Chapter 18 - How Much Am I Worth?

"All right, we're here."

"We're getting off here...?"

"Yeah, get off. I'm not going to sell you, so stop looking like you're headed for the gallows."

There were plenty of hotels with long histories, and plenty that were expensive and excellent. But whenever the question was not merely which hotel was good, but which was truly the best, one name always came up: Hotel Leviathan.

It was both the oldest hotel, with a history stretching back ages, and the finest, having never once fallen from the top. Many had tried to claim its place, but not a single hotel had managed to threaten it. Leviathan was renowned as the best of the best.

"Get down slowly. Slowly. You'll hurt yourself if you jump..."

CRASH!

"Waaah!"

"That's why I told you to take it slow! Hey, got any medicine? Antiseptic? Put some on the kid."

And Leviathan was as selective about its guests as its reputation was lofty. Turning away the newly rich was standard practice. Even powerful figures with considerable political or business influence, top actors, and eminent scholars could expect to wait years for a reservation. Merely managing to book one was taken as proof of membership in the upper class. It was that difficult to stay at Leviathan.

"Everyone off? Let's see, twenty, twenty-one... Huh? Where'd the other two go?"

"..."

"What are you two doing hiding behind the seats? Come on out."

"N-no! You're going to sell us!"

"I said I'm not."

"Liar! The director said all human traffickers are liars!"

"What part of me looks like a human trafficker?"

"Uh, um... all of you?"

THWACK!

"Ow!"

"Is saying things that get you smacked a Hanbit Orphanage specialty? Honestly, you little brats..."

In that sense, what was happening in the VIP-only underground parking garage at that very moment was quite possibly a first in the Leviathan Hotel's history.

Children whining that they were hungry were the least of it. One child cried over a scraped knee. A little boy rolled on the ground after being flicked on the forehead. A girl stared blankly ahead as if she had been sold into slavery. There was even a baby whose diaper gave off a foul smell.

The sight of some twenty young children milling around a yellow school bus could not have been less suited to Leviathan.

But he did not seem fazed. He simply bowed politely.

"Welcome to Hotel Leviathan."

"Hm?"

The white-haired man who had been dragging children off the school bus turned his head. Limon looked surprised to see the neatly dressed old man who had greeted him.

"Your voice sounds familiar."

"If you're asking whether I'm the person you spoke with on the phone earlier, I am."

"Oh?"

Limon's expression grew more intrigued. He could guess who the old man was.

"I didn't expect the general manager to come out and meet me himself."

It was remarkable indeed. Befitting the hotel's standing as the finest, the general manager of Leviathan was no minor figure. Even if a nation's prime minister visited, he would usually issue instructions from behind the scenes rather than attend to the guest himself.

Yet the old man answered calmly. "When it is the Sword Lord we are receiving, I ought to attend to you personally."

A courteous answer, delivered with impeccable manners. But Limon sensed the meaning beneath it and smiled strangely.

"Funny. Last time I came, it was awfully hard to get a look at the general manager."

"Last time, you did not come as a guest."

"And I look like a guest now?"

"Do you not?"

For an instant, their gazes met: the old man's eyes cold despite his courteous manner, Limon's hand on his sword despite his smile. The air around them chilled.

Like a powder keg touched by a fallen ember. Or a dam on the verge of collapse.

The strange tension was enough to send a shiver down anyone's spine just watching them. Then Limon let out a small laugh, and it melted away.

"Why ask when you already know?"

He glanced back at the children. Understanding his meaning, the old man bowed again.

"... I apologize for my discourtesy."

"No need to apologize. You're only doing your job."

Limon gave a faint smile. The fact that no one had put a blade to his throat the moment he arrived was already a warmer welcome than he had expected. And even that was possible only because he had brought the children. If Limon had come alone, the old man would never have let him this far in, even with a sword at his throat—despite having been instructed to treat him with the utmost courtesy.

Limon knew that better than anyone, so he did not fault the old man for his prickly reception. He merely checked on the reason he had come.

"Where is she?"

"Waiting on the top floor."

"Hmm? I can go straight up? No security check?"

"Would any security check mean anything to you, Sword Lord?"

"Well, you've got a point."

The old man was not being sarcastic. What good would a security check do when they were letting in the most terrifying human weapon in the world? Limon nodded, accepting the question in the sincere spirit it had been asked, then casually added, "You can look after the kids until we're done talking, right?"

"This is Hotel Leviathan."

The moment the old man gave his composed answer, twenty-three people who appeared to be hotel staff emerged behind the children: maids in elegant uniforms, doctors carrying medical bags, and suited men armed with swords, among others.

Only after seeing them expertly soothe the frightened children, tend to them, and guard them did Limon stroll away, satisfied.

"Take good care of them. They'll be hungry, so give them something nice to eat. Oh, and I can't pay."

Limon did not ask whether he could trust them with the children. Leviathan was not so petty as to take young children hostage.

"Do not worry. Meals for your party have already been prepared, and all services are complimentary."

Nor did the old man ask whether he could trust Limon inside. Limon was not so devoid of honor that he would bring young children to a place where he meant to draw his sword.

They could hardly be called close. Yet for that very reason, Limon could trust the old man more than a friend despite their having only just met. Together they boarded the elevator that went straight to the top floor.

As it rose, Limon asked, as though the thought had just occurred to him, "Come to think of it, I don't believe I caught your name."

"... My apologies for the late introduction."

He had deliberately put it off, but the old man gave no sign of that as he spoke with impeccable courtesy.

"Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Yo U-in of the Dark Heaven Shadow Soul School."

"Yo U-in... I'll remember that."

DING!

Repeating the old man's name to himself, Limon stepped slowly out of the elevator. In the dazzling penthouse occupying the entire top floor of Hotel Leviathan, he greeted the person waiting for him.

"Welcome, Sword Lord."

"Yeah. Here we are again."

Before the Seven Dragons Society had come out into the open, back when it had schemed in hiding to overthrow the world, Yo U-in had been one of the few to survive an encounter with Limon. He was also the inheritor of one of the Society's greatest secret arts, the Seventy-Two Martial Schools.

Only one person could order him to receive Limon as a guest: the owner of the Leviathan Hotel, one of the seven pillars of the Seven Dragon Group, said to possess all the wealth in the world.

Limon grinned at the girl in the Eastern-style dress.

"Princess of the Black Dragon Clan."

* * *

"Before we get down to business, there's something I'm curious about."

"What would that be?"

"Where'd you get the school bus? They don't have those in this country."

Li Qingyu's answer was simple. "I had it flown in from the United States."

"... I don't think it took even an hour for the bus to arrive."

"I used Teleportation."

"So by 'flown in,' you meant transported through space, not through the air..."

Limon clicked his tongue in astonishment. With the rise of players, Teleportation had become far more common than it once was, but only in relative terms. It was still a rare ability by any ordinary measure, and players capable of long-distance Teleportation were especially scarce.

Yet she had teleported an entire school bus across the Pacific? The transport fee alone could have bought hundreds of school buses with money to spare.

'I suppose that's what you'd expect from a princess of the Seven Dragons Society.'

At the same time, Limon could understand it. The Society had always had money to burn. Its financial resources were what had allowed it to maintain its power for centuries after the seven dragons died and the Bronze Age ended. And since it had gone legitimate under the name of the Seven Dragon Group, its wealth had only grown.

To Li Qingyu, princess of the Black Dragon Clan, that sort of extravagant spending probably did not even feel wasteful.

'And look at me.'

He had lived for hundreds of years, yet his entire fortune was the 37,000 won in his pocket. Feeling a fresh pang of regret about his life, Limon grumbled inwardly.

"Before we get down to business, may I ask you something too?"

"Hm? What?"

"You asked them to tell me you'd been fired from your civil service job. Did you mean what I think you meant?"

She must have been hoping for quite a lot. Her eyes sparkled as she asked, caught between excitement and nervousness. Limon answered Li Qingyu with an impassive face.

"No."

"... Pardon?"

"How can I tell you whether that's what I meant when I don't know what you think I meant? Do I look like a psionics user like you people? Am I supposed to read your mind?"

"Ah... You're right."

Relief crossed Li Qingyu's face. She straightened her posture and asked again, looking much calmer.

"Then let me ask another way. Have you come because you're thinking of accepting the proposal I made you before?"

Only a few days earlier, she had visited him with a proposal—a marriage proposal so audacious it bordered on absurdity, which he had rejected without a second thought. Remembering it, Limon shrugged.

"For now, yes."

"... By 'for now,' you mean you might still turn me down."

"That's right."

"May I ask why?"

Li Qingyu was not disappointed. She was simply curious why Limon would come all this way of his own accord only to give such a vague answer.

"If the goods change, the price should change too. That's basic business."

"The price... you say?"

"Yeah. I've spent too long wanting too little, so I've decided to get a bit greedy."

"...?"

"So let me ask you..."

Li Qingyu looked even more confused by his answer. Limon gave a small chuckle, spread both arms along the back of the sofa, and asked with an arrogant air, "How much are you willing to pay for me?"

After a brief moment of confusion at his unexpected question, Li Qingyu studied his face and asked cautiously, as if to make sure she had understood.

"Um... Are you asking how much I can give you as a dowry?"

"More or less."

"I see."

At last she seemed to understand. She nodded, thought it over carefully as if doing a calculation, then smiled.

"Then I'll give you a forty-nine percent stake in the Leviathan Hotel."