its sweet-and-sour sauce, but thinking of sweet-and-sour pork, it wasn’t bad at all.
In fact, the more you ate, the more it made you crave another bite without getting tired of it.

The grilled fish surprised him too—there wasn’t a hint of fishiness.
As expected of dishes served on the table of one of the world’s foremost merchant lords, the generous use of rare spices was evident.

Still, if he had to name the most moving dish on this table…

Crunch!

The sound of crispy pig skin meeting the fork delighted his tongue.
At the same time, the tender flesh of the suckling pig yielded effortlessly, cut with just a fork.

This is insane! I get to eat stuff like this every day?

Turns out the saying “If you must serve, serve in a noble household” wasn’t wrong after all.

He suddenly wondered how much the chef in this mansion was paid.

“But you—you know how to use a fork and knife.”
“Eh? Ah…”

So that was it—he’d felt someone watching him for a while now.

Isabel was intrigued by Lian’s skilled handling of the cutlery.

“I heard from the man who sold you that you’re from Bordia. Do even the nobles there use utensils like these?”
“Well, they’re nobles in name at least. They wouldn’t eat with their hands like commoners, right?”
“Hm. Is that so?”

He may have unintentionally given her the wrong idea about his background, but Lian quietly continued eating.
There was no need to advertise that he was a lowly serf by birth.

“Either way, I’m glad it doesn’t feel like I wasted my money.”

Looking satisfied, Isabel set down her fork and knife, rinsed her palate with wine, and finished her meal.

I really need to be careful not to let her find out where I came from, Lian thought.

An old man with a goatee looked down at Lian with an unpleasant expression.

“Lady Isabel? Are you telling me to teach this slave?”
“Diego, do you really think I spent three hundred gold coins just to have him do menial labor?”
“W-well, of course not, but…”

Diego—the accountant—his wrinkled eyelids trembled.

“Then just how much… and what exactly am I supposed to teach him?”
“Everything he can learn.”

At those words, Diego squeezed his eyes shut as if he sensed something ominous.

It was practically a declaration that Lian would become a dedicated accountant.
And, in turn, that this old accountant’s retirement countdown had just been forcefully started—by his own hands.

“Make sure you turn him into someone useful.”
“But if he doesn’t learn properly even when taught—”
“Then we’ll make sure he earns back those three hundred gold coins some other way.”
“T-that’s… right, I suppose?”

For a moment, a strange glint appeared in Diego’s eyes.

This feels unsettling, Lian thought.

He couldn’t feel completely at ease either.
And that unease soon became reality just a few days later.

“Hey, slave. Calculate this.”
“My name is Lian.”
“Tsk. What does a slave need a name for? Hurry up and calculate!”

Lian took the paper Diego handed him and quickly wrote down the solution.

“Here you go.”
“Already? You little—don’t tell me you just rushed through it?”
“When have you ever seen me mess up a calculation? I even double-checked everything.”

Diego glared at Lian with narrowed eyes, then snorted and took the paper back.

“Hmph. Since you’re useless at everything except calculations, at least you probably got this right.”
“Maybe you should actually teach me something before saying that?”

Isabel had clearly told him to make Lian useful.

Yet Diego only used Lian as a calculator or sent him on trivial errands.
Days passed, and he still hadn’t taught him anything important about the merchant guild.

“You brat! Do you think accounting is something you learn in a day or two?”
“No, I’m saying stop wasting those days and hurry up and teach me!”
“Quiet! There’s an order to learning things! Stop talking back and just do what I tell you properly!”

Lian slowly counted numbers in his head, forcing his anger down.

“…Fine. I understand.”

Hadn’t he experienced this kind of injustice plenty of times in his previous life?
Clashing head-on with Diego would only hurt Lian.

Should I just go complain to Isabel…?

No.
That wasn’t a good solution either.

Diego openly defying Isabel’s orders wasn’t just because he was bold—or stupid.
The man would break out in a cold sweat with just a glare from her; he must have something else backing him up.

For example, shaping public opinion within the guild.

“That new intern, you know—the one who barely got into a top university but dropped out? Totally useless at work, just as expected.”

Unpleasant memories from his past life surfaced.

Back then, through a professor who’d tried to stop him from dropping out, he’d barely gotten into a company.
It was a kind of nepotism, sure—but the department head had it out for him for some reason, constantly giving him a hard time.
Just like Diego was doing now.

He was buried under pointless, annoying chores that did nothing for performance.
Later, the supervisor even colluded with subordinates to block his promotion to a full-time position.

In the end, the boss had no choice but to believe the employees, apologizing to the professor—and firing him anyway.

You think I’ll fall for that again this time?!

Waiting passively like a baby bird for food wouldn’t get him what he wanted.

“I’ve been sitting and calculating all day—my head’s killing me. Can I go get some fresh air?”
“Hmph! Such whining from a kid… Do whatever you want.”

The corner of Diego’s cheek twitched upward as he turned away.

He probably thought it’d be better if Lian slacked off—but things wouldn’t go the way he hoped.

After becoming a slave, there was exactly one thing worse than Lian’s days as a serf.

Freedom of movement.

Without his master’s permission, he couldn’t leave the mansion at will, and even if he slipped out secretly, a slave wandering alone in the streets would immediately be stopped for inspection.

Still, it was fortunate that Isabel turned out to be quite the homebody.
Why was that a good thing? Because it meant there was no need to leave the mansion to go to the guild office.

“Good day. Thank you for your hard work as always.”

At the main gate leading out from the inner courtyard, Lian greeted the guard and passed by.

The guard simply nodded back with a stiff expression.
After running errands past him a few times, he no longer even asked what Lian was there for.

Descending the corridor-style stairs beyond the gate led to an annex below the hill.
This annex was the office of the Lapis Lazuli Merchant Guild.

“That kid, right? The pet slave Lady Isabel bought for three hundred gold coins.”
“He is handsome, but that price is a bit… Two hundred would’ve been plenty.”
“Hey, keep it down. Do you really think Lady Isabel would care about that kind of money?”

As soon as Lian appeared, whispers broke out here and there—as always when he came.

Lian approached a guild member loitering alone in the lobby, who looked idle enough.

“Hello?”
“W-what? What do you want? An errand from Lady Isabel?”
“No, not really. I figured we’d be seeing each other often, so I thought I’d say hello—”
“That’s enough. If you don’t have business, don’t talk to me—I’m busy!”

Sure enough, Diego must have already done something behind the scenes.
The guild member openly scowled and hurried away as if avoiding Lian.

“Did you see that? Guess what Diego said was true.”
“Seriously, now we even have to compete with some decorative pet slave?”
“Compete? Don’t be ridiculous. A slave’s still a slave. If he had any real skills besides his face, would he have been sold?”

And Lian’s suspicion was confirmed.
That sly, goat-like old man had spread bad rumors about him in the meantime.

Since Isabel only visited this annex office a few times a month, Diego probably thought he wouldn’t get caught.

“Hmm. Compete, huh….”

Or maybe he figured it wouldn’t matter even if the rumors were partly true.

What was the secret behind Isabel, a woman, growing the Lapis Lazuli Merchant Guild into one of the continent’s greatest powers?

Twenty years ago, she’d been much younger and more beautiful, and the destructive power of her overwhelming “mass weapons” would have been even greater—but that couldn’t have been the whole reason.

In truth, spend just a little time near her and the answer becomes obvious.
It was the same at their first meeting.

About seventy percent of her waking hours were spent reading something.

Knowledge and information.
Those were her true weapons.

Taking inspiration from his master, Lian also began visiting the library whenever he could, nourishing his mind.
After all, in his previous life he’d knocked on the doors of a top university by self-studying with nothing but textbooks—he was no stranger to independent study.

“What are you reading, Lian?”

So absorbed was he in his book that Isabel quietly approached and checked the cover.

“Commercial law? Diego isn’t teaching you things like that?”

Lian hesitated slightly.
Was this the right moment to tell her the truth?

For some reason, it didn’t feel like a good idea.

“I thought if I studied ahead on my own, it might help when I eventually learn it properly.”
“Oh? How diligent.”

Isabel stroked Lian’s cheek, wearing a subtle, inscrutable smile.

“I can teach you commercial law myself, you know. If there’s anything you don’t understand later, feel free to ask me.”

As expected.
She must have already noticed that Diego was disobeying her orders and not teaching Lian properly.

No—maybe she knew this would happen and allowed it on purpose.

Did she have some other scheme in mind?
Or was this a kind of test?

“It’s fine. It’s not as difficult as I thought it’d be.”
“Oh my. Is that so?”

Whatever the case, it didn’t matter.

His worth was three hundred gold coins.

No—
he would soon prove it was even more than that.